Author Topic: OOTP 19 (and a crazy idea) (Read 8648 times)

Huckleberry · « **on:** February 02, 2018, 09:23:02 AM »

Link to FAQ thread on the OOTP Forums

New Tournament Modes thread

Okay, so OOTP 19 has given me a possibly crazy idea. I, like Andy and Claybor this year (hi guys!), have always been somewhat partially bothered by the fact that in baseball the best team wins the playoffs less frequently than any other sport. And as pointed out by Claybor, you can get screwed by getting the last draft pick but not even winning a playoff series. Sooooo...

My super crazy idea is to make the ABL and IBL 10-team leagues without divisions. Team location requirements would still be 5 in each old divisional area for historical purposes and to maintain the original online league concept. Then each league would play a 162-game season, 18 games against every other team in the league. There would be no league playoffs and the team who wins the regular season is the league champion and goes on to play in the WBA Championship Series.

However, there would also be an Association Cup each season in tournament mode. This would be in a knockout style format with best-of-5 game series taking place on open weeks in the regular season schedule. The bottom four teams in each league in the previous season would play in the first round so that starting with the second round we would have 16 teams.

In order to make this work with our financial system, there would be income values based on performance in the Association Cup. These would be deducted from the regular season income values so that our baseline of $50M in average revenue per team per year is not changed. And with the changes to tournament mode it looks like historical stats for this tournament would be kept which is nice. Championship history, etc.

Thoughts? It's a huge and major change structurally so obviously it needs to be discussed and fleshed out, but I thought it would be worth discussing.

Coop · « **Reply #1 on:** February 02, 2018, 09:36:41 AM »

I like the idea of eliminating playoffs and just having a league champion, the way it was back in the early 1960s, when the NL and AL were ten-team leagues with no playoffs, just two league champions who met in the World Series.

I don't care for the Association Cup stuff. I'm not foaming at the mouth over it or anything, just not really interested in it.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #2 on:** February 02, 2018, 09:46:08 AM »

That part is something that the rebuilding and weaker teams every year would be able to focus on. Also teams that are pretty good but not really going to challenge for the pennant, so it's mostly about maintaining interest in the league as much as possible during the season.

Of course with my luck it will end up always being the two pennant winners in the finals, but whatever.

Echo127 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 02, 2018, 11:03:15 AM »

Hmmm.... having only one "playoff" team would kill my current strategy of "do just enough to compete for the playoffs without selling the farm". However, you could win me over with 2 words.

Bowl Games.

We like talking shit about the other league, but we only get one series per year to actually play eachother. What if, at the end of the season, we had every team play an exhibition series vs. a team from the other league (sorted based on season standings) while the 2 leaders are playing for the Championship? Maybe you could even use the bowl games to determine home field advantage for next year's championship.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #4 on:** February 02, 2018, 11:22:45 AM »

Actually, that was one of the thoughts behind the tournament - more play between the two leagues. I like the league pennant being purely based on games within the league so no interleague play, but with the tournament the teams would be able to play each other more. My initial thought would be a random draw for matchups in the tournament but we could also enforce first (or second) round matchups to be interleague.

claphamsa · « **Reply #5 on:** February 02, 2018, 12:20:32 PM »

sounds interesting!

CaseyBlakeDeWitt · « **Reply #6 on:** February 02, 2018, 12:26:53 PM »

The tournament idea sounds fun but it also very much sounds like a consolation prize.

I feel like making the best regular season record into the champion would reduce competitiveness. Our league is already pretty prone to eliminating the ~.500 club given how few teams there are, and it doesn't particularly seem worth it to make a push for the 3rd seed in the tournament when there's little chance of making it to the (real) championship series.

I totally understand the frustration of having the "best" regular season team and then being knocked out in the first round, but I also think that's part of the charm of baseball. Underdogs can win and the unexpected is always primed to happen.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #7 on:** February 02, 2018, 12:43:14 PM »

I completely understand that viewpoint and agree with a lot of it. The tournament would undoubtedly be the secondary goal, but we could make the cash values for advancing and winning it something to where teams make the effort. In my mind it would be something that everyone absolutely wants to win while recognizing the WBA Championship is the primary goal.

Gomer · « **Reply #8 on:** February 02, 2018, 12:49:17 PM »

Interesting, but too European.

CaseyBlakeDeWitt · « **Reply #9 on:** February 02, 2018, 12:51:21 PM »

That makes sense, but if that's the case the tournament just feels like it's increasing the wild variation of the playoffs since now even the bad teams are involved in a way that can throw things out of whack.

I truly do love the tournament idea, but not as a replacement for the playoffs. I think it just heightens the problems that some folks already have with our current format.

Seems like the real goal here is to provide more of a payout for having the best record in the league. Maybe we could look into boosting the financial implications of having the best record? Or create a compensation round draft pick maybe? Not quite sure what the answer is to giving more payout to the best records but it doesn't seem unreasonable to want to recognize that more.

Txhorns · « **Reply #10 on:** February 02, 2018, 01:23:03 PM »

I for one do not like the idea of the tournament, nor having only a championship series. Having only 2 teams make the playoffs out of 20 is far too low. It would only decrease participation in the league. At a minimum there should be 2 teams per league in the playoffs but I think 4 is ideal.

What I would like to see is an all star week added right before the trading deadline. My idea would be for the all star teams to play a 3 or 5 game series during this week with the winning league hosting the championship series.

Claybor · « **Reply #11 on:** February 02, 2018, 02:13:40 PM »

I don't mind being the #1 seed and getting knocked out in the first round at all, but if winning the regular season is nothing but a higher seed, then why bother? I will try and come in 3rd of 4th place in the future, that's the goal then.

Well, there is the extra cash/revenue as well, so I guess it's a trade off.

interesting proposed changes. have to give it some thought.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #12 on:** February 02, 2018, 02:14:18 PM »

Unless we have a very strong consensus we're not going to change anything, I should make that clear. Everyone who is in the WBA right now and has helped to make it an awesome league joined under the current structure.

There have already been some interesting suggestions in this thread (better revenue split for winning a division, maybe for being top seed in a league, all star "tournament" or series, etc.) that we can continue talking about.

One good thing about the new tournament features either way is that tournament stats will be tracked historically now. Sucks for the 2108 and upcoming 2112 WBA Cups but after that it sounds like those stats should be tracked and easy to find moving forward.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #13 on:** February 02, 2018, 02:31:23 PM »

Quote from: Claybor on February 02, 2018, 02:13:40 PM

I don't mind being the #1 seed and getting knocked out in the first round at all, but if winning the regular season is nothing but a higher seed, then why bother? I will try and come in 3rd of 4th place in the future, that's the goal then.

Well, there is the extra cash/revenue as well, so I guess it's a trade off.

interesting proposed changes. have to give it some thought.

Yeah, right now there is extra revenue based on wins and division finish, but there's a chance it's not enough. Those numbers have never been changed from my first stabs at them when creating the league. It's a bit tough to untangle all the numbers, but the direct payouts right now are:

1st Place - $9,000,000
2nd Place - $7,500,000
3rd Place - $6,000,000
4th Place - $4,500,000
5th Place - $3,000,000

Teams also get roughly $77K per win. Placement in the division also affects local media contracts and wins also affect merchandising revenue.

http://www.worldbaseballassociation.com/forum/index.php?page=constitution#financial

Perhaps we tweak those numbers a bit, perhaps not. But it's something that could possibly be on the table.

Txhorns · « **Reply #14 on:** February 02, 2018, 02:34:22 PM »

Would something as simple as giving the top seed in each league an extra $2.5m in budget for thd next year be enough?

Huckleberry · « **Reply #15 on:** February 02, 2018, 03:28:44 PM »

Not sure on the amounts, but I had a dual goal of rewarding regular season success but also keeping non-playoff contenders interested in the season longer. So definitely reworking revenue splits on regular season standings is something that we can work out.

So right now there are $30M in placement payouts in each league. Maybe we look at splitting that up differently.

Is there any interest at all in a tournament as well, either with every team or with only non-playoff teams to be run concurrently to the playoffs? There would be payouts associated with that as well. In fact if we did something like that I might get rid of some of the other payouts, the most likely one to get rid of being the one based on pythagorean record.

Gomer · « **Reply #16 on:** February 02, 2018, 04:39:15 PM »

I think a tournament of losers would be fun. Kinda like the NIT.

It might give some incentive for shitty teams to stay more competitive too.

Havana_Jake · « **Reply #17 on:** February 03, 2018, 08:33:27 AM »

What if the tournament of losers was played for the top draft pick? Winner of the not in the playoffs playoffs gets top pick, runner-up gets second, and so on. Bill Simmons had this idea for the NBA before he lost his mind. It would be fun and it would decrease incentives to tank. (Not that I really think we have a tanking problem anyway).

AndyHustle · « **Reply #18 on:** February 03, 2018, 08:40:50 AM »

I guess I sort of like the new league idea. I wouldn't be against change, but I would not want to change it so radically that people would leave. I think this is a really good league, but it's never a bad idea to shake things up.

I really love the Association Cup idea. I've always loved how soccer has international duty on certain weekends. I have tried to do it in my personal sims where weekends would be off and you could have international play then but I'm not good enough at scheduling.

I'd support some type of change just to keep things interesting.

APMP · « **Reply #19 on:** February 03, 2018, 11:57:02 AM »

Quote from: claphamsa on February 02, 2018, 12:20:32 PM

sounds interesting!

I'm in if we can relegate Paris to AAA. Or the ABL, which is basically the same thing.

Echo127 · « **Reply #20 on:** February 03, 2018, 06:37:03 PM »

I fully support additional tournaments for bragging rights.

Bob_Meteors · « **Reply #21 on:** February 03, 2018, 10:43:39 PM »

Hmm ok. Well that is a really interesting idea. I have a few thoughts.
1. I think it might be better if instead of the IBL/ABL champs playing each other, we had a mini-playoff. IBL #1 and #2 play each other in best of 7, same in ABL, and winners meet.
2. In my opinion, these changes aren't necessary at all, but just because something isn't necessary doesn't mean it's not good.
3. As someone with a solo 24-team league containing 2 subleagues and no divisions, I can conclusively say that, executed properly, this idea does work. It'll also serve to eliminate the unfairness of one division being much tougher than the other.
4. This is a (probably really, really stupid) idea that sort of merges the 2 separate things in this thread. What if, instead of having the Championship and then an Association Cup (which, I agree, seems sort of pointless), why don't we combine the playoffs? So we could have Buenos Aires playing Karachi in the first round, or Paris facing Carolina if the other 18 owners all die in a tragic accident.

I realize that some of my ideas contradict others, but it's late and I don't care.

APMP · « **Reply #22 on:** February 04, 2018, 08:23:42 AM »

Is Huck gonna go Selig and add interleague play?

I wouldn't hate it, just asking...

Huckleberry · « **Reply #23 on:** February 04, 2018, 10:57:20 AM »

Never. No interleague play in the regular season. Tournament would enable more play between the leagues, that's one of the biggest positives to me.

Claybor · « **Reply #24 on:** February 04, 2018, 11:16:51 AM »

Quote from: Huckleberry on February 04, 2018, 10:57:20 AM

Never. No interleague play in the regular season.

Good, I hate interleague.

CaseyBlakeDeWitt · « **Reply #25 on:** February 04, 2018, 04:30:33 PM »

Curious to hear why you guys hate interleague. I would've thought the biggest detractor was generally rule changes (DH v no DH in MLB), but we don't have that

Quote from: Claybor on February 04, 2018, 11:16:51 AM

Good, I hate interleague.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #26 on:** February 04, 2018, 05:33:47 PM »

Because by playing interleague you end up not playing enough games against your league and particularly your division.

squaredrive · « **Reply #27 on:** February 04, 2018, 07:00:50 PM »

Not a huge fan of eliminating the playoffs - worry about owner engagement and upsetting the competitive balance - less incentive to field competitive teams when others have obviously better rosters.

I would not mind changing the playoff structure to allow the top seed team to bye into the league championship. Granted, I have no idea how that would work or how feasible it is with 4 playoff teams...going with 3 playoff teams in a single division could be a reasonable middle ground, with top seed getting a bye.

rbeadle3 · « **Reply #28 on:** February 06, 2018, 07:37:27 AM »

I also would vote for keeping the playoffs, I think it is part of the beauty of baseball is that the best teams don't always win. I would vote to keep it the same as we have it with possibly some small tweaks.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #29 on:** February 06, 2018, 08:36:36 AM »

So currently I'm considering one of two possibilities, both of which would involve no change to the playoff structure as that seems to be the preference of the league:

An Association Cup that takes place each year. Payouts would take the place of the team strength payouts that are based on pythagorean records ($4M times pythagorean record for each team every year). The top 3 teams in each division from the previous year would get a bye while the bottom two would be entered in the first round. That would eliminate 4 teams so then there would be 16 left. Random draw for each round. League of the winning team gets homefield advantage in the WBA Championship Series.
A sort of consolation tournament for non-playoff teams. That would be 12 teams so the teams with the two best records in each league that didn't make the playoffs would get a first round bye. 4 byes, 4 teams eliminated first round, 8 teams left. With this format, the team strength payouts would also be replaced by postseason payouts. Some of those would be reserved for the playoff teams while the rest for the consolation tournament.

Thoughts? My main issue with the second one is that the consolation tournament would be 4 rounds while the actual playoffs are only three, so scheduling and timing could be an issue. I am leaning more toward #1 as my preference, if we are going to do anything in terms of tournaments to increase interest for the weaker teams each season and also increase play between the ABL and IBL.

Echo127 · « **Reply #30 on:** February 06, 2018, 08:48:41 AM »

With regard to #2, I still think setting up a "bowl game" scenario for the non-playoff teams would be more fun. Each non-playoff team would match up against a team from the other league in a 7 or 9 game series. Then you could have the league that wins the most of those series get home field advantage in the WBA final.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #31 on:** February 06, 2018, 11:15:47 AM »

That would be a lot more manual work (setting up 6 individual exhibition series) than using the built-in tournament feature. As is the case with arbitration, I'm trying to limit the amount of manual work I sign myself up for at this point.

JohnC · « **Reply #32 on:** February 06, 2018, 01:31:12 PM »

Out of curiosity..would injuries be set to what we normally have? I can't say as I would be too happy to lose a key player for 12 months or something in a tournament that is basically for $$$ when most teams have a ton of it already.

Huckleberry · « **Reply #33 on:** February 06, 2018, 01:44:43 PM »

Quote from: JohnC on February 06, 2018, 01:31:12 PM

Out of curiosity..would injuries be set to what we normally have? I can't say as I would be too happy to lose a key player for 12 months or something in a tournament that is basically for $$$ when most teams have a ton of it already.

I've actually been thinking about that. I personally think that the tournament would have normal* injury settings, which would add a level of strategy (and also give the non-contending teams a better chance in the tournament). Playoff contenders would be more likely to sit their starters for those series, or perhaps they need the money because they're overextended and leave their starters in. Would potentially be an interesting dynamic.

Then you have to consider that if you're a GM who would sit your important starters or your injury prone guys for tournament series, it would actually help you get more playing time out of them overall. There would be 5 weeks during the regular season with no games, which would be recovery time for injured players.

* - normal injury settings means the WBA standard, which is actually the OOTP "Low" injury setting

CaseyBlakeDeWitt · « **Reply #34 on:** February 06, 2018, 05:04:09 PM »

Quote from: Huckleberry on February 06, 2018, 01:44:43 PM

There would be 5 weeks during the regular season with no games, which would be recovery time for injured players.

Wait would this hypothetical tournament happen throughout the season during pseudo bye weeks?

Coop · « **Reply #35 on:** February 06, 2018, 06:38:19 PM »

Everybody else is making suggestions about this issue, so here's mine. Instead of making two leagues of 10 teams each, with one pennant winner per league, how about leaving the four current divisions intact and stipulating that only division champions make it to the playoffs? Basically I'm saying, let's eliminate wild cards. Personally, I've never been fond of wild cards in any sport. My feeling is that it makes no sense that a team can emerge as a world champion when it spent the entire regular season proving that it wasn't even capable of winning its division. Right now division titles aren't worth much, since division champions are routinely knocked out of the playoffs by wild-card teams. If we make it so that only division champions are in the playoffs, those division titles suddenly mean a whole lot more than they do right now. And we'll never again have a WBA champion that wasn't able to win its division, which I think would be a good thing.

Echo127 · « **Reply #36 on:** February 06, 2018, 07:33:37 PM »

Well I certainly don't want to make any more work for you, Huck.

I'll just say that I like the idea of having more meaningful games for *all* teams. For me, that means keeping the wild card playoff spots (so that more teams are playing meaningful games near the end of the season) and adding tournament games for lesser teams (whether they are European soccer-style or otherwise) so that they have incentive to compete instead of just fielding a team of has-beens *cough* Huck and pottle and Barajas *cough*

Huckleberry · « **Reply #37 on:** February 06, 2018, 07:50:26 PM »

Win one title and already talking smack. Let's see what you do when your title winners are old while you're rebuilding. You can't just trade them or cut them! They're real (pretend) people!

Echo127 · « **Reply #38 on:** February 06, 2018, 09:01:31 PM »

Pfft, my title winners are falling apart before they hit 30!

#Pedro Alejandre

Huckleberry · « **Reply #39 on:** March 29, 2018, 06:18:33 AM »

Installing release version now. Please note that my current plan is to transition to 19 on the first day of the offseason, the other possibility is to wait until the league rolls to January 2113.

I think the tournament ideas in here won't be possible based on my beta testing but I'll take another look.

Claybor · « **Reply #40 on:** March 29, 2018, 09:37:03 AM »

Huckleberry · « **Reply #41 on:** April 11, 2018, 10:18:49 PM »

OOTP 19 league file is uploaded. Please let me know if you have any issues. I'll probably skip tomorrow night's sim to give people until Sunday to get 19 working.

claphamsa · « **Reply #42 on:** April 11, 2018, 10:35:34 PM »

where do we get file?

Claybor · « **Reply #43 on:** April 11, 2018, 11:27:22 PM »

for those who may not know;

import ootp18 WBA league into 19 and then update within the game as normal

Huckleberry · « **Reply #44 on:** April 15, 2018, 08:58:45 AM »

Quick instructions.

After installing OOTP 19, go to import OOTP 18 game:

Browse to the OOTP18 folder for the WBA and select the world.dat file:

It will import and that might take a long time. Then once you're in simply download the league file like normal:

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Author Topic: OOTP 19 (and a crazy idea) (Read 8648 times)

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