|
I've never played anything but offline, except for a brief foray into an MP league in OOTP5 and some experimenting with PT when it first came out. I have no interest in anything but offline. None whatsoever.
MP annoys me with GMs trying to weasel you with stupid trades all the time. My experience is the top players in MP are the not the most skilled, but the most social. It's not a test of OOTP skill but of time spent and persistence, like a Facebook game.
PT isn't even worth discussion. Its goal is to be something that is lame IMHO and it isn't even good at what it tries to be. Everyone using the same players, and unless they've changed things recently the anti-cheating efforts are pathetic. Honestly if you put money into that game and play it without using some kind of exploit then you are a mark.
For offline, you don't need house rules and you don't need to set trades to Very Hard, which to me makes the AI petulant and stubborn rather than challenging. You just have to think about your setup. You don't want parity. You want the top AI teams to be very strong, and you do this with league setups that reward rich teams and do not penalize teams for finishing with a good record, among other things. My best league a few years ago, I won 120 games and lost a pennant race to an AI team that won 125. That wasn't even a fictional league, mind. With a good setup I can still dominate, but I have to play my best to do it.
Ideas I've run with (among others I don't remember) are:
Play stats only.
If you're running a fictional league, have a lot of teams in it. You need to have a great team to make the playoffs when you've got 2 leagues with 24 teams apiece. Making the playoffs with a modern real setup is very easy and frustrating, since the best team doesn't win in the playoffs most of the time.
Get rid of rule 5 and waiver requirements. All of those iddy-biddy roster rules. The AI doesn't manage them well and they're kind of a pain in the butt anyway.
Get rid of the amateur draft and instead create new players with a massive international free agent draft with scouting discoveries maxed out. This means that rich, successful teams have an edge in acquiring talent.
It takes some creativity. OOTP doesn't have settings which could strengthen the best AI teams, such as serpentine drafts and so on, so you have to play around a bit. But you can find challenge in offline.
|