Help me see why anyone would do this.
 

First off, it's not a "theme team".



:angry:Bronze level>>>>Is there any reason for playing your mostly diamond and gold team (with some perfects) to rack up points, then sitting them in mid-August for very low iron and bronze players so you don't get promoted other than tanking? What if you make sure it's only the pitching staff so you can still rack up the PP for the hitting achievements?


Honest question because I have a screenshot of someone on this board doing this very thing, and I've analyzed their roster as well as dates played by their diamonds and golds and they played them up until Friday morning then switched out their bronze and VERY LOW Iron cards at the end of the season.


What are your thoughts? I've already reported them.
I'd rather not post the screenshot, but if enough people in here are curious about it I will maybe share it in private message so I'm not publicly calling them out.

Seems like a lowlife move on the surface but lacking more info I'd hope the devs will look at it.

Yeah, just report and let the dev takes a look.

My guess it’s a team that wants to a rack up lots and lots of PP by staying in the lower leagues where it’s easier to get PP. So they dominate all year but tank the last month so they don’t get promoted.

On the surface it looks very much like a violation tanking move. I am glad that you reported them. Hopefully, the Devs will indeed sort it out.

there are a lot of teams that play high level hitters all out of position at low levels

I haven't seen anyone completely change their roster like that for the last quarter of the season since then you lose season long award potential, but elite hitting with bad pitching is pretty common strategy to earn points without winning too much. It's just playing the game for the long term

This is called training. I do this anytime I can because there's no downside to your players having training at other positions.

Yup, people need to learn how to identify training in a lost season vs. tanking. Pitchers shouldn't change, but fielders may look weird.

Right, except that it makes your team worse in the short term. Dumb people call that tanking while others call it long term planning.

If a team is going 20-142 then yeah that seriously impacts the integrity of the league. Anything short of that people need to just focus on their own teams and let others play the way they want to.

The team in question changed the pitchers. All of them.


They did not, however, as far as I can tell, change any hitters.
And hopefully we all know you can't train pitchers. I know to look for training, but this is not training. It's tanking. Maybe not to the fullest extent, but it is tanking. Maybe even more so.

The aforementioned case is leeching as many points as possible off of low level teams with perfects, diamonds, and golds only to remove their entire pitching staff the last month of the year so as not to make the playoffs so they can continue raking in the points for 5/6th of the season. I imagine it's harder to verify the cheating in this way than it would be to find a team that does this from day one, but it's more insidious.

I agree with training in a lost season. Heck,I do so myself quite often (at least at a position or two [usually middle infield]) so I know what it looks like. I wish I could post the screenshot, but I don't believe in calling someone specifically out in public. I'd rather let the devs handle that.

I personally don't have any issue with people trying to maximize their earnings in any game within the mechanics of the game. That's 100% expected player behavior, and all game devs know it.

In my opinion, the bigger problem is the game is currently set up to incentivize tanking; or, at least, to make promotion feel bitter sweet. That's a game design problem. Making it against the rules to tank doesn't solve the underlying issues. What would solve it are better or different awards at higher ranks.

I know there's always some group that will cry about the rich getting richer. It's pretty sour grapes though when you consider that it's the whales that make it possible for everyone to play the game and they are usually perfectly happy with modestly better rewards. Besides, if you're not going to compete against them at the highest levels, what do you care how pimped out their team is? Nevertheless, there are also the options of unlocking functionality or giving purely cosmetic rewards. For instance, progression could unlock additional ball park customization. There's a lot of options available to the devs.

Completely agree. I've been saying forever that the incentives are screwed up.

If you want to seriously compete at perfect eventually as a F2P or low investment team then it is smart to make as many points as possible while you can, because once you get up to diamond and perfect they are hard to come by. Unless you get insanely lucky with packs or are able to stay home and snipe deals on the market all day then it is the best option.

Having one of your teams feed another one of your teams points is clear cheating. Setting a lineup that wins 20 games or something ridiculous is griefing and hurts the integrity of the league. Intentionally finishing around .500 though doesn't seem like a real threat to anyone else's fun.

Wouldn't it make sense to raise the rewards as you get higher in level and the cards you need to compete are more expensive?

Yeah that seems like a reasonable thing to me. I would actually like the rewards to be packs instead of points because then everyone benefits, more cards on the market lowers prices overall.

We're just having the same discussion in yet another thread.

I like points over packs because points are more flexible. If we are to incentivize players to climb, we need to provide the most attractive prize.

I think the issue at hand is how much? The boost definitely have to be lucrative enough.

The easiest thing to do would to just put a modifier on all achievements based on the league. I probably wouldn't give any increase at Iron, Bronze, and maybe Silver. At Gold, Diamond, and Perfect, I think something like 133%, 166%, and 200% respectively would be enough to incentivize players to compete as hard as they can. The main issue with giving away PP is it stops some people from ever buying packs. That's much less an issue at the higher levels though. Still, this is just the easiest solution to implement, it might not be the most fun.

You've seen what goes on in hardball and the MLB is all over violations... There are thousands of teams and it's baseball.

It's actually hard to draw the line of what is cheating and what is not... example, it's fine to steal the catcher's signs to the pitcher from 2nd base but not OK to do it from a camera in the outfield.

Think of all that goes into creating a functioning PT Universe, expect different characters & teams, surprises, by all means post about / alert devs to over-the-line where it goes from strategy to cheating but my opinion any way is you not to report a team unless it's clearly cheating. The guy is starting is B players? How's that cheating? He may be getting some gain from taking losses but he's taking a hit, too.

Total PP a little closer together from bronze to silver to gold. Sure, a triple play, hitting 5 HR in one inning are rare (gold achievements) but some of the bronze and silver ones are fairly rare as well, I'm sure the devs have stats on how rare they are, either by that, or that and the significance of the achievement in terms of team success. Sometimes a team turns a triple play. OK, go ahead and keep that as gold but some of the bronze and silver are pretty rare and much more significant to a team win than a triple play.

Just make tournaments give packs, easier and faster. Or playoff performance gives pack. But if we want more packs in the system, then tournament is the way to go, especially that they are supposed to be faster pace than league and we can flow the game with packs that way.

I am not sure 133/166/200 is good enough of a percentage. I am playing devil's advocate here, I have to get to gold which is so much harder than just staying at iron for a mere 33% gain, I might as well just sit at Iron for 40 seasons to accumulate assets before I step on the Highway to Hell. Chances of me earning 33% more in Iron than I would in Gold is so much higher. Also, if I plan to hit gold but I happened to not get past Silver, then I am screwing myself, might as well stay at Iron/Bronze and grind.

As for tanking, it's impossible to catch. The reported one are reported because they are tanking like Sam Hinkie's 76ers -- way too obvious. The more subtle tankers can easily tank in a legal way. Fielding a roster that can perform around .480 to .510 for eternity is perfectly fine, but can also be used with the intention of staying and grinding the same level for a long time.

It seems like a lot of work for a marginal gain. I just can't see where the fun is in having a team win for 4 days but then lose for 2 days with the hope you don't make the playoff all for a few more pp. I kind of wish they would do away with PP and just make the game only packs with packs given for achievements. It would force managers to adjust their teams and ballparks based on pulls and may eliminate some of the cookie cutter teams we see now.