It doesn’t sound like many of us are picking up this year’s version, but the other thread is a few years old so no harm having a new one.
It’s out today for those who preordered (available 15th March for everyone else). I’ll stick up a few ratings screens (Yamamoto!) later when I get my copy, but here is the just-released list of features:
Highlights:
General Player Development
Can now manage the time and effort each player spends with coaches on improving different aspects of their game.
Player Development Lab
Each team now has a player development complex, where they can send a couple players at a time over the course of the offseason and spring training. Here players will be able to deep dive into their development, working on one of many development programs targeted at a specific part of their game.
Drive for the Pennant Mode
Coming soon! [It won’t be in the game for another 3 weeks, but is supposed to be a streamlined Franchise Mode for 1 season only]
New Streamlined Historical Wizard
Set up new historical games in a quick and easy way
Player Ratings Changes
Stealing Aggressiveness, Catcher Framing, Big Changes to Contact and Movement Rating with more of an emphasis on BABIP
Internal Ratings Update
Internally, all batting/pitching ratings are now on a 1-550 scale, instead of the old 1-250. [This will provide more granularity and apparently affect your guys coming up from the minors - they will have a much less respectable line than usual in their first year, for example. ]
Partnership with National Baseball Hall of Fame - Coming soon!
New licensed leagues
Dutch Honkbal Hoofdklasse
British National Baseball League
Various Bug Fixes…
Perfect Team 25 Changes
New Card Combinator
Boost the card’s values with linked cards (eg teammate cards)
Team Chemistry - same
All new Tournament Roster Builder
Build tournament rosters without having to explicitly enter a tournament
Manage which tournament rosters are saved on the server
Explicitly select which saved roster to use when signing up for a tournament
More Updates (Perfect Team)
Updated transaction history (now filterable)
All new pack open screen, including pack selection option
Adjusted mission points values. Now Iron (1), Bronze (2), Silver (5), Low Gold (10), High Gold (15), Low Diamond (50), High Diamond (75), Perfect (200)
PD now display remaining cards for each position
All new ratings scale and balance
Stadiums unlocked by level advancement or missions
All players qualified to learn a position will be eligible to play them in tournaments
Improved PT Home screen, with widgets for more flexibility
I was about to post the same link! Good job starting a new thread, too.
I’m going to buy this when it releases on Steam Friday. The PT changes sound fun, and I like the sound of race-for-the-pennant mode, even if it’s not quite ready yet. Mostly I’m just in the mood for some baseball.
Sort of a lackluster list of changes as far as exciting new features to mess with. However, I haven’t gotten the past few versions so I’m probably going to get this on Friday. I have no interest in the Perfect Team or Race for the Pennant, but the changes to development could be interesting. All the under the hood changes they made could be great, of course it could go the other way too.
Is the placement of BABIP and Avoid K’s under Control, and HRA + PBABIP under Movement to just make the relationship more explicitly visible to players? (P)BABIP wasn’t a visible rating before, right? IIRC, behind the scenes they were part of the calculations previously minus whatever change in emphasis was done this year that is mentioned in those notes.
Thanks for posting Bello’s card! I’m delighted we’ve signed him to a long-term contract. He’s got nasty stuff.
I’m also wondering about the BABIP rating. Glad to see it out in the open.
Also, I watched some of last night’s PT reveal, and Sporer showed off the new catcher ratings, plus he seemed to say that contact and power are separate now — one doesn’t influence the other. I’m curious how PT and historical leagues will evaluate catcher framing for players from a century ago, but I’m good with it. I haven’t played since they added chemistry, and I especially like that PT now has a co-teammate chemistry thing — er, co-something, I forget the word. Anything that rewards a PT of actual historical teammates is a plus.
Every time I get OOTP I play a Red Sox historical season. Last time it was 1968. I’m thinking the dreaded 1978 this time. Bucky Dent and all that lol.
These changes to the ratings system seem pretty good to me. I aways found it strange power was included to calculate contact—if you play around in the editor, it’s really hard to create an elite-level slap hitter. Moreover, I was initially put off by the increased granularity—I’m generally of the opinion that it is dumb to try and differentiate between, say, a 91 overall and a 92 overall in a sports game—but given the levels of minors and feeder leagues that baseball / OOTP has, it makes sense. Again, if you’ve ever tinkered under the hood in a non-major league, it is hard to edit/create players’ current ratings because it was always scaled to MLB-levels and feeder-leagues only worked in a satisfying way if you set the option to calculate results based on potential rather than current stats. Of course, in real life, there are tons of players who dominate lower levels and never make it in the majors. Functionally, the only way that could happen previously in OOTP is random talent changes / failure to develop, rather than someone with low potential developing early and dominating less-developed competition, which seems to be the case often in real life. Moreover, speed/stealing has been off for a long while now, so it is cool to see it finally get addressed.
Played a couple of hours and just a quick note to say there’s no reason to pick it up before Friday, if anyone was tempted. Quite a few contracts are missing and some ratings look weird, though the swapping around of the rating bars accentuates that.
Jhony Brito is in my rotation and has a 20-rated fastball despite throwing 98. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 20 FB, it must be totally the wrong shape :)
So only pick it up if you want to mess around; I’ll be restarting on Friday or whenever they update the player DB.
Bought it but haven’t played yet, because I can’t log in to my PT account. Even in non-PT modes, I like to play in Challenge Mode, which requires one to log in to one’s PT account. I think? People on the forums say just to keep trying. I’ll try again later, I guess.
That’s a shame; I know they had big issues with the steam release earlier and got pushed back some hours. Hope they get it sorted for you.
I used to be all about challenge mode but don’t bother with it now, so I started my franchise game first thing this morning. Then I basically spent all day agonising over whether to trade with the Pirates for David Bednar (my bullpen is flaky but they want a really good guy, naturally enough!). I’m gonna have to sleep on it ;)
I managed to resist dumping all the Padres outrageous contracts with the exception of trading Bogaerts for the burnt out husk of George Springer; I’ll just have to absorb the rest.
Yes, sorry, all correct. I think I’m gonna turn off the BABIP display actually, I don’t think it’s significant enough to have on there, unless I’m misunderstanding it. It doesn’t really tell me anything that I could have any control over I think.
My PT team is off to a scintillating 3-8 start. Half the team is under 65 OVR, so it’s not a shock. Still fun.
In the meantime, I started my season as the 1978 Red Sox. The joy and the pain! Yaz, Fred Lynn, Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice, Jerry Remy, Rick Burleson, George Scott – but also Mike Torrez in the starting rotation and (shudder) Bob Stanley in the bullpen. So far I’ve just been fussing with personnel: a new trainer, a new bench coach, that sort of thing. Opening Day tomorrow.
