Core game continues to suffer as the focus continues to shift to a pay to play model in their Perfect Team franchise. I'm sure people willCore game continues to suffer as the focus continues to shift to a pay to play model in their Perfect Team franchise. I'm sure people will say "not true" as often happens on the official forums so allow some specific examples that developers ignore responding to when challenged with...
Simple quality of life items like signatures for use outside the game which were created years ago for the core game no longer work. They were repurposed for Perfect Team and have been allowed to sit broken for those who play the standard game. Leaderboards no longer work for the core game and questions about when they will be fixed have gone ignored for months. For every new feature added to the engine that is also used in Perfect team... two break for the core team and are seldom addressed if they do not impact the pay to play game. These include...
1) Minor Leaguer's playtime use is broken if you use ghost players resulting in grossly inflated offensive stats (100 Home runs are common). This was called "fixed" and continues.
2) Manually importing a historical player to a league often results in players being fragile. This wrecks the ability of Hall of Famers to have successful careers in games where a player is manually put in at a draftable age.
3) Forcing players to start at a position is routinely ignored by the AI for lineup selection.
4) In leagues based on players' real performance, players are often incapable of learning new positions even if they played them in real life. The Pay to Play Perfect Team is not affected by this issue.
5) Multiple storylines in game are broken resulting in issues such as Market Size (team's ability to draw fans and money) dropping for obscure decisions (starting a charity will drop your Market Size) while corresponding storylines that increase it will not generate (winning the world series).
6) Online League play has not had substantial improvements in years. Third-party sites are required (for all practical purposes) for items such as hosting leagues and drafting players in those leagues. This could, and should, be available directly from OOTP now that they have proven they have the capability for large scale hosting in their pay to play game.
These, and other issues, have been posted on their forums, reported as bugs, and asked about in public with zero response. While they are busy, and the team will tell you no one has been pulled off the core team... many of the faces that used to assist on the General forums can now be found on the Pay to play forums quickly helping with issues, addressing questions, or talking about how the Perfect Game engine works. It sure does SOUND like they have moved off of working on the core game despite assurances.
Currently, OOTP 19 is likely their most stable and Core Game friendly version. If you want the ability to use a ton of addons for your game, or databases of historical players draftable at 19, or a realistically working Minor League system, or official website tools that work (leaderboards, signatures), or a general lack of game stopping bugs such as random crashes... steer clear of OOTP XX and OOTP 21 and grab an older copy of OOTP 19.… Expand
