Ootp5 Patch 5.10 Released
 

http://400studios1.inetu.net/files/ootp/ootp510.zip

That is the best fix Marcus has ever added.

That's the only one I didn't understand. Please explain?

This update/patch list is mind boggling. I took a few days off from OOTP5 to play Civ2 now I can't wait to get back in. Do I assume correctly that all of these should with existing careers?

A VERY annoying thing about renegotiation has always been that when you change an offer, it is submitted immediately, rather than after pressing a button. In other words, if you want to change both the amount offered AND the number of years, it has counted as two different offers.

Thank you, that makes sense and I am glad it is now better.

-Can now create players and make them eligible for the Amateur Draft.

This one was driving me crazy. I thought there was a way to do it, but couldn't find it. Now i know I'm not crazy.


-Game will now provide an "estimate" inside the team salary report of what the player may get in arbitration.

Excellent!

-Scouts and Coaches sort should now be "sticky"

Bravo - it's about time!

I once accidentally offered a player 45,000,000 instead of 4,500,000. The offer was considered official and I couldn't resign him because he kept saying that my last offer was 45,000,000. Very irritating. Thanks for the fix Markus.

Quite an extensive list of fixes. Bravo to Markus!

I think I'll wait a few days to make sure there are no new bugs with the patch before implementing though.


Todd

Wow. After reading that I am very glad that the FOBL has so far resisted the upgrade.

Thanks, SkyDog for the update! Looking forward to getting home now and d/l it.

Figures,

I'm spending 95% of my time playing CM and now Marcus fixes my most annoying problems with OOTP. :rolleyes:

Oh wel, I'll find some time to get another career going.

TroyF :)

...and which ones were those? While that list is great, I didn't see anything that had been showstoppers - at least for me. All games have annoying things (including Civ2 which I am playing now), it's just a matter of atittude, I suppose.

Some of the bigger ones for me were the stats not having an impact on contract demands, some crashes, and the annoyance of having the "you don't have enough money to sign free agents" problem (as you can probably guess, I play with a cap and resigning players is essential to my strategy. I could work around it, but it was incredibly annoying).

Were any of them showstoppers? Not really, but when CM came out they were enough for me to concentrate on CM. I doubt I'll play CM a heck of a lot more until EP3 comes out in a few weeks so I'll get another OOTP career going in the meantime. :)

TroyF

I'm just curious on this, CM always had a large amount of this, but I'm not sure about OOTP, I'm really just wondering, I'm by no means a baseball fan, but I don't really hate it either. Basically what I'm curious to is if OOTP is good enough that it could MAKE somebody a fan? Do you think someone with a passing interest in the sport would enjoy the game?

Troy: Agree on stats/contract demands; never had a crash and the third one is puzzling. I, of course, play with a team cap (no AI cap though) and wouldn't ever see such a message. When do you see this problem and what in the list fixed this?

Doubtfull. Good game but not to that level.

Calis: I would honestly say no. CM, imnsho, is very overrated in its ability to draw in non-soccer fans. Even though there are some anecdotal evidence that it does, I believe that there are many more who wouldn't touch CM because it is soccer. But back to OOTP, I love it because I can play historical careers (which means more to me than the current players/league). That is my connection or "hook". The other thing, of course, is online leagues which I am not sure whether they would be better or worse for a casual fan.

I bought it and tried it, having been told it would draw me in. I gave it several runs, but the bottom line for me was that the games themselves were meaningless, and never drew me in.

Anrhydeddu,

I recently got a guy who hates soccer at work to try CM. He'd never watched a game and had no idea what "Real Madrid" "Inter Milan" or "Roma" meant.

This was about a month ago. Last night I saw him at work visiting a soccer site, one which was talking about the Scottish Premiere League. He said he'd started a CM career in Scotland (just picked a league at random) and wanted to see some of the real life stats of "his" team. He was excited to see that they would be on Fox Sports World in the next week or two.

I don't think CM is overrated in that regard. I think it's good enough to suck people in. I know from personal experience it got me hooked. I just with there were more Serie A games on TV, as that's been my prefered league in CM. I'd love to be able to watch some of "my" players. :)

As for the contract bug, I think I typed the message out too fast. Basicly, when you are playing with a cap and try to sign an extension to someone, you'll get a message stating you are over the cap and can't sign the player to the extension. Here is an example:

I have a current payroll of 83 million dollars and a cap of 85 million dollars. I have a player making 6 million dollars this year who I sign to a 5 year extension at 9 million a year. The game will tell me if I make the signing I'm over the cap and cancel the transaction.

The game didn't take into account that the9 million dollar deal would count against NEXT years cap, and that by not signing other free agents I'd have more than enough money to make the signing. The only way to make the signing work was to go into edit mode and alter the cap# or make the player sign the contract. It's bad enough that it was doing this to my team, I can't help but think it was doing it for the computer teams as well, which would have caused some Free Agents to hit the market that should have never been there.

TroyF

PS: Calis, no, I do not think OOTP is on that level yet. If you enjoy text based sims, you could probably get into it, but I'd doubt it.

Skydog and Anrh,

I don't think "everyone" can get into CM. It's an in depth game about a sport most Americans could care less about. Heck, there are still things about the game that I don't understand. Still, it's a text based game which sold 125,000 copies in its first weekend of release. Granted, the Europeans love their soccer, but that is still an unbelievably large number for a text based game. I know IRL of three friends who I've got hooked on the game who weren't soccer fans and another who was a soccer fan but hated text based games. For me, the evidence is overwhelming. :) :)

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as EVERYONE will love CM, but I personally had no interest in soccer at all, when I first played CM2, and I fell in love with the sport, and now am pretty much a fanatic. I definitely agree that there's a large soccer bias that will stop people from ever enjoying the game, no matter what it does.

That's what I meant to ask, if OOTP had that certain spark that could really pull you in, the answers appear to be no, it sounds like a great game for fans of baseball though, and I still might give it a shot, I used to love baseball, I've just become very distanced for lack of a better term from the sport for the last several years.

I love a good text sim though, I'll have to think on it. Thanks for the info guys.

I never cared for soccer before CM (or at least before I found a soccer management sim). Now, I'd rather watch soccer than baseball.

I'm not doubting you but even when I did play with a league cap, I had never seen this (and I pay close attention to things like this). The amount of money available for Extensions = Last Year's Revenues - Next Year's Payroll + Cash. I had not ever seen that it miscalculated that since 4.0. Are you saying there was a problem in which Markus fixed in this regard?

Same here. That's why my very first OOTP career was starting with the 1970 Cincinnati Reds (and every career since then started before 1970). :)

That statement alone should get you forever banned from Bulldog Nation. :p

I'm just a casual baseball fan (I pretty much only watch during the playoffs), and I am very much getting more into it because of OOTP. I'm understanding the stats better and find myself wanting to watch games that mean nothing (ie any game during the regular season). OOTP might not be quite as immersive as CM, but it's still a large step up from a game like FOF in my opinion.

Hey! The Dawgs have a soccer team, too.

I bought CM a year or two or three ago, even though I dont watch soccer ever. I found that I loved the financial engine and the league structure. I liked the game as a sound game and only really hated the gui, but the AI was very solid. I ended up shelving it though as it was unexciting for me after the initial purchase thrill.

I bought fof2, fof2k1, fof2k2 and fof4, played them alot when I first got them, then when football season ended, so did my real heavy playing of the games...

I have found that I play ootp year round, every version.. never really been shelved more than a week or two at a time..

The bottom line is.. I am a diehard baseball fan.. over every thing else. Played baseball simulation board games growing up, and loved it for ever.. ootp5 probably is not the best made game of the bunch and I have many complaints with it... but its the one that keeps me there because of the sport I love.

My favorite sports, in order - baseball, football, hockey, tennis, basketball, ... soccer.


FOF Series - I wore FOF2 and FOF2K1 out. I have never really been able to get into FOF4 at all.

OOTP Series - I bought OOTP2 and 3, got bored with both pretty quickly. OOTP4 was the first of the series that held my interest. OOTP5 is even better.

TDCB - Have not bought, probably will not buy.

CM - SackAttack was nice enough to send me the 00/01 version. I tried, I really tried. But I simply can't get into the game.

I cannot stand the relegation system. I don't like the idea of teams moving in and out of leagues, nor the idea of purchasing players in the manner in which it is done in soccer. I like (or am too used to) a strict major/minor league system (or pro/college). There is structure to that kind of arrangement, and I can't handle the soccer system, which just feels like a jumbled mess.

There are too many leagues and teams, none of which feels like a major or minor league since I don't have any historical knowledge about soccer. I don't understand the relationship between the leagues, or between the teams in various leagues, etc. I feel like I need to know these things for the game to make sense and be enjoyable.

Same comment on the tactical aspects of the game of soccer itself. Without understanding, there is no enjoyment for me. I'm the equivalent of someone playing OOTP but not understanding the difference between, and purpose of, LH and RH lineups. I could play OOTP that way, since the game auto-generates lineups, but then where is the fun when the game is doing all of the work? I had this same feeling about TCY, frankly. It got to the point where I was delegating everything but recruiting to the AI, then I even started doing that, and I realized that I was just watching the computer play a game. That's not fun.

I wish I could take all of the great non-soccer aspects of CM and put them into games I want to play. Or, more accurately, I wish the developers of the game I want to play would implement some of these great features into their games. They are trying, but it doesn't seem like anyone is getting close to CM. It's just that the game itself is not interesting to me.

Hell, I'd rather watch Curling than Georgia Baseball anyway.

Of course, Georgia Tech is 28-6... how are the Dawgs doing again?

Kevin
[Couldn't Resist]

Heh, just funny you would say that, I guess this is how opinions differ, I found this to be one of the things I love the most about CM/Soccer in general. It's fricking cutthroat, there's no bonuses(a la drafts) for finishing last, it really adds to the atmosphere when you have the teams fighting at the top, but you also have the teams fighting to stay alive in the bottom. Just adds so much to the competition. The fact that a no name club could rise through the ranks and eventually play in a major league, just adds that whole Cinderella aspect.

I also think the buying of players is kinda interesting as well. Now, we could also go in about this is detrimental also, as the big teams get bigger and the smaller teams just keep struggling, I don't think it's better than the system we use in American sports, but I think it's a very interesting alternative.

Anrhydeddu,

Yep, it was a big bug, one I ended up facing all of the time. From the fix list above:


-Fixed bug that disallowed signing of extensions when you had the money available, because "it would put you over the cap".

The example I gave above was one of many where this came into play. Annoying. . . VERY, VERY annoying. :) :)

Ksyrup,

The way players are bought and sold drove me nuts for a long time in CM. I'm a "salary cap" type of guy who feels that Everton should have the same chance to win as Manchester United.

I still don't "like" the way it is handled, but I've gotten over it to the point I can play the game now. When I'm playing with a BIG market type club like Inter Milan, I enjoy playing the George Steinbrenner buy/sell everyone strategy. (obviously for a challenge with one of the big clubs, you have to set your goals high to make it fun)

When playing with a lower division side, I'm enjoying the challenge of holding onto players and keeping team morale up when we lose yet another star.

If I had my way, I'd still prefer an equal economic system. I think there was a someone who designed a "Super League" of sorts where there was no relegation and all of the teams were money makers. I'll have to try that sometime down the road. :)

TroyF

Ummm, that would be me. I have always played with identical RH/LH lineups because I just don't see that it makes any difference. You field your best 8 players regardless of R/L and in most cases for me, those backing up are there because they need to backup in multiple positions. Even if they bat from the other way, the better starting usually always perform better on both sides than one going up against a R-L situation. Plus it's a whole lot easier to manage the roster that way. :)

Now if only the game would let you set one lineup and use it across all situations, rather than having to do it four times...

Four???? Someone actually plays with DH??? I am so ashamed to have read that. :D :D :D

Settle down, grampa.

My point is not that you play that way, but that you understand why there are two different lineups. I have platooned in certain circumtances in OOTP.

This is just an example of understanding baseball (the game) and the translation to enjoying OOTP that is missing for me with soccer and CM.

-Scouts and Coaches sort should now be "sticky"
THANK YOU:D:D:D

I was never able to get into CM, maybe I should try again...

I've also tried to get into CM a number of times, but "no dice", I'll watch soccer, but baseball over it.

I'm with you. I love the regulation/promotion idea. If you can't compete, go to a lower division. It is the essence on free market play.

I think that's my beef with OOTP5 now. Much better game, but every player has the same L/R split. The rosters that those guys put together for 2003 do a nice job, but every player the game creates seems to have the same split.

Platooning is a huge part of baseball - remember the platoon advantage is almost universal :).

CM made me a soccer fan. Not a huge one, but enough that I'll read the headlines in the papers and try to keep up on the good teams.

It's THAT good. That being said, a great simulation of a sport that I'm a fan of will sway me over and get the majority of my playing time. OOTP has been fantastic. FOF was great although to be honest, I'm bored of the game. I've only played 2 seasons of FOF4 and really have no desire to play any more.

But I keep coming back to CM and it keeps sucking me in. It's when that one player starts complaining because you subbed him and then when you transfer him out, the entire team rebels against you. Now THAT is a great game! It really makes you feel like you're managing a team of real players, not managing a spreadsheet (which I find FOF is stuck at).

That being said this thread is about OOTP, and let me say that I'm really excited about this patch. I will be installing it tonight and giving it a try!

I recently got rogered by two bugs on this list, so I'm glad to see them fixed. I had a rough first week of the season and went back to see what happened. After the first day of the season, a "mystery" injury hit my No. 2 starter, so two relief pitchers started the second and third games of the season, hosing my bullpen and screwing up my rotation.

Glad to see those two bugs are squashed. That "mystery" injury bug was much too prevalent.

As far as getting drawn in, I use OOTP as a substitute for baseball as I'm tired of the real thing. I'm more interested in my fictional players than any real major leaguer.

I'm still a baseball fanatic, but I have to say that OOTP has replaced fantasy baseball in my life. I now have no desire to play in any fantasy baseball leagues. I still watch the real thing religiously, though - usually while simming my league games!

I haven't played v5, but in v4 platoons were critical in OOTP. The ratings may be equal, but check out the pefformance of a LHB vs a LHP. There aren't many LHB in OOTP playable vs LHP. The same effect happens with RHB... unless they're studly, the RHPvRHB matchup is so unfavorable, they will always underperform their ratings. Also LHP are drastically inferior to RHP. If anything, OOTP takes the splits to a further extreme than real life.

I had a chance to load up 5.10 last night and the first thing I did was to look at the new trade screen. This has always been my most favorite element of a sports sim and I was very happy to see the new robust trade mechanism. I typically could spend anywhere from 30-60 minutes seeing what all of the trade options I have to get/trade a certain player(s) and then evaluate the best one. Now I can do that in much more logical manner. For a trade junkie like me, this enhancement is worth the price of the game. Now for the next upgrade, I would love to see "Shop Player" and being able to trade draft picks, please.

I agree that the new trade interface rocks. In a way, though, you can shop a player now, though, on that screen (you just have to go through every team, unfortunately).

Ok, so is it now worth upgrading from OOTP4 or is it still a personal preference in the long run?

The new trade screen looks nice and the computer telling you what players it would need or give to complete the deal, but the trade AI is now seriously screwed up. Last night I asked a team about a 4 1/2 star 3B prospect who had just finished his second season in AAA with great stats both seasons. They asked for a one star veteran 3B with terrible talents across the board. This has been reported by several people on the .400 boards so it is not an isolated incident.

I think it's worth it. there are a lot of little things (career minor league stats) that I've been wanting for a while.

I still wish I could put the OOTP4 interface on this bugger, but, on the whole, 5 worth the $35 to upgrade to me.

dola - worth the ~$26 to upgrade today.

Thanks.

Is there a Demo available. I looked but didn't see anything.

no demo. not yet anyway.

couriers, you can buy it, and if you don't like, return it within 7 days.

That's kinda demo-like.

Excellent. Thanks again.

EDIT: just bought it, wish me luck on getting any sleep for the rest of the week.

I have not had time to play, but tonight I thought I would load this up and give it a few hours of my time.

It is taking me a little time to get used to the interface, but everyone seems to give it high marks.

One thing you guys might help me with. In the old version, your guys who are going to be free agents show up at the bottom of the roster page. Then, when you feel like it, you right click the guys, then sign or don't sign.

Where are the upcoming free agents on your team located now? I am missing something. Thanks.

actually, there's a pretty significant number of people who aren't too thrilled with the interface.

upcoming free agents are now in your front office, player salaries section (definitely, not having them in a convenient place anymore is a big negative on the new interface).

You can still access it in the roster screen, but you have to sort it by contract. It's a pain.

Yeah go to roster - (ALL) - Salary Info. It doesn't sort them correctly and it's kind of annoying. I've found myself running the Possible Free Agents report from League News lately.

I agree. There's nothing better than winning promotion in the last game of the season ( which I know from experience ) except for staving off relegation in the last game of the season ( which I also know from too much experience ) and both pale next to staving off relegation on the last game of the season by defeating the c*(!suckers who beat you 2-0 at home and who expected to clinch a playoff berth by default but who will be sitting at home just like you are after you stunned their cocky butts 1-0 on a 58th minute penalty.( but this has NEVER happened to me either way so the point is moot. ;) ).

No, I don't like the "unfairness" but the implementation is superb IMHO. :D

I agree as well. And this applies not only to the computer game, but to watching soccer in real life. It's equal to the 7th game of a playoff series. And soccer has a novel concept that most north american leagues fail miserably at...a regular season that actually means something. :)

I understand the competition aspect, but for me, it greatly diminishes the idea of a league. I think a league consists of teams that compete against each other on a yearly basis. I know that I would lose a lot of interest in a league where the teams kept changing every year.

There's something to be said for continuity, especially when looking at a league in historical context. Baseball history would not be the same if the Yankees had dropped out of the league prior to the mid 1910's, or the Braves or Phillies had been dropped (the Braves almost were in the mid 30's) from the league. Or the Cubs, or the Red Sox, etc. Every team, money or no money, has its lean periods and its successful periods. That's what makes a sport's history great, to be able to look back and see the patterns for each team.

IMO, it would not be fun to look back at history, and say, "Oh yeah, by 2002, the NFL was sick of the Bengals and Cardinals sucking it up, so they were dropped from the league and Gary, IN and LA were given teams. Those teams failed to do anything, so by 2009, they were replaced by Mexico City and Toronto...." And so on. It's much more fun and interesting to see, in 2115, that the Bengals finally made the playoffs after 125 years of last place finishes.

As for the "meaningless season" argument - to each his own. I'm one of those people who can, and will, watch a Cardinals/ Bengals week 15 matchup, or a Tigers/ Rangers August game. I love the games of baseball and football, not just games between the best teams in each league. And every league, no matter how many or few games there are during the season, is going to have games between teams that no one particularly cares about. It has to happen.

So while I acknowledge that there are people who feel that way, the issue is largely lost on me because I enjoy the games, no matter who is playing.

Ksyrup;

I feel where you're coming from man but remember this. I am a die hard life long Buccaneer fan. I was 12 years old when we won a franchise and we were the laughing stocks of the league for 20 or so years. While I cannot speak for Bengal Fans I can certainly say that I would have preferred us to to drop to a league where we could at least be respectable ( and would cost tightass Culverhouse a lot of revenue than be league jokes year after year aftter year while his riches grew.

I'd imagine Bengal fans might just agree. As long as the league makes mediocrity profitable a lot of fans are going to suffer. Penalties, in many cases harsh ones, bind soccer fans together in ways we could only dream of. Just ask a Leeds fan :)

Well, in reality, football is not a league in which relegation would work. There really are no minor leagues, since all of the "minor" leagues are different. Baseball and hockey could theoretically work, but I imagine dropping a NY team for performance reasons and substituting in a Montana team would have dire consequences for ANY league, in terms of TV contracts, attendance, jersey sales, etc. How does this kind of stuff playin Europe? how would a Fox-equivalent deal with losing a big market for a small market?

I think it is much more of a mindset than anything else. Very few Americans would care much about a "minor" league team, certainly not a team from another city. You have fans of minor league teams in the areas in which those teams are based, but could you imagine anyone in Florida buying a Portland Sea Dogs jersey, even if they got moved up to the majors? the mets in the minors would have millions more fans, which means millions more money.

North American leagues have done such a good job promoting themselves as the best of the best, that I think they would kill the product to permit other teams to join their leagues. Think of it this way, competition is a zero sum game - when one team wins, another has to lose. So some teams HAVE to be at the bottom of the standings every year. That doesn't mean they aren't good enough for the league, they are just the worst in the league. Being the best minor league baseball team doesn't necessarily mean that team could compete in the majors.

I see your point. But I think your missing the aspect that the league is a whole entity, not several different ones. Just because you drop from the EPL to the 1st Division doesn't prevent a team from competing in the league. In fact, there are enough cups and tournaments, so that these teams continue to compete against each other years after being separated. I'd say that football has just as great a history as baseball does, if not greater.

In essence, in the English League for example, it's been the same 50 to 60 teams competing against each other for the last 80 years. And understand that there has been about the same 12 teams (if not more) playing against each other in the EPL since its inception. How's that for continuity?


I'll ask you what the difference is between being the laughing stock of the NFL for 125 years before making the playoffs, and spending 125 years in the lowest division of your league before rising up to get promoted to the top flight?

To me, they are relatively the same thing. I just happen to think it's more exciting to watch a team you follow drop from the top flight, and fight their way back there. I follow two teams in the English league, Liverpool and Hereford. One has been in the top flight of football longer than I've been alive, and the other has continually been relegated until they are no longer playing in the league. It's still great fun for me looking back on the history of both clubs, champions or losers.

I also contend that by pushing out the teams that can no longer compete effectively at their current tier, you increase the competition throughout the league, which is always a good thing.



Again I see your point. My comment was more directed at the NBA and NHL regular seasons, although the increase in playoff teams between both the MLB and NFL diminishes the importance of their regular seasons, IMO.

I, however, can hardly stand to sit through a meaningful baseball game, never-mind one between two cellar dwellers in late August. Hell, I can barely stand to watch the Cubs play a game, and I've followed them since I was a little boy. On the other hand, I doubt that you would be much interested in watching a late season EPL match against two mid-table teams, where as I get up at 6:00am on a Saturday to do it. So I guess we are just polar opposites of our respective sports...I doubt either one of us would be able to convince the other of the merits of their sport anytime soon. I wouldn't mind you trying, however, if you don't mind me trying :)

I had thought about advancement/relegation with baseball myself. The thing would be that all 30 current teams would still be "the Major Leagues", it's just that they would change Leagues/Divisions every year based on standings. The notion I had was to break the current major leagues into three separate leagues of ten teams that had no interleague play (162/9=18 games/3=6 series per opponent). Advance and relegate two teams for each division each year.

The obvious catch is how do you determine playoff teams in such an arrangement since the traditional best-of-the-best is determined with the World Series playoffs rather than who finishes first in the best division as it is in soccer. Do you just take the three league champions plus one wild card or have a fixed number of slots reserved in a six- or eight-team playoff for each division based on difficulty (i.e. "premier" division gets more playoff slots reserved since they are the harder league to play in).

I'm not really sure. I'd say that because the major markets generally have more than one team, and that because the leagues are much smaller regionally, that there isn't as big an effect as there would be here. It's tough to say, though, what losing a team like Manchester United would do the TV rights of the EPL. I assume there would be negative consequences.



I agree. The only difference is that there is much more support for soccer in Europe than there is for any sport here. Even minor soccer teams draw higher crowds than minor teams do here. Again using the example of Man U, if they dropped to the first division, they would be much like the Mets in your example. Tons of money and millions of fans, they wouldn't stay there long.



It also doesn't mean that you can't compete in the majors either, and isn't that what this is all about...competetion?

I think you'd have to break it up a bit different. If you continued to relegated to the lowest division, you shouldn't be given a playoff spot when you win said division.

I've always like the Cup tournaments. Just like the NCAA basketball tournament. I don't see why you couldn't have the same sort of thing in baseball, or any sport. Winning the league is winning the league, and you can take pride it that itself. And from a lower division, you can look forward to competing in a higher level next year. But winning the tournament is something totally different, and another goal to strive for that any team can accomplish.

But I've threadjacked here long enough...I think the original idea of the post for some discussion on a patch for some {shudder} baseball game :)

I think I see what the issue is. In order to do this in baseball, for example, you'd have to essentially expand the majors to twice its current size and set up different levels (leagues) within it. Seeing as though most people feel that the baseball talent pool is already diluted enough as it is, I don't think it would fly here. Having 60 teams in the "majors," including the Toledo Mud Hens, etc., would lower the quality of baseball. It makes much more sense now that I understand how it works, but given that, I also see that it is even less likely to work.

Same thing with football, although it would be even worse, because you'd have to essentially create 30 more teams, rather than move them up from a minor league. The quality would suck.

I think you can chalk up the European model to supply and demand. It is obviously so popular, that people would rather have 60 teams to root for/against in some fashion, with a lower quality of product (just based on the idea that the more players, the more scrubs), rather than 30 teams with the best talent. That is a testament to soccer's popularity than I cannot deny. but I think we are so use to it the way it is here, and have such concerns about the ability to support the teams that exist today, that doing something like that would never be possible.

BTW, for anyone, is this model followed in other professional sports in Europe, or is it a soccer-only thing? I'm just curious. I know there are professional basketball leagues, are they set up in this manner? Or cricket?

I think European Hockey follows the same principle, but I'm unsure about that or any of the other sports.

I agree with you that it wouldn't be accepted here, but I disagree with the fact that you think it wouldn't work. I think this type of system (including the transfer system) would save hockey in my country, for example. I think it allows small market teams to compete effectively. I think the same could be said of baseball, but you are right, the fans would never accept it.

Don't mean to shift the focus too much of the direction of this (very good) thread, but Draft Dodger said:


I am sure I've missed discussion on this, but would love a "refresher" on what some of the issues are so we can evaluate them and respond as necessary.

Joe

I think the buttons versus drop-down menu issue is the one I hear most often. Frankly, I don't mind it as is.

Joe, without question THE most frustrating interface issue for me is the lack of "memory" when sorting. For example, if I'm looking at all the Free Agents, I might first sort by the number of stars, then I'll sort by SP endurance. It would be SO much better if the sort would "remember" the last sort--in otherwise, it should present all SP's with C endurance, in order of the number of stars they have. Most games' sort functions (and of course Excel) have it done this way. As it stands, there's no way to do a "double-sort" as I've mentioned. That's my biggest interface beef.

Also, because of the ability to sort by stars, the General Ratings/Info screen is the fastest way to look at the top players on any given team. But again, when I switch from team to team, it goes back to the "Batting Stats Set 1" screen again, rather than "remembering" the last screen from the last team I was looking at.

Those two things jump out right off the bat. If I think of others, I'll let you know.

I didn't understand that comment as well since I perceive that 90% of the interface is just like OOTP4. But as I have come to believe, anyone can get used to an interface (and become second-nature), no matter how different. Some, I guess, just do not like change.

Well, my problems are things that have always existed. It is just the opposite. There are things I'd like to see change that haven't changed.

But I do have a suggestion. When searching for players by ratings, could you please have all of the positions OFF by default? 99% of the time, I am searching for players in one position and I am having to click off 11 other button control every single time I enter (or go back to) that screen. On that same screen, could you switch the order of the movement/control/stuff to the same order as we see it for the player (e.g., 7/6/5)?

I don't know about other people, but my problems with the interface have been:

Stat sorts and preferences aren't sticky. The two places where this is a pain for me are in trades where I like to go to my team and sort by salary info and go to the other team and sort by general ratings. I do that everytime I go to trade and it gets to be tedious for each player I enter. The other place that is a pain for me is on my own team stats. I prefer to view batting stats 2 as my default but have to choose it each time.

I also think the email and news features would be nice if they weren't hidden in menus. It isn't that I don't know where it is - it is just a pain to have to go through a routine after each batch of simmed games. Normally, I go to my team, read any email, go to the league, look at the news, I look at my upcoming schedule, go back to my team and look at any players that are sucking, look at my transactions screen to see if any players are ready to move up to the majors (I let the computer handle the minor league promotions because that would make this process even more tedious), and finally I may change my lineups and/or rotations (which involves using the depth chart and lineup functions for each of 4 possiblities). In all, routine maintenance on my team takes too much tedious time. Ideally, there would be some sort of uber-background screen that would have all the relevant information. One corner may have a list of emails with subject headings that you could click on (including a notification when a AAA player is ready for the majors!!), one corner could have trade offers or messages from other teams about interest (I think these should be separated from emails but don't have to be), the current standings for my division could be along the side, the performances of my starting pitchers and positions players could be in the center, a 3rd corner would have a list of upcoming opponents, and key league news could be displayed in another corner with subject headings. I really think there is more than enough room for all this information with a normal sized font if the space was utilized efficiently. Right now, the interface has so much wasted space that you have to enter a ton of menus just to access basic info.

Also, I would like the interface to default to a player's requested salary and have up/down arrows to change the dollar amounts and/or years (it could remain blank for players who don't specify - although I still think that isn't realistic). Some of us just don't like using keyboards as much.

I'm sure there are other things, but these really stick out to me.

I haven't had time to play the new version, so if anything I requested has been done, please ignore it.

Thanks for reading.

Ben, I agree with you. I just read into the criticisms that some folks didn't like see things in different areas.

From a completely selfish perspective, the only thing I'm concerned with about this game - aside from the little things - is the lack of stolen bases. This is going to be my pet peeve until something is done about it. I can't stand simming deadball era baseball games, with 9 HR leading a league, and seeing the top base stealer at 38. It's killing me!

Anyway, I only posted this here because Joe is reading!

Ksyrup, that's not too far off from reality. In the AL from 1907-1911 (the years I checked), the top HR hitter was between 7 and 11, in the AL. As far as SB, there was one player (Cobb, Collins) getting 60-80 but the 5th best is usually in the low 40s or high 30s. I think when you import from Lahman, there are no player strategies so the league leaders would be about where the Era settings would suggest.

Anrhydeddu, the problem is that no one is getting close to even 60 SBs a year, regardless of era, league settings, etc. I posted this over at .400 - I have now simmed approximately 225 years over the course of 4 or 5 test sims since the game was first released, and the most SBs from any player - and this includes historical players like Cobb, Henderson, and Brock, as well as fictional players - is 61.

Having a guy get 50 SBs in a year is like a guy getting 80 in real life. The game is simply defaulted to the "current" power-dominated game of baseball. I wasn't quoting the HR totals to suggest they were inaccurate, I was pointing them out to show that during a time in baseball when power was low, teams used speed to score runs. In my replays/fictional careers, they are doing neither, or a little of both, but not enough of either to make it accurate or even realistic. If teams can't slug to bring home runs, they will certainly try other methods to score, but that isn't happening.

Joe,

check these 2 links...
Poll for biggest disappointment in the game

Poll for biggest improvement

kind of interesting - the interface is both the most improved and 2nd biggest disappointment.

in general, I would say the interface looks nicer (html reports and skinnability are plusses), but, functionally, isn't quite as useful as OOTP4.

switching from toggle buttons to the stylish new drop down menus in areas like roster screens is a step backwards, IMO - it's harder to use. the team transaction screen has a lot more info, but, again, IMO is much more cluttered and much tougher to read at a glance (this would be easily resolveable, I think, by moving things around here). not having a list of contracts due to expire anymore on the roster screen is also a big loss.

I could probably come up with more if I had the game in front of me - I'm no graphic designer (facepacks don't count), but I think there's several instances where screen real estate could be better utilized. YMMV, of course.

The new UI requires the user to do more work to get to the same info OOTP4 had, so it is not a matter of people simply disliking change. That said, OOTP5 does provide more info than OOTP4:).

Dola


Yes, yes.

Where is the section located that changes whether it stops the sim to inform you that you have email, a no hitter is close, someone is hitting for 3000 ect....?

From the schedule screen, its the drop down to the far right (not sure of the title) that lets you sim a day, week, month, or season. Below all that it says "Sim Options."

thank you

OK, thanks for the feeback. I will make sure Markus takes a look at this thread, and we will try to address some of these in a future update.

JMS