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by forum member/beta tester DesertFox07
With each new release of OOTP, there comes the great question of "What's new?" Luckily for all of us, OOTP 11 will not disappoint on this front. In addition to the revamped user interface, two new skins, historical improvements, and everything else you've read about thus far, a veritable cornucopia of other features and enhancements are all rolled up into the upcoming release. Let's head around the OOTP 11 diamond and visit a few of these new great features.
Dynamically Evolving Leagues
Those who play historic OOTP leagues are used to one of the game's great features (at least in my mind) - the ability to expand and evolve your league based on the information in the historical database. Run an OOTP historic league and you'll see it expand in '61 and again in '62 and every year thereafter. For those who may have run historic leagues in the past and had to make these changes manually, it was a big leap forward. Fictional league owners, however, were forced to make changes like expansion, rosters, schedules, and rule changes manually. That is, until now!
With version 11, OOTP introduces Dynamically Evolving Leagues. When you start a league with this option selected and run your baseball world, the game will dynamically make changes to the league over the course of its history. Some of the changes you can elect for the game to implement in your game include:
- Team Expansions
- Schedule Length
- Roster Size
- DL Length
- Free Agency
- Option Years
- Nickname Changes
- Relocations
- Waiver Length
- DH Rule
- Increase/Decrease Offense
- Increase/Decrease Pitching
- Min service lengths
- And more...
Player Immersion Features
Next up are two new exciting player improvements coming to OOTP 11. The first is two-way players. What the heck does that mean? Will OOTP now create scenarios like this one? YouTube: Switch hitter vs Switch Pitcher. Well, luckily, no. Imagine if you will, a player being drafted as a starting pitcher but slowly developing into a position player instead. Or a reliever, who hits well, entering a game as a pinch hitter and then staying in the game as a substitute fielder. Or a backup catcher entering the game as a reliever in a late-inning marathon game when the entire bullpen has been exhausted. The scenarios are endless.
In other words, players are now created and drafted that can have both strong pitching AND hitting abilities. Which way will they develop? Only time will tell. You'll have to trust your scouts (and more importantly, your instincts) to select your players and see where and how they develop over time. Could one of your top starting pitching prospects actually be the sharp-eyed singles hitting machine lacking from the top of your line-up?
OOTP 11 also gives you the option to clone players. Click the "Clone Player" button and an exact copy of that player, minus their stats and history, will be instantly created and added to the free agent pool. We'll leave the moral, ethical, and competitive arguments for and against cloning players to the OOTP community!
Additional player enhancements include:
- Player popularity has been tweaked to be recalculated less often and/or when major events occur
- Player personality rating have been changed from numeric to written, scouting report-style assessments
- Pitchers' batting ratings now develop as their career progresses
- Injury history ratings have been added to the players profile. Want to know if that star CF is a fragile injury risk? Now you'll know.
New Statistics
Everybody loves stats. Well people who play OOTP do at least. With version 11, you now have even more stats to choose from.
First up, ERA+ and OPS+ have both been added. These stats help to neutralize the standard OPS and ERA stats allowing for an easier comparison between different types of players. Because these stats take into account players' competition, they allow for a much more meaningful comparison between players. With 100 being the league average, an OPS+ or ERA+ of 120 would indicate a better than average player and and OPS+ and ERA+ under 100 would be a below average player. On the offensive side of the ball, wOBA (weighted on-base average) has been added. wOBA is a linear weighting statistic created by Tom Tango. You can find out more about wOBA here. Meanwhile, the pitching side of things now benefits from FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching). FIP helps you understand how effectively your pitcher pitched, regardless of how his fielders played behind him.
Also added in OOTP 11 is ZR or Zone Rating. This stat is an important one to help gauge a players value in the field by measuring their effectiveness in turning plays within their zone of play in games. ZR will help you know if your super slugging middle of the lineup OF is actually neutralizing his offensive contributions by giving up more runs than he's adding with poor play in the field. Another fielding stat, EFF (individual defensive efficiency), has been introduced as well. This stat measures how many plays the fielder makes compared to league average, where 1.100 means 10% more plays than average.
You may have also heard about this next feature, but we'll reiterate here as well. OOTP now generates High School and College stats for draft-eligible players in games that do not include feeder leagues. This is helpful in scouting and gauging a player's past performance and does not penalize you for not using the feeder leagues in your world. The OOTP beta team is also working hard to provide a regionally coded database of college and high school names to give accurate city names to these stats! Never let it be said that OOTP does not focus on the details!
Hall of Fame and Retirement Changes
When a player's career is over, OOTP now allows you to set a user-defined waiting period until a player is elected to the Hall of Fame. This can be between one and ten years, or none at all, which would be immediate entry. Players inducted into the Hall of Fame now also wear the jersey from the team where they had their greatest success.
Markus has also tweaked the code so that more retired players will now return to the games as coaches and managers than before. You might even see the son (or sons) of a retired major leaguer appearing in successive years after they retire as well. So yes, there is indeed life after retirement in OOTP!
Baseball Cards
The same way you collected your favorite players cards back when you were a kid, you can now create and save cards for your players in OOTP 11. This exciting new features allows you to create cards for each player yearly and even create and import your own custom designs! How creative can you get? And you can export your cards to the OOTP mod community to come up with some great card ideas and templates as well. Create and browse through an entire collection of cards, then share them in your online league or the OOTP forums! Who will be your favorite?
Will the Team Owner Please Stand up?
No longer a nameless, faceless entity hiding in the OOTP nether-regions limiting your payroll and denying your latest mega-million dollar offer, the Team Owner is now a real part of OOTP 11. Visible on the Front Office screen, team owners now have names, ages, Facegen photos, and more importantly, a fiscal personality (ranging from Generous to Penny Pincher) and a patience level (ranging from Understanding to Demanding). You can also access the owner's expectation all season long and get a grasp on his current mood as well. If a team owner dies, another family member can also replace them.
Additional Enhancements
In addition to the exciting new features above, some of the other great new additions and improvements for managers in OOTP 11 include:
- A revised transactions screen, allowing for players full names to be seen as well as integration of the new Mass Player Selection feature
- Addition of new controls over base running when playing out games
OOTP 11 puts a host of new tools, a redesigned and improved user interface, and countless functional improvements all under your control so that you get the most out of your franchise, whether it's a mega-million dollar major league franchise or a small-market independent start-up. The game is truly yours for the taking!
If you'd like to discuss this article, come visit our forums!
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Previous Road to Release Articles
If you missed one of the previous RTR articles, here are some quick links for you:
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