Alright boyz, here we go!!! OOTP2006 First Impressions Thread!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

One of the things that I'll never understand about these message boards..not just here, but in general is how quickly things devolve into getting personal.

Consider this: they become "personal" because there are people involved. Not post-bots, not scripts, but real live people.

If you think about it, that actually explains it pretty well.

[Bee]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Alternately, you could try to keep your foot out of your mouth quite so often.

Or he could keep irritating you and providing me with tons of entertainment.

[Marc Duffy]

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Bee

Or he could keep irritating you and providing me with tons of entertainment.

I wish I could find it so entertaining.

[lighthousekeeper]

soooo anywho *trying to change the subject* ...

Wondering if people can point me in the right direction as to why there are only 30 or so players (out of 3000+ in the universe) that are 35 or older? My aging modifiers have been set to .98.

I haven't seen too much of an outcry on the ootp boards, so i figure there must be something i'm doing wrong. Are there other settings I should be looking at? I would assume that the default aging modifier value (1) would produce results at least somewhat similar to modern MLB.

For more information: I'm using a fictional 24 team universe with 3 levels of minor leagues. Everything else is basically using the default values. A guy did some resarch on the ootp boards to change aging modifiers to .001 (the lowest possible value), but I can't imagine that that drastic solution would be the way to go, especially when it seems that others are playing the game right out of the box without seeing aging problems.

is there some other config setting i should look at?

Edit: I wonder if having 15 rounds in the amateur draft is the culprit?

[miked]

You could also tweak the development modifiers a bit. I think one of the problems identified in the Dream Team forum was the fact that the game seems to heavily favor ratings (so even if your older players are doing well, they'll be tossed in favor of the newbs). Also, the game development seems sped up, so that tons of players are ML-ready too young. IRL, if a young player is struggling, the team will send him down...in OOTP, as long as he has better ratings, it will keep him up.

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by miked

You could also tweak the development modifiers a bit. I think one of the problems identified in the Dream Team forum was the fact that the game seems to heavily favor ratings (so even if your older players are doing well, they'll be tossed in favor of the newbs). Also, the game development seems sped up, so that tons of players are ML-ready too young. IRL, if a young player is struggling, the team will send him down...in OOTP, as long as he has better ratings, it will keep him up.

Yeah someone on ootp board did a short analysis and came up with suggested modifier settings. but what confuses me is that others on the ootp board seem to be having no problems with the game, even without modifying the modifiers.


on a (related) tangent: i have no problem with the game favoring ratings. but it seems that the root of the problem is that older players are not keeping their ratings long enough. i think to compensate for the arby/fa system, veterans should retain ratings even longer than we would perceive that they do (based on mlb age statistics) because owners IRL probably favor younger guys despite their true playing ability because they have cheaper contracts. so even though the mlb average age is 28.5, that doesn't mean that actual ratings begin to drop off at 28.5, but instead may begin dropping off around 30. The game should also include this, to compensate for the financial incentives currently afforded to opt youngsters contracts over FA contracts.
Developers need to begin realizing that MLB average age does not equal talent peak age.

[lynchjm24]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

Yeah someone on ootp board did a short analysis and came up with suggested modifier settings. but what confuses me is that others on the ootp board seem to be having no problems with the game, even without modifying the modifiers.


on a (related) tangent: i have no problem with the game favoring ratings. but it seems that the root of the problem is that older players are not keeping their ratings long enough. i think to compensate for the arby/fa system, veterans should retain ratings even longer than we would perceive that they do (based on mlb age statistics) because owners IRL probably favor younger guys despite their true playing ability because they have cheaper contracts. so even though the mlb average age is 28.5, that doesn't mean that actual ratings begin to drop off at 28.5, but instead may begin dropping off around 30. The game should also include this, to compensate for the financial incentives currently afforded to opt youngsters contracts over FA contracts.
Developers need to begin realizing that MLB average age does not equal talent peak age.

I think it works both ways. Plenty of veterans get playing time because they have big contracts even though they could be replaced by a younger cheaper equivient player.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Consider this: they become "personal" because there are people involved. Not post-bots, not scripts, but real live people.

If you think about it, that actually explains it pretty well.

There could be post-bots amoung us!

[Johnny Slick]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

Yeah someone on ootp board did a short analysis and came up with suggested modifier settings. but what confuses me is that others on the ootp board seem to be having no problems with the game, even without modifying the modifiers.


on a (related) tangent: i have no problem with the game favoring ratings. but it seems that the root of the problem is that older players are not keeping their ratings long enough. i think to compensate for the arby/fa system, veterans should retain ratings even longer than we would perceive that they do (based on mlb age statistics) because owners IRL probably favor younger guys despite their true playing ability because they have cheaper contracts. so even though the mlb average age is 28.5, that doesn't mean that actual ratings begin to drop off at 28.5, but instead may begin dropping off around 30. The game should also include this, to compensate for the financial incentives currently afforded to opt youngsters contracts over FA contracts.
Developers need to begin realizing that MLB average age does not equal talent peak age.

The biggest issue I see in the game WRT aging - and this goes back to when Markus originally separated starters from relievers in (I think) version 5 - is that with starting pitchers, there are guys who are just super-duper aces who will give you 7 innings of lights-out ball but only have a 12 (out of 20) endurance. Thing is, OOTP appears to have a rock-solid endurance threshold where, the second a pitcher dips under it, he's instantly converted into a reliever. I mean, instantly. That's why you see so many guys go from a good SP career to one as a MR when they get into their 30s. Partly this is because, as above, the game looks more at ratings instead of accumulated performance, but it's also necessary to eliminate this, at least as something set in stone.

But yeah... playing in God mode as I like to do, I really don't see all that many 30+ year olds just suddenly die off per se. What I'm seeing is the computer habitually replacing 10/10/10 32 year olds with 10/10/10 22 year olds. This is a good AI move but also not terribly realistic. IRL the 10/10/10 veteran has demonstrated that he's at least a league average player while the youngster has not shown that at the major league level in all probability. I realize that there is no such thing as a AAAA player but baseball minds think there is and that is one huge reason why the guy with the "proven" record very often gets the nod over the guy without it.

The other thing to take into account is that the primary thing that nearly all managers and GMs try to do is avoid getting fired. No, winning the World Series is not the #1 immediate goal, except when the boss says that doing anything less will get you a pink slip. Because of this, GMs and mangers tend to be rather conservative with their moves. If they stay with a vet for too long, that's going to look like less of a minus to the boss (and to the fanbase that follows the team) than if they pull a productive vet for a rookie and the rookie doesn't produce. Generally speaking, a major league player has to lose his job or get hurt before a GM will put someone in in his place. This even happens every now and then with HOF-caliber players. Think of Edgar Martinez in Seattle, getting stuck behind Jimmy Presley until the Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love finally hit his way out of the Kingdome.

But yeah, I think transaction AI is more to blame than the aging curve. Problem is, I think if you "fix" the AI in this case you'll have a big group of people complaining that it's too easy to "moneyball" the computer. Makes it something of a lose-lose situation.

[RainMaker]

After a couple months now, I'm officially going the "unplayable" route and staying with 6.51. I'll wait and see what others say next year but will probably look at alternatives.

As someone mentioned earlier, it's just overdone. It isn't fun to play as I feel more and more like I spend my time doing menial tasks than actually playing the game. It takes hours to make a trade, hours to make sure your minor league system can get through a couple weeks, and hours for other menial tasks that took a few minutes in 6.51.

Now I was excited as anyone about a lot of these new features. I think in the end though, sometimes doing too much is bad. The beauty of OOTP was being able to run an organization for decades and watch players develop and go through your system. With so much being added, it can take months just to get through one season without a disaster happening to your organization. The functionality is overly complicated and too much stuff has become a drag.

I think the moral of the story is that we really didn't have a bad thing with the previous versions of OOTP. Yeah, it would have been cool to have some things like an almanac and some more customization to leagues. Yeah it needed some roster management tweaking as well as other issues with the AI. But in the end, it was enjoyable for many and a good game. I think the effort may have been better spent building on that instead of trying to fix something that wasn't entirely broke.

I think we'll see a lot of changes next year. It doesn't take long to look through the forums to see that this years version is dead. They may have sold a lot of copies up front, but I doubt as many people are playing. The online leagues have dwindled down dramatically, there isn't even a roster set, mods are scarce compared to other versions, and we have people who are waiting 2 months for fixes before they even start their league.

It just seems to me that they took a good game that needed some improvements and turned it into a very complex game that is ridden with bugs and flaws. I'd like to think next year could fix it, but I seriously just see so many flaws in the game that the re-write needs a re-write.

[SunDevil]

Since this topic has been an issue with this game for a couple of versions, I found this article today.


http://baseballanalysts.com/archives...axes_and_1.php

Death, Taxes, and Major League Waivers
By Keith Law

MLB's rules are complex and convoluted, but they're not hard. I've heard various people in front offices referred to as "rules experts" or - my favorite "waivers experts." The rule on waivers (Rule 9) runs nine pages, a large part of which revolve around resolving the order of claims. We're not talking Finnegan's Wake here; anyone with the rules and perhaps a pen and paper can figure these out pretty quickly. The problem is that the rules aren't very public, and as a result, members of the media and the average fan are all at a disadvantage when it comes to some of the more esoteric rules or to baseball's inconsistent nomenclature.

Here are a few rules that seem to cause a lot of confusion with my best efforts at explaining them.

Waivers

I'll never forget something I saw this spring on a message board I won't name, when Chris Snow of the Boston Globe (and now director of hockey operations for the Minnesota Wild) reported that Hee Seop Choi couldn't be sent to the minors without clearing waivers. Because most fans weren't familiar with the rule in question, the immediate assumption was that Snow was wrong. And one poster in particular ripped Snow, saying it was just "sloppy reporting" and then saying how every beat writer should learn the transaction rules.

Except, of course, Snow was right. How odd that the professional should know what he was talking about.

There is a rule rarely invoked in baseball that creates a situation where a player who has options remaining still has to clear waivers to be sent on an optional assignment. If the assignment is to begin at least three full calendar years from the date of the player's first appearance on a 25-man roster, then the player can not be sent on an optional assignment without first clearing major league waivers. These waivers are revocable, and players usually clear those waivers without incident.

There are three kinds of waivers in MLB:

* Unconditional release waivers. These are self-explanatory. A player on release waivers can be claimed for $1, and the claiming team assumes the player's contract. The player does have the right to refuse this claim and become a free agent.
* Outright or special waivers. The name changes depending on the time of year, but the effect is the same. These are the waivers you use to kick a player off of your 40-man roster. They're also the waivers to use when you wish to send a player who is out of options to the minors (thereby also removing him from your 40-man). These waivers are irrevocable, meaning that if you place a player on outright waivers and he is claimed, you can not pull the player back off waivers.
* Major league waivers. These are the waivers in question during August. Between 4 pm on July 31st and the end of the season, players must clear major league waivers to be assigned to another major league club. These waivers are revocable, and they are also the waivers required for players in Choi's situation, who have options remaining but are more than three calendar years removed from their debuts on major league rosters. Although these waivers are revocable, if a player on major league waivers is claimed and the waiver request is revoked, a subsequent major league waiver request in the same waiver period will be irrevocable.

So, as of the day that this article first appeared, any player who first appeared on a 25-man roster prior to August 3rd, 2003, must now clear major league waivers to be optioned to the minors.

Service time

Some bullet points on service time...

* One year of major league service is defined as 172 days of service, but a major league season actually runs around 183 days. A player can only accrue 172 days of service during a season, but he doesn't have to be on a roster from wire to wire to get that many days. This means that a team that wishes to hold a player in the minors long enough to push his free agency date back by one season must wait at least eleven days (and probably about two weeks, just to be safe) before recalling him.
* Days spent on optional assignments shorter than ten days don't count against your service time. If you're sent down on Friday and are recalled on Monday, you get Saturday and Sunday's days of service as well.
* The cutoff for "super-two" status (referring to players with between two and three years of service who are eligible for salary arbitration) is not fixed; all players with at least 2 years and 0 days of service but no more than 2 years and 171 days (2.171) of service are ranked in descending order by total service time, and the top 16% are granted super-two status. The cutoff is usually somewhere between 2.130 and 2.135; to the best of my knowledge, it's never been below 2.120, so a player recalled after June 5th or so is in the clear.

When an option isn't an option

If a player is sent out on one or more optional assignments during the course of a season, but the total number of days spent on those assignments is fewer than twenty, then he's not charged with an option. So there.

The fourth option

Everyone knows that a player who is added to a 40-man roster for the first time may be sent out on optional assignment in up to three years, which are commonly referred to as "option years" or just "options." But once in a while, a player ends up receiving a fourth option year. Here's the text from the MLB rulebook:

"Contracts of Major League players who, prior to commencement of the current season, have been credited with less than five seasons in professional baseball ... shall be eligible for a fourth optional assignment, without waivers, during that season. For purposes of this Rule 11(c), 90 days or more on the Active List during a championship season shall constitute a 'season of service.' ... [if] a player is placed on the disabled list after the player has been credited with 60 or more days of service in any particular season, the Disabled List time shall be counted to the player's credit."

So what are we saying here?

* A player who is currently entering his fourth or fifth pro season and already has been optioned in three separate years gets a fourth option. Delmon Young has been optioned in three years (2004, 2005, 2006) and he'll get a fourth option in 2007, which he's doing his best to earn.
* A player who has missed one or more seasons to injury - meaning an entire season, or enough time to accrue fewer than 90 days on an active roster - may get a fourth option if, exclusive of those injury-shortened years, he has fewer than five full seasons in pro ball. A season in which he's on an active roster for 60 days or more and then gets hurt still counts as a full season, but a season in which he's hurt and then comes back and gets 60-89 days of service after the injury does not.
* Seasons spent entirely in short-season leagues (the New-York Penn, Northwest, Pioneer, Appalachian, Gulf Coast, and Arizona Rookie Leagues, as well as the Dominican and Venezuelan Summer Leagues) don't count as seasons for the purposes of a fourth option.

As you might imagine, more players are eligible for fourth options than you might have realized, but they often don't come to light because the players are low-profile or because they're kicked off of 40-man rosters before the fourth option comes into play.

Prior outrights

The first time a player is placed on outright/special waivers, he must accept the outright assignment if he clears. All subsequent times, however, he has the right to reject the outright assignment and become a free agent, or he may accept the outright assignment but become a free agent at the end of the season (unless he's back on a 40-man roster at that time).

In addition, a player with at least three years of major league service may also reject an outright assignment at that moment or at the end of the season, regardless of whether he has a prior outright. Players receive these rights under Article XX of the Basic Agreement, and are sometimes referred to as Article XX free agents within the industry, although they're more often lumped in with minor league free agents in the press because the time of their free agency is similar.

As you can see, MLB's roster rules aren't difficult, just complex. I think MLB could do a better job of explaining the rules to fans, since there's a huge appetite for information on rosters, waivers, and service time, but I hope this has at least cleared up a few of the more common quirks in the system.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

After a couple months now, I'm officially going the "unplayable" route and staying with 6.51. I'll wait and see what others say next year but will probably look at alternatives.

As someone mentioned earlier, it's just overdone. It isn't fun to play as I feel more and more like I spend my time doing menial tasks than actually playing the game. It takes hours to make a trade, hours to make sure your minor league system can get through a couple weeks, and hours for other menial tasks that took a few minutes in 6.51.

Now I was excited as anyone about a lot of these new features. I think in the end though, sometimes doing too much is bad. The beauty of OOTP was being able to run an organization for decades and watch players develop and go through your system. With so much being added, it can take months just to get through one season without a disaster happening to your organization. The functionality is overly complicated and too much stuff has become a drag.

I think the moral of the story is that we really didn't have a bad thing with the previous versions of OOTP. Yeah, it would have been cool to have some things like an almanac and some more customization to leagues. Yeah it needed some roster management tweaking as well as other issues with the AI. But in the end, it was enjoyable for many and a good game. I think the effort may have been better spent building on that instead of trying to fix something that wasn't entirely broke.

I think we'll see a lot of changes next year. It doesn't take long to look through the forums to see that this years version is dead. They may have sold a lot of copies up front, but I doubt as many people are playing. The online leagues have dwindled down dramatically, there isn't even a roster set, mods are scarce compared to other versions, and we have people who are waiting 2 months for fixes before they even start their league.

It just seems to me that they took a good game that needed some improvements and turned it into a very complex game that is ridden with bugs and flaws. I'd like to think next year could fix it, but I seriously just see so many flaws in the game that the re-write needs a re-write.

Great post and I'm soooo glad I didn't pre-order or "give in" to this version. I'm also in the camp that believes that v7 - meaning a nice built in almanac and some AI fixes/cosmetics/options fixes would have been butter on my toast or jam.. whatever.

Having said that, I'm a firm believer that next year's version will be worth at least looking into, but I do have a part of me that believes 6.51 might be the end of the line for me and well, that sucks.

I love the simplicity of 6.51 and from the sound of things, 2006 is too complex for what I want out of any game.

[jbmagic]

News from Markus posted yesterday.

Quick 1.0.3 Update
OK, I have been busy clearing down the bugs and Testtrack, and almost all of them are fixed now. Here is the list of changes/fixes so far (although minor fixes are not listed):

- Players with a major league contract who are on DFA and no longer on the 40-man roster and cleared waivers may now be assigned to the minor leagues
- Improved player development & aging algorythms
- Tweaked development of market size, fan loyalty and fan interest
- Fixed ressheduling of allstar game problem
- Fixed allstar game date editing
- Improved importing of historical stealing ratings
- Fixed coaches causing staff expenses when leaving the team
- The "force trade" option now handles waiver trades properly
- Fixed several play-by-play issues
- Fixed HTML bug on team leaderboards report
- The "Download league files" menu button will now be shown for commishes as well
#2414 - Fixed amateur draft scheduling problems when importing real schedules
#2427 - Fixed display of fielding stats in player lists
#2430 - Erasing the service time now resets option years properly
#2023 - Fixed minor league contract extensions
#2288 - Fixed holds recording in played out games

The patch will hit beta testing this week

Cheers,
Markus

I have not decided yet which feature(s) I'll add, still collecting ideas...

Expansion is "big" and will be part of OOTP 2007, not before.

Anyway, I just added these new features:
- Force retirement or unretire on a player (must be commish to do so)
- The player overall and potential rating are now visible in the player profile screen (no matter if scouts on or off)

1.0.2 looks pretty stable, but there are still a few issues out there, so I'll get right on coding 1.0.3, which will be released at the end of August. Any suggestions for a couple of small new features?

After that I'll immediately switch to coding OOTP 2007, and I can tell you that we have tons of nice things in store for the next version. It'll be easier to use, and we'll focus on making it the most fun version of OOTP ever. Of course, we'll regularly update you on the progress of it. Also, we'll shoot for an Opening Day release date this time instead of end of May.

OK, gotta go, my fingers need to get into the typing rythm again

Cheers,
Markus

[Dekanth]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

After a couple months now, I'm officially going the "unplayable" route and staying with 6.51. I'll wait and see what others say next year but will probably look at alternatives.

As someone mentioned earlier, it's just overdone. It isn't fun to play as I feel more and more like I spend my time doing menial tasks than actually playing the game. It takes hours to make a trade, hours to make sure your minor league system can get through a couple weeks, and hours for other menial tasks that took a few minutes in 6.51.

Now I was excited as anyone about a lot of these new features. I think in the end though, sometimes doing too much is bad. The beauty of OOTP was being able to run an organization for decades and watch players develop and go through your system. With so much being added, it can take months just to get through one season without a disaster happening to your organization. The functionality is overly complicated and too much stuff has become a drag.

I think the moral of the story is that we really didn't have a bad thing with the previous versions of OOTP. Yeah, it would have been cool to have some things like an almanac and some more customization to leagues. Yeah it needed some roster management tweaking as well as other issues with the AI. But in the end, it was enjoyable for many and a good game. I think the effort may have been better spent building on that instead of trying to fix something that wasn't entirely broke.

I think we'll see a lot of changes next year. It doesn't take long to look through the forums to see that this years version is dead. They may have sold a lot of copies up front, but I doubt as many people are playing. The online leagues have dwindled down dramatically, there isn't even a roster set, mods are scarce compared to other versions, and we have people who are waiting 2 months for fixes before they even start their league.

It just seems to me that they took a good game that needed some improvements and turned it into a very complex game that is ridden with bugs and flaws. I'd like to think next year could fix it, but I seriously just see so many flaws in the game that the re-write needs a re-write.

Yes, a great post here. I agree 100% and have washed my hands of OOTP for good now. I bought right after release, the game was unplayable, then I had insult added to injury when they discounted the game for buyers after the first patch. I tried Puresim and it is fun, but the door is WIDE open for new entry in the baseball world (hint: Solecismic)

[jbmagic]

More news by Markus

New features in 1.0.3
OK, here is a list of new features that will make it into 1.0.3 so far:

- Commissioners may now retire or unretire players manually
- Added player overall and potential rating to player profile screen
- Added AI lineup selection options to the game setup, traditional (weighting overall ratings/stats more than splits) and sabermetric (depending solely on split ratings/stats)
- When promoting a player to the active roster, he is automatically added to the 40-man roster if there is room
- Added the option to only display qualifiers in the sortable player list within the league statistics screen

[sovereignstar]

[lighthousekeeper]

So is anyone playing this?

I was just never able to get into this game, unlike every previous version of ootp that I owned. Version 1.0.3 certainly doesn't look like a difference maker either.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

So is anyone playing this?

I was just never able to get into this game, unlike every previous version of ootp that I owned. Version 1.0.3 certainly doesn't look like a difference maker either.

Nope.

PureSim 2007 is the best sim baseball game this year.

The AI is way better than in Ootp.

[MizzouRah]

OOTP 6.51 baby!

[Drake]

I'll have to respectfully disagree about Puresim 2007.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by Drake

I'll have to respectfully disagree about Puresim 2007.

Have you play the latest patch release? Its very solid.

[Cuckoo]

I still haven't tried the updated demo of the new OOTP. What I played just didn't hook me like previous versions. I've purchased since V.4 I think, but I didn't buy the latest one. Hopefully, it'll get better in coming years because in a few ways, it took a step back I think.

I did buy Puresim and got my money's worth out of it. It's not as rich as OOTP 6.51, but it's still good. And for the most part, what's there works.

[LloydLungs]

I'm playing it an enjoying it a lot, but I only play fictional into the future, as opposed to historical mode which seems to be a lot more screwed up. I realize I am in the minority, but as somebody that only plays fictional -- and who LOVES minor league baseball and loves micromanaging the hell out of my minor league clubs -- the game fits my needs pretty well.

[Stevebsfan]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

So is anyone playing this?

I was just never able to get into this game, unlike every previous version of ootp that I owned. Version 1.0.3 certainly doesn't look like a difference maker either.

no, I just can't get into it. Every time I try to play it, I still can't get past the UI, navigation, etc.

Heck, I still can't figure out how to just start a career as a GM instead of working my way through as a coach. Maybe it's right in front of me, but last I heard (after doing research) is that you have to do something like find the little checkbox somewhere putting you in commish mode then doing something from there.

I'm sure I could find out how to do it, but the fact that I can't do it without searching for help is the point. I don't want to have to build my way up to be the GM. If I did, i'd like to be able to choose that option.

Again, maybe i'm missing something simple, maybe they put it in with one of the later patches but last I checked I still couldn't easily just select 'human controlled' for a team.

That's just one of the many little things that kind of made the game boring to me this release, and i'm most definitely not buying 07 until I hear reviews on it first.

[Marc Duffy]

Current 1.0.3 patch fixlist

- Improved player development & aging algorythms
- Added player overall and potential rating to player profile screen
- Added all league reports into a submenu within the league main menu
- Improved both the broadcast and webcast game screens
- Coaches & scouts may now refuse 'demotion' to minor league jobs
- Commissioners may now retire or unretire players manually
- Added AI lineup selection options to the game setup, traditional (weighting overall ratings/stats more than splits) and sabermetric (depending solely on split ratings/stats)
- When promoting a player to the active roster, he is automatically added to the 40-man roster if there is room
- Players with a major league contract who are on DFA and no longer on the 40-man roster and cleared waivers may now be assigned to the minor leagues
- Added the option to only display qualifiers in the sortable player list within the league statistics screen
- Improved importing of historical stealing ratings
- Tweaked development of market size, fan loyalty and fan interest
- Fixed allstar game date editing
- Fixed rescheduling of allstar game problem
- Fixed coaches causing staff expenses when leaving the team
- The "force trade" option now handles waiver trades properly
- Fixed several play-by-play issues
- Tweaked contract values earned through salary arbitration
- Improved AI in terms of a salary cap
- Fixed HTML bug on team leaderboards report
- The "Download league files" menu button will now be shown for commishes, too
- Tweaked injury system, increasing the amount of day-to-day injuries
- Removed protection of traded draft picks
- Added a "clear schedule" function to the schedule editor
- Added an info message that informs managers if staff members are leaving the team after the season

#2414 - Fixed amateur draft scheduling problems when importing real schedules
#2427 - Fixed display of fielding stats in player lists
#2430 - Erasing the service time now resets option years properly
#2023 - Fixed minor league contract extensions
#2288 - Fixed holds recording in played out games
#2451 - Stats leader team now identified in top 5 players boxes
#2487 - Schedule in reports doesn't display ASG from wrong league
#2512 - Team fielding report shows passed balls now
#2451 - Stats leader team now identified in top 5 players boxes
#2487 - Schedule in reports doesn't display ASG from wrong league
#2446 - Fixed improper use of quotes bug in teams.csv dump
#2525 - Corrected number of reports in CSV export screen
#2465 - CSV output uses comma now, change delimiter in /data/config/app (sqldump_csv_delimiter) if needed
#2469 - Added error message HTML page for "missing" files
#2505 - Fixed potential ratings link on team page
#2530 & 2531 - CSV data dump headers are comma separated now, too
#2528 - Removed needless fields from human managers data dump

[Marc Duffy]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Nope.

PureSim 2007 is the best sim baseball game this year.

The AI is way better than in Ootp.

Thanks jb, glad you finally purchased the games and stopped asking questions

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

Thanks jb, glad you finally purchased the games and stopped asking questions

Making fun of jb doesn't change the fact that OOTP stinks, Marc.

[Marc Duffy]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Making fun of jb doesn't change the fact that OOTP stinks, Marc.

If having a joke in these parts is seen as making fun we're in trouble. I even used smileys but oh well.

Anyway, in-game screens updated in 1.0.3 ... http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=130524

[Fouts]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Making fun of jb doesn't change the fact that OOTP stinks, Marc.

Your opinion, not everyones.

[jbmagic]

Marc Duffy

When is the AI going to finally be fixed? Thats the main problem with ootp 2006.

This patch 1.03 doesnt address the AI problems with the game. The players getting sign and release, sign, release again,sign by the same team.

The problems with same player getting sign , then waive , then sign, then waive, etc.

These problems been going on from versions to versions.

The Ai is very weak in ootp 2006.

[miked]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Nope.

PureSim 2007 is the best sim baseball game this year.

The AI is way better than in Ootp.

So you didn't end up buying it I take it? Not that I don't understand why you wouldn'y, but you keep talking as if you have really compared the two, when you most likely played the demo of OOTP for a few weeks...

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by miked

So you didn't end up buying it I take it? Not that I don't understand why you wouldn'y, but you keep talking as if you have really compared the two, when you most likely played the demo of OOTP for a few weeks...

I played the latest patch demo.

If you don't want to admit the AI is terrible in ootp 2006 thats fine.

[Drake]

I continue to be happy enough with OOTP2K6, but I understand the concerns of people who are into real players and/or historical simming. Neither of those models happen to appeal to me, so those complaints are moot as far as I'm concerned. OOTP2K6 appeals to my playing style more than Puresim 2007 does (though I like Puresim okay, and I'm absolutely wild about the in-game ball flight -- I can't explain it, but I could watch that little ball for hours. In fact, I have. ).

[cuervo72]

Still have a LONG way to go to catch how long I watched the little MicroLeague ball bounce around.

[Drake]

OOTP2K6 really needs a set of balls.

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by Drake

I continue to be happy enough with OOTP2K6, but I understand the concerns of people who are into real players and/or historical simming. Neither of those models happen to appeal to me, so those complaints are moot as far as I'm concerned. OOTP2K6 appeals to my playing style more than Puresim 2007 does (though I like Puresim okay, and I'm absolutely wild about the in-game ball flight -- I can't explain it, but I could watch that little ball for hours. In fact, I have. ).

Those complaints are far from moot even for those of us who strictly play fictional universes. The killer for me was after I spent several days setting up my universe, then simming out 10 seasons, the average age of my 25 man roster was around 24. In the whole league there were only about 100 players over 31. So I'm hoping that #1 on the list:
"- Improved player development & aging algorythms"
isn't only a tweak but a MAJOR adjustment.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Making fun of jb doesn't change the fact that OOTP stinks, Marc.

Do you really think he was making fun of jb? C'mon spleen.

Marc, I welcome you continued updates on ootp. Even though I probably won't purchase it this year, hearing the progress makes me more interested. Keep up the good work.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Marc, I welcome you continued updates on ootp. Even though I probably won't purchase it this year, hearing the progress makes me more interested. Keep up the good work.

I've continued to play through the patching process and have enjoyed the game. I started a real game with the last official patch and play out all of my games.

I can only speak from my experiences in my 6.5x imported league (played since v4 and is now probably about 40% real players, 60% fictional) but here are some things I am seeing.

With regard to the sign\release(a lot), sign\waive\release(not very many) it does still happen. But to be fair most sign and release are low ML players that are rated 20/80 current and 20/80 potential and would be ghost players in past versions and have no chance of ever sniffing MLB. While there are way to many and it looks silly in the reports I can ignore it since these guys will never have an effect on my Major Leagues. I can see if someone wanted to manage in the minors that this would be very annoying.

As I said I play out all of my games and in doing so I check the waiver wire a couple of times per game week. I don't do this to try to rob other teams but to see what type of players are being waived. Most of the time there are between 4-6 players on the list at any one time while the highest I've seen has been in the 8-10 area. These players are generally rated in the high 20's to low 30's with an occasional 40. I have only seen one player on waivers that had no business being there and I am currently in August. This was a guy who historically is a very average player but was having a good year, so ratings wise you could see him being there but not with the year he was having. This is a big improvement over the release version and even the first big patch. In those versions I would see guys like JD Drew being waived (in my world he's a .280 35 HR type player). In the current version I don't find anyone like this being waived.

So the game continues to evolve and go through it's growing pains. I'm getting my money's worth and I guess that's all that matters to me. I mostly took the time to post becasue I thought MizzouRah might be interested after I read his post.

[LloydLungs]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

Those complaints are far from moot even for those of us who strictly play fictional universes. The killer for me was after I spent several days setting up my universe, then simming out 10 seasons, the average age of my 25 man roster was around 24. In the whole league there were only about 100 players over 31. So I'm hoping that #1 on the list:
"- Improved player development & aging algorythms"
isn't only a tweak but a MAJOR adjustment.

Really? Were you maybe playing with a smaller league than the major league setup? Playing with fictional players, major league setup with full minors and 25-round draft, I'm seeing no problems whatsoever with the aging algorhythm. Currently my pitching staff is being carried by 36- and 33-year olds, and my best hitter is 33. I haven't noticed that it's much different on the computer teams. A representative number of 30+ guys with the occasional 40+ sprinkled in, but also many superstars breaking in young (no more 26-year-old phenom rookies). The aging actually feels more realistic to me than it ever has in the OOTP series, and I'm worrying about whether I should even install 1.03 when it comes out for fear that fixing it for other modes of play might break it for mine.

From what I can gather it doesn't seem as though the game can effectively handle playing much differently than the way I described above. Which is nice for me but I understand why everyone else is steamed.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

Those complaints are far from moot even for those of us who strictly play fictional universes. The killer for me was after I spent several days setting up my universe, then simming out 10 seasons, the average age of my 25 man roster was around 24. In the whole league there were only about 100 players over 31. So I'm hoping that #1 on the list:
"- Improved player development & aging algorythms"
isn't only a tweak but a MAJOR adjustment.

Sorry, I haven't seen that happening, though I've heard that it's happening for others. Not sure what I'm doing differently than you are, but it hasn't been an issue for me, and I've simmed a couple 100+ year careers.

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by Drake

Sorry, I haven't seen that happening, though I've heard that it's happening for others. Not sure what I'm doing differently than you are, but it hasn't been an issue for me, and I've simmed a couple 100+ year careers.

Hmmm - strange. My universe was smaller (24 team league - 3 levels of minors; with 6-team Canadian crap league). And then when I saw this post:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=128090


I assumed that most people were experiencing the same problem. He had to basically set the aging modifiers to 0 to get realistic results.

[Marc Duffy]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Marc Duffy

When is the AI going to finally be fixed? Thats the main problem with ootp 2006.

This patch 1.03 doesnt address the AI problems with the game. The players getting sign and release, sign, release again,sign by the same team.

The problems with same player getting sign , then waive , then sign, then waive, etc.

These problems been going on from versions to versions.

The Ai is very weak in ootp 2006.

In all honest jb, I think you've clearly made up your mind which game you prefer (your patch postings in the other thread perhaps underline it). I've no problem with that. All I'd like to say is that Markus and his team and constantly working on issues with the game (especially the AI) and great strides have been made in this area since the original release

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

Nope.

PureSim 2007 is the best sim baseball game this year.

The AI is way better than in Ootp.

Look JB, you cannot really compare the two games in terms of AI unless you use an OOTP league that doesn't have to cope with a) 40-Man rosters, b) waivers, c) option years and d) a FULL minor league system. Create a league in OOTP without any of this and you have AI that has to deal with the same things like the Puresim AI. And don't tell me that Puresim does have minor leagues. I know that the AI to handle a reserver roster is nothing different to one handling a minor league system that does not have to be complete (full rosters), because I have coded it Nothing against Puresim, but you really cannot compare it to OOTP in terms of AI complexity.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

When is the AI going to finally be fixed? Thats the main problem with ootp 2006.

This patch 1.03 doesnt address the AI problems with the game. The players getting sign and release, sign, release again,sign by the same team.

Guess what, it does fix the problems you mentioned.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Sorry guys, I wasn't posting here for a while because I lost my password and the email I used to register. Anyway, Ben was kind enough to provide me with my data, so here I am.

The release of OOTP 2006 was pretty rocky. Two days before release I was really confident that we have a stable and fun product, but I underestimated the complexity of the new version, so the testers and I didn't catch all bugs & problems. We did our best, but we did not have enough time obviously.

Now with each patch , the game has gotten better & better, and the upcoming version 1.0.3 is really a brand new game compared to the initial version. We have fixed many bugs, tweaked & improved so many aspects of the game and added tons of new useful features. Is it perfect yet? Of course not, but in my opinion version 1.0.3 (to be released probably Friday) is by far the best baseball sim on the market.

The online league features now work perfectly as well, and are definitely far better than those in previous versions.

Also, after a slow start there are great roster sets available, and very good photo sets. Also, some really awesome utilities have popped up, especially FaceTool is awesome. It generates fictional player photos for your fictional league, and even updates the uniforms on the photos everytime you run the tool again, reflecting player transactions.

Here are a couple of screenshots, one of a current MLB roster set plus a facepack, and the second one is my fictional league that has been 'pimped' by FaceTool:



PS: Real players & logos are not included in OOTP 2006, this is for demonstrating purposes only! Trademarks belong to their respective owners

FaceTool + new default ballpark image:


So, I suggest checking the demo of OOTP 2006 1.0.3 if you do not own it, or download the patch once it is available later this week. It is really not comparable anymore to the rocky initial release!

Cheers,
Markus

[Icy]

Good news Markus.
I preordered 2k6 but stopped to play it after a few days and haven't since then. Maybe it's the time to pick it up again.

[miked]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

I played the latest patch demo.

If you don't want to admit the AI is terrible in ootp 2006 thats fine.

If you can find where I said the AI is good, please point it out. My only point is that you keep coming on here talking about how poor OOTP is when you've only played it for a few hours most likely. You don't own the game (I don't either) and you haven't really tested things out. The most you've done for the genre is cut and paste cross posts from other forums and whine about bad "ai" while you just copy posts from other people. It's like your a cross-post forum bot who is only capable of re-posting what other people say.

If you didn't buy the game and have no interest in doing so, why don't you start another thread on OOTP asking why people at FOFC don't like you, then cross-post it here again.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Sweed

I've continued to play through the patching process and have enjoyed the game. I started a real game with the last official patch and play out all of my games.

I can only speak from my experiences in my 6.5x imported league (played since v4 and is now probably about 40% real players, 60% fictional) but here are some things I am seeing.

With regard to the sign\release(a lot), sign\waive\release(not very many) it does still happen. But to be fair most sign and release are low ML players that are rated 20/80 current and 20/80 potential and would be ghost players in past versions and have no chance of ever sniffing MLB. While there are way to many and it looks silly in the reports I can ignore it since these guys will never have an effect on my Major Leagues. I can see if someone wanted to manage in the minors that this would be very annoying.

As I said I play out all of my games and in doing so I check the waiver wire a couple of times per game week. I don't do this to try to rob other teams but to see what type of players are being waived. Most of the time there are between 4-6 players on the list at any one time while the highest I've seen has been in the 8-10 area. These players are generally rated in the high 20's to low 30's with an occasional 40. I have only seen one player on waivers that had no business being there and I am currently in August. This was a guy who historically is a very average player but was having a good year, so ratings wise you could see him being there but not with the year he was having. This is a big improvement over the release version and even the first big patch. In those versions I would see guys like JD Drew being waived (in my world he's a .280 35 HR type player). In the current version I don't find anyone like this being waived.

So the game continues to evolve and go through it's growing pains. I'm getting my money's worth and I guess that's all that matters to me. I mostly took the time to post becasue I thought MizzouRah might be interested after I read his post.

I am interested and it's good to see Markus addressing the issues I had from previous versions.

Is it still a pain in the butt to start a normal MLB style league? I just want to replicate the real MLB layout and whatever other leagues that I would need for that setup.

Thanks!!

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I am interested and it's good to see Markus addressing the issues I had from previous versions.

Is it still a pain in the butt to start a normal MLB style league? I just want to replicate the real MLB layout and whatever other leagues that I would need for that setup.

Thanks!!

Actually it's just a few clicks. Create new game -> click Major American League -> click start game -> Enter manager name -> select team -> Start.

That's it