Would you use feeder leagues if they were more polished and easier to use?

spleen1015 · 03-03-2019, 11:02 AM

I believe feeder leagues is a feature that's not used by a lot of people. I wonder why. Is it because people really aren't interested in using them? Would more people use them if the concept was more polished? Would more people use them if they were easier to use?

So, a general poll to see.

waittilnextyear · 03-03-2019, 01:34 PM

I voted yes, because why not.

But, I am very lukewarm on feeders. I don't really see the point unless you're heavy into stats-only and want some more numbers to look at. As it is now, the generated draft classes already come with a year of stats and a competition level. Plus, if you are not stats-only, you are free to scout them. The extra hassle of setting up a properly functioning feeder league outweighs the usefulness of them in my opinion and with how I generally play. Making them easier to use would, of course, be better (without really stating what the opportunity cost of that would be) but I'm not sure that jives 100% with the added depth and features that people want to see. How do you make it deeper, more robust, with more options AND make it simpler to set up?

I don't know.

Findest2001 · 03-03-2019, 01:38 PM

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a feeder league?

low · 03-03-2019, 01:42 PM

Yes, of course. This feature getting some attention is high on my wishlist.

Germaniac · 03-03-2019, 01:43 PM

I think I would give it a try

endgame · 03-03-2019, 02:22 PM

I currently use them, but would enjoy a further investment that would elevate attention to both team and player information. For instance, I'd love to, with a click, find how many players currently on the active rosters hail from a certain college or how many players a certain high school had drafted in the first five rounds of ML drafts. I think there's a wealth of feeder-info that could be delivered to have a deeper view of the foundation building the future of the league.

NoOne · 03-03-2019, 02:27 PM

players have to be generated at some point. as long as it happens before the minor leagues, i am all good with it. even if feeders were default.

on a personal level, i don't care for amateur sports, especially high school sports. it's not real competition relative to how much they advance after ~14-18. the elites at that age aren't predictiably elite later one... that's enough reason for me not to care about low-quality, no-talent sporting events of children

even college is difficult to watch all the mistakes and lack of preperation type of errors.

i think if they have it in the game, it should be working well, though. is the current state abysmal or just not optimal? if small potato problems, i'm content with it on the backburner.

this sort of thing that isn't 100% integral to anything should be based on how many are using it. you don't want to put 100man-hours into something for ~$500 in profit, that you likely won't lose anyway by not messing with it.

so, that's a solid maybe, but it doesn't really affect how i play at all. if it's a popular feature, i hope you get what you want... if it's more of a novelty, then no.

Sweed · 03-03-2019, 02:38 PM

Wish there was a third option "I use them now and am happy with how they work".

I used them the first time they were added to OOTP. After a couple of seasons I turned them off to try with just a draft created class and immediately turned then back of after that season.

They work quite nicely if used as designed IMHO. They are draft creators where the teams play real games and stats\performance can be compared between players even if the stats are not completely realistic compared to real HS and College baseball, IE you don't have prodigies with "superman" stats. Instead what you have is a pool of players that have all generated stats in the same environment so making them comparable within the context of the league. You have the same autocalc
capabilities as any league to at least tailor the stats to be what you want. The bottom line is they do what they were intended to do, produce players for the professional leagues with stats accumulated in real games played that can be used in conjunction with scouting reports.

Some have noted that there are too many HS players and not enough College in the draft and think it needs fixed. I believe the person used the
percentages as 65% C and 35% HS in real life with feeders being more like 50/50. Markus suggested the best fix would be to create a feeder structure with 65% college teams and 35% HS. Makes sense to me but I believe this person rejected that and went with "if it's not fixed I won't buy XX".

My feeders are 4 MLB clone leagues, 2 HS 2 college. So 60 HS and 60 college teams (120 total teams) feed my league with a 25 round draft. I haven't checked the % HS\College but I'm sure more college get drafted than HS as some HS players go onto college. Some undrafted and others that were drafted but did not sign. I play out all of my games, so it will be awhile but in my next season, I will check the %s on my next draft.

Feeders were not designed to be playable, real world, high school and college baseball leagues. I think this is where a lot of the problem started as some users immediately went to a wish list of having this be so. I think some put feeders away because they can't make this work? I think others never try them because they read here how unrealistic they are, are hard to setup, etc.

My feeders were setup many versions ago so not sure how much has changed in how easy they are to create but back when I did mine it wasn't
particularly hard at all. From memory I think the only things I had to think about was player creation ages and how long players played so they would "graduate" at the right age.

I think too many give up on these to easily or never try at all because of posts they read here. If more tried them, keeping in mind how they were designed to be used, they might be surprised and happy with the results. With more users there comes a louder voice when asking Markus to make changes and improvements to the system.

One question while I'm here

..........

Since I never use game generated draft pools.... Do they include prodigies, guys like Joe Mauer that only struck out 2 times in 4 years of varsity high school baseball? Or are they all "normal" stats like a feeder league gives you?

jimmysthebestcop · 03-03-2019, 02:46 PM

I would say my biggest reason for no is sim time.

If your playing a full universe then adding MLB feeders into it. It could be simming as many games as all of MLB and Milb combined.

The game would have to positioned to take advantage of high end rigs. Now that 6 cores are common and 8 cores not far behind.

I really like challenge mode and you can't sim to select date so anything that slows down sim time just sucks.

PSUColonel · 03-03-2019, 07:45 PM

I’d rather see more independent and international leagues...particularly the Dominican winter league as a tournament.

spleen1015 · 03-03-2019, 11:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Findest2001

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a feeder league?

You can create HS and college leagues. The players from those leagues eventually become your draft classes.

jimmysthebestcop · 03-03-2019, 11:42 PM

I remember some one had like a feeder formula to calculate number of teams and depending on how many rounds you have and if you have a full universe or not some of the numbers were crazy.

Like more feeder teams than the rest of the world universe combines or pretty damn close.

Only been playing for a couple of years. But whats the mechanic that prevents fictional draft classes from having randomly generated stats and ratings based upon those?

It seems 1 area people really want feeder systems is to track their amateur stats for 4 - 8 years.

So why can't that just be done by the system without actually needing 150+ teams playing every year and wasting sim time and processing power?

polydamas · 03-04-2019, 01:49 AM

You should have included a "I already use feeder league" option, because I already do

Westheim · 03-04-2019, 03:46 AM

No. I can think of easier ways to balloon league and file size than the pile of dead weight created by hundreds or thousands of 15-year-olds that are not going to get drafted.

Mr. Marlin · 03-04-2019, 12:09 PM

I already use them. My style of play requires them. Because of that I am very much aware of their downside. And it's not that they are not polished. It's that they make a hell of a lot of players, data, face gens, etc most of which never see a singe AB in the minors. However my play style does need them so the juice is worth the squeeze. But just barely.

Mr. Marlin · 03-05-2019, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

it seems 1 area people really want feeder systems is to track their amateur stats for 4 - 8 years.

So why can't that just be done by the system without actually needing 150+ teams playing every year and wasting sim time and processing power?

amen!!!!

NoOne · 03-05-2019, 03:32 PM

i think it's a contradiction to what they mostly try to do, but below the minors it might be a useful compromise to simplify -- like only the draft class exists as opposed to the number necessary to produce a draft class based on RL data. you could do it in a way that requirers a smaller system... or it could scale relative to number of ML-teams like the normal draft does already and it won't matter what size you pick.

e.g. if you should average ~5 elite players per draft for ~30 ml teams, then that many will show up in feeders in proper numbers to maintain that under normal development engine outcomes.

the way it works right now, it sounds like it's a stock % of total number of players created, as opposed to being scaled to ML number of teams -- which explains the differences between addingn rounds and adding feeder teams. adding rounds generally does not increase talent beyond TCR opportunities. augmenting feeders seems to increase amount of talent create, no? 2 different animals to deal with.

but, some will still want the more naturally occuring.. the saling thing seems easy enough and likely still keeps it natural for those that don't mind doubling or tripling file size and slower sims. it just needs a better set of tracks to follow that force the same outcome within expected and needed volatility.

spartacus007 · 03-05-2019, 05:02 PM

Here in Arkansas, I follow college baseball more closely than MLB. (Hogs were SO close last year!)

I'd definitely play OOTP more with better feeder leagues.

I already use feeders in my fictional leagues. More polish would make them more immersive for me.

jimmysthebestcop · 03-05-2019, 06:09 PM

Why doesn't OOTP just have option to create fictional draft class where it creates stats for 4+ years depending on HS or College and populate ratings based on those stats.

I mean they are fictional players anyway. Why populate them with ZERO stats?

Is there like some kind of official answer to that? Its the one thing I dont get in OOTP but I've only been playing since 18.

NoOne · 03-08-2019, 07:44 PM

they used to be generated with 1 year of stats, did that end?

either way, due to competition, especially vs hs-quality athletes, it's mostly meaningless. take this anecdotal nonsense -- the guy who set many of the recrods for hs baseball i michigan is a gigantic bust as a pro baseball player. (and a top-tier football prospect bust too!)

when you throw 95 in high school, no one can hit you. that's no big deal to real baseball athletes. they are few and far between. even this guy who is infinitely better than the majority of all high school baseball athletes and he couldn't cut it.

it's not that he is inferior... just inferior to the "best." that's no big deal.

03-03-2019, 11:02 AM	#1
spleen1015 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 5,982	Would you use feeder leagues if they were more polished and easier to use? I believe feeder leagues is a feature that's not used by a lot of people. I wonder why. Is it because people really aren't interested in using them? Would more people use them if the concept was more polished? Would more people use them if they were easier to use? So, a general poll to see. Last edited by spleen1015; 03-03-2019 at 11:04 AM.

03-03-2019, 01:42 PM	#4
low Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2010 Location: Wisconsin, USA Posts: 5,942	Yes, of course. This feature getting some attention is high on my wishlist. __________________ My fictional team logos and uniforms

03-03-2019, 01:43 PM	#5
Germaniac Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Frankenthal, Germany Posts: 3,054	I think I would give it a try __________________ I'm going to have to meet my Maker some day. And if He asks me why I didn't let this boy play, and I say it's because he's black, that might not be a satisfactory answer. Happy Chandler, 1947

03-03-2019, 02:22 PM	#6
endgame Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 16,842	I currently use them, but would enjoy a further investment that would elevate attention to both team and player information. For instance, I'd love to, with a click, find how many players currently on the active rosters hail from a certain college or how many players a certain high school had drafted in the first five rounds of ML drafts. I think there's a wealth of feeder-info that could be delivered to have a deeper view of the foundation building the future of the league. __________________ "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett _____________________________________________

03-03-2019, 02:27 PM	#7
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,228	players have to be generated at some point. as long as it happens before the minor leagues, i am all good with it. even if feeders were default. on a personal level, i don't care for amateur sports, especially high school sports. it's not real competition relative to how much they advance after ~14-18. the elites at that age aren't predictiably elite later one... that's enough reason for me not to care about low-quality, no-talent sporting events of children even college is difficult to watch all the mistakes and lack of preperation type of errors. i think if they have it in the game, it should be working well, though. is the current state abysmal or just not optimal? if small potato problems, i'm content with it on the backburner. this sort of thing that isn't 100% integral to anything should be based on how many are using it. you don't want to put 100man-hours into something for ~$500 in profit, that you likely won't lose anyway by not messing with it. so, that's a solid maybe, but it doesn't really affect how i play at all. if it's a popular feature, i hope you get what you want... if it's more of a novelty, then no. Last edited by NoOne; 03-03-2019 at 02:28 PM.

View Poll Results: Would you use feeder leagues if they were more polished and easier to use?
Yes	44	80.00%
No	11	20.00%
Voters: 55. You may not vote on this poll

03-03-2019, 01:34 PM	#2
waittilnextyear All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2016 Posts: 1,273	I voted yes, because why not. But, I am very lukewarm on feeders. I don't really see the point unless you're heavy into stats-only and want some more numbers to look at. As it is now, the generated draft classes already come with a year of stats and a competition level. Plus, if you are not stats-only, you are free to scout them. The extra hassle of setting up a properly functioning feeder league outweighs the usefulness of them in my opinion and with how I generally play. Making them easier to use would, of course, be better (without really stating what the opportunity cost of that would be) but I'm not sure that jives 100% with the added depth and features that people want to see. How do you make it deeper, more robust, with more options AND make it simpler to set up? I don't know.

03-03-2019, 01:38 PM	#3
Findest2001 All Star Reserve Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Boston Posts: 960	Pardon my ignorance, but what is a feeder league?

03-03-2019, 02:38 PM	#8
Sweed Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Iowa Posts: 6,569	Wish there was a third option "I use them now and am happy with how they work". I used them the first time they were added to OOTP. After a couple of seasons I turned them off to try with just a draft created class and immediately turned then back of after that season. They work quite nicely if used as designed IMHO. They are draft creators where the teams play real games and stats\performance can be compared between players even if the stats are not completely realistic compared to real HS and College baseball, IE you don't have prodigies with "superman" stats. Instead what you have is a pool of players that have all generated stats in the same environment so making them comparable within the context of the league. You have the same autocalc capabilities as any league to at least tailor the stats to be what you want. The bottom line is they do what they were intended to do, produce players for the professional leagues with stats accumulated in real games played that can be used in conjunction with scouting reports. Some have noted that there are too many HS players and not enough College in the draft and think it needs fixed. I believe the person used the percentages as 65% C and 35% HS in real life with feeders being more like 50/50. Markus suggested the best fix would be to create a feeder structure with 65% college teams and 35% HS. Makes sense to me but I believe this person rejected that and went with "if it's not fixed I won't buy XX". My feeders are 4 MLB clone leagues, 2 HS 2 college. So 60 HS and 60 college teams (120 total teams) feed my league with a 25 round draft. I haven't checked the % HS\College but I'm sure more college get drafted than HS as some HS players go onto college. Some undrafted and others that were drafted but did not sign. I play out all of my games, so it will be awhile but in my next season, I will check the %s on my next draft. Feeders were not designed to be playable, real world, high school and college baseball leagues. I think this is where a lot of the problem started as some users immediately went to a wish list of having this be so. I think some put feeders away because they can't make this work? I think others never try them because they read here how unrealistic they are, are hard to setup, etc. My feeders were setup many versions ago so not sure how much has changed in how easy they are to create but back when I did mine it wasn't particularly hard at all. From memory I think the only things I had to think about was player creation ages and how long players played so they would "graduate" at the right age. I think too many give up on these to easily or never try at all because of posts they read here. If more tried them, keeping in mind how they were designed to be used, they might be surprised and happy with the results. With more users there comes a louder voice when asking Markus to make changes and improvements to the system. One question while I'm here .......... Since I never use game generated draft pools.... Do they include prodigies, guys like Joe Mauer that only struck out 2 times in 4 years of varsity high school baseball? Or are they all "normal" stats like a feeder league gives you? Last edited by Sweed; 03-03-2019 at 05:15 PM. Reason: spelling correction

03-03-2019, 02:46 PM	#9
jimmysthebestcop Banned Join Date: Jun 2018 Posts: 1,728 Infractions: 0/2 (5)	I would say my biggest reason for no is sim time. If your playing a full universe then adding MLB feeders into it. It could be simming as many games as all of MLB and Milb combined. The game would have to positioned to take advantage of high end rigs. Now that 6 cores are common and 8 cores not far behind. I really like challenge mode and you can't sim to select date so anything that slows down sim time just sucks.

03-03-2019, 07:45 PM	#10
PSUColonel Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 13,089 Blog Entries: 37	I’d rather see more independent and international leagues...particularly the Dominican winter league as a tournament.

03-03-2019, 11:42 PM	#12
jimmysthebestcop Banned Join Date: Jun 2018 Posts: 1,728 Infractions: 0/2 (5)	I remember some one had like a feeder formula to calculate number of teams and depending on how many rounds you have and if you have a full universe or not some of the numbers were crazy. Like more feeder teams than the rest of the world universe combines or pretty damn close. Only been playing for a couple of years. But whats the mechanic that prevents fictional draft classes from having randomly generated stats and ratings based upon those? It seems 1 area people really want feeder systems is to track their amateur stats for 4 - 8 years. So why can't that just be done by the system without actually needing 150+ teams playing every year and wasting sim time and processing power?

03-04-2019, 01:49 AM	#13
polydamas All Star Reserve Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 599	You should have included a "I already use feeder league" option, because I already do

03-04-2019, 03:46 AM	#14
Westheim Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 12,995	No. I can think of easier ways to balloon league and file size than the pile of dead weight created by hundreds or thousands of 15-year-olds that are not going to get drafted. __________________ Portland Raccoons, 89 years of excell-.... of baseball: Furballs here! 1983 * 1989 * 1991 * 1992 * 1993 * 1995 * 1996 * 2010 * 2017 * 2018 * 2019 * 2026 * 2028 * 2035 * 2037 * 2044 * 2045 * 2046 * 2047 * 2048 * 2051 * 2054 * 2055 * 2061 1 OSANAI : 2 POWELL : 7 NOMURA \| RAMOS : 8 REECE : 10 BROWN : 15 HALL : 27 FERNANDEZ : 28 CASAS : 31 CARMONA : 32 WEST : 39 TONER : 46 SAITO Resident Mets Cynic - The Mets from 1962 onwards, here.

03-04-2019, 12:09 PM	#15
Mr. Marlin All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 1,272	I already use them. My style of play requires them. Because of that I am very much aware of their downside. And it's not that they are not polished. It's that they make a hell of a lot of players, data, face gens, etc most of which never see a singe AB in the minors. However my play style does need them so the juice is worth the squeeze. But just barely.

03-05-2019, 03:32 PM	#17
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,228	i think it's a contradiction to what they mostly try to do, but below the minors it might be a useful compromise to simplify -- like only the draft class exists as opposed to the number necessary to produce a draft class based on RL data. you could do it in a way that requirers a smaller system... or it could scale relative to number of ML-teams like the normal draft does already and it won't matter what size you pick. e.g. if you should average ~5 elite players per draft for ~30 ml teams, then that many will show up in feeders in proper numbers to maintain that under normal development engine outcomes. the way it works right now, it sounds like it's a stock % of total number of players created, as opposed to being scaled to ML number of teams -- which explains the differences between addingn rounds and adding feeder teams. adding rounds generally does not increase talent beyond TCR opportunities. augmenting feeders seems to increase amount of talent create, no? 2 different animals to deal with. but, some will still want the more naturally occuring.. the saling thing seems easy enough and likely still keeps it natural for those that don't mind doubling or tripling file size and slower sims. it just needs a better set of tracks to follow that force the same outcome within expected and needed volatility. Last edited by NoOne; 03-05-2019 at 03:38 PM.

03-05-2019, 05:02 PM	#18
spartacus007 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: NW Arkansas Posts: 246	Here in Arkansas, I follow college baseball more closely than MLB. (Hogs were SO close last year!) I'd definitely play OOTP more with better feeder leagues. I already use feeders in my fictional leagues. More polish would make them more immersive for me. __________________

03-05-2019, 06:09 PM	#19
jimmysthebestcop Banned Join Date: Jun 2018 Posts: 1,728 Infractions: 0/2 (5)	Why doesn't OOTP just have option to create fictional draft class where it creates stats for 4+ years depending on HS or College and populate ratings based on those stats. I mean they are fictional players anyway. Why populate them with ZERO stats? Is there like some kind of official answer to that? Its the one thing I dont get in OOTP but I've only been playing since 18.

03-08-2019, 07:44 PM	#20
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,228	they used to be generated with 1 year of stats, did that end? either way, due to competition, especially vs hs-quality athletes, it's mostly meaningless. take this anecdotal nonsense -- the guy who set many of the recrods for hs baseball i michigan is a gigantic bust as a pro baseball player. (and a top-tier football prospect bust too!) when you throw 95 in high school, no one can hit you. that's no big deal to real baseball athletes. they are few and far between. even this guy who is infinitely better than the majority of all high school baseball athletes and he couldn't cut it. it's not that he is inferior... just inferior to the "best." that's no big deal.