OOTP 18 Released Today

[RainMaker]

Anyone pre-order this? I'm waiting till the 24th to buy through Steam. Looking forward to it. Full list of new features here.

Final OOTP 18 feature & improvements list - OOTP Developments Forums

[JonInMiddleGA]

I didn't even know it was in jail.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I didn't even know it was in jail.

Good gracious. That's almost a boxable offense. DO BETTER, JON!

[Icy]

Downloading it right now!

[CrescentMoonie]

Not many changes and it looks like they ignored the completely screwed up way that expansion is done for minor league affiliates. Another hard pass for an overpriced product that is coasting on its past achievements instead of making real improvements.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Good gracious. That's almost a boxable offense. DO BETTER, JON!

Hey, it's Monday. Standards are lower dammit.

[SirFozzie]

Interesting things for me, as I've been playing is that promotion/relegation setup is in the game now, as is more historical leagues (3 of the seven recognized Negro Major leagues), and a challenge mode.

One think I have to say is that the program runs great. All games have teething problems it seems, crashes to dekstop etcetera, but this runs perfectly.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Interesting things for me, as I've been playing is that promotion/relegation setup is in the game now, as is more historical leagues (3 of the seven recognized Negro Major leagues), and a challenge mode.

One think I have to say is that the program runs great. All games have teething problems it seems, crashes to dekstop etcetera, but this runs perfectly.

yeah, but the average person -- especially now with the MLB license -- isn't playing that way. There are so many out of the box things that they just ignore like the financial system thinking that nobody wants it, because they're trying to appeal to this imaginary fan base that isn't going to play text sims.

But you know, shout out to the chancellor.

Originally Posted by CrescentMoonie

Not many changes and it looks like they ignored the completely screwed up way that expansion is done for minor league affiliates. Another hard pass for an overpriced product that is coasting on its past achievements instead of making real improvements.

Ugh, I almost forgot how annoying that is. Yeah...

[Johnny93g]

Originally Posted by CrescentMoonie

Not many changes and it looks like they ignored the completely screwed up way that expansion is done for minor league affiliates. Another hard pass for an overpriced product that is coasting on its past achievements instead of making real improvements.

Whats this? That would be an issue for me

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Johnny93g

Whats this? That would be an issue for me

When you expand, the game expands affiliates in random leagues, so you basically have to reconstruct your minor leagues to make them work for how you want them. It seems like a better way would be to give you the chance to expand the minors separately or not to add minor league affiliates automatically at all and let you do it on your own, but I guess then you wouldn't get to autoschedule them.

It's just cumbersome unless you don't care about where your expanded affiliates end up.

It just seems strange they'd add pro/rel and H2H (a decade late) but not address this pretty fundamental functionality.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

It just seems strange they'd add pro/rel and H2H (a decade late) but not address this pretty fundamental functionality.

I'd saying missing one or more fundamental things is kind of a trademark.

Out of curiosity, did the game ever figure out how bunting & pitching strategy actually work?

[CrescentMoonie]

Originally Posted by Johnny93g

Whats this? That would be an issue for me

If you do a real league with the current setup, and set up the rules to allow expansion, the new teams will come in with really jacked up minor league affiliates. There's no distinction in the game between A+ and A full season leagues, so the typical expansion team typically has AAA, AA, A, Short Season A, and 2 rookie league teams (usually in the same league). It skips the A+ level completely. It takes a step out of the process that every team has as part of their minor league setup. Then there's the nuisance of taking those new minor league teams and putting them in cities that make sense for the league they're assigned to. It's ridiculous to have a team located in Georgia playing in the Pioneer league and other things like that.

[Johnny93g]

Originally Posted by CrescentMoonie

If you do a real league with the current setup, and set up the rules to allow expansion, the new teams will come in with really jacked up minor league affiliates. There's no distinction in the game between A+ and A full season leagues, so the typical expansion team typically has AAA, AA, A, Short Season A, and 2 rookie league teams (usually in the same league). It skips the A+ level completely. It takes a step out of the process that every team has as part of their minor league setup. Then there's the nuisance of taking those new minor league teams and putting them in cities that make sense for the league they're assigned to. It's ridiculous to have a team located in Georgia playing in the Pioneer league and other things like that.

Fuck, that really bugs me. We got 3d highlights though....

[Johnny93g]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

When you expand, the game expands affiliates in random leagues, so you basically have to reconstruct your minor leagues to make them work for how you want them. It seems like a better way would be to give you the chance to expand the minors separately or not to add minor league affiliates automatically at all and let you do it on your own, but I guess then you wouldn't get to autoschedule them.

It's just cumbersome unless you don't care about where your expanded affiliates end up.

It just seems strange they'd add pro/rel and H2H (a decade late) but not address this pretty fundamental functionality.

Do you guys know if they fixed the problem from last year? In historical, if the Buffalo Bisons moved from the Mets to the Jays affiliate, they took all the players......

[CrescentMoonie]

They don't fix actual realism problems. That's why I paid $1 for the game as part of a humble bundle last year and won't buy it again unless it's a similar deal.

[claphamsa]

too much 3D horse shit, no fixing actual issues.

[BigPapi]

Originally Posted by CrescentMoonie

They don't fix actual realism problems. That's why I paid $1 for the game as part of a humble bundle last year and won't buy it again unless it's a similar deal.

I bought last year, but this game has stagnated so badly the last several years- I am pretty much done with it. I really can't believe the lack of improvements in this year's game. Promotion/Relegation.... Really?

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

The joke with the 3d is it is still not even good. They now have been working on it for at least two years. You would think there would be greater progress in the player models and animations.

Also, agreed that the financials are sorely lacking.

[RainMaker]

The game is catered toward the handful of people on the OOTP forums who are vocal and want to build some weird version of baseball with things that are not in the actual sport. I personally think he'd make more money catering toward fans of MLB, but what do I know?

[RainMaker]

And I will defend the 3D stuff. Not whether it's good or not but whether it's a necessary part of the game. If you're going to garner a bigger audience, you need some visual element. Hopefully it gets better with time.

[MizzouRah]

I'm a 3d whore! Can't wait to import my 17 league. I don't care what anyone says, OOTP has always been my favorite text sim.

[miked]

We bought v17 because it was impossible to find new owners in our online league. Now, when a player gets cut in an export, he re-appears on the team the next day. Known issue, not fixed, but hey, 3D.

[McLovin]

Scouting is still horrible, Draft is so bland, Coaching is worthless, Finances are a mess. So they add Promo/Releg. I don't like the direction they're taking this game.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

I don't know if coaching is worthless... I haven't done extensive testing on it, but on the surface it looks like there are interesting choices to be made. You can choose based on a a manager's personality and tactics. I do go for a smallball coach when I have a speed team for example.

As for draft, I agree it is bland, but I don't know what can be done to make it more interesting. Heck, in real life, it isn't all that interesting. It only began being televised a couple of years ago.

[lungs]

This is always a must buy for me. I'll admit that I rarely play MLB beyond managing single season historical sims game by game.

Part of the fun part that makes me love this game is doing all the stuff that people bitch about being included.

*goes off to work on my Angolan Amputee Amateur League*

[MizzouRah]

Do people really watch MLB drafts? I mean football drafts are ok to watch, but they are boing in FOF.

What's wrong with scouting? As far as being a GM and hiring a manager and staff that fits your style.. I find it much better in 17 than it ever has been.

18 now has a personality/morale tab to better figure out who's a butthead on your team, and some other stuff I've seen posted (I haven't installed it yet).

I don't care for promotion/regulation or some of the other stuff, but for me it plays a realistic game of MLB.

I think Markus does a fantastic job of coming up with new ideas. It's funny how bland FOF is and I don't hear near the griping as I do each year with OOTP.

To each his own I guess... the GUI alone in OOTP is years beyond any text sim out there.. IMHO of course.

[JPhillips]

I always hate that the draft star ratings don't match your scout recommendations whether you use scouting or default ratings. Why does my scout recommend a three star pitcher instead of the four star pitcher still on the board?

But then the star ratings are screwed everywhere they appear.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

And I will defend the 3D stuff. Not whether it's good or not but whether it's a necessary part of the game. If you're going to garner a bigger audience, you need some visual element. Hopefully it gets better with time.

People forget how bad the FM 3d was at first.

[Drake]

I always pre-order OOTP. I haven't played more than a season (outside of the FOBL) in five or six years...but starting way back with OOTP3, it was the sim that scratched all of the itches I had for a career baseball sim. I'm grateful for that and all the fake baseball seasons Markus and crew gave me.

So I buy out of a sense of nostalgia and for all of the seasons I didn't get to play as a kid because the technology didn't exist. Even knowing that I'll probably never play it now, I think that in some weird way I'm just doing my bit to keep the genre alive for all of those kids out there who are like I used to be.

[Ramzavail]

Originally Posted by Drake

I always pre-order OOTP. I haven't played more than a season (outside of the FOBL) in five or six years...but starting way back with OOTP3, it was the sim that scratched all of the itches I had for a career baseball sim. I'm grateful for that and all the fake baseball seasons Markus and crew gave me.

So I buy out of a sense of nostalgia and for all of the seasons I didn't get to play as a kid because the technology didn't exist. Even knowing that I'll probably never play it now, I think that in some weird way I'm just doing my bit to keep the genre alive for all of those kids out there who are like I used to be.

+1

[SirFozzie]

It's kinda amazing the reaction here, compared to elsewhere. If you listened to FOFC members, this is a stagnating game that hasn't been worth purchasing for several years, and then you look at the reviews for the last version, and find out it got the Game of the Year award from Metacritic.

Not saying people are wrong, either side, but I think that some of it is that FOFC is more grognard-focused (I almost said hipsterish at first, but that's not really it).

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Drake

...but starting way back with OOTP3, it was the sim that scratched all of the itches I had for a career baseball sim. I'm grateful for that and all the fake baseball seasons Markus and crew gave me.

So I buy out of a sense of nostalgia and for all of the seasons I didn't get to play as a kid because the technology didn't exist. Even knowing that I'll probably never play it now, I think that in some weird way I'm just doing my bit to keep the genre alive for all of those kids out there who are like I used to be.

Feel similar, despite my bitching.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

It's kinda amazing the reaction here, compared to elsewhere. If you listened to FOFC members, this is a stagnating game that hasn't been worth purchasing for several years, and then you look at the reviews for the last version, and find out it got the Game of the Year award from Metacritic.

Not saying people are wrong, either side, but I think that some of it is that FOFC is more grognard-focused (I almost said hipsterish at first, but that's not really it).

OOTP is basically the FM of baseball at this point without a fraction of the sales. But as a result, you'll get people like us who have been with the game since it started and wish he'd address basic things that'd make it work better and then you have new people who are like we were a decade ago, but haven't had to deal with the slog of how frustrating the game used to be, who are just happy to have discovered this text sim that does things that no other baseball game on the market does.

I don't think either side is wrong. But the criticism isn't unwarranted, awards notwithstanding. We're just all judging on a different scale.

[Johnny93g]

I hate how OOTP scouts.

I find it to much of a coin flip. Too random.

OSA, just a baseline, is always radically different then a regular scouts view.
You get 10 scouts together. 2 might see 20 year old Mike Trout as the next coming of Jesus. 5 might see him as a good player. 3 might see him as a horrible player. RANDOM. Whose right? There's no way you can know.

So if you get the top spot in a draft. You aren't really making a educated guess. You are hoping you are lucky enough to have a scout which doesn't hate the best player available. Random...

[TexasT]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Do people really watch MLB drafts? I mean football drafts are ok to watch, but they are boing in FOF.

What's wrong with scouting? As far as being a GM and hiring a manager and staff that fits your style.. I find it much better in 17 than it ever has been.

18 now has a personality/morale tab to better figure out who's a butthead on your team, and some other stuff I've seen posted (I haven't installed it yet).

I don't care for promotion/regulation or some of the other stuff, but for me it plays a realistic game of MLB.

I think Markus does a fantastic job of coming up with new ideas. It's funny how bland FOF is and I don't hear near the griping as I do each year with OOTP.

To each his own I guess... the GUI alone in OOTP is years beyond any text sim out there.. IMHO of course.

Love OOTP. Best sports sim ever. Have bought them all.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Do people really watch MLB drafts? I mean football drafts are ok to watch, but they are boing in FOF.

What's wrong with scouting? As far as being a GM and hiring a manager and staff that fits your style.. I find it much better in 17 than it ever has been.

18 now has a personality/morale tab to better figure out who's a butthead on your team, and some other stuff I've seen posted (I haven't installed it yet).

I don't care for promotion/regulation or some of the other stuff, but for me it plays a realistic game of MLB.

I think Markus does a fantastic job of coming up with new ideas. It's funny how bland FOF is and I don't hear near the griping as I do each year with OOTP.

To each his own I guess... the GUI alone in OOTP is years beyond any text sim out there.. IMHO of course.

Are you serious? That's the biggest thing FOF gets crap for. People don't like the UI.

As for bland. . . I kind of expect all text sims to be "bland" It's a niche market. I get that me getting psyched up for a guy rated 8.3 in an FOF draft is only going to be interesting to me and a few other geeks like me.

The most important thing for a text sim to do is to get the major stuff right. The financials of OOTP have been a trainwreck for years. Basic baseball strategy isn't always executed well at all. If you don't set up your lineups and have the game do it? It makes horrible decisions.

Instead of fixing some pretty important things, we get promotion and relegation.

I'm not bashing you here. You love the game and that's wonderful. But don't act like FOF doesn't get criticism. It does. What it does is get most of the big things right for ME. (others can have their own opinions) I will be skipping it this year. I wouldn't mind a "blander" baseball game than OOTP that understood financials.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by TroyF

Are you serious? That's the biggest thing FOF gets crap for. People don't like the UI.

As for bland. . . I kind of expect all text sims to be "bland" It's a niche market. I get that me getting psyched up for a guy rated 8.3 in an FOF draft is only going to be interesting to me and a few other geeks like me.

The most important thing for a text sim to do is to get the major stuff right. The financials of OOTP have been a trainwreck for years. Basic baseball strategy isn't always executed well at all. If you don't set up your lineups and have the game do it? It makes horrible decisions.

Instead of fixing some pretty important things, we get promotion and relegation.

I'm not bashing you here. You love the game and that's wonderful. But don't act like FOF doesn't get criticism. It does. What it does is get most of the big things right for ME. (others can have their own opinions) I will be skipping it this year. I wouldn't mind a "blander" baseball game than OOTP that understood financials.

Am I serious about what? I'm confused here???

I play the MLB QS and I don't see issues with financials.. maybe I just don't notice whatever issues there are?

When I hire a manager (since v17) I hire one that caters to my style (stealing/hit and run, etc) and if the lineup isn't perfect (more times it is than it's not) then I make sure my manager allows me to tinker with it and I tweak if necessary.

Like you feel with FOF, I feel the same with OOTP, it gets the BIG things right for ME. The immersion level is a billion times greater for me than FOF and I like FOF.

I played 13 seasons with OOTP 16/17 and I'm going to start clean with OOTP 18, more so with cleaning up my HD a bit.

I respect your opinion though.. I just think these forums are a bit harsh on OOTP and have always been that way for some reason. Maybe I'm being a fanboy..

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Maybe I'm being a fanboy..

I just bit my tongue so hard I actually yelped in response to the pain.

And it wasn't really even you I nearly took a shot at

[CrescentMoonie]

OOTP doesn't get assigning minor league affiliates right for expansion. The management and strategy issues are myriad. The financials are nonsensical. One part that kills me is if my scouting director quits/retires and I hire a new one, even if the new one is rated the same and favors the same things, suddenly all my prospects have wildly different ratings that seem to legitimately change the way they're developing. I could also do without the 3.5/4 star prospect who plays very well, showing improvement across the board, who comes back after the offseason as a 1.5/2.5 star prospect with no explanation as to why.

It's a great idea, and at one point was a great game, but it's not meaningfully different on actual baseball issues from 5+ years ago.

[fortheglory]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I always hate that the draft star ratings don't match your scout recommendations whether you use scouting or default ratings. Why does my scout recommend a three star pitcher instead of the four star pitcher still on the board?

But then the star ratings are screwed everywhere they appear.

This is fixed.

[fortheglory]

Originally Posted by Johnny93g

I hate how OOTP scouts.

I find it to much of a coin flip. Too random.

OSA, just a baseline, is always radically different then a regular scouts view.
You get 10 scouts together. 2 might see 20 year old Mike Trout as the next coming of Jesus. 5 might see him as a good player. 3 might see him as a horrible player. RANDOM. Whose right? There's no way you can know.

So if you get the top spot in a draft. You aren't really making a educated guess. You are hoping you are lucky enough to have a scout which doesn't hate the best player available. Random...

A good reason to use very accurate scouting accuracy.

[CrescentMoonie]

Originally Posted by fortheglory

A good reason to use very accurate scouting accuracy.

Even then, when you change scouts, the ratings change even if the scouts are essentially the same.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I just bit my tongue so hard I actually yelped in response to the pain.

And it wasn't really even you I nearly took a shot at

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Am I serious about what? I'm confused here???

I play the MLB QS and I don't see issues with financials.. maybe I just don't notice whatever issues there are?

When I hire a manager (since v17) I hire one that caters to my style (stealing/hit and run, etc) and if the lineup isn't perfect (more times it is than it's not) then I make sure my manager allows me to tinker with it and I tweak if necessary.

Like you feel with FOF, I feel the same with OOTP, it gets the BIG things right for ME. The immersion level is a billion times greater for me than FOF and I like FOF.

I played 13 seasons with OOTP 16/17 and I'm going to start clean with OOTP 18, more so with cleaning up my HD a bit.

I respect your opinion though.. I just think these forums are a bit harsh on OOTP and have always been that way for some reason. Maybe I'm being a fanboy..

I don't feel the need to get into why the financials are and always have been a train wreck. Young Drachma has a financial mod that helps, but the constant tweaking is exhausting.

And the fanboyism is so large, that giving any type of criticism to the game means you are being "hard" on it.

Here is an example of someone having a concern with the game on the OOTP boards and the response to it:

Profile ratings don't agree with scouting - OOTP Developments Forums

The stars rating has been something brought up for years. The "solution" is to turn them off so you have some consistency in what your lead scout says vs. what the game is showing you. Every single issue with the game I have ever had gets the same treatment. Scouting sucks, make it 100%. Stars suck, turn them off. Financials suck, download a utility and adjust markets or tweak the financial settings at the start of the game so it becomes logical, it gets exhausting.

I can live with imperfect. I actually love a few of the things OOTP has done over the years. (the random historical draft is a sensational idea and a lot of fun) I'll leave the thread now, this is for people excited for the game and I won't ruin it for you guys. Enjoy and I really, really hope you don't have a serious issue with the game at any point. If you do, you'll be a big bad meanie too.

[MrBug708]

I'm an every other year OOTP buyer. For the reasons on both sides of the issue.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

maybe I just don't notice whatever issues there are?

{snip}

I make sure my manager allows me to tinker with it and I tweak if necessary

{snip}

I played 13 seasons with OOTP 16/17

Removed the fluff. Left in the key statements to this discussion.

Todd, my observation from seeing your comments about games over the years is that not just with OOTP, but with all games, you start in the current season with rosters of real-life-named players and play less than a generation of players worth of seasons, usually with teams that are local to you. That's what you like to do. Good on you. Glad you like it.

But to be 100% clear, many of the game-breaking major issues with OOTP aren't necessarily seen or amplified when you play this way, especially if you enjoy micromanaging lineups, and FOFC tends to have a lot of "long career" type players, and that's where OOTP can fall short. I think it's heavily a matter of play style here.

Troy likes to run 100-season leagues of OOTP careers and look at results. DC likes to play generations upon generations. (He has like a 300-season league.) I *never* play any OOTP SP unless at least 25 seasons have been pre-simmed before I start playing. When you play that way, the utter and complete pile of unintelligible steaming dung that is the OOTP financial system comes to the forefront (among other issues).

[djsatu]

With all the bickering back and forth, can we get some impressions please!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by TroyF

And the fanboyism is so large, that giving any type of criticism to the game means you are being "hard" on it.

It's important that there be some constants in life ... death & taxes are certainly joined by that little reality you just mentioned.

Alas, in some minds, what you describe is considered a "feature" rather than a bug.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Removed the fluff. Left in the key statements to this discussion.

Todd, my observation from seeing your comments about games over the years is that not just with OOTP, but with all games, you start in the current season with rosters of real-life-named players and play less than a generation of players worth of seasons, usually with teams that are local to you. That's what you like to do. Good on you. Glad you like it.

But to be 100% clear, many of the game-breaking major issues with OOTP aren't necessarily seen or amplified when you play this way, especially if you enjoy micromanaging lineups, and FOFC tends to have a lot of "long career" type players, and that's where OOTP can fall short. I think it's heavily a matter of play style here.

Troy likes to run 100-season leagues of OOTP careers and look at results. DC likes to play generations upon generations. (He has like a 300-season league.) I *never* play any OOTP SP unless at least 25 seasons have been pre-simmed before I start playing. When you play that way, the utter and complete pile of unintelligible steaming dung that is the OOTP financial system comes to the forefront (among other issues).

Thanks Ben, makes sense now.

As high ranking as you are around the text sim world.. I assume you have sent PM's to Markus on these issues? I just find it troubling that he doesn't take your issues seriously... kind of odd, actually.

[lungs]

I simmed about 130 years in one single player setup I used in OOTP 16 and 17. It was a 48 team Major League with four levels of minors. Before the initial fantasy draft, I set budgets for each of the franchises and had the game adjust market size based on that.

In my 130 years of simming I thought the financials were generally pretty decent. The lower budget teams struggled, high budget teams did well. I thought OOTP 17 was a lot better in terms of contracts and contract negotiations. No more seven year contracts for crappy players making $900,000/year. Very few WTF moments for me in OOTP 17. Obviously not an MLB setup but it's not really an Angolan Amputee League, either.

The one setup I'm going to attempt with OOTP 18 that I've unsuccessfully tried in the past is where there are no amateur drafts and all players that graduate from the feeder league start as free agents. A complete free market setup with a variety of different leagues. Only one minor league team per Major League team. We'll see how it goes. Creating a world and not having it work correctly is frustrating so I'll cross my fingers with this one!