[Mizzery]

My experience with 3 FTP teams in PT19 was that it was extremely easy to be competitive and get promoted through the first 3 levels, perhaps in hindsight, too easy.

Not counting the initial forced promotions that happened to my first team post launch, my second and third teams rarely spent more than 1 or 2 seasons at a time in the Bronze or silver levels, and while reaching the Gold playoffs was fairly easy, promotion speed from there was more hit and miss based on the whims of the playoff results.

Once you identify the typical lower cost players and target them in the AH (rookie Ichiro, JD Martinez, Corbin and Dierker, etc.), it is relatively easy to convert achievement points into quick card upgrades and improved team performance.

And then the walls hit on the promotion of gold to diamond. My experience is that a championship team at Gold is a 75-80 win team at Diamond, with the first challenge being the pitching staff that was dominant in silver and gold having 5.00 and over ERAs in diamond. At this level, it has been difficult to compete without a couple of historical diamond starters on staff.

For my one team that eked through the diamond playoffs and got prematurely promoted to perfect, it was one and done and an immediate relegation back down. This becomes the cycle that is difficult to break out of, where real upgrades cost 10-25k PP apiece, which is difficult to generate from achievements.

Curious to hear about other experiences- have you found that the gap between gold and diamond and diamond and perfect is a much bigger gap than between bronze and silver or silver and gold? Have you found that when the wheels come off in higher levels, it hits your pitching staff first before you see the impact on your starting lineup?

Trying to plan my PT 20 strategy, wondering whether it’s better to slow down the advancement rate in the first levels, and perhaps over invest in pitching early on?