A Developer's Guide to the New Development Features

[Will Beh]

With the addition of the development lab and the player development focus, there's a lot new to learn! Let's dive into them both here, starting with the more flashy of the two

DEVELOPMENT LAB
As the final out is recorded and the World Series trophy held high, teams are already looking towards the next year. Coaches, trainers, and staff are up the next day at the crack of dawn, moving pitching mounds into place, setting up cameras, loosening their arms, and prepping plans for the players they will be working with. Coming in shortly thereafter are the players their organization has a keen focus on, ones who may benefit from some in-depth work throughout the offseason. With the amount of resources each player receives, space in the lab is limited. When they arrive to kick off the offseason, the players are greeted by coaches with a tailored program to help them improve on an aspect of their game. Then, over the course of the program, the players will come in day in and day out to the facility, working with coaches, trainers, data scientists, and other staff. By the end, the hope is that they will have made improvements to the area of focus, whether it be through mechanical changes, experience, or simply hard work. Some players will go into the new season with a new pitch, some will have found their power stroke, while others may not have been able to make any improvement at all.

Quick overview of in-game mechanics
- The development lab (also called the "practice facility" in some historical games) opens at the beginning of the offseason, and stays open until the season begins.
- Programs can only be handed out if the player will be able to complete it prior to the season starting. This means in most standard and fictional games, which drop you in right before the season starts, the dev lab will be open but there will not be many available programs.
- Programs are generally written such that they last either the length of the offseason, or the length of spring training.
- The number of slots in the lab is limited, but this can be changed in the game settings.
- Once a player has completed their program, that slot will become available to be filled again (as long as there is time left)
- After a program has been selected for a player and they are put in the lab, you will have five days to cancel and take them out. The first five days are an intake assessment for the facility staff to determine the how the player is looking going into the training. By the end of this initial assessment, your scout will compile a new scouting report on the player. The intake assessment is only for the coaches and scout to see where the player is at going into the training.
- A player can only attempt the same program once per offseason. For example, they are not able to improve baserunning twice, although they can do it once and then do something else as well.

- Programs have several general levels of difficulty, ranging from very easy to very hard. However, the difficulty is also influenced by a number of other factors including but not limited to; player personality, coaches, ratings, player age, position, and other program dependent factors.
- The difficulty influences the likelihood of the different outcomes of the lab for a particular player, which fall into four general categories; poor, no improvement, successful, outstanding
- A successful result will usually mean that the player improves their current rating in the area of focus. For other programs that target ratings that do not have current or potential (like increasing velocity) the result will be a simple increase in that area. This result is relatively common, depending on the difficulty of the program.
- A no improvement outcome is exactly as it sounds; the player doesn't make any gains. This is also quite common, depending on the program.
- A rare outcome is the outstanding completion. In this case, the player went above and beyond, something just clicked for them. For programs that target ratings with potential (power, eye, etc.) you will see not only an increase in the current rating, but also an increase in potential rating. For programs that do not target ratings with potential (like increase velocity, improve speed, etc.) the gains will be larger than a regular success.
- Another rare outcome is the poor performance. This occurs when something goes terribly wrong during training. Maybe the player gets in the habit of overswinging when trying to improve power, or makes some negative alteration to his arm slot when trying to learn a new offspeed pitch. In this case, there will be some negative outcome which can vary greatly.

- The best way to see how your player did is by reading the mail your scout will send to you at the end of their program. But if there were some changes, the scout will also create a new scouting report where you can view changes to the ratings since the initial intake scouting report. But keep in mind, this report may show changes that the player experienced naturally, since some of the programs are so long that regular player development will occur as well.
- When a player succeeds or fails at a program, there is a small hit to their morale depending on the result.

- You can see how your player is doing throughout their time in in the lab by their progress. This will include whether they are struggling, frustrated, on track, or excelling, which are synonymous with the four outcomes listed above.
- The progress gets updated daily, since every day the player gets in their work, and so you may see a guy frustrated for a while, but eventually turn it around and finish on track, for example.

- There may be additional things that I did not remember to mention, so if you have questions please ask.

Tips
- If your players' progress is very bad at the start, don't worry, it's very likely to change as he gets more days under his belt. If he's struggling 5 days out of a 4 month long program, it's negligible overall.
- Unless you are really being risky, don't bother putting players in to work on something where their current rating is already at the potential. In this case, only an outstanding outcome will be beneficial, since they won't have room to improve their current rating. Granted, you can always put guys into programs to improve their pitches, or defense, or speed, etc., since those don't have a potential cap.
- As mentioned above, player personality has an impact on how well they do in the lab. So keep that in mind if you are choosing between two guys to send in. It's not a huge influence, but it is there.
- Because the lab opens immediately when the offseason begins, free agents have not yet filed. Be careful not to put guys into the lab who are about to walk. If you ask AI to fill the lab you will not run into this problem.
- There are probably dozens of additional tips that I don't even know yet, so if you find anything please comment it. I'm really excited to learn about how people best use the system.


PLAYER DEVELOPMENT FOCUS
Players throughout the year will have routines, and standard things they do to practice, get better, and maintain themselves. They will work with coaches who can guide them and help them with these exercises on a daily basis. Before this version of OOTP, this was generally captured in the coaching influence on standard player development.
However, players do not all have the same routines. The power hitting DH is not going to get a coach to hit him groundballs for hours; he's going to have a coach helping him in the cage instead. The players only have so many hours in a day. The new player development focus sliders (found on the Development tab on the player screen) allow you to split up their finite time into the areas of their game that you want them to spend time on with coaches. This essentially allows you to micromanage how coaching influence gets applied to their different ratings.

Quick overview of in-game mechanics
- This is not functionally related to the development lab. Since the development focus builds off of the existing development system, it is always there and influences the player at all times.
- To adjust a slider, you need to take out of one rating slider to put into another. I.e. you need to get the time from somewhere.
- When all sliders are at the middle state, this is just the same as the old coaching influence of past games.
- When you give more to a rating, not only will it improve development, which includes current ratings as well as talent increases, but it also influences how well a player who has already maxed out his current ratings will maintain it and even fight off the aging curve if he's getting older.
- However, since you need to take the time from somewhere, the aspects of his game that a player neglects will suffer opposite to the above.
- Being 10 points below the halfway mark is actually more detrimental in terms of the probabilities than it is beneficial to be 10 points above the halfway mark

Tips
- It is a subtle passive system, on the scale of coaching influence, so it may be hard to see a clearly noticeable impact. I would personally spend about as much time on setting player focus as I would spend on getting good coaches. I would probably set it for my major league roster, for top prospects, and for a few intriguing guys. However, you can set it for your entire organization if you would like.
- Once you set a player's focus manually, don't forget to tick the lock checkbox to prevent the AI from changing it. The AI control options can be found in the manager settings, and you can give the AI control over setting the focus for your minor league players, major league players, or both.

[nichodav]

This is a great overview of the new functionality, thanks very much.

[Pedro]

Just what we needed - thanks a lot!

[BusterKing]

If you are in Commissioner mode can you view the AI teams Lab in progress?

[Sweed]

Thanks for the detailed report. When initially announce I thought "sounds good, but let's see how it actually works".

The information you have provided here now has me excited to see it in action.

Thanks for posting.

[Frostcrest]

Thanks for the insight!

[GoPedro99]

How much difference is there in the impact of the player dev focus between a league with coaches and one without?

In a league without is it just treated as having average coaches all around for the purpose of development?

[Daniel_09]

Originally Posted by GoPedro99

How much difference is there in the impact of the player dev focus between a league with coaches and one without?

In a league without is it just treated as having average coaches all around for the purpose of development?

it should be something like having the development focus sliders in the middle of all the topics.

[spartacus007]

If a player's current rating matches his potential at a particular skill, is it worth allocating development time?

[MrDov]

Originally Posted by spartacus007

If a player's current rating matches his potential at a particular skill, is it worth allocating development time?

It’s covered in one of the tips:

Unless you are really being risky, don't bother putting players in to work on something where their current rating is already at the potential. In this case, only an outstanding outcome will be beneficial, since they won't have room to improve their current rating. Granted, you can always put guys into programs to improve their pitches, or defense, or speed, etc., since those don't have a potential cap.

[MrDov]

Another rare outcome is the poor performance. This occurs when something goes terribly wrong during training. Maybe the player gets in the habit of overswinging when trying to improve power, or makes some negative alteration to his arm slot when trying to learn a new offspeed pitch. In this case, there will be some negative outcome which can vary greatly.

Can’t wait for a top prospect of mine to bust because of a development lab assignment gone wrong

[tehsuigi]

Please put this in the manual as well - we can't assume everyone reads the forums.

[redranger]

Very excited to use this feature. Thanks for the information. Definitely cleared up and answered a couple of questions I had


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[spartacus007]

Originally Posted by MrDov

It’s covered in one of the tips:

That's for the Development Lab, but I'm wondering about the Developmental Training Plan.



Elly isn't going to get any faster, so I shouldn't bother having him practice it any more.... right?

[omg_pwnasaurus]

I'm not sure how it is in OOTP yet but when this type of functionality was in FPS Baseball, you would see declining ratings in areas where your focus didn't meet a certain threshold, I assume to avoid overallocation of points to OP stuff.

Pretty sure in that game the slider bars or somewhere underneath the slider bars there was a note about the minimum threshold required for each trait.

[MrDov]

Originally Posted by spartacus007

That's for the Development Lab, but I'm wondering about the Developmental Training Plan.

Elly isn't going to get any faster, so I shouldn't bother having him practice it any more.... right?

Oops sorry that actually is a really good question and one I’d like to know as well. I do wonder to omg_pwnasaurus‘s point if there’s some element of minimum time allocation needed to maintain a rating.

[Will Beh]

Originally Posted by spartacus007

Elly isn't going to get any faster, so I shouldn't bother having him practice it any more.... right?

So as mentioned, it's not just about development, but also maintenance.
So the more you take out of the speed slider, the more likely he will be to regress. It's not like having above the halfway mark will prevent regression, it's a scale of more/less likely.

Also one thing to note, which maybe I should add above; being 10 points below the halfway mark is actually more detrimental in terms of the probabilities than it is beneficial to be 10 points above the halfway mark.

[Will Beh]

Originally Posted by spartacus007

If a player's current rating matches his potential at a particular skill, is it worth allocating development time?

If you're referring to the development focus then yes, since it's not just development; it also includes how well a player maintains themselves and works against regression.

[SeaShockers]

First off, thank you so much for creating the player development lab and focus! This was my top area of improvement for OOTP, so really appreciate it.

I have been utilizing the player development lab in the beta and have found it to be really great. However, I have run into one issue with the train to play a new position. I had an instance where a player (with SS rating only) supposedly learned how to play a new position (CF), but didn't get any new positional rating for the new position. Is this perhaps due to the fact that their OF ratings were really low to begin with and didn't receive a bump through the development lab?

I have definitely seen the results on all other successful player development lab programs, so am really happy with this new feature.

Thanks!

[spartacus007]

Thank you for your help, Will Beh!
I'm looking forward to this a lot.