Riddle me this

[rburgh]

Last week, I had a team in an iron league that started the season against a team with no active players. I played that team once more in a series on late Monday, and still no players.

Apparently the plan is to just collect login packs and when the time is right, open all the packs and pray for a lot of pack luck. Let's say the manager waits 330 days, or until about Valentine's Day.

He'll have 319 regular packs, 55 silver packs, and 11 each Gold, HG, and Diamond packs in addition to his starter packs. Tell me, does failing to open his starter packs add more to the resources he will have available for his Grand Pack Rip than just letting the opening day team play 330 weeks earning achievement points in an Iron League?

[LeeD]

Nah, makes no sense. The team will earn practically no achievement points (Out of Slump every once in a while) and will get beaten 27-0 with regularity. This is probably some weird anomaly where the player either logged out and then couldn't get back in or started PT by accident and then just abandoned it.

[rburgh]

darksky94, currently 0-347 in Iron 74.

BTW, why can't they order the teams by level in numerical order on the universe page that lists all the leagues?

[quizkid]

That person could also be a tourney guy, that just needed to open his team to be able to enter tournaments. (still should have opened the starter packs)

[Big Poppy]

also, many many OOTP buyers trying out PT for a week and heading for classic game. wish I knew if my competition was human or abandoned AI.

[rburgh]

Be a filler team to avoid having a league with an odd number of teams.

[Big Poppy]

We mostly play against AI.

Mostly.

[Chris Marquardt]

[LeeD]

So...I've run into another of these teams. San Francisco Terriers. Entire roster blank, 1-72 in Entry Pool. No understanding this, but it's hilarious seeing a white line head steadily downwards in the division graph. It's also interesting that Jim Unknown is an average baserunner with average fielding range. Both are at 0.0.

There is one way I can see this as an exploit. I beat this team 23-0 two games ago and picked up almost 2000 achievement points, so it's possible that someone is creating these teams in order to increase the number of PP awarded. Scheduling is supposedly random, so it wouldn't be a direct benefit, and I didn't see any of the earliest league entrants benefiting from playing them multiple times. It is curious, though, that three teams have played them a total of 17 times, which is almost a quarter of their games in a 60-team league.

OK, now I'm reasonably sure that it's an exploit. All of those three teams played this team multiple times, usually every third day, shortly after joining the Entry Pool. Winterhaven Night Train hit it just right, playing them four straight Mondays and three straight Thursdays right after joining. Speed Demons hit them three straight Saturdays and two of four Wednesdays. Oklahoma City Outlaws hit them three straight Fridays and two of four Wednesdays. Two of these teams joined on season day May 3, Winterhaven joined May 5.

Either these three are serious fortunate sons, or someone has figured out the scheduling algorithm. This is in Entry Pool Kappa My if anyone wants to investigate.

edit: it becomes even more obvious when looking at San Francisco's schedule. They also joined May 3 and played all of their first eight games against one of these three teams, losing by a combined score of 95-10. Either these three were lucky beneficiaries of someone's mistake or everyone should create four teams at a time, one of which is a punching bag that earns points for the other three.

[Big Poppy]

Every league has abandoned and situational bots, both excellent at losing games. It is an opportunity for you, as an up and coming manager, to add to your PP and win loss record. Just another 'gear check'.

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by Big Poppy

Every league has abandoned and situational bots, both excellent at losing games. It is an opportunity for you, as an up and coming manager, to add to your PP and win loss record. Just another 'gear check'.

Doubtful. If the devs were going to sprinkle bots into the game, why would they create teams with no players? All they'd have to do is create a dummy team, open the starter packs, and then let them run from there. There are abandoned teams, and their numbers increase over time, but those aren't technically bots and are a byproduct rather than an intentional feature.

This is my fifth year in PT, and I'd never seen a league team with no players on the roster. There are at least two in PT26. That, coupled with the fact that this particular team played the vast majority of its first month's games against three other teams created at the same time, makes me believe that someone has found a new way to exploit the system. Seventeen games with somewhere between 1000 and 2000 achievement points per game is a big boost for new teams.

Put another way, how much would this cost the company? If this dead-stick team "awards" its opponents 1500 PP per game, that's somewhere around 200,000 points during its run through Entry Pool, plus it will continue into Iron next week and presumably stay there until the doors close on PT26. This week alone is over $100 in potential revenue lost due to the effortless collection of points by its opponents. Add another 40+ weeks and the amount just might be worrisome, especially if the number of empty teams multiplies.

[Orion]

Yeah, it makes no sense. What there is, is a plethora of partially abandoned teams. It's an opportunity.

[Big Poppy]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Doubtful. If the devs were going to sprinkle bots into the game, why would they create teams with no players? All they'd have to do is create a dummy team, open the starter packs, and then let them run from there. There are abandoned teams, and their numbers increase over time, but those aren't technically bots and are a byproduct rather than an intentional feature.

This is my fifth year in PT, and I'd never seen a league team with no players on the roster. There are at least two in PT26. That, coupled with the fact that this particular team played the vast majority of its first month's games against three other teams created at the same time, makes me believe that someone has found a new way to exploit the system. Seventeen games with somewhere between 1000 and 2000 achievement points per game is a big boost for new teams.

Put another way, how much would this cost the company? If this dead-stick team "awards" its opponents 1500 PP per game, that's somewhere around 200,000 points during its run through Entry Pool, plus it will continue into Iron next week and presumably stay there until the doors close on PT26. This week alone is over $100 in potential revenue lost due to the effortless collection of points by its opponents. Add another 40+ weeks and the amount just might be worrisome, especially if the number of empty teams multiplies.

By bots, I meant server taking over abandoned teams.

[daves]

It might not be a great time to play initially, but if you receive Twitch drops, login rewards and participate in perfect drafts, you can accumulate thousands of packs to open at a later time when the cards are better.

[Big Poppy]

Life is short. Why delay instant gratification?

[daves]

Originally Posted by rburgh

Last week, I had a team in an iron league that started the season against a team with no active players. I played that team once more in a series on late Monday, and still no players.

Apparently the plan is to just collect login packs and when the time is right, open all the packs and pray for a lot of pack luck. Let's say the manager waits 330 days, or until about Valentine's Day.

He'll have 319 regular packs, 55 silver packs, and 11 each Gold, HG, and Diamond packs in addition to his starter packs. Tell me, does failing to open his starter packs add more to the resources he will have available for his Grand Pack Rip than just letting the opening day team play 330 weeks earning achievement points in an Iron League?

How do you know how many points and packs another team has? I am looking around my league and cannot find this information on other teams? But maybe I don't know the correct sequence of commands?

[daves]

Originally Posted by Big Poppy

Life is short. Why delay instant gratification?

It most likely is a strategy for later in the game since this can be an alt team.