Should I wait for OOTP 22 or buy OOTP 21 now?

[WHOPPER WHOPPER WHOPPER]

Are the upgrades truly gonna be significant enough?

I've been addicted to Football Manager and have really been intrigued about getting Into a baseball version. But I just don't know which to do.

[BigJohn]

I buy the older versions on sale. IMO many of the newer version are inferior to prior versions, for instance I think '19 is better than '21. I'm guessing the changes for the new pay to win "perfect team" have had poor repercussions for the AI game.

[AZAxle]

OOTP 21 brought with it lots of good changes even with all of the updates that MLB brought with the shortened season. There are a lot of good features and additions that make the creation of your own Infinite sandbox of baseball so much better than 19.
I am biased as the tech support manager for OOTP but as a former community member who has put thousands of hours into each version of the game 21 was by far one of the better versions OOTP has put out in the past 3-5 years. If you already have 21 i'd wait to see what 22 has coming out when we release all of our features and have details about it all. Let that be your deciding factor if you're having questions about OOTP 22.

[inosk0pedjfk]

'21 is also on windows gamepass

[AlterEgo45]

It doesn't sound like you're after something like Perfect Team, which is a kind of pay to win game where you buy packs of players with real money and compete in a giant online league where the optimal strategy is to spend scads of money or cheat. That's where all the real work has been done lately.

Regardless of what the company spokesperson there says, the single player version which is most similar to the Football Manager experience hasn't had anything but token upgrades for about 4 years now. If you read the forums and Steam reviews you'll see I'm far from alone in that opinion. A fair amount of the long term players (I've been playing this nearly 20 years) no longer buy this game annually.

From what I've read, the big addition to OOTP22 will be realistic looking stadiums, where if you play as a General Manager like most people do you will rarely see them. Unlike FM, very little of this title (for most players anyway) is 'game day' action - it's all about getting who you feel are the best players and developing them and seeing how they do over periods of months and years.

I'll also add that OOTP22 is the first under new ownership - OOTP developments recently sold out to a Korean company who as I understand it specializes in mobile games which use a microtransaction business model. So there's a huge wild card there in terms of what the new ownership wants. The only reason I bothered upgrading to 21 is because I believe it will be the last good version before the new owners start to mess it all up.

For your purposes it would make no difference whatsoever if you bought OOTP18, 19, 20, or 21. If you take to OOTP, you'll like each of them about the same. The differences aren't that big. If money is a factor and you've got a choice between buying this at $10-15 and OOTP22 at $30-40 or whatever they're asking for, that's no choice at all. Buy this one.

[Demolaye]

Regarding this.
When you buy a new version it says you can import games.
I can only see import of single player games.
Can you import your Perfect Team when you upgrade versions?

[AlterEgo45]

No.

I might not be up to date, but when I last checked they keep the servers open for the old version for I think a year or so after the new version gets released. Of course a lot of people abandon their teams when the new version first comes out so you'll be playing against many teams which are no longer active - the trade market falls apart. Once the servers are shut down, the team is gone.

This new company will likely change a lot of things about PT going forward as that type of game is their specialty.

If PT is your thing you should buy the new game as soon as you can. You'll make a killing on the trade market before things settle down.

[Demolaye]

@AlterEgo45,
Thanks for the speedy reply.
Disappointing.
So I guess the Devs want you to buy a new game each year (normal for any sports franchise).
But also abandon all the work and any IRL $ one may have put into a team over a year.

Buying a new engine each year is normal.
Shafting the Perfect Team players of all their points earned / or, money spent on previous teams seems a little... ... greedy... disingenuous.
Guess, I won't be playing Perfect Team after XX dies out.

[Jim Rockford]

So I guess the Devs want you to buy a new game each year (normal for any sports franchise). ::::: YES that is what it seems like sadly. Still cheaper than say strat. But like others have said many times, there has been LITTLE improvements to the game engine. Try simming the same season. No randomness to AI. Same trades. Same strategies.

Just guessing some devs are also the same people posing on the boards to shout down everything.

There will never be head to head play.

Same game, no new stats. They just put a little fresh paint on the interface, you know, rounded edges instead of square, that sort of thing. Now it has MLB licensing so dev will be even slower.

Come back in a couple years as they will tout 'women leagues are here!!!! by popular demand'.

I am surprised there is not more competition in this game space.