OOTP 10 observations

[Matt]

Been playing through a couple of solo leagues to get the feel for ootp 10. Here are some early observations.

I haven't seen injuries be a terrible problem, in fact, they so far have been rather mild compared to what I experienced in PEBA this season.

Pitcher stamina is an area I am having a hard time getting a handle on things. For instance, I have a pitcher with a stamina of 31 who is the ace of my rotation. He has pitched 223 and 239 innings respectively in the first two seasons. A pitcher with a 31 in ootp 9 would never have made it into a rotation, he would rarely complete 4 innings with that type of stamina. I think the stats/performance will bear much more weight in ootp 10 when it comes to determining a pitchers role than the stamina rating.

[John]

I'm not aware of any major changes to injury frequency, so what you're seeing there may be a case of small sample size.

Pitcher's stamina has indeed undergone a major change in OOTP X, on the other hand. Previously it was a pretty cut-and-dry formula where there was a hard-and-fast cutoff point with the Endurance rating. If the pitcher's endurance went above that cutoff point, he was capable of being a starter; otherwise he was strictly bullpen material. It's not nearly so simple in X.

Stamina-wise (bear in mind that "Endurance" is now referred to as "Stamina" in X), many more pitchers are going to qualify as starting pitcher material. On the flip side, the number and quality of pitches that a player throws will impact how successful a pitcher can be in a starting role. This is a major change from previous versions. Of course there were no individual pitch ratings at all until X, and the number/kind of pitches in a pitcher's arsenal were mostly window dressing. That is not true anymore. A legitimate starter will want to have at least two good pitches plus at least one other usable one. The kinds of pitches matter now, too. Sinkers will result in more ground balls, for instance.

[Alan Ehlers]

I noticed the scouting is different in terms of potential and scouting reports. There are a couple of players I picked up who were half a star with no potential in version 9 who are now 4 star with glowing reports in version 10. An example would be Jose Morin a 17 year old I have at Shortseason. When I picked him up he was rated as 2';s all across the board in version 9 in version 10 he is 665 with a two and half star potential according to my scout and he is only 17. Another example is Matsumoto a middle reliever I picked up who was called garbage in version 9. Well in version 10 he is 4 star potential and I believe the latter because he has pitched well all over my system including 5 shutout innings at the major league level. That is what I will find interesting is when people start picking up players who have been discarded because they had no potential in version 9 and now have loads of it in Version 10. I do believe version 10 is far more accurate in scouting especially when I have talked with San Antonio and he has told me about the perfomances of some of his players who were deemed career minor league filler.

[Coqui]

Joel and I both got X about three weeks ago. I've been doing quite a bit of work with it and have a few observations.

1. Stamina has indeed been greatly reworked. In PEBA the current record for IP in a year is 246. This came from a pitcher with an endurance rating of seven. In the league I created the record stands at a massive 270, also from a pitcher (Fergus Hodge) with a stamina of seven. The difference, as John mentioned, lies in the amount of pitches the pitcher can throw and the quality with which he can throw them. On a related note, PEBA has had only two pitchers crack the 240 IP mark, I would expect that number to climb if my original experience with X holds true.

2. Arm wear is now a significant issue. Remember Fergus Hodge? The year after he threw that mind blowing 270 innings he threw only 124.1 innings, suffered a severe injury and saw his ERA jump nearly three whole runs. Of the 10 pitchers that have thrown the top 11 seasons in innings pitched, only two have not suffered an ERA jump of over a run or an innings drop of over 100. Arm wear seems to be a major concern in X. (Disclaimer: The correlation between innings and injury seems to drop off at 230 for a single season and between 200-220 for multiple seasons.)

3. Load times are considerably shorter in the new version. I cannot tell you how much easier this will make my PEBA laptop experience.

I have really enjoyed the game since I got it. I tend to get bored with the usual fictional solo leagues or with historical seasons so I was hoping that X would offer something different. In the manner of a few short days (knee surgery generates plenty of free time) I was able to recreate the top four tiers of English football/soccer as a baseball league, complete with promotion, relegation, vastly differing media contracts depending on league, completely accurate (down to the Sky Sports logo) graphics, academies and reserves functioning as minor leagues and on and on. I've done all of that without once having to restart the program or wait for some interminable load screen. X is really head and shoulders above an already solid product.

[Ghosts]

I know I'm late to the issue (honestly, I didn't really think about it until reading this thread and now I know what I'm doing the first thing when I get home), but we are going to X next year, right?

[John]

I know I'm late to the issue (honestly, I didn't really think about it until reading this thread and now I know what I'm doing the first thing when I get home), but we are going to X next year, right?

That is yet to be finalized, but signs strongly point to, "Yes," at this time. Expect final word to come during the month of August, with a switchover happening in late September (if we are indeed making the move).

[Ghosts]

as promised, it was the first thing i did when i got home from work.

it's going to take a while to get used to color scheme but so far, so good.

and as for changed player ratings -- i'm not sure about those. i know the same thing happened when we went from ootp 8 to ootp 9: when we were still using 8 the scouting on 9 had some huge differences for potential ability but as soon as we migrated over officially the scouting on 9 seemed to pretty much be the same as 8.

anyone have thoughts?

[John]

it's going to take a while to get used to color scheme but so far, so good.

You can change the skin in the game options. All the old colors schemes are available if you prefer those.

and as for changed player ratings -- i'm not sure about those. i know the same thing happened when we went from ootp 8 to ootp 9: when we were still using 8 the scouting on 9 had some huge differences for potential ability but as soon as we migrated over officially the scouting on 9 seemed to pretty much be the same as 8.

anyone have thoughts?

There was a fundamental shift in scouting between OOTP 8 and 9 with the introduction of scouting preferences (tools vs. ability). In some cases that caused large discrepancies in scouting reports between the two versions, but not always. OOTP X tweaks the rating formula, but it's not as radical a shift as from 8 to 9.

Regardless of the differences in the reports, however, it should be noted that scouting reports =! actual talent. In other words, it doesn't matter a hill of beans if your scout suddenly thinks that 1* player is now a 5* player - he's still the same guy he ever was.

[Zephyrs]

as promised, it was the first thing i did when i got home from work.

it's going to take a while to get used to color scheme but so far, so good.

and as for changed player ratings -- i'm not sure about those. i know the same thing happened when we went from ootp 8 to ootp 9: when we were still using 8 the scouting on 9 had some huge differences for potential ability but as soon as we migrated over officially the scouting on 9 seemed to pretty much be the same as 8.

anyone have thoughts?

There are LOTS and LOTS more players in my solo league that have 2 or 3 star ability that somehow can't manage to do anything more than be a decent player at the Double A level; so the ratings to me are definitely different than in 9; not that I trust the stars but its certainly misleading IMO