OOTP Preview Thread (*17-YEAR-LEAGUE UPLOADED 4/16/2K4*)

[Ben E Lou]

First off, it is immediately obvious to me that this is a *very* big, infinitely customizable game, and therefore trying to pull off a comprehensive preview is a very big task to undertake, especially considering that Markus has publicly said something to the effect that the game "will not be out before Friday." With that information, I have to operate on the assumption that I need to finish the preview by tomorrow night at the very latest. In case I don't get to some things before the release, I thought it best to do this in chunks. When all the chunks are posted, I'll combine them all into this first post.

First off, there are MANY, MANY setup options. Therefore, in the amount of time I'm working with, it is going to be impossible for me to even attempt to change around all the different settings and test things out that way. However, by letting you know what settings I'm using, you can get a feel for what the options are. For now, all discussion in this thread will be based on the followed starting setttings:

FINANCIAL SETTINGS

Financial System: Enabled

Salary Cap: None

Cash Max: $10M

National TV Contract Minimum: $5M

Only use National TV Minimum?: No, adjust to market

Minimum Player Salary: $300,000

Computer Trade: Enabled

Trading Frequency: Normal (5 options)

Trading Difficultly: Normal (5 options)

Trading AI Preference: Neutral (5 options)

Standard Roster Limit: 25 players

40-Man Roster Rule: Enabled

Waiver Rule: Enabled

Waiver Period: 3 Days

Minor League Option Years: Enabled

Rule 5 Draft: Enabled

Arbitration: Enabled

Minimum Days for 1 Service Year: 172

Minor League FA's: Enabled



ENGINE SET UP

Internal Game Engine: New OOTP6 engine

League Totals: (All Default--Modern Baseball Era)

Player Evaluation AI Setup: Ratings: 40%, 2004: 35%, 2003: 17%, 2002: 8% (default)

Player Creation Modifiers (all 0%): All batter and pitcher ratings can be modified from -100% to +200%

Player Development Modifiers: all 0%--options are there to change hitter or pitcher player development and/or aging speed from -100% to +200%



BASIC SET UP

League Mode: Career

Coach/Scout System: Disabled

Simulate Minors: Enabled

All Ratings Options set 1-100. They can be none, 1 to 5, 2 to 8, 1 to 10, 1 to 20, and 1 to 100.

Normal 2004 MLB-Style League/Division Structure

Fictional Players

162 Games

Blank Record Book



I may or may not answer questions as we go along. I don't want to get too bogged down in minute details, but feel free to post them. I'll be checking in and reading responses in this thread the rest of this afternoon/evening.

[Ben E Lou]

Dola--

Know that it will probably be a couple of hours or so before I post anything else. I don't want to merely give you first impressions, but good analysis.

[GoSeahawks]

I'm glad you like to simulate multiple seasons quickly. I think what I'm most interested in is what type of stats the new engine produces. Anyway, good read so far.

[mtaystl03]

Oh, yes! Lets go OOTP6!

[Ben E Lou]

Just tooling around a bit, I have a feeling that the best way to go about this is going to be a diary/dynasty style of posting. (Hey, I'm making this up as I go along, ok?) So, here goes....



THE BEGINNING

I start off with a 60-round serpentine auto-draft, and select the auto-fill minors option as well. The first noticeable change is that after the draft is over, I am asked if I'd like to adjust all teams financials based on payrolls, and the game tells me that this is recommended. This is definitely a nice feature if it works properly! I select Atlanta as my team, and immediately go to the "Front Office" screen to see what's up with the adjusted financials. My initial payroll is $55.74M, which is 29th out of 30 teams. My market is listed as "slightly above average" with "good" fan loyalty. Ticket prices are at $10. Broadcast revenue is at $39M (22 local, 17 national). I go to the League News section to see everyone's financials, and here are a few snapshots:

• Everyone has 65 fan interest.
  
• Broadcast revenues range from low of $39M to high of $47M, and it appears to be based on the initial payrolls.
  
• For comparison, Milwaukee has the third-highest payroll ($73.1M). Their team market is "big" and loyalty is "good."
  

Based on the facts above, it appears that after an auto-draft, the game gives you an option to adjust the size of your team market, and therefore your local TV deal, based on your initial payroll. This sounds like a nice little added challenge for we those who play in fictional leagues: just select the team that has the lowest payroll as your team, and you'll automatically have the smallest market. Nice!



SIZING UP THE ROSTER

When doing this, I must report that one of my pet peeve interface annoyances about OOTP remains at this point. When I go to look at my second basemen, I'd like to see *everyone* who is a candidate to play second base. If I select by position and view the batting ratings (the only way to evaluate several players at one time), the game only shows me guys who have 2B as their primary position. The other option is to go to "general ratings/info" and sort by 2nd base, which reveals to me that SS Alfonso Espinosa has 77 range at 2B than at SS, and might be a viable option there. However, I have to click on his player card to see the rest of his ratings. There is one saving grace here, though: the star rating is available on the "General Ratings/Info" screen. At least that can quickly give me a general idea of what kind of talent I have available at a given position. Here are my best current options at each position:

NAME	Cont.	HR	Eye	Spd	Stl	Rng	Arm
C Bill Pilon	48	34	54	8	2	61	66
1B Steven Gebhart	50	34	61	51	49	48	7
2B Ken Moore	44	34	43	52	78	50	45
3B Eli Rowland	36	58	43	34	15	50	92
SS George Crosland	42	13	23	85	49	47	89
LF Clinton Weems	62	84	61	60	38	56	54
CF Richard Ebling	45	46	28	45	67	46	54
RF Dexter Foti	56	51	52	26	37	59	59

NAME	STUFF	CNTRL	MVMN	END
Terrance Takehide	46	42	75	92
Carlos Carrasco	44	77	64	89
James Brady	45	81	64	88
James "Big Stud" Urrutia	51	91	76	81
Bill Ponce	32	61	57	78
Gregg Rogge	43	56	58	75
Neille Hamrick	30	72	61	74
Humberto Rodriguez	51	78	66	64
Jeffry Kageyasu	39	65	62	63
Denver Nixon	32	69	77	51
Matt Yuhas	46	58	67	49
John Jones	49	74	73	32
Ernest Rivet	45	53	73	28
David Gibson	66	69	69	28
George Dillard	43	57	63	22
Juan Romriell	50	60	82	14
Kenneth Fisher	72	67	58	11

The biggest and most welcomed change from previous versions is that pitchers have ONE endurance rating, rather than one as a starter and one as a closer. Makes very good sense to me. Other ratings that are not listed in the spread sheet above are as follows:



POSITION PLAYERS

running instincts

sacrifice bunt

gap power (not shown on "general info" on player card...this appears to be an odd choice to me, unless it doesn't play as big a part as the other three)

bunt for hit

Every player has three throwing-arm ratings: catcher, IF and OF.

hitter type (spray, normal, pull)



Interestingly enough, the "Gap Power" rating is not shown on the main (General Info) player card, only on the player ratings screen and the HTML report. This is an odd choice to me, unless it is because this rating doesn't play as big a part as Con/Hr/Eye.



PITCHERS

velocity (this i given as a range, as in "88-92 mph")

holding runners

groundball %



All of the service time oriented information is available in two places: on the HTML player card, and via one click from the General Info player card screen. The info given:



years of MLB service

MLB service days this year

years on 40-man roster

years of pro service

rule 5 draft eligibility

arbitration eligibility

minor league option years left

on waivers?

One thing that has been mentioned is that the "Talent" ratings are now numerical, and it may be an adjustment for some. At least for me, this is a VERY welcome change, and a very fast adjustment. It is much easier to look over the "Top 10 Prospects" type reports now.


I think this is a good stopping point for now. I'm going to quick-sim the first season, letting the AI handle everything.

[rjolley]

I agree with the sorting of players by positions they can play, not just their primary. I hope Markus can add that in a patch. It would be a great if it was added for FAs too.

[Chubby]

cool, looks good so far SkyDog

[Ben E Lou]

I experience widely varying sim speeds with OOTP5 on the particular machine I am using right now, and I have no idea why, so take this figure with a grain of salt, but FYI, the first month took a little under 5 minutes to sim on a 2.6GHz machine. Starting sim season right as I hit "post reply" button.

[Rizon]

Oh god ... I only have one hand on the keyboard ...

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by Rizon

Oh god ... I only have one hand on the keyboard ...

Did you check the sock for ants first?

[Cecil Fielder]

nice reporting, SkyDog!

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by rjolley

I agree with the sorting of players by positions they can play, not just their primary. I hope Markus can add that in a patch. It would be a great if it was added for FAs too.

More importantly, the AI should recognize that certain players can play more than one position, not just their "primary position," when deciding who should start. This is much more important to me than the sorting option.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

More importantly, the AI should recognize that certain players can play more than one position, not just their "primary position," when deciding who should start.

As well as, IMO, when they determine FA signings, trades, etc. & et al.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

As well as, IMO, when they determine FA signings, trades, etc. & et al.

Both good points Ksyrup & Jon. I think this year has them look at stats as well as ratings this year, but I'm not sure on both of your statements. (probably not)


Todd

[rexallllsc]

Is 1-100 mandatory, or optional?

[CraigSca]

1-100 is optional - you can use 2-8, 1-10, 1-20, 1-100, or you can turn off the ratings completely.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I believe you said it was okay to post comments/questions along the way, so here's something that jumped out at me --

There's "Spd" = Speed
There's "Stl" = Steal
And on the player ratings screen there's "Baserunning instincts".

The roster you posted appears to have a couple of good candidates for some spot-checking.

2B Ken Moore - 52 Spd, 78 Stl
SS George Crosland - 85 Spd, 49 Stl

Logically, I believe a checking of the "baserunning instincts" for that duo should reveal: Good to above average instincts for 2B Moore & below average to bad instincts for SS Crosland.

I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.

[Buccaneer]

Very, very good idea for this preview. Given the middle settings for trades, I'm anxious to see how they improved the already good trading interface. One fantasy for me (as in all sports sims) is whether the AI can be competitive to you without too many house rules (esp. in financials). Also, this might be hard to check but one of the annoyances is how the AI manages its roster, esp. in regards to in-season signing FAs/releasing said FAs/bonehead trades/later/rinse/repeat. Other than that, as long as I can construct leagues from any eras and import Lahman, I'm happy.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by rexallllsc

Is 1-100 mandatory, or optional?

...

Originally Posted by SkyDog

All Ratings Options set 1-100. They can be none, 1 to 5, 2 to 8, 1 to 10, 1 to 20, and 1 to 100.

There ya go.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I believe you said it was okay to post comments/questions along the way, so here's something that jumped out at me --

There's "Spd" = Speed
There's "Stl" = Steal
And on the player ratings screen there's "Baserunning instincts".

The roster you posted appears to have a couple of good candidates for some spot-checking.

2B Ken Moore - 52 Spd, 78 Stl
SS George Crosland - 85 Spd, 49 Stl

Logically, I believe a checking of the "baserunning instincts" for that duo should reveal: Good to above average instincts for 2B Moore & below average to bad instincts for SS Crosland.

I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.

Here ya go:

Moore has instincts at 69. He stole 18 bases and was caught 3 times.

Crosland's instincts are 55. He spent the year at AAA, stealing 30 bases and being caught 11 times.

The AI made a better choice overall, I think, for the primary SS. It went with switch-hitter Cesar Marquez (41 con, 54 pow, 28 eye) against righties. He was .251-16-50 on the year, and youngster Sabas Gutierrez (41,51,25) started against lefties. He was .243-8-38.

[Ben E Lou]

I wanted to share this "global" impression that I have right now...

At this point, it appears that the bulk of the changes from OOTP5 to OOTP6 are "under the hood" changes, which is a *very* good thing. The waiver/rule 5/40-man roster stuff adds a layer of complexity, but isn't that radical. Tomorrow morning after a good overnight sim I think we'll have a much better feel for how the new under the hood stuff is working so far.

[Ben E Lou]

EDIT: Markus has found a fixed a bug that had an impact on stats being generated. I have therefore removed the HTML report from the server. He is getting another build to me, and I'll report back in on stats with that build later today or first thing tomorrow.

[Swaggs]

Hmmm... still says OOTP5 on the html.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

Hmmm... still says OOTP5 on the html.

Uh...it still says .400 Studios!

[Ben E Lou]

LOL. Didn't notice either of those things...If Markus isn't reading, I'll make sure to pass it along to him in the morning.

[Eaglesfan27]

That is really quite funny.

[Ben E Lou]

I'll leave commentary on the year 1 stats up to y'all, while I focus on my first offseason.

[Ksyrup]

Another small thing I'd like to see fixed (or changed) is when you start a new fictional league with a blank record book, the rookie records should actually be set by rookies. I'm not sure if there's a way for the computer to differentiate between rookies and vets playing their first games in this league, but I'm sick of having to go through and manually wipe out the rookie records after the first year, since the records are, by default, the league leaders from that first year. Especially since I've noticed that with certain leagues, the computer never fills in the rookie average leaders or HR leaders, for example, after I have wiped them out, and I have to manually search for the records to input them myself.

Just a small annoyance that I never remember to bring up over at the OOTP board.

[sooner333]

It couldn't be hard now, since they actually do service years and days. Whereas before, it would just be the players age.

[Ben E Lou]

First free agent extension process is impressive. I received about three or four different messages from the same guy (and was able to make about 7 different offers...) after each offer explaining two things:

1. what I needed to do to improve (more money or more years)
2. his "mood"

The "mood" comments are new, and serve as a nice warning as to whether you need to really up the ante or go home.

[chrisj]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

The "mood" comments are new, and serve as a nice warning as to whether you need to really up the ante or go home.

Actually, I'm pretty sure those were added in the last version 5 patch... but still a nice feature.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

First free agent extension process is impressive. I received about three or four different messages from the same guy (and was able to make about 7 different offers...) after each offer explaining two things:

1. what I needed to do to improve (more money or more years)
2. his "mood"

The "mood" comments are new, and serve as a nice warning as to whether you need to really up the ante or go home.

I don't think so, unless I didn't do the last patch. In any case, this is a superb feature that makes one of my favorite parts more interesting.

I'm anxious to see if the FA stages have any enhancements.

[CraigSca]

Yeah, some of the skins for some of the HTML output still includes references to OOTP5 and .400 - those are some of the last things that need to be changed before release. Boxscores were the same way up until a short time ago...

-Craig

[Cap Ologist]

I've never played OOTP before and know very little about baseball, but I bought the game today. Anyway, my first question is on the html stats...

what does WHIP stand for in the pitcher stats? (on the team stats and info page)

thanks in advance.


(edited to clarify where I was looking)

[kcchief19]

I know there's still some cleaning up to do, but here's hoping that Markus changes the "Eye/Discipline" column on the prospects page to just "Eye" so the formatting isn't all screwy.

The interest is piqued. Nice job as always, Ben. Keep it coming!

[Ben E Lou]

Ok. I'm very tired. Done for the night. I just created a new 16-team league, and set it to sim 50 seasons. We'll see how many it does, and talk about long-term stats tomorrow.

[chrisj]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

what does WHIP stand for in the pitcher stats? (on the team stats and info page)

WHIP = (walks + hits) / IP

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

what does WHIP stand for in the pitcher stats? (on the team stats and info page)

(Walks + Hits)/(Innings Pitched)

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

I've never played OOTP before and know very little about baseball, but I bought the game today. Anyway, my first question is on the html stats...

what does WHIP stand for in the pitcher stats? (on the team stats and info page)

thanks in advance.


(edited to clarify where I was looking)

That's awesome!
I'm in the same boat as far as soccer goes, maybe I should try CM 3/4?


Todd

[Buccaneer]

Ok, I'm seeing it again. Go to the League Transactions html. I am seeing AI teams trading for players and then releasing them a few days later. Also I am seeing way too many releasing/signing players to minor league contracts. Can this be looked at or tightened up please?

[Buccaneer]

Also, as indicated in the ootp thread, I don't think there are players being claimed off of waivers. In real life, are many players claimed this way? I love that we can place players on waivers, gives us another decision to make.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Ok, I'm seeing it again. Go to the League Transactions html. I am seeing AI teams trading for players and then releasing them a few days later. Also I am seeing way too many releasing/signing players to minor league contracts. Can this be looked at or tightened up please?

Go to bed Bucc.

I'm noticing some things like that as well, ugh! Although it's nice to see a CPU trade that has cash envolved. I wondered how in-depth that would be.


Todd

[Buccaneer]

That reminds me, can we NOW trade for draft picks?? I've been asking for this since v.4.

Mizzou, have to look at something and since GM stuff is my only interest, I pick up on things like this. I leave it to the geeks and grognards to look at the stats.

[CraigSca]

I just got the new build today from Markus, and in the season I just simmed the AI was claiming players off of waivers.

FWIW, I know that this one of the last things tweaked, and it made need further tweaking.

I'll talk to Markus about trading players and then releasing them. Shouldn't be too hard to fix. Personally, I've been looking at stats more - to make sure they fixed some of the weaknesses in previous versions - but things like this should be addressed as well.

-Craig

[kcchief19]

Agreed, Bucc. The number of players being release is a bit alarming. I realize they are mostly scrubs, but it's still excessive. I also don't like the sight of players being traded for and then getting released. Doesn't make a lot of sense. I know this things happened in v5, but they seem to be more excessive in this beta build.

I'm also not seeing a lot of rhyme or reason to waivers. I see a lot of players being sent down without clearing waivers, but I also see a lot of people clearing waivers and nothing happens. Of course, the html may not show the full story, so I won't get my knickers in a twist quite yet.

[INDalltheway]

Small thing, but it appears CF are put as "C(" on the Top Prospects page.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

That reminds me, can we NOW trade for draft picks?? I've been asking for this since v.4.

No, but you can include money now.

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

I'm also not seeing a lot of rhyme or reason to waivers. I see a lot of players being sent down without clearing waivers, but I also see a lot of people clearing waivers and nothing happens. Of course, the html may not show the full story, so I won't get my knickers in a twist quite yet.

You can send players to the minors without waivers if they haven't exhausted their option years. Are you seeing players demoted that are out of option years?

[Buccaneer]

Personally, I've been looking at stats more

Yeah, I know, that seems to be really important to a lot of people. To me, I thought the stats from v.4 were perfectly fine. I just look for a 8/8/7 pitcher usually going 17-9, 3.25. That's good enough for me because I don't care how he gets there. Spending too much time on tweaking (or re-doing) the engine take away from more important things like trading, free agenting and AI managing their rosters better. <-- is that enough?

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

That's awesome!
I'm in the same boat as far as soccer goes, maybe I should try CM 3/4?


Todd

Not to threadjack or anything, but based on my initial foray into this game tonight, I would strongly consider giving CM 3/4 a try