Suggestions for Sports Mogul

[AndyP]

One of the programmers for Sports Mogul is around the forum so I'd like to create a thread where we can suggest some ideas or tweaks to the game going forward.

So let's keep the suggestions positive so we can maximize this game we all enjoy!

(And thanks again for giving us a voice Connor!)

[cmilliken]

Hey guys,

I'm gathering info for how leagues run, and I'm currently in one. I'd like to see how they work and what you guys would like to see that could possibly help GM's, Commissioners, etc.

Feel free to post and I'll be looking at this forum regularly!

Thanks!
Connor Milliken
Game Designer
Sports Mogul, Inc.
connor@sportsmogul.com

[mattynokes]

When you look at MLB: The Show, you see what a successful baseball franchise is. One of the biggest reasons why it's so successful is the options it has. Different batting/pitching cameras, multiple ways to hit/pitch, different seasons lengths, and so on. You can customize the game to exactly however you want it to play. Baseball Mogul has seemed to have attempted that with things like; bold font, ability to change dialog size, ability to turn on/off sanity checks, and various other settings. I've been playing BM since Mogul 06 and over the years, I've come to see that some more options would be great additions.

1) Aging At Turnover: I liked it on BM 06 when prospects all saw their peak drops at the end of the season. Having players age on their exact birthday sounds nice, but I can't help but think of this as a Scout-GM interaction in Mogul...

"Yeah John Smith (80/90) is looking great, he's gonna be a star." And then one week passes. "How's Smith looking?" - from GM. "Well, he had a birthday so now (80/85), while I think he'll be starter worthy, he's not going to be great."

It just doesn't make sense that all because a birthday, a player will have less time to develop. The option to have aging at the exact birthday or directly following the World Series would be great.

Furthermore, in league play, the issue arises that where ever you stop the sim, you're going to have prospects that will inevitably see their peak drop before they have a chance to get better. This can create a problem when a "vulture GM" targets a new, unaware GM and trades them a lemon for something good. We usually see the new GM get fed up and leave. Not something we as a league or Sports Mogul would like their product to be receipted.

2) Career Window: This might be my biggest pet peeve. I know it was implemented many years ago to curb teen draftees from being instantly ready for the big leagues. In the past few installments it hasn't been a problem.

It's become increasingly frustrating that I sometimes don't have a player hit their "career window" until season age 26! Last season I had a Cy Young contending pitcher who was still pre-window. This season, I have a guy rated over 90 that's still pre-window! That just doesn't make sense. BM is unreasonably holding player's skills back because of some mythical timeline of when the game thinks they should be ready.

With this in effect, BM is basically saying early careers like Ryan Zimmerman, Troy Tulowitzki, Nolan Arenado, Manny Machado, The Upton Brothers, Julio Teheran, Freddie Freeman, Bryce Harper, Starlin Castro, Jason Heyward, Felix Hernandez, or Mike Trout shouldn't happen and would hold back players of that nature.

Let them play! Give us the option to turn on/off Career Window. And yes, I know you can go into the player editor and zero out Career Windows, but in a league setting that puts integrity on the line.

3) Exportable Draft Order: Many league like to make draft picks tradeable. Some like to do compensation. At FCM, we do compensation rounds in between the 1st and 2nd rounds as well as in between the 2nd and 3rd rounds. While we can already accomplish what we need to do in-game with the Draft Editor, it would be the process much easier.

Being able to remove picks from rounds, add picks to rounds, or even create new rounds would be a great addition for league play.

4) Full Minors: I've hear some rumors and rumblings that full minors will happen on BM 2016. There's a lot to be interpreted with that as to what it means. Will we have full AAA, AA, Hi-A, Lo-A, R-Ball? Or does it mean 25-man rosters for the current AAA, AA, A/R setup?

I'd like to say, I think full 25-man rosters would be a mistake. Part of the reason why many of us choose Mogul over OOTP is that we have enough customization and have enough control over our team without going overboard and having to meticulously hash out every little detail like OOTP does.

I've long since wanted a differentiation between Hi-A and Lo-A. It's a differentiation in real life and would be nice to have a true progression of levels in the game. In the least I know about every in our league cringed when they found out A-Ball and R-Ball was being combined. I think giving us R-Ball back and adding in Lo-A gives us enough to customize a team to our liking and hold enough depth in our minors without going overboard.

5) Changable Depth Chart: Drop-down boxes to select a three-deep depth chart at every position. Maybe I want my starting 3B as my #2 1B or my 4th OF on the bench to be the #2 at each outfield spot. Sometimes the decisions Mogul makes is perplexing, when you have a healthy and rested option that didn't play.

[mike]

Being able to do things in real time: So essentially this would eliminate the need of team files or anything like that.

Some sort of League mode: Currently you need to have a password so you can't go into editor and what not. Which is cool but this also means at least one person needs to have the password to work on the file which makes them privacy to info a normal gm doesn't get. Now all leagues rely on some sort of trust that the Commishes doesn't abuse this fact but it would be nice to have even the temptation removed altogether.

An option to have the draft whenever you want: Old moguls used to have the draft at the end of the season which I thought was better than what it is now. Either way would just be cool to have the draft at the end even though realistically speaking the draft should be where it is.

Smarter Player Agents: This would effect single player games to but this is a huge problem in leagues. In leagues players go for MUCH more in FA than they ever get when signing an extension. It would be nice to see that number be a little bit closer to what they would get on FA. As in mogul leagues there is literally no incentive for a player to really extend with their team if they know they can get paid big in FA so in the extensions period they should demand a lot.

Make individual strategies, checkmarks beside players, personal catchers exportable on the team file.

[hickoxb2]

Yeah, I've been playing BBM since 2005 and I've enjoyed most of the changes, but there have always been a couple things that never quite settled with me. The first one here is the only one that seems fairly unanimous and should definitely be implemented ASAP. The rest of mine are just suggestions to help make BBM a little more realistic and to keep file manipulation from happening too much.

1) The biggest thing, that matty also mentioned, is low minors. When we condensed from A and R ball to just A/R, I was more surprised than upset. Like he said, I would rather 3 tiers of minor league ball than just one. I wasn't expecting a change like that, and I would strongly encourage moving it back in the next patch.

2) I'd like to preface this entire point by suggesting making this all a clickable option in League Settings. How about an option for 40-man rosters? I understand they can be a pain in the ass to keep up with as far as PTBNL and Rule 5 works, but at least make it an option for single-player or league purposes. And on that note, optioning players between the majors and minors instead of being able to outright demote a 33-year-old to AAA or something would make the game more realistic. Give the player the option to be demoted, released, waived, or traded. And again, all of this could be made "un-clickable" for the simplicity of league play.

3) International FA. I've seen this tried in a bunch of leagues over the years, but it screws with the natural talent pool/distribution too much when you create/modify players to be "International Free Agents". Guys coming over from other leagues/continents is common in baseball, and it would add a different dimension to the offseason. Again, for the sake of league simplicity, this could also be made optional for league play.

4) Winterball. Like with International Free Agency, this can only be done in league play by manually adjusting player ratings. In this league, we have a grotesque form of it, but it doesn't represent accurately how it really works. Young guys go to WB IRL to work on specific sorts of things that are keeping them from being good players. Several years ago there were leagues where you could pay a certain amount to increase a certain skill, whether it's increasing a righty batter's contact versus RHP or increasing a pitcher's velocity or anything like that, you could have it built into the game so that it doesn't screw with the talent distribution like it does here. If there is a way to do that without "killing" other players, that would be ideal. I know that's one of the main things that continually frustrates others and me as well.

5) I Liked player personalities. I don't remember when BBM did away with them, but it helped see how your players' personal traits meshed together. Player personalities are the same reason why real life Moneyball doesn't work. There is still the option to have their "Happiness" dictate their salary demands and performance, but I think having a team full of personalities that fit well together should help performance.

6) Coaches. It's always been something that's just been absent from the game, and that could be by design. Managers IRL do and should have an effect on player and team performance. To combat the issue of revenue/money disparity with the rich teams just buying the best ones, they could also develop like players do, and could include having players be able to turn into coaches for a team after they retire. It's just an idea, and I have no idea how it would would work. It could be a step up from Strategies though, which we have now.


That's all I've got for now. I'd like to again add that I've been playing BBM for just about a decade, and I've loved every new version of this game. I think any of these options would be great additions to the game. And I know my fellow GMs here are furious about some of the things I suggested, so for 2 through 6, if they are discussed, make sure they're all just options that are clickable in League Settings, League, Editor, Player Editor, or Advanced Tools.

~ Brad Hickox
First Class Mogul - Cleveland Indians
No Strike Mogul - Los Angeles Dodgers

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5) Changable Depth Chart: Drop-down boxes to select a three-deep depth chart at every position. Maybe I want my starting 3B as my #2 1B or my 4th OF on the bench to be the #2 at each outfield spot. Sometimes the decisions Mogul makes is perplexing, when you have a healthy and rested option that didn't play.

Oh that reminds me of another one! Pinch Hitting and Pinch Running are always a big part of my game. Instead of there being 5 (or 6 in the NL) generic Bench spots, we could have each one correspond to a specific substitution.

Bench 1: PH 1 vs RHP
Bench 2: PH 2 vs RHP
Bench 3: PH 1 vs LHP
Bench 4: PH 2 vs LHP
Bench 5: PR 1
Bench 6: PR 2

We have specialty relievers, why not expand that to bench players? Each one might already have its own sort of distinction, but I've never heard about it, and if it does exist, why not make it obvious for people? And these 5/6 are just kind of ideas. I think at bare minimum there should a specific one for:

Pinch Hitter vs RHP
Pinch Hitter vs LHP
Pinch Runner

[AndyP]

I've got one for you Connor that came about with 2011 I believe. Clay changed the talent levels to a static measure where you set the file's talent levels to have X number of 90+ overall players and X number of 90+ peak players. The same for 80+.

My issue with this is that it can have the unintended effect of suppressing talent that would otherwise develop (and boosting those that would not) simply to keep up with the percentages. I'd like to suggest that instead Sports Mogul consider making this percentage fall within a certain range.

For example: We have it set for 3.5 per team or 112 players. Why not instead of a static 3.5, maybe a 3.5 with a +/- range of .5? That way, the talent levels in the league will fluctuate as the quality of players in the league exist. I say that because certainly talent levels ebb and flow in real life as well.

My other big suggestion: do away with spending on farm. This amounts to nothing more than magic pixie dust for prospects. Big markets can pump cash in to basically increase the odds of their prospects hitting their ceiling. This has really no real-life similarity. The Yankees don't have a better farm system tomorrow if they decide to spend a billion dollars on their farm.

Instead, good teams spend on scouting or they emphasize certain traits in their minors to develop their players. Like the A's emphasizing plate discpline, the Twins valuing control, the Rays are outstanding at developing dominant arms, etc. Instead of spending money on pixie dust, why not give each team (just as an example) ten points to spend on their development system. Then they can allocate that towards whatever they'd like: stealing bases, playing defense, hitting for power, hitting for contact, plate discipline, strike outs, control, movement, pitch development, etc.

It's far more realistic and adds an element of choice running your franchise.

[Cdawg]

I tend to ramble a bit so hopefully these things stay on point

I'd like to have the option to set a lineup everyday. Obviously you set your single lineup like you do know, but with this option you can click on the calendar and choose to change the lineup for that day. The reason we want this option is b/c in every sim league, they sim 1-2 weeks at a time and if you want to give your star 1B a rest for 1 day or if your #5 SP is injured, perhaps having the option to start the 6th SP(well know he is starting).

In Depth Strategy-http://webl.vivi.com/ This is a free online boxing game, I used to play it around 10 years ago. Just like BM you just sim and see the results(well this game you are scheduled a match per your weight class). I digress they have a legit crazy in depth strategy scheme. Fighting styles, you get points each round for defense, aggression and power. What to do if you're cut or what to do if you are losing. Here is a small excerpt.

" You can also combine conditions on the same line using logical operators as in the following example


6/6/8
if endurance < 30 and opponent is tired then 5H/10/5
if endurance < 30 and opponent is strong and score > 3 then 1/1/18
if (opponent is hurt and endurance > 30) or (opponent is tired and endurance > 50) then 5/10/5
#the following two lines are identical
if not (opponent is hurt) then 7/7/6
if opponent is strong or opponent is tired then 7/7/6 "

perhaps if there was for us to do something like this(IE If losing and game is close, with a runner on 1st and zero outs X% of a bunt to move runner.) This seems like a labor of love, but for those of use who spend hours just looking at the game this could be borderline obsessive.
Basically it's about having alot more control over what happens SITUATIONALLY in game as opposed to "Infield in" or "High pitch count." I think in '14 you were on the right track with player strategy, but that actually doesn't carry over into the .team file, so no one uses it. On that note

Allowing player strategy to be part of the .team file. self explanatory

Non-Linear player development- Right now you can track players. Eye and Defense usually doesn't get much better from draft day to peak. However in RL players go from speedy types to power hitters(Griffey Jr) some of the time while older players sometimes start to become choosier at the plate

Player traits These are things you see in Madden, good hands, lock down corner etc, giving players up to 5 traits could be fun. You already have fan favorite, but that doesn't pop up as often as it should or it sticks around. Someone like Ichiro is a fan favorite almost anywhere he goes, but think about that late 80's Detroit team. ONLY detroit could love those players. The rest of the league would hate Lambeer or Thomas in their city. Same thing with Sherman. Or something like Mariano. You know if you handed him the ball in the 9th, the game was over for the other team. As a team you can see how the Miami Heat just shut teams down in the 4th. Give players traits like Love or Hate 'em(ticket seller) Rocket arm, Gold glove, Locker Room leader, Speedster, Intimidator etc. By doing this you give them a small added bonus to the vital.

Team Chemistry I don't know how prevalent team chemistry really is, but a team that gels together, tend to play at a higher level. I guess an example of this is the last 2 seasons in Boston. You went from the bottom of the AL to WS just by bringing in "Locker Room guys" and getting rid of players who felt entitled. Honestly this can be portrayed as a % number


I second these

4) Full Minors: I've hear some rumors and rumblings that full minors will happen on BM 2016. There's a lot to be interpreted with that as to what it means. Will we have full AAA, AA, Hi-A, Lo-A, R-Ball? Or does it mean 25-man rosters for the current AAA, AA, A/R setup?

I'd like to say, I think full 25-man rosters would be a mistake. Part of the reason why many of us choose Mogul over OOTP is that we have enough customization and have enough control over our team without going overboard and having to meticulously hash out every little detail like OOTP does.

I've long since wanted a differentiation between Hi-A and Lo-A. It's a differentiation in real life and would be nice to have a true progression of levels in the game. In the least I know about every in our league cringed when they found out A-Ball and R-Ball was being combined. I think giving us R-Ball back and adding in Lo-A gives us enough to customize a team to our liking and hold enough depth in our minors without going overboard.

5) Changable Depth Chart: Drop-down boxes to select a three-deep depth chart at every position. Maybe I want my starting 3B as my #2 1B or my 4th OF on the bench to be the #2 at each outfield spot. Sometimes the decisions Mogul makes is perplexing, when you have a healthy and rested option that didn't play.

Some sort of League mode: Currently you need to have a password so you can't go into editor and what not. Which is cool but this also means at least one person needs to have the password to work on the file which makes them privacy to info a normal gm doesn't get. Now all leagues rely on some sort of trust that the Commishes doesn't abuse this fact but it would be nice to have even the temptation removed altogether.

So in summary.
1)Option for game to game Lineup
2)More in game strategy
3).team file caries player strategy
4)Player traits
5)Team Chemistry

[rockybull]

like the people above me said, i would like those changes as well. i have one that kind of bothers me though.

Defense: You click on a position player, you see the baseball diamond on the top right and it shows their ratings at each position. Then you click on that and it shows different numbers for each position. Example, the player shows he's a corner OFs in the game with 95 arm, 90 range, and and 76 fielding. Shows a rating of 82 in corner OF and 78 at SS. You then click on the baseball diamond and it shows all the different positions and full ratings on how well he should do at each position. his rating at SS is 97 arm, 94 range and 75 fielding. So you think, ok the guy can play SS, then you convert him there and play him at SS and you click on the "fileding" tab and after a full season he'll have a -30.0 DRAA and -3.0 DW. I mean that's crazy. Can this be fixed in 2016? That was just one example, but it shows it like that for other positions as well. It kind of gives you false hope that he can play the position, when in reality he really sucks there. This would just make it more realistic in my opinion if it wouldn't falsely show that he can play a position, when he really can't play it.

Another thing about defense, is sometimes shortstops and second basemen have really high DRAA's, which seems to be unrealistic. I had a SS that posted up a +50.4 DRAA and +5.2 DW in one season, which I thought was crazy. This same player I moved to 2B and he posted up a +25.1 DRAA and +2.6 DW in only 55 games started at 2B. Nothing really special about his defense, it's all 90's but plenty of players have all 90's defense and a lot of them don't get that crazy. This doesn't happen to all players at those positions, but it happens to a solid amount of guys, and it's mainly at SS and 2B.

[cmilliken]

I'm taking in all these suggestions, but it would be great to know how much time you all have spent on 2015.

I understand a lot of leagues run on 2014 or 2013, but I'd like to see if these suggestions are mostly from BBM 2014 or if you have all tried the newest version of mogul.

Great suggestions and ideas guys, I'm getting some awesome ideas for next year.

[AndyP]

I think there has been a healthy mix of experimentation with both Connor. Most of the suggestions here are about larger issues with Mogul rather than things that need to be patched or fixed. They are things hard-wired into the game that have been around for awhile.

From my experience with 2015 I've seen the create your own expansion team and a few of the bugs worked out, but I'm not sure that's largely what is being suggested here.

But are there certain features you want our opinion on with 2015? Things we should look for that you think might have been improved that would help a league?