PureSim is on a roll / PureSim 2008 brainstorming thread!

[PadresFan104]

An option to load in a saved game log and have the game replay it in some fashion.  Would be great for MP leagues.

[Amaroq]

ORIGINAL: Claymore Cut
40 Man Active rosters and Roster expansion in September

This will hopefully make it into next years version, as it is one of the "big 2" reasons why you don't have as much of the marketplace as you should (the other being being players developing during the season).

Please put this feature in!

I agree with these two - I think the 40-man roster and September call-ups would be a huge feature add.

Likewise, I think players developing and aging over the course of a season - at all levels, majors and minors - would really help to make the game feel like real life. Its one of the best 'differentiating' features in OOTP, in my opinion.

[Amaroq]

ORIGINAL: SittingDuck
A truly well-developed trading AI that allows the AI to improve, protect itself, and not destroy itself.

I will totally be willing to help and test in this regard. I feel it is absolutely imperative to take the game where others have not gone. Not perfect, but good.

Seconded. Specifically, I want to see
- better evaluation of 'N for 1' trades
- better evaluation of 'need', 'opportunity cost', and 'immediate impact'
- better evaluation of 'long-term impact', in terms of contract lengths, ages, etc.

I'd like to (eventually) see the AI making 'N for M' trades, for example, a 3-for-2 deal, that sort of thing, perhaps reserved for 'close but no cigar' 1-for-1 trades, allowing one side to 'sweeten the pot' with another player, etc.

....

I'd also like to see the 'call-ups' issues outlined in a different thread addressed.

[SittingDuck]

Schedule Generator??

[Amaroq]

ORIGINAL: lynchjm24
Blow up the financial model and start over - attempting to replicate something more like 'real life'.

If we're thinking about re-working a specific area of the game, this makes good sense to target, to me.

Three things bother me in this area: the player's "take it or leave it" salary demands; the total payrolls when playing with a full minor-league system; and the way the AI does its contract negotiations after the season ends.

I'd like to see:

Back-and-forth negotiations *which consume time*: player makes a demand, I make an offer, player makes a counter-offer, I make a second counter-offer, player accepts, that sort of thing.

June contract negotiations, followed by trades involving the players who couldn't agree to new deals. (This is what I always do, but it feels that the AI does not.)

Realistic minor-league contracts, so that we wind up with total payrolls more in the $100M - $120M range, not the $300M range.

6-year minor-league free agency: basically, no player will sign a deal to stay in your farm system for a seventh year (but if you've promoted them to the bigs, they're willing to stay on).

The combination of those last two almost imply a difference between a 'major league' contract and a 'minor league' contract - which might make it a perfect dovetail with the 40-man roster. A 'minor league' contract might be one that doesn't consume space on the 40-man roster, while a 'major league' contract *does* require space on the 40-man roster - though the player could be assigned to the minors. Free agents who receive a 'minor league' offer from one team and a 'major league' offer from another would always take the 'major league' offer.

That would prevent you from locking up minor-leaguers for ten years with long minor-league contracts.

(Rule 5 might follow pretty naturally, at that juncture.)

[Amaroq]

Managers.

I've defined the germ of this idea before, but essentially I'd like to see "Manager Personalities" replace most of the "Manager / GM Options" screen. If you want a manager who doesn't intentionally walk, ever, and calls lots of 'hit and run', you need to hire a Manager who does. We could read manager names from Lahman.

The old implementation of 'managers' had them have 'skill', which was not an 'interesting decision': you always hired the best manager available. This *would* be an interesting decision - finding a manager whose tendencies will actually suit the type of club you've built, as a GM, would be a challenge. It would also give some real sense of personality to the AI teams, especially if the AI GM's tried to build teams to match their manager's personalities.

You could also have 'GM personalities' - defining different constants for the various eval-weights functions, at different times of the season.

[Amaroq]

Shaun, you might re-read the similar thread which was a wish-list for 2006 - you'll see a lot of the same ideas:

PureSim 2006

[SittingDuck]

Following on Amaroq's points on finances, no surplus of good players staying in the FA pool because they can't be afforded.

[KG Erwin]

Sound triggers -- for the 7th inning stretch, and for Cubs fans, I got the legendary Harry Caray in an mp3 of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".   We need instructions on how to introduce sound triggers, so we can add customized sounds for the in-game manager experience.  
 
 More generic background sounds need to be added. The present ones are good, but we need more variety.  A "sound profile" for a specific park would be ideal.   Hints on how to user-construct such a profile would suffice, IF it could be made part of the user-editable features. 
 
 

[Abev]

ORIGINAL: Amaroq

If we're thinking about re-working a specific area of the game, this makes good sense to target, to me.

Three things bother me in this area: the player's "take it or leave it" salary demands; the total payrolls when playing with a full minor-league system; and the way the AI does its contract negotiations after the season ends.

I'd like to see:

Back-and-forth negotiations *which consume time*: player makes a demand, I make an offer, player makes a counter-offer, I make a second counter-offer, player accepts, that sort of thing.

June contract negotiations, followed by trades involving the players who couldn't agree to new deals. (This is what I always do, but it feels that the AI does not.)

Realistic minor-league contracts, so that we wind up with total payrolls more in the $100M - $120M range, not the $300M range.

6-year minor-league free agency: basically, no player will sign a deal to stay in your farm system for a seventh year (but if you've promoted them to the bigs, they're willing to stay on).

The combination of those last two almost imply a difference between a 'major league' contract and a 'minor league' contract - which might make it a perfect dovetail with the 40-man roster. A 'minor league' contract might be one that doesn't consume space on the 40-man roster, while a 'major league' contract *does* require space on the 40-man roster - though the player could be assigned to the minors. Free agents who receive a 'minor league' offer from one team and a 'major league' offer from another would always take the 'major league' offer.

That would prevent you from locking up minor-leaguers for ten years with long minor-league contracts.

(Rule 5 might follow pretty naturally, at that juncture.)

LOVE all of it. I kind of stated some of that partially early in the thread. Rule 5 would be amazing. Waiver wire and Arbitration would be nice too.

[Abev]

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

Sound triggers -- for the 7th inning stretch, and for Cubs fans, I got the legendary Harry Caray in an mp3 of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".   We need instructions on how to introduce sound triggers, so we can add customized sounds for the in-game manager experience.  

More generic background sounds need to be added. The present ones are good, but we need more variety.  A "sound profile" for a specific park would be ideal.   Hints on how to user-construct such a profile would suffice, IF it could be made part of the user-editable features. 

Really really like that idea. A option page full of "trigger types" eg "7th inning stretch" and a text box to point to the mp3 sound.

[SittingDuck]

In regards to sounds, I would absolutely love if we could have random sounds for various things.  For example, bb1, bb2, bb3, etc for base-on-balls and allow us to add as many as we choose.  And the program randomly chooses from those sounds.  This all might be something for PS2008, but however it can be allowed that we can add in extra files by a default filename (such as 'out', 'strikeout', 'doubleplay', etc) and add a number after it, then the program will choose from one.

If that makes sense.

[Beach23BoyP]

ORIGINAL: PadresFan104

In game box scores!!  Another key piece of information to have in order to manage effectively.

An absolute must!

BTW, please go back to the "old player card look". I've never said this (because I hate to be negative toward PS), but I've detested the scrolling "player cards" from day one.

I came around on the "animated ball flight" -- but I refuse to budge on this player card thing. I just much preferred the old style.

[VanScoy]

I do not like how free agent amateurs generated by the game have some pretty hefty ratings. I always thought these players should be a little above scrubs but certainly not much better than guys you have in your farm systems.

[SittingDuck]

ORIGINAL: Beach23Boy

BTW, please go back to the "old player card look". I've never said this (because I hate to be negative toward PS), but I've detested the scrolling "player cards" from day one.

I came around on the "animated ball flight" -- but I refuse to budge on this player card thing. I just much preferred the old style.

How on earth are you going to get 20+ years of a guy's career stats on a non-scrolling card?

[pbot]

As mentioned earlier in the thread, I would like to see the amateur draft guys signed to "minor league" value contracts right out of the draft.  Drives me nuts to see my first round pick sign for several million despite the fact that he is 19 and has no big league experience.  I would rather see something along the lines of the minor league and/or minimum salary while players develop in the minors, and then have them go for the big deals once they are free agent eligible in the big leagues.  Along those lines instead of an option to sign amateur draftees to varying length and value contracts, perhaps assign all draftees a standard "x" years minor league deal.  Once promoted to the majors then the minimum salary kicks in.

[JimboJ]

Please stop asking me if I want the runner to tag up and go to second on a fly ball.  If the ball is hit into the corner, and the fielder falls down after making the catch, then go ahead and send the runner and I'll take my chances.  Otherwise, NO I do not want the runner to tag up.

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: JimboJ

Please stop asking me if I want the runner to tag up and go to second on a fly ball.  If the ball is hit into the corner, and the fielder falls down after making the catch, then go ahead and send the runner and I'll take my chances.  Otherwise, NO I do not want the runner to tag up.

Jimbo, sorry, but I like that feature, and I believe most of us want it to stay in. I'm pretty sure this feature is a lock -in. In this game, as a manager, I'm also the base coaches.

Your decision-making should affect the behavior of your team when it comes to judging when to run aggressively or play it safe. To expect the AI routine to make decisions like this is expecting too much, IMHO. This feature is a keeper.

Now, you may accuse me of micromanaging, BUT, I can't do anything about pitch selection. I can set the outfield to play shallow, but if that guy on the mound serves up a fastball over the plate and the batter slams it over the left-fielder's head for a game-winning double, who's fault is it? Mine, of course.

It isn't micromanaging -- it's accepting responsibility.

[JimboJ]

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

ORIGINAL: JimboJ

Please stop asking me if I want the runner to tag up and go to second on a fly ball.  If the ball is hit into the corner, and the fielder falls down after making the catch, then go ahead and send the runner and I'll take my chances.  Otherwise, NO I do not want the runner to tag up.

Jimbo, sorry, but I like that feature, and I believe most of us want it to stay in. I'm pretty sure this feature is a lock -in. In this game, as a manager, I'm also the base coaches.

Your decision-making should affect the behavior of your team when it comes to judging when to run aggressively or play it safe. To expect the AI routine to make decisions like this is expecting too much, IMHO. This feature is a keeper.

Now, you may accuse me of micromanaging, BUT, I can't do anything about pitch selection. I can set the outfield to play shallow, but if that guy on the mound serves up a fastball over the plate and the batter slams it over the left-fielder's head for a game-winning double, who's fault is it? Mine, of course.

It isn't micromanaging -- it's accepting responsibility.

KG - I like the feature too, but why does it ask me if I want to tag up at first base, but not third base? That is a bug as far as I'm concerned. I'm all for playing the role of the base coach, but when was the last time you saw a runner tag up at first base?

[CrashDavis]

#1 - Ability to turn on/off financials, AI trades, injuries, after an association as been started. Even if it means only being able to do so during the off season (in-between seasons).
#2 - Including "special occurences" in the Almanac: No-Hitters/Perfect Games, Batter/Pitcher Triple Crown Winners, 40HR/40SB achievers.
#3 - Inclusion of Individual Fielding stats (Best/Worst by position) in the Statistics section.
#4 - A re-write/update of the Sample-Addins source.