[jadamanderson]

A love letter to OOTP

I absolutely love this game! I played for years solo and found online leagues during the pandemic. Now, I’m in 6 leagues (after trimming it down some) and commish 3 of them. I have raved about this game to anyone that’s listened. I’ve helped people become commissioners, I’ve created online videos as tutorials and I generally promote the living hell out of the game.

But it has been really frustrating, more and more, over the past couple of versions. I’m watching long time players stop playing and many in leagues get really upset of the direction, or lack of care the game seems to possess, especially for online league players.

While this is a letter to confess my love, it’s also a “WTF are we doing here peeps!?” letter. Why are we going backwards in some basic areas? So here are some topics I would love to have a better understanding:

• Why in the world is there no easy conduit to play online leagues? Thank goodness for Dave at Stats+ to make this work. I just don’t understand how you provide the door to play online, but when you open it, it’s just an empty cavern. I can’t image EA Sports (now I know that’s a different beast and level) providing any of their games to play online, but you have to figure it out yourself. You’re missing out on revenue! People pay to play in these leagues! Dave at stats+ has a structure already, so at worst use his platform. Could charge per league and/or for a commish to run. Could charge for tutorials or lessons/mentoring. Could bridge a gap between PT and online leagues. There is an entire community of hardcore players that have to find out how to do it and then have zero involvement in any other aspect of OOTP. I’d guess that 3% of the members in our online leagues play PT or still play solo. That’s a staggering number that you’re ignoring and could be making additional $ for better provisions. I’m just assuming that $ is the motivator, but in general- an entire world ignored, basically.
• Coach poaching is broken. When first introduced (I want to say 22) it was fine, then 23 and since it’s been terrible for online leagues. Rather than have a chance to reply to the email stating “I received an offer…” the same sim (typically 7 days) now also includes the “i took the other job” email. This either gives the option for commishes to: A) turn it off (most common) or B) Turn it on for the start of the pre-season and let the wild west be wild. So, a once good feature is now a mess and worthless in online leagues
• The finances are completely ****ed in 24! It’s common for offers to free agents or upcoming FA to change their demands by millions and/or go lower than your last offer. I JUST had a SP tell me that my $6m 1 year deal wasn’t what he was looking for, he wanted $5.6m for 1 year (insert face palm). I had one upcoming FA SP, that I had to make a decision on during arbitration to put a qualifying offer on or extend. He was making $10m per season before this contract expired. The first sim (all 7 days) he asked for $14m per season, then next sim he asked for $7m per season, then the final look was $17m per. Uhhh…it’s not even close.
• The international free agency is broken. One league we invited the same players the entire time they were available to our practices, while scouting them. Not one player shifted from a low scouting accuracy. How is that even possible? If they’re in our camp AND we’re asking our scout to scout….. They stay low for months on end? Stupid.
  Also lame how there’s zero INTL FA options. Some leagues like drafts, some have a bidding process based off team budget, but now the only way to do it is the way that it’s set, zero options to adjust.
• Here’s my biggest gripe, as the rest we just assume: They don’t care about online players, so we’ll find a way to workaround. If it’s not PT it’s not important.
  Since OOTP, the swings of scouting/player ratings when we change over to the new version is absolutely bonkers, with no rhyme or reason. We’ve watched 1st overall picks go from a rating of 67 ish, while in A+ ball, go to a 44 and the only thing that changed was that we switched to the new version, without a date advance. How!? Why!? It is so frustrating. I have one league/team that I’m in a rebuild, so my assets are my prospects. I had the 1st overall pick, 8th overall pick, 4th overall pick….. All those players now are barely going to be MLB backups, despite nothing changing except switching from 23-24. HAVE SOME CONSISTENCY! Or explain ahead of time how and why the players are ranked and scouted. If we knew that it took…. Defense into account more than speed or contact… that would help. But it ruins leagues, makes GMs want to quit, forces some commishes to edit players just to keep the peace. It’s making us all consider never changing over to a new version again, as it’s not worth the fallout.
  
  I have some other gripes, but also have ideas and features to offer to help. But I love, love, love this game and I really want to see it progres forward, not regress to the point where we don’t purchase new versions. We have some really smart, long term players that could offer a lot of insight and assistance, if ever desired. But when the prompt pops up to “rate this game” as I login to OOTP24, I think: they don’t want us to really do that. I respect and can’t even fathom the efforts it takes to make this game, and it’s great, but I honestly feel that there’s a sector that isn’t considered and therefore those features don’t advance the way they could/should.
  
  I hope this helps and inspires. Thank you for reading.