Help Me Re-Balance My 75 Year Old World?

thakfu · 11-19-2020, 12:34 AM

So my Psuedo-Fictional baseball world is entering it's 75th year of existence and I was hoping the sages of this forum could help me re-tune things for optimal function and increased difficulty. My world started as a OOTP 19 historical game with recalc turned off and over the years evolved into a sandbox of experiments and feature testing. The game in year 75, while still using real players, has very much become a largely fictionalized world, and is evolving beyond the major leagues. Here is the backstory...

The premise of the league was to be a "what-if" of the 1901 Brewers carrying forward and evolving into the modern day team. I simmed the 19th century year-by-year and gave it my own flair, with all intention of being a mirror of the Majors by the time 1901 struck. However, the fun of watching the century go by saw me experiment throughout the 1800s. I tried a 3rd major league, early minor leagues and liberal use of expansion and contraction. The 1901 MLB mirrored the 16 team structure of real life... but now, in 1945, it's grown to a 24 team league with 2 divisions per league. Added to the mix have been a number of other leagues. The majors boast a 3-tiered Minor League system. There is an independent league which was intended for free agents to compete in, but mostly is populated by bottom-feeder players. I've also added 3 international leagues, fully consisting of fictional players. The player pools are prohibited from crossing over at this time, but I plan to fully integrate the world in the near future. (My early attempt at letting the players free roam resulted in my Japanese league teams cutting all the national players and signing MLB free agents, so I reversed it and locked it down after that)

In 1901 I took control of the Brewers and have led them ever since. Over the years I've only amassed 3 championships, however they have the largest winning percentage of any team in history and annually top attendance. While I should be happy about these accomplishments, I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed. I've had to hold back to prevent the team from becoming too dominant. Our roster is generally chock full of star players and our minor league system wins almost yearly championships. I implemented free agency a few seasons back in hopes of adding a bit of challenge, but with my high attendance and success our budget and profit almost doubles the rest of the league. Even with the addition of a salary cap, no other team generally comes close to fielding a payroll as big as mine.

So this is where I'm at now. I'd very much like to "re-balance" my financial system to level the playing the field. I'd also like to fully integrate the international leagues and allow players to cross over, without leading to a mass exodus however. I would like to see the international leagues maintain a large percentage of their base of origin.

Some of the specifics....

*We have a salary cap set at 560k, yet the majority of the league has a payroll less than 400k. Is the cap too high? Or are player salaries too low?

*Each organization carries roughly 120 players between the 4 levels. Too much? Too little? Should I add another level of minor leagues?

*The MLB free agent pool sits at just under 6000. The players are annually drafted from the historical database with the minor/negro league players as well. All international leagues are generated fictional players. The international leagues (Japan, Europe, Latin America) are all relatively new and have their own pools of around 100-300. Any suggestions for better usage? Is that pool too big? Should I cull lower players? Perhaps create more independent leagues? (I'm toying with adding a promotion-relegation indie system in a few years. Also the international system will expand over time.)

*Would it be beneficial, or perhaps risky to rebalance each team's owner and financial settings? There are some inconsistencies with market size and owner allowed budgets. One Los Angeles team has a big market size the other is tiny. Some teams have small payrolls despite a salary cap and Im guessing it's due to their owner. As mentioned above, my team has been the perennial leader in attendance and profit, our fan interest is almost maxed. Should it be brought down?

*To increase difficulty should I perhaps make scouting less exact? Maybe go stats only? I have trade difficulty up pretty high and usually have to shell out a number of prospects to get trades done, but Im not really hurting in mid-level prospects from year to year. I sometimes get the impression, if I really wanted I could build a monster team and win every year, but I prefer realism and want challenge. I want the rest of the league to catch. I dont want to be the class of the league simply because I'm the human playing amongst AI. Too much to ask?

*How should league prestige levels be set up to prevent a mass influx of "major league" players replacing internationals once I integrate the free agent pools? And how should I handle acquiring talent from other countries? I also dont want the Major League teams swallowing up all the best internationals instantly.

*Any other suggestions or questions for things I should be doing to keep this world optimized>

I'm very curious how some of you handle and balance financials. I love my world, it's my baby! I've been running it since OOTP 19. But I definitely wanna bring some challenge and balance back as I enter into the next 75 years. Thanks!

thakfu · 11-19-2020, 12:41 AM

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ptFri217 · 11-21-2020, 09:53 AM

Definitely not a sage, but some ideas immediately came to my mind while reading about your world. Been playing OOTP (off and on and very casually) for about half my life, but wait for someone with more experience to reply before doing anything I suggest!

In real life, many leagues have limits to number of foreign/international players. The CFL does this to keep the base of its player pool largely Canadian. I know from a friend who plays pro basketball in Europe that leagues do that there too. You could try a small limit at first to see what happens, and adjust from there. If only the top US players migrate to Japan though, you may want to lower JapanÂ’s league prestige some, and try again. Between those two settings IÂ’d imagine you could find a sweet spot!

For rebalancing of your leagueÂ’s players, the first thing coming to mind (after FA which you did), is to have an expansion. IÂ’m not a fan of expansion in my leagues personally after theyÂ’ve started, as I like to keep the teams as they are once I really get going. But, the expansion function can still be useful! Set the number of players teams get to protect to whatever you want (maybe pick the number of stars the worst team has to make sure they benefit the most and you get the most parity), run your draft, then delete the expansion teams. Then, all players taken in the draft will be FAs with the leagueÂ’s structure remaining the same. Run a FA draft to refill rosters.

This method is a compromise between releasing all players for a total reboot draft, because teams get to keep their stars and keep their identity. Just kinda levels off the mid tier players of every team. Backstory could be a new commish that wants to promote league parity with his takeover, and then you could also at that point artificially increase fan interest of historically worse teams and lower your fan interest some (without it being for no reason).

Anyway, just some of my thoughts! Again, back up your save file before trying my suggestions because IÂ’m no sage! I just enjoy talking OOTP and finally got around to making an account on this forum so my wife doesnÂ’t get fed up with being the only person I talk to about it haha

thakfu · 11-23-2020, 12:27 PM

Bah! I totally forgot about the foreign player limit feature. This will work really well for my Japanese league. Im curious how that will work with my European and Latin American leagues as they are currently mixed countries.

What I did notice after I posted was my MLB financial settings were a bit out of whack. Media contracts and revenue sharing never adjusted. So after adjusting that and bumping player salaries, it seems like it started to have the desired effect. Team budgets stabilized and players seem to be asking more in free agency. I have yet to run free agency for my current season, but Im really optimistic.

I had considered reshuffling rosters. But I'm not necessarily sure I need more parity as much as I wanted more challenge for my user team. I feel my world has pretty decent parity, we recently had a stretch with 8 champions in 8 years, but now a couple teams are starting to be powerhouses. My bigger concern is there are a handful of teams that just cant seem to break out of the cellar. But there is a hint of realism in that.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm hoping to one day start sharing my results on here. I keep wanting to go back and summarize each season but Im not sure I'll ever find the time for that.

11-19-2020, 12:34 AM	#1
thakfu Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 58	Help Me Re-Balance My 75 Year Old World? So my Psuedo-Fictional baseball world is entering it's 75th year of existence and I was hoping the sages of this forum could help me re-tune things for optimal function and increased difficulty. My world started as a OOTP 19 historical game with recalc turned off and over the years evolved into a sandbox of experiments and feature testing. The game in year 75, while still using real players, has very much become a largely fictionalized world, and is evolving beyond the major leagues. Here is the backstory... The premise of the league was to be a "what-if" of the 1901 Brewers carrying forward and evolving into the modern day team. I simmed the 19th century year-by-year and gave it my own flair, with all intention of being a mirror of the Majors by the time 1901 struck. However, the fun of watching the century go by saw me experiment throughout the 1800s. I tried a 3rd major league, early minor leagues and liberal use of expansion and contraction. The 1901 MLB mirrored the 16 team structure of real life... but now, in 1945, it's grown to a 24 team league with 2 divisions per league. Added to the mix have been a number of other leagues. The majors boast a 3-tiered Minor League system. There is an independent league which was intended for free agents to compete in, but mostly is populated by bottom-feeder players. I've also added 3 international leagues, fully consisting of fictional players. The player pools are prohibited from crossing over at this time, but I plan to fully integrate the world in the near future. (My early attempt at letting the players free roam resulted in my Japanese league teams cutting all the national players and signing MLB free agents, so I reversed it and locked it down after that) In 1901 I took control of the Brewers and have led them ever since. Over the years I've only amassed 3 championships, however they have the largest winning percentage of any team in history and annually top attendance. While I should be happy about these accomplishments, I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed. I've had to hold back to prevent the team from becoming too dominant. Our roster is generally chock full of star players and our minor league system wins almost yearly championships. I implemented free agency a few seasons back in hopes of adding a bit of challenge, but with my high attendance and success our budget and profit almost doubles the rest of the league. Even with the addition of a salary cap, no other team generally comes close to fielding a payroll as big as mine. So this is where I'm at now. I'd very much like to "re-balance" my financial system to level the playing the field. I'd also like to fully integrate the international leagues and allow players to cross over, without leading to a mass exodus however. I would like to see the international leagues maintain a large percentage of their base of origin. Some of the specifics.... We have a salary cap set at 560k, yet the majority of the league has a payroll less than 400k. Is the cap too high? Or are player salaries too low? Each organization carries roughly 120 players between the 4 levels. Too much? Too little? Should I add another level of minor leagues? The MLB free agent pool sits at just under 6000. The players are annually drafted from the historical database with the minor/negro league players as well. All international leagues are generated fictional players. The international leagues (Japan, Europe, Latin America) are all relatively new and have their own pools of around 100-300. Any suggestions for better usage? Is that pool too big? Should I cull lower players? Perhaps create more independent leagues? (I'm toying with adding a promotion-relegation indie system in a few years. Also the international system will expand over time.) Would it be beneficial, or perhaps risky to rebalance each team's owner and financial settings? There are some inconsistencies with market size and owner allowed budgets. One Los Angeles team has a big market size the other is tiny. Some teams have small payrolls despite a salary cap and Im guessing it's due to their owner. As mentioned above, my team has been the perennial leader in attendance and profit, our fan interest is almost maxed. Should it be brought down? To increase difficulty should I perhaps make scouting less exact? Maybe go stats only? I have trade difficulty up pretty high and usually have to shell out a number of prospects to get trades done, but Im not really hurting in mid-level prospects from year to year. I sometimes get the impression, if I really wanted I could build a monster team and win every year, but I prefer realism and want challenge. I want the rest of the league to catch. I dont want to be the class of the league simply because I'm the human playing amongst AI. Too much to ask? How should league prestige levels be set up to prevent a mass influx of "major league" players replacing internationals once I integrate the free agent pools? And how should I handle acquiring talent from other countries? I also dont want the Major League teams swallowing up all the best internationals instantly. *Any other suggestions or questions for things I should be doing to keep this world optimized> I'm very curious how some of you handle and balance financials. I love my world, it's my baby! I've been running it since OOTP 19. But I definitely wanna bring some challenge and balance back as I enter into the next 75 years. Thanks!

11-19-2020, 12:41 AM	#2
thakfu Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 58	Some screenshots of my world...

11-21-2020, 09:53 AM	#3
ptFri217 Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2020 Location: Rounding 3rd Posts: 81	Definitely not a sage, but some ideas immediately came to my mind while reading about your world. Been playing OOTP (off and on and very casually) for about half my life, but wait for someone with more experience to reply before doing anything I suggest! In real life, many leagues have limits to number of foreign/international players. The CFL does this to keep the base of its player pool largely Canadian. I know from a friend who plays pro basketball in Europe that leagues do that there too. You could try a small limit at first to see what happens, and adjust from there. If only the top US players migrate to Japan though, you may want to lower JapanÂ’s league prestige some, and try again. Between those two settings IÂ’d imagine you could find a sweet spot! For rebalancing of your leagueÂ’s players, the first thing coming to mind (after FA which you did), is to have an expansion. IÂ’m not a fan of expansion in my leagues personally after theyÂ’ve started, as I like to keep the teams as they are once I really get going. But, the expansion function can still be useful! Set the number of players teams get to protect to whatever you want (maybe pick the number of stars the worst team has to make sure they benefit the most and you get the most parity), run your draft, then delete the expansion teams. Then, all players taken in the draft will be FAs with the leagueÂ’s structure remaining the same. Run a FA draft to refill rosters. This method is a compromise between releasing all players for a total reboot draft, because teams get to keep their stars and keep their identity. Just kinda levels off the mid tier players of every team. Backstory could be a new commish that wants to promote league parity with his takeover, and then you could also at that point artificially increase fan interest of historically worse teams and lower your fan interest some (without it being for no reason). Anyway, just some of my thoughts! Again, back up your save file before trying my suggestions because IÂ’m no sage! I just enjoy talking OOTP and finally got around to making an account on this forum so my wife doesnÂ’t get fed up with being the only person I talk to about it haha

11-23-2020, 12:27 PM	#4
thakfu Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 58	Bah! I totally forgot about the foreign player limit feature. This will work really well for my Japanese league. Im curious how that will work with my European and Latin American leagues as they are currently mixed countries. What I did notice after I posted was my MLB financial settings were a bit out of whack. Media contracts and revenue sharing never adjusted. So after adjusting that and bumping player salaries, it seems like it started to have the desired effect. Team budgets stabilized and players seem to be asking more in free agency. I have yet to run free agency for my current season, but Im really optimistic. I had considered reshuffling rosters. But I'm not necessarily sure I need more parity as much as I wanted more challenge for my user team. I feel my world has pretty decent parity, we recently had a stretch with 8 champions in 8 years, but now a couple teams are starting to be powerhouses. My bigger concern is there are a handful of teams that just cant seem to break out of the cellar. But there is a hint of realism in that. Thanks for the suggestions! I'm hoping to one day start sharing my results on here. I keep wanting to go back and summarize each season but Im not sure I'll ever find the time for that.