Well, I can think of a list of things I personally do in an effort to create the most challenging and realistic experience possible. Those two words (challenging and realistic) mean different things in my experience. For me, the idea is to try and find a good balance between the two...a challenging task for sure.
1. I set overall & potential ratings to 20-80 by 5's.
2. I set injuries to high (realistic modern day)
3. I do show personality ratings on the profile page. Some may argue this makes the game easier, but I think it's realistic to have a reasonable player makeup portion of a scouting report.
4. I change trade difficulty to the hardest level possible...while leaving the favor prospects/vets neutral.
5. I set AI evaluation settings to 55/20/15/10. I think it's imperative to have ratings at at least 55 for trading and waiver purposes. This is where challenging over realistic comes into play. I think it's important to go challenging here.
6. I change market sizes to the ones I recommend in this thread: I also use 2 percent inflation.
https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...t=market+sizes
7. I am not a huge dynamic evolution fan, but if you want to use it, I only recommend using more/less offense and defense....disable the rest.
8. I re-name all the awards to their actual names.
9. This one depends if you are using other International or Independent Leagues. If you have them all ENABLED...then DISABLE the generate IEFA & generate FA from Indy leagues.
10. For my minor leagues I use actual roster rules:
AAA 28 players no service limit
AA 28 players no service limit
A+ 30 players 5 years service limit
A 30 players 4 years service limit
FCL & ACL 35 players (in reality this is usually unlimited...but the actual rule of 180 total players can't be replicated) 3 years service limit
DSL 35 players 3 years service limit
11. I change all awards in every league to best match reality. I also attempt to replicate roster rules in all of the leagues the best I can to match reality...although this is simply going to be impossible in many cases.
12. I ensure all leagues using reserve rosters have a limit of 15 players available on the reserve roster. This may even be too many, but it seems reasonable to me, so that teams' don't hoard players. It's the same reason I use a 35 player limit in all rookie minor leagues.
13. Enable inflation of all leagues at 2%.
14. Ensure I have all of the correct logos and ballcaps. I try to get all of the right jerseys, but some just aren't available. I zoom in all the way on photo players to minimize this.
15. Have Fun!!