[ronhatch]

Originally Posted by HRBaker

Maybe that's my problem. It's more of a card collector game than a competitive endeavor. If I can get my head around that, maybe I can enjoy the game more...

Well, as someone that is mentally geared towards collecting and has almost zero interest in any kind of purported competition when some players can buy an advantage... no, you almost certainly wouldn't enjoy the game more if you focused on collecting.

I've come to realize that the key problem is that in baseball, the in-game strategy is of very little consequence compared to the basic question of who you're putting on the field. Because of that, the game MUST be designed to make it essentially impossible for the average player to complete a full collection... otherwise, most players could copy the lineup from the best team they've seen and games would essentially devolve to a coin flip. That effect already shows up in the lower-tier tournaments.

Regarding the main topic of the thread, while I'm increasingly convinced that this game is not one I'll be spending any money on past the original purchase price, I've been very happy with an approach I've used for other games that allow in-game purchases. I set aside a small amount of money each week as long as I'm still playing and enjoying the game... but I only spend the money on the game after the amount set aside reaches a threshold. For the game I was playing, that threshold was to get the maximum bulk discount on the in-game currency. In the case of PT, you could do the same thing and it would likely be worth it to also wait for the sales.