Sports Management Games -

[Strelok]

Came up breifly in chat, so I was wondering, does anyone else play Spreadsheet Simulators, I mean sports games? Games like OOTP baseball, Football Manager, the extrodinarily short lived NFL Head Coach, etc?

 

[José Mourinho]

I used to play Football Manager, but now I'm focused on other games, but I'll definitely return to Football Manager soon.

If I'm free I could make a lolcow database of it and post some funny simulations here.

 

[c-no]

I used to play Football Manager, but now I'm focused on other games, but I'll definitely return to Football Manager soon.

If I'm free I could make a lolcow database of it and post some funny simulations here.

Would that include time as looking like Anderson Cooper Alan Pardew?

 

[Quijibo69]

I think Farming simulator is way more fun!

 

[Strelok]

Got back into Football Manager again after beating xcom and looking for something less stressful.

I am not a smart man.

Currently in my 2nd year of a career where I start unemployed and with no credentials at all and take whatever job I can get, got hired by a 2nd tier North Irish club and am trying to salvage this team from a debt spiral.

 

[Feline Darkmage]

I think I had NFL Head Coach at one point, I may have sold it though.

 

[Doctor Druid]

I am rather fond of Football Manager, myself. It's one of the few places I will see Nottingham Forest make it to the Premier League in my lifetime.

 

[Flowers For Sonichu]

OOTP is incredibly autistic and detailed to the most minute point. It's like Dwarf Fortress, except with baseball. My only complaint is that they underrated Kris Bryant

 

[Strelok]

OOTP is incredibly autistic and detailed to the most minute point. It's like Dwarf Fortress, except with baseball. My only complaint is that they underrated Kris Bryant

It's made by a German, so ya know, autistic detail is sorta what they do.

 

[DerSneedstrom]

OOTP is incredibly autistic and detailed to the most minute point. It's like Dwarf Fortress, except with baseball. My only complaint is that they underrated Kris Bryant

OOTP is actually good though. Baseball statistics and analytics attract a different kind of autist, anyway.

 

[Flowers For Sonichu]

OOTP is actually good though. Baseball statistics and analytics attract a different kind of autist, anyway.

ya I have almost 500 hours of gameplay lol

 

[José Mourinho]

Been playing Football Manager 2016 recently and tried out Barcelona just to get a head start and doing very well so far. I'm pretty much aiming to win all 6 trophies for this season.

 

[Strelok]

ya I have almost 500 hours of gameplay lol

17 looks light on improvements but that's likley because the dev team spend the majority of the year multithreading it, which is probably a pain in the ass for 16 years of code buildup.

 

[Watcher]

Alan Pardew clocks hundreds of hours into each Football Manager game when they come out

 

[Doctor Druid]

I can see why. I mean, those games are horribly addictive.

 

[Strelok]

Alan Pardew clocks hundreds of hours into each Football Manager game when they come out

I can see why. I mean, those games are horribly addictive.

That also are what I call "Accidental Idle Games" while an Idle Game is a game you leave running in the BG because it generates some sort of resource as long as it's running, these games instead, because they use little resources and often are played while doing other things, will often spend the entire uptime of the computer running as you periodically play them, only being shut down when you need to use all the RAM or something like that.

 

[Strelok]

So for those who are into Baseball OOtp 17 just came out, and if you're into history, it's perhaps the biggest update the game has ever seen.

In addition to the usual improvements each year, they added historical minor leagues as well as majors, which means you now can start in 1919 and play to modern times without ever dealing with a fictional player, while still maintaining choice and strategy (Will Micky Mantle actually live up to his potential, or should I instead try on this kid who IRL never hit the majors because of a knee injury?).

Plus they added a 3d view for the first year which is pretty sweet, watch pawn shaped players actually go about playing the game instead of just text, but I'm sticking to the text because old habits and it plays faster.

The full list of new updates according to them is.

• For the first time ever, fully licensed by both the MLBPA and MLB.com!
• All major league player ratings plus those of more than 1,000 minor leaguers based on ZiPS, the projection system created by well-known baseball writer and SABR member Dan Szymborski .
• Out of the Park Baseball 17 features FaceGen images for real players! With player aging, real-time emotion, and automatic uniform adjustment based on trades and free agency for most major leaguers, you're more in touch with your club than ever.
• Our new 3D animation and improved, authentic major league ballparks deliver the most powerful in-game experience yet. Moving player symbols, better lighting, textures and detail immerse managers in an intense MLB experience.
• New auto-generated game recaps, capturing the essence of what happened on the field.
• All-new Historical Exhibition option! Pit any two teams throughout history against each other in a single game or a series, or replay any historic World Series matchup with accurate rosters.
• Smarter, more cunning AI GMs and managers, with individualized personal approaches to roster-building, scouting, and finances.
• Authentic minor league systems from 1919 through 2015 with a database of more than 150,000 real players.
• Multi-core processor support for up to 60% faster simulation speeds.
• A beautiful redesigned interface.
• Improved AI throughout the game.
• New WPA graphs in game box-scores.
• Recoded scouting algorithms for more realistic scouting reports and evaluations.
• Users may define team needs for trades and the AI will react accordingly.
• Improved player creation and development routines.

So my playthrough while I wait for the opening day roster update that's coming once, well opening day, is to start in 1919 with the NY Yankees with scouting turned back on and players set to develop using the ingame engine not according to their real history (so in other words instead of being on rails, they will develop as how they could have, for better or worse). Unfortunatly OOTP does not handle the sleezy behind the scenes stuff, so I doubt I'll be able to buy Babe Ruth by giving a guy a loan for his theater production under the table.

If I play long enough to get to the 70s, I'm definantly drafting Randy Savage (real last name Poffo), who had a promising career before an injury made him persue other emplyment, aka wrasslin, and some suspect he could have made the majors.

(card likely not actually real)

 

[Strelok]

Bumping this to say Brexit has fucked me already. Except not becuase it's an Aussie and of course FM wouldn't model that yet, but goddamnit I needed this player.

My 6th tier English team fucking needed a defender of his spectacular "for an amateur team anyway" calibur to avoid yo-yoing back down after promoting our first season, and the government cucks won't let him come.

 

[Guardian G.I.]

My only experience with sports management games involved a demo of some Championship Manager game from a CD of some Russian computer-related magazine. It was many years ago, I was like 8 and didn't know English (and football terms) for shit, so I had to play completely blind. Somehow, my goalkeeper in one of the matches got himself injured, and I didn't know how to replace him. As a result, I lost with score being 15-0 or something.

I want to try out some sports management game, but I'm not sure about the difficulty curve. Are these games really hard to get a hang of? I'm curious about OotP Baseball, because it's the only good baseball game on PC. Football Manager would probably be easier, because I know the rules of football better.

 

[Strelok]

My only experience with sports management games involved a demo of some Championship Manager game from a CD of some Russian computer-related magazine. It was many years ago, I was like 8 and didn't know English (and football terms) for shit, so I had to play completely blind. Somehow, my goalkeeper in one of the matches got himself injured, and I didn't know how to replace him. As a result, I lost with score being 15-0 or something.

I want to try out some sports management game, but I'm not sure about the difficulty curve. Are these games really hard to get a hang of? I'm curious about OotP Baseball, because it's the only good baseball game on PC. Football Manager would probably be easier, because I know the rules of football better.

I'd say OOTP is easier than FM if only becuase it's much, much easier to break down a baseball player into a collection of stats than a footballer. If a guy's batting .400, he's fucking batting .400. It's not that his undeappriociated teammate is slinging him assists for instance. Plus the "tactics" as they were are far more homogoneous, and you could almost argue baseball is a "solved game" at this point if you're a sabermetric believer.

FM is a bit more complete though, it involves more managerial duties than just front office and field work, such as dealing with the board, the press, player promises, other managers, etc etc. OOTP is more a front office and strategy deal, with the other stuff handled in the background for the most part. Which granted msotly has to do with the differing duties between a football manager and a baseball GM.