Getting a Little Burned Out/Bored With This

[indiansfan]

If the current team is frustrating you then maybe spend time exploring your team's history, especially players from before you joined the league. I always find some comfort doing that, of course I teach history so that might just be me. Researching some of those guys and writing about it might be interesting.

[ae37jr]

I suggest mixing it up a little bit and change styles . Every year that I've been in the league, California has been the same exact team. World class starters, deep farm, 2-3 war players at every position and a defensive specialist behind the plate. Different names but essentially the same types of players.

I try to completely reinvent my approach every 3-4 years just to work outside of my comfort zone and keep things interesting. There have been times I've done things the exact opposite of what I believe.

Half of me plays this game because I wish I was a real gm. The other half plays to try out different styles to get to gain a better respect for real life gms who have to run a team tasked not by what they believe, but what the owner wants them to do. It adds another level to the game and keeps me from getting bored.

[Ted]

I suggest mixing it up a little bit and change styles . Every year that I've been in the league, California has been the same exact team. World class starters, deep farm, 2-3 war players at every position and a defensive specialist behind the plate. Different names but essentially the same types of players.

I try to completely reinvent my approach every 3-4 years just to work outside of my comfort zone and keep things interesting. There have been times I've done things the exact opposite of what I believe.

Half of me plays this game because I wish I was a real gm. The other half plays to try out different styles to get to gain a better respect for real life gms who have to run a team tasked not by what they believe, but what the owner wants them to do. It adds another level to the game and keeps me from getting bored.

I appreciate the advice and maybe I'm overly micromanaging, but I don't think superficially changing my style will help with the problem I have. My style is building through the draft, having a deep farm system, etc, and that will never change. Doing that is the reason I play. I don't particularly like trading, and if you aren't going to build through a strong system, you have to trade for big league talent constantly. I have no interest in that. I could go more offense heavy, but I would do it through a ground up build. Trying to just change the make of a team at the big league level alone is A)less likely to lead to success, B) a short term plan, C) isn't what I play this game for. Whatever style of team I end up with, my franchise will represent that style from the lowest level of the minors on up. I have a pitching pipeline now. I could probably create a hitting one. The reason I'm frustrated/less interested is that the game seems to be moving ever towards less certainty in development and more randomness. That's what's killing it for me. It feels like it doesn't matter what I plan, it's going to get nuked by randomness. Sure I can dodge the landmines, patch stuff up, retool, trade, etc etc, but I just don't want to. It's annoying.

I really do appreciate all the ideas I'm getting. I think I'm just in a funk about this game right now. If the funk breaks, I'll stick around. If it doesn't, I'll move on.

[7teen]

I’ve always just treated these leagues as a hobby. Something I enjoy doing. Yeah there are frustrations but it’s skmething I do for fun.

This is like golf. My golf game gets frustrating but I enjoy it. Things get in the way of me devoting time to it but I enjoy it when I can. If I lose, oh well. If I win, great.

I can’t imagine NOT doing these hobbies.

[Fat Nige]

If you get frustrated Ted because you're so good and occasionally a bit of randomness makes you not so good, you should try it from my end. Never having a grounding or history in baseball I'm just no good at analysing players or trades making my teams constantly suck. Nothing I do ever makes them better, and if I ever do think I'm on a roll I get three/four season-ending injuries that blow it all up. How frustrating do you think that all is? Having to fall into obscurity by the end of May and spend the rest of the season writing about no-hopers and trying to sound remotely cheerful about it. It's not easy I can tell you

[Ted]

If you get frustrated Ted because you're so good and occasionally a bit of randomness makes you not so good, you should try it from my end. Never having a grounding or history in baseball I'm just no good at analysing players or trades making my teams constantly suck. Nothing I do ever makes them better, and if I ever do think I'm on a roll I get three/four season-ending injuries that blow it all up. How frustrating do you think that all is? Having to fall into obscurity by the end of May and spend the rest of the season writing about no-hopers and trying to sound remotely cheerful about it. It's not easy I can tell you

Again, I really do appreciate the feedback, but I think I've been a little unclear. My internal debate over whether I want to continue playing this game has very little to do with whether I'm good or if I win. I has to do with wondering if I enjoy playing this type of game. I'm not annoyed that the randomness makes me lose or win. I'm annoyed in having to deal with it. I don't like having to adjust my plans over and over and over and over. Some degree of it is fine, and does make for a challenge, but there is a point where it becomes more annoying than it's worth. I re-iterate, I care very little if I win or lose. I care about building a strong, functioning minor league system that can churn out talent. That's the fun part to me. I don't know if I want to deal with having holes punched in my assembly line constantly. It may be realistic, but it also annoys the shit out of me to have to retool over and over and over.

As an aside, I again would point out that if you ARE frustrated about not winning, stop trying to win. Winning is the end result of a dozen little things that each must be mastered if you want to sustain winning. I don't mean to over-interpret your post Nigel, but if you are frustrated, it seems like you have a handle on at least one difficulty you have. So I'd stay stop trying to win, and get really good at analyzing players. That's only part of it sure, but a big part. Whether or not you believe in sabermetrics or new stats, OOTP is a game that does. So learn about them. Get really good at looking at a player's past performance and deciding if you think it's sustainable. Then figure out how the games ratings correlate with those stats. Next you could work on understanding positional scarcity, or performance scarcity. Probably better to tackle those before finances. But finances and revenue are another matter that must be understood. I don't mean to come off as arrogant here, I'm just trying again to point out that winning at anything is a series of small masteries. I'm definitely not good at everything OOTP. I stink at trading and drafting bats.

But here's the rub, I don't know if I WANT to get good at those, because I'm not sure I'm having fun playing the game anymore. Frankly, I'm getting pretty frustrated at how poorly I am communicating these ideas, and the fact that I'm having so much difficulty makes me wonder if I really should stop, because I'm probably not playing with a group like minded to me enough to have a game I enjoy.

A week or so ago during my injury diatribe, I think maybe two people got what I was saying. Neither agreed with me, but they didn't just essentially respond, "That's how it is. This is realistic." My question during any time I'm complaining about the way the game works is not about realism in a vacuum. It is, "Does this feature make our game better"? "Does it make it more evenly competitive?" "Does it make it harder?" For example, regarding CEI's, I'd ask, "What does this rare and extremely random event bring to the game? What does it add? How does it make our experience better?" I'd argue that they do not. Really all they do is fuck over one guy now and again and have no affect on anyone else. In my mind, this is a BAD gaming feature. They should be done away with. I can name two franchises off the top of my head that have been kept from competing during the entirity of our use of OOTP 19 simply by injuries. (possibly 18, but I think it was 19 where it changed up the injury model and now has a tracker and really focuses how if you hurt something previously, you are more injury prone there in the future). Again, my question is, this may be more real, but "Does a team losing an entire OOTP versions worth of competition due to injury make our league better?" The counter argument is, "It adds another degree of difficulty in recognizing that injury decreased the value of young top talent. Perhaps that GM should have considered trading those kids or not putting so much hope in them?" I'd counter, "Do we need that many degrees of difficulty? This is already a rich, complex sim. Is it more FUN to have to trade away or give up on your young future pitching stud because he hurt his elbow at 19?"

I'm open to other views. Alan gave some good views about his feelings on having many injuries. What I'm tired of hearing is, "It's realistic so we're keeping it." That's not what I asked, and the fact that so few people care to even think past that point shows me I may simply be a bad fit here. I'm not saying you guys are wrong. People enjoy things for different reasons. But I haven't been enjoying the direction OOTP and this league are heading as much. I have certainly had a rash of injuries to my minors, and I'll stick around long enough to see if this was just bad luck. But if it isn't, I'm done. I do not care to play a game where I can't develop through the minors without having 50% or more of my prospects lumped by injuries. I don't care to play a game where the top paid players make so much more than the mid tier guys. I don't enjoy seeing two or three teams be out of in it May because of injuries alone. I don't enjoy having players lump at 22 and 23 years old. I don't like having guys lose range at 22-23. I get that all these things are more real. I don't care. I think they make this less fun. Some people like more chaos and randomness. I don't. Without any, it would certainly be too dull, but I feel we are over the line into too much. I think we have a chance to control the situation to make this game more fair than pure realism and randomness does, and we aren't in the name of worshiping realism. But that's just my opinion. It's fine if you disagree with me.

[Ted]

More simply stated, my take is that the last few versions of OOTP's "improvements" have been a more realistic implementation of injuries, salary demands and structure, and player/manager personality conflicts. Friends, these are not the reasons we are baseball fans. OOTP has done very little in improving it's woefully outdated player model, fixing its occasionally outright misleading naming of ratings, or giving improve control of roster management, the scouting remains rudimentary. Minor league development is non existent. This game has essentially the same bullpen mechanics are late 90's sims. I mean, we got a "stopper" role, AKA "throw the guy every day until his arm falls off". Which by the way we will now model in excruciating detail and he will return a diminished reliever.

So yes, I'm bored with this sim that refuses to evolve any of the fun parts of baseball, and continues to develop the annoying parts, and burnt out in managing those annoying parts.

[JimBob2232]

More simply stated, my take is that the last few versions of OOTP's "improvements" have been a more realistic implementation of injuries, salary demands and structure, and player/manager personality conflicts. Friends, these are not the reasons we are baseball fans. OOTP has done very little in improving it's woefully outdated player model, fixing its occasionally outright misleading naming of ratings, or giving improve control of roster management, the scouting remains rudimentary. Minor league development is non existent. This game has essentially the same bullpen mechanics are late 90's sims. I mean, we got a "stopper" role, AKA "throw the guy every day until his arm falls off". Which by the way we will now model in excruciating detail and he will return a diminished reliever.

So yes, I'm bored with this sim that refuses to evolve any of the fun parts of baseball, and continues to develop the annoying parts, and burnt out in managing those annoying parts.

I guess we are all different, but more realistic is what I am looking for. I will get angry with the flamed out prospects, and scream for joy with the random bumps a 1 star guy gets, and know thats realistic. I will be happy (at times) to trade my all-star players for a bunch of top prospects knowing that they may flame out. I will be happy (at times) to trade a bunch of my top prospects for a rental. I will more aggressively manage my finances, and pay attention to my teams morale. I see these all as great things which improve the league as a whole.

I like being a GM, not a game manager. So those GM aspects appeal more to me than the bullpen mechanics. Not to say those arent important to me, just less so.

Now on scouting I agree with you. I want that to be more realistic too. I don't like that every team sees players the same. I'd like some fog of war to enter into the equation there too.

But all in all, this game is great, and I am very happy to be here. Cant imagine not having this occupy my "free time".

[crobillard]

So I can’t speak to much of the arguments you bring up. I’m just not on the level some of you are at. I just see it as a game with a ton of randomness. I’m fine with it but I haven’t felt the pain in a long time since I haven’t been running a team in a long time.

However, I had to step down from the Halifax Hawks many seasons ago after winning a bunch. It was difficult because I wanted to keep winning and see through some of the decisions I made. What are the consequences of selling your entire farm system? for instance lol.

Now I won’t get into why I had to step down in that moment. There’s a lot of personal shit there, but I regret not finding a way to keep current in the league. Every once in awhile I would check back in on the forums, check on some old players I had and see how they were doing, check on how much Halifax had changed, etc., but I missed it terribly.

If you feel like you need to step away, I totally get it, but just make sure you fill your time in with something you like more. Otherwise like me you’ll come back here looking into a window from the outside wondering what may have been different if you didn’t make the decision to leave.

With all of that said, I am super happy with Edmonton now that I am back in the league, so if you ever did want to come back maybe it would be just as easy for you too. Good luck with whatever you decide.

[RonCo]

There's a lot to unpack in this conversation. A lot I can relate to.

All I want to note for now is that the apparent increase in "randomness" of the development engine we're seeing is not actually a result of new OOTP versions. It's much more happening because we, the BBA, have decided that really deep draft classes are more fun than what I'll call "realistic" classes. Since our draft classes are massively deep, the game engine has to react by hacking into them more once they get into our organizations. It does this through some combination of random hits and injuries.

So this "realism" isn't really realism so much as it is the game engine attempting to keep the talent level at the big leagues semi-reasonable in the face of the completely "unrealistic" draft classes that we've decided are more fun.

This is a classic online league problem. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

If you love managing and building minors (like I do and like Ted obviously does), going to massively talented draft classes will always wind up creating eddy currents in the plan.


PS: I should note that my own recent semi-absence isn't due to burnout, but is due to trying to hit some external deadlines--as well as a little medical stuff going on within the fam.

[jiminyhopkins]

If you're taking the time to type all of this stuff out and ask these questions, then you already know the answer.

Don't be afraid to take a break for a season or three. We'll be here when you find the love again.

[Ted]

I really do appreciate all the responses guys. Thanks. I think I'll cut back my involvement for a bit, see if I'm less annoyed. If not, I'll take a hiatus. If I feel a bit refreshed after not caring as much for a bit, great.

[RonCo]

Another scattered thought...

The more teams a league has that play the game by trying to create long-running, stable programs, the harder it gets to succeed in building a long-running, stable program that wins a reasonable amount.

[Fat Nige]

If you're taking the time to type all of this stuff out and ask these questions, then you already know the answer.

Don't be afraid to take a break for a season or three. We'll be here when you find the love again.

This is something I've done a lot (in case you haven't noticed ) A frequent change of team might factor into the equation as well sometimes

I haven't got the longest attention span but there's certainly something about this league, no matter how often I quit or disappear there's a time when it pops back into my head and I'm crawling round Matt for the next vacancy. Thankfully he hasn't turned me down yet lol

[JimBob2232]

Another scattered thought...

The more teams a league has that play the game by trying to create long-running, stable programs, the harder it gets to succeed in building a long-running, stable program that wins a reasonable amount.

...but the easier it gets to be a flash in the pan team and. “Steal” a landis with some targeted trade deadline deals.

[crobillard]

Another scattered thought...

The more teams a league has that play the game by trying to create long-running, stable programs, the harder it gets to succeed in building a long-running, stable program that wins a reasonable amount.

...but the easier it gets to be a flash in the pan team and. “Steal” a landis with some targeted trade deadline deals.

Hey now, no one has ever traded a bunch of young players at the trade deadline and won a Landis because of it before. No one....

[Spiccoli]

If you get frustrated Ted because you're so good and occasionally a bit of randomness makes you not so good, you should try it from my end. Never having a grounding or history in baseball I'm just no good at analysing players or trades making my teams constantly suck. Nothing I do ever makes them better, and if I ever do think I'm on a roll I get three/four season-ending injuries that blow it all up. How frustrating do you think that all is? Having to fall into obscurity by the end of May and spend the rest of the season writing about no-hopers and trying to sound remotely cheerful about it. It's not easy I can tell you

Again, I really do appreciate the feedback, but I think I've been a little unclear. My internal debate over whether I want to continue playing this game has very little to do with whether I'm good or if I win. I has to do with wondering if I enjoy playing this type of game. I'm not annoyed that the randomness makes me lose or win. I'm annoyed in having to deal with it. I don't like having to adjust my plans over and over and over and over. Some degree of it is fine, and does make for a challenge, but there is a point where it becomes more annoying than it's worth. I re-iterate, I care very little if I win or lose. I care about building a strong, functioning minor league system that can churn out talent. That's the fun part to me. I don't know if I want to deal with having holes punched in my assembly line constantly. It may be realistic, but it also annoys the shit out of me to have to retool over and over and over.

As an aside, I again would point out that if you ARE frustrated about not winning, stop trying to win. Winning is the end result of a dozen little things that each must be mastered if you want to sustain winning. I don't mean to over-interpret your post Nigel, but if you are frustrated, it seems like you have a handle on at least one difficulty you have. So I'd stay stop trying to win, and get really good at analyzing players. That's only part of it sure, but a big part. Whether or not you believe in sabermetrics or new stats, OOTP is a game that does. So learn about them. Get really good at looking at a player's past performance and deciding if you think it's sustainable. Then figure out how the games ratings correlate with those stats. Next you could work on understanding positional scarcity, or performance scarcity. Probably better to tackle those before finances. But finances and revenue are another matter that must be understood. I don't mean to come off as arrogant here, I'm just trying again to point out that winning at anything is a series of small masteries. I'm definitely not good at everything OOTP. I stink at trading and drafting bats.

But here's the rub, I don't know if I WANT to get good at those, because I'm not sure I'm having fun playing the game anymore. Frankly, I'm getting pretty frustrated at how poorly I am communicating these ideas, and the fact that I'm having so much difficulty makes me wonder if I really should stop, because I'm probably not playing with a group like minded to me enough to have a game I enjoy.

A week or so ago during my injury diatribe, I think maybe two people got what I was saying. Neither agreed with me, but they didn't just essentially respond, "That's how it is. This is realistic." My question during any time I'm complaining about the way the game works is not about realism in a vacuum. It is, "Does this feature make our game better"? "Does it make it more evenly competitive?" "Does it make it harder?" For example, regarding CEI's, I'd ask, "What does this rare and extremely random event bring to the game? What does it add? How does it make our experience better?" I'd argue that they do not. Really all they do is fuck over one guy now and again and have no affect on anyone else. In my mind, this is a BAD gaming feature. They should be done away with. I can name two franchises off the top of my head that have been kept from competing during the entirity of our use of OOTP 19 simply by injuries. (possibly 18, but I think it was 19 where it changed up the injury model and now has a tracker and really focuses how if you hurt something previously, you are more injury prone there in the future). Again, my question is, this may be more real, but "Does a team losing an entire OOTP versions worth of competition due to injury make our league better?" The counter argument is, "It adds another degree of difficulty in recognizing that injury decreased the value of young top talent. Perhaps that GM should have considered trading those kids or not putting so much hope in them?" I'd counter, "Do we need that many degrees of difficulty? This is already a rich, complex sim. Is it more FUN to have to trade away or give up on your young future pitching stud because he hurt his elbow at 19?"

I'm open to other views. Alan gave some good views about his feelings on having many injuries. What I'm tired of hearing is, "It's realistic so we're keeping it." That's not what I asked, and the fact that so few people care to even think past that point shows me I may simply be a bad fit here. I'm not saying you guys are wrong. People enjoy things for different reasons. But I haven't been enjoying the direction OOTP and this league are heading as much. I have certainly had a rash of injuries to my minors, and I'll stick around long enough to see if this was just bad luck. But if it isn't, I'm done. I do not care to play a game where I can't develop through the minors without having 50% or more of my prospects lumped by injuries. I don't care to play a game where the top paid players make so much more than the mid tier guys. I don't enjoy seeing two or three teams be out of in it May because of injuries alone. I don't enjoy having players lump at 22 and 23 years old. I don't like having guys lose range at 22-23. I get that all these things are more real. I don't care. I think they make this less fun. Some people like more chaos and randomness. I don't. Without any, it would certainly be too dull, but I feel we are over the line into too much. I think we have a chance to control the situation to make this game more fair than pure realism and randomness does, and we aren't in the name of worshiping realism. But that's just my opinion. It's fine if you disagree with me.

Well Ted... Let no one ever say you're not opinionated.... lol

I'd really hate to see ya leave. Quality GM's who are fully engaged are tough to come by. I enjoy reading (or listening) to your opinions on the game and teams around the league.

If you decide to leave, I appreciate the thread explaining why instead of just posting "That's It, I'm out" and just quitting mid-season.