Purpose of Season Summary?

[SittingDuck]

Just wondering if there is still a reason for this? I remember when there was...

If not, then --- *aaaaack* --> rope

I've been doing some offseason tweaks with a psa file, so reloading it and continually running through the offseason for salary purposes. Anyhow, I find it hilarious that the approval rating has varied from 77-100 for the same season record!

LOL! What's the point??

[puresimmer]

The approval rating is not just about the W/L record, it also considers what place you finished in your division, how many GB you were etc.

[verizon32]

What the purpose of the approval rating?
 
You can get fire?

[Amaroq]

Shaun, that answer doesn't sound relevant, if he's got the same season and he's reloading it continuously, presumably W/L record, placing, GB, etc, are all identical as well. 77-100 is a pretty big range if you're using a random number there!

Verizon, no you can't get fired - we used to have it where you could get fired, but that didn't seem to add much as a game mechanic. It wasn't like you really have a 'career' that you are building, in the FM style, and there just isn't a big difference between the top and bottom teams. The current version is a bit more free-form - if you want to be fired, you would have to pull the trigger yourself. [;)]

[SittingDuck]

Amaroq is correct - I reloaded to test another xml tweak and it registered 88 after doing 100 the last time.  Silly thing.

I guess I am saying if we can't get axed now, it just seems like fluff.  And PSBB doesn't really have much fluff to it - I like that.  So, personally I don't see the relevance in the scheme of PSBB.  I don't mean to get overly critical.  PSBB just doesn't by nature strike me as a window dressing kind of game, and this area seems like that now, without the threat of losing your franchise.

Just curious as to what others think.

[SittingDuck]

But I would say, if you could engineer it so our finance levels could drop if we kept bombing in the public's eye...

Whew - I would love that!

Basically, we just stand to lose initially. Then if we improve, we can gain a bit back, but never more than the default starting financial level. And that is what I'd love to see in PSBB '08. I don't need to orchestrate bobble-head nights and set the price of hot dogs or any of that silliness. But having some type of financial repercussions for having a stinker team would be great.

For example, the O's attendance, after a near decade of mismanagement by the front office and PGA, has taken a massive dive - the largest percentage-wise in MLB. We are encouraging people to stay away from the ballpark as much as possible, in the hopes that it will force PGA's hand. Whether or not it does, who knows. But the point being, that type of attendance drop (around 26K now when OPACY would be near full attendance in the 90's) eventually hurts things, a lot.

So that is one way to make that approval rating really matter. And I think it should. People shouldn't be able to sandbag their season to get a high draft pick without repercussions. And I am not sure how you figure out how FAs choose which team they prefer, but a team that bombs continuously should definitely have some type of modifer to the FA's desire to play there. Again, witness the O's now. Players now openly say they won't play there. What a reversal!

But if it did become designed that approval ratings mattered again, then whatever is going on that makes them flop around like that would have to be addressed. No big whoop, I am sure. And you'd definitely want to make some basic XML parameters available to ward off the crying.

Man, I hope this lead balloon will somehow fly...

[verizon32]

ORIGINAL: Amaroq

Shaun, that answer doesn't sound relevant, if he's got the same season and he's reloading it continuously, presumably W/L record, placing, GB, etc, are all identical as well. 77-100 is a pretty big range if you're using a random number there!

Verizon, no you can't get fired - we used to have it where you could get fired, but that didn't seem to add much as a game mechanic. It wasn't like you really have a 'career' that you are building, in the FM style, and there just isn't a big difference between the top and bottom teams. The current version is a bit more free-form - if you want to be fired, you would have to pull the trigger yourself. [;)]

Why have the approval rating than? There really no purpose to have it.

[Roxbury]

I like the idea of being penalized an amount of dollars for a poor performance rating. I am not sure what the formula would be. However, some penalty for a lousy rating would add to making the year end performance meaningful. There are enough of very insightful people on this board that can come up with some suggestions for Shaun to think about. This game is excellent and continues to get better.

[SittingDuck]

This is a key reason why what you say is true, Roxbury: Shaun listens to and evaluates what his clientele consider important.  His design philosophy is unlike any I've ever seen in a game designer.  And I think this is why when you get into PSBB (and tweak it as much as I have), you realize you can't get this anywhere else.

[scott32671]

i absolutely agree! Your team stinks it up, you have empty seats and payroll is hit hard. Poor teams cannot get the high priced free agents or resign their own free agents! I feel that you need to have consequences to having a terrible season. this should be added to the next version!

[SittingDuck]

Added it into the suggestion box.  Thanks for the feedback on the idea.

[Woodruff]

I would ask that this be made OPTIONAL, however. I personally prefer to keep the financials even amongst teams...I never play the "by area financials".

[SittingDuck]

I understand where you're coming from.  The idea would be to only impact the human player(s).  But I could also see how you might want that to be optional anyhow so your finances are drained at all.

[Nukester]

With the winter meetings being held, I got the itch for some baseball again, and started playing around with the game again. I was tinkering around with a startup league for 1903 and took over the Highlanders, but I like to handicap myself alittle so I lowered my total finances to lower than the current lowest (Im having an initial draft and have currency set to 1%) so my total finances are at $2,000,000 and the next highest is $2,304,075

Anyway, the next thing I saw was the "approval rating". Mine was set at 78. I would like to set it down to an even 50, but I noticed that you cant edit that number. Does it matter ? Does this number do anything now ? I see this thread is a few months old, so I didnt know if something changed with a patch or not.

[DandricSturm]

Did you know you can use less than 1%?  I've used .5 a couple times.  Even at that the top salaries are way too high for most eras.  I bet all of baseball didn't have a $2,000,000 budget in 1903.

[Nukester]

ORIGINAL: DandricSturm

Did you know you can use less than 1%?  I've used .5 a couple times.  Even at that the top salaries are way too high for most eras.  I bet all of baseball didn't have a $2,000,000 budget in 1903.

No I didnt realize that. Pretty cool. Any idea on the approval rating ?

[Amaroq]

ORIGINAL: Nukester
Does it matter ? Does this number do anything now ?

I don't think that it does, no. You can use it to gauge whether you've made things better or worse, I suppose, but there isn't much game impact from it.

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: Amaroq

ORIGINAL: Nukester
Does it matter ? Does this number do anything now ?

I don't think that it does, no. You can use it to gauge whether you've made things better or worse, I suppose, but there isn't much game impact from it.

I'd like to think that the approval rating has effects on the inclination of free agents to sign on, or stay, with your team. I don't see Shaun putting any numerical factors into the game that are meaningless. Does the manual mention it?