Player Development

[Jawaka]

So what am I missing when it comes to player development.

Most of the better perks such as +CON or PWR are somewhat expensive and you need to save up for them and the only way to do that is by managing your roster. You can release players and sign others. Any budget left over is banked for player development.

That said.. I can't seem to release a player without signing another and early in a franchise there are no inexpensive players to sign in place of the highly paid player you may want to drop to save payroll. This essentially prevents you from really building any kind of savings for player development.

Now later in the course of my franchise cheaper player options did appear but at the same time that this happened I found that the perks that were available to purchase all changed from +CON/Power to fielding or pitching perks. There were no batting upgrades available anymore.

so for me at least, and maybe it was just this one season, I ended up purchasing perks that I really wasn't interested in because I would have lost them if I didn't use them before playoffs started.

[G Willikers]

You definitely have grasped the basic system and it sounds like you just hit an unlucky spot with your available development opportunities. Keep in mind that your development budget does carry over to next season so you didn't have to pay for the options you didn't actually care about (I don't know off the top of my head if the development opportunities also carry over or if they are renewed at the start of the season, but the funds do).

The way the AI seems to handle it is if they have a losing record and are out of the playoff race by the midpoint of the season, they release their priciest players and sign C and D rated replacements to increase their development coffers for next season. If you really want to cheese the system you can do something like that and sim a season or two in order to build up 20 or 30 million in development funds, or you can just do that by default if you don't have any players you really care about developing.

Just keep in mind player development is a long game and it may take two or three seasons to really see results. Also keep in mind that you can get significant boosts and penalties through random events that far outweigh what you can buy through development (I had a pitcher gain almost 50 junk in a 16 game season once mostly through random development). Young players tend to benefit from random events and older players (35+) tend to see more decline, although not always.

[G Willikers]

Another thing you mentioned is player salaries. Whenever a player goes on the market they start at an absurdly high asking price and slowly lower it, which simulates a negotiation process that includes every team. In my experience players aren't worth pursuing until about a third of the way through the season, at which point they're still overpriced but you can swing it if you really need to upgrade some spots. At the midway point most players are roughly average salaries to their rating but most of the guys rated above B have been signed.

The first season is usually the only one where there isn't anyone worth signing to begin it, by the second season onwards you usually have a ton of role or bench players left over from offseason negotiations or even starter quality players who slipped through (although certain positions always seem to be at a premium). I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing since it forces you to really get a good look at the team you picked before making any moves.

Hope all this helped. It's a really solid franchise mode once you get used to the system although it still needs some work to be great.

[BigRowdy]

I know that in the MLB mod not a single player is given any special attributes. That fact draws the conclusion that those added traits are rather powerful, at least I think so...

[G Willikers]

They're situational and some are stronger than others. Specialist especially is a flat, significant malus to all of an opposite side hitter's stats. Overall I wouldn't say they're overpowered though, and I do think they add a lot to franchise specifically.

When you see a hitter with really good contact and power but the RBI dud trait for example. It impacts the decision to sign them and how you want to utilize them (maybe they'll be better at leadoff than cleanup). Unfortunately the game only allows you to futz with the lineup when you're playing, this would be a deeper system if they allowed us to manage sim and watch lineups too.

It also impacts grade and therefore signing money, so a player with 55 speed and stealer is probably going to end up overpriced. On the other hand you may be able to sign the RBI dud above on the cheap.

My guess is the mod doesn't use traits because it's a gamey system and maybe they don't want to deal with the controversy of certain guys having certain traits.

[BigRowdy]

Originally posted by G Willikers:

They're situational and some are stronger than others. Specialist especially is a flat, significant malus to all of an opposite side hitter's stats. Overall I wouldn't say they're overpowered though, and I do think they add a lot to franchise specifically.

When you see a hitter with really good contact and power but the RBI dud trait for example. It impacts the decision to sign them and how you want to utilize them (maybe they'll be better at leadoff than cleanup). Unfortunately the game only allows you to futz with the lineup when you're playing, this would be a deeper system if they allowed us to manage sim and watch lineups too.

It also impacts grade and therefore signing money, so a player with 55 speed and stealer is probably going to end up overpriced. On the other hand you may be able to sign the RBI dud above on the cheap.

My guess is the mod doesn't use traits because it's a gamey system and maybe they don't want to deal with the controversy of certain guys having certain traits.

agree

[Jawaka]

Been playing for about a year now and nothing changed. 90% of the perks that become available are either pitching perks, fielding perks or perks only available to low payroll bench players that I only traded for to be able to afford these worthless perks.