Do these guys work for OOTP?

[Dodger_Dave]

How much $$ is this guy spending on PT or does he work for them? Not even 24 hours since FH3 was released.

[chazzycat]

It's not nearly as hard as you make it out to be, if you have been playing all year and very active. In our F2P group, there were nine of us that completed the missions last night.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

It's not nearly as hard as you make it out to be, if you have been playing all year and very active. In our F2P group, there were nine of us that completed the missions last night.

I’m a F2P as well and had all thirty teams completed. It took much more time than I’d like to admit since the game was launched, but it was a very satisfying night.

[Mikecouil]

Do you go on the MMO forums and chastise people for buying pets? Do you heckle everyone with a nicer car than you at the Piggly Wiggly? Stop hatin' , be celebratin'

Man that would have sounded cool when I was young.....

[adampiattday]

A lot of us had all the missions completed and were just waiting on the rewards to be released. There's a bunch of teams in my league that have all the toppers.

[daves]

Many were ready over a week ago once the final piece (Selects) was released.

Connor and Dickey were the $$$.

[professor ape]

I just wish that Clemente was more playable. His D is amazing but Aaron and Gwynn are better.

[Dodger_Dave]

I find it hard to believe that a F2P team could complete every mission... Congrats if you did but I barely have a handful of 100's on my F2P.
Also... this Mike dude is the reason I the world is full of bullying. Sad world we live in.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by Dodger_Dave

I find it hard to believe that a F2P team could complete every mission... Congrats if you did but I barely have a handful of 100's on my F2P.

It's certainly do-able, although personally I failed miserably to do it . Despite some real howlers in buying/selling I've still accumulated 120 Perfect cards, though. Some, of course, are much more perfect than others, and it's easily visible in my league who was sitting on most (or all) of the FH3s and who wasn't. It's obvious now that only the 'best' team will do from hereon in, so I think I'll sell up what can be sold at this point and settle for a suitable theme team until next year.

However.. for what it's worth, if you have only a 'handful' of 100 cards, you aren't playing enough tournaments. Tourneys are the only significant source of PP for FTP players, and you must have at least one and preferably more tourney teams to generate a combined income of 20 standard packs or more daily which, as everybody else is trying to do the same thing, means entering a LOT of tourneys; spamming them in effect. That's the only way to progress, keep what you can use, sell what you can't and stick in there long enough for one or more big card pulls or card wins that can really kick-start your continued assault on the missions. Build a good bronze team before worrying about anything else.

P.S. Remember, from the publisher's point of view, FTP players are their least desirable customers; they want people paying. FTP success has to be balanced at a level to a) show it can be done to prove it's not a solely PTP game and b) keep the numbers up and give those PTP players some cannon fodder to beat. To be in the first group, those guys needed both considerable skill and to invest a large amount of time.

[professor ape]

Dave, Mike may have been a bit blunt in his reply, but (to be fair) your original post was similarly accusatory that all of us who have completed every mission must have either spent a ton of money or be employees of the company which implies that we may have cheated. I take a measure of pride in my playing of the game this year. I have worked at it throughout the season and it has paid off with a F2P team which hasn’t been below Diamond since early June and made my first appearance in the Perfect League. The language you chose came through as an attempt to negate the work that I and other F2P players put into the game. As a disclaimer, I am “almost” a F2P. I dropped $10 to buy a few points on Day 1 to quickly build my initial Bronze Tournament team. I haven’t spent a dime since then.

I’m in near total agreement with everything that Hertston said. Tournaments are the life’s blood of the F2P player. Working from home, it has been very easy to keep a loose eye to make sure my tourney team is always active in three tournaments. OOTP Go has made it even easier to keep that up with minimal time commitment. I just check it every hour or so on my phone when I am out and about. I typically spent a week after each monthly live update tracking the stats from my tournaments to refine my team. I’d say that I averaged 20-25 packs per day. Very simply, my motto has been to only sell duplicates except for Live 100s or unless I ran into a mega-pull where I could sell the card for an insane amount of points. My one such pull this season was the Noodles Hahn card which I was able to turn around for 700K. That funded my completion of the Historical All-Stars missions. I focused on the missions that were on the season long FH track and filled in the other side missions along the way. I didn’t work the Auction House as much as many others do but I did experience the potential of the market when the Selects missions dropped. While most complained about the insane prices, I started spending my points to buy the Silver packs at their reduced price and selling everything I got. With the inflated market, I easily went from a bank of 300K to 600K in three days (with no mega-pulls). Those points then allowed me to complete the Select missions a few days later when the prices settled down just a bit.

I know this is a long post but as one last point, the one disagreement that I have with Hertston is that I think the company appreciates the community of highly active F2P players. It is true that we don’t create direct revenue for them but what we do is to prove that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to be successful in the game. If the more casual players knew that it was a binary choice of spending money or failing, then the game would fail quite quickly.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Dodger_Dave

How much $$ is this guy spending on PT or does he work for them? Not even 24 hours since FH3 was released.

What you did here is to denigrate both the colossal effort and the skill level of players that have been more successful than you. I am not FTP with my Gallowglass team. But, I am much, much, nearer to FTP than to being a whale. I only play a few tournaments but I do spend many, many hours at the AH trying to turn profits. Pick a path to success or make a team that you can be happy with and enjoy them. Have fun!

[daves]

Originally Posted by professor ape

Dave, Mike may have been a bit blunt in his reply, but (to be fair) your original post was similarly accusatory that all of us who have completed every mission must have either spent a ton of money or be employees of the company which implies that we may have cheated. I take a measure of pride in my playing of the game this year. I have worked at it throughout the season and it has paid off with a F2P team which hasn’t been below Diamond since early June and made my first appearance in the Perfect League. The language you chose came through as an attempt to negate the work that I and other F2P players put into the game. As a disclaimer, I am “almost” a F2P. I dropped $10 to buy a few points on Day 1 to quickly build my initial Bronze Tournament team. I haven’t spent a dime since then.

I’m in near total agreement with everything that Hertston said. Tournaments are the life’s blood of the F2P player. Working from home, it has been very easy to keep a loose eye to make sure my tourney team is always active in three tournaments. OOTP Go has made it even easier to keep that up with minimal time commitment. I just check it every hour or so on my phone when I am out and about. I typically spent a week after each monthly live update tracking the stats from my tournaments to refine my team. I’d say that I averaged 20-25 packs per day. Very simply, my motto has been to only sell duplicates except for Live 100s or unless I ran into a mega-pull where I could sell the card for an insane amount of points. My one such pull this season was the Noodles Hahn card which I was able to turn around for 700K. That funded my completion of the Historical All-Stars missions. I focused on the missions that were on the season long FH track and filled in the other side missions along the way. I didn’t work the Auction House as much as many others do but I did experience the potential of the market when the Selects missions dropped. While most complained about the insane prices, I started spending my points to buy the Silver packs at their reduced price and selling everything I got. With the inflated market, I easily went from a bank of 300K to 600K in three days (with no mega-pulls). Those points then allowed me to complete the Select missions a few days later when the prices settled down just a bit.

I know this is a long post but as one last point, the one disagreement that I have with Hertston is that I think the company appreciates the community of highly active F2P players. It is true that we don’t create direct revenue for them but what we do is to prove that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to be successful in the game. If the more casual players knew that it was a binary choice of spending money or failing, then the game would fail quite quickly.

Thanks. It is amazing that an F2P player can compete, but it seems you have to flip players at the right time, be good at tournaments and lucky on packs? All this I am not good at.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by daves

Thanks. It is amazing that an F2P player can compete, but it seems you have to flip players at the right time, be good at tournaments and lucky on packs? All this I am not good at.

The tournaments are the key. I just locked in on the Bo7 Bronze tournaments and refined my team all season. Small differences matter in that format over time. With the number of packs earned there and from completing missions, you would have to be unlucky to not get at least a couple of mega-pulls. I have never spent a ton of time working the AH but there is potential there as well. With work and that distraction known as life, I just find it easier to check in every hour or so to ensure that my tourney teams are active. Another key is to have a little patience when new missions drop. Prices do come down and you don’t need to complete them on the day they drop. I also stay very disciplined about only selling duplicates. With the missions appearing throughout the season, building up the warehouse of unique cards is incredibly valuable over time.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by daves

Thanks. It is amazing that an F2P player can compete, but it seems you have to flip players at the right time, be good at tournaments and lucky on packs? All this I am not good at.

Yes. And no.

Ultimately, Perfect Team is a numbers game. There is no need to be particularly 'good' at tournaments, only to have a competitive team in them. The least skilled player can build that simply by observing the players the tournament winners use and acquiring them. For example, if you enter five tourneys and the same player is used by three or more of the winners - acquire him. Don't do anything too bizarre with tactics, and you will get results. As a rough guide, one in eight players in each tourney win something and what that adds up to has far more to do with how many they enter than anything else. As they say, you have to be in it to win it.

There is, of course, considerable luck involved in what cards you draw but, again, how much depends on how many packs you open. Those guys, and indeed myself, have opened literally thousands of the things. Even if a Connor or Dickey doesn't drop, across that number many good and sellable cards will. A piece of luck and good placing in a128 player tournament can also yield very valuable cards on occasion.

Add into that an eye for an opportunity - the professor's acquisition of cheap silver packs at exactly the right time is a good example - and you've as good a chance as anybody. Treat it as a collectable card game with a baseball skin rather than a baseball game per se, and you have the right mentality to do well.

[Magus978]

Originally Posted by Hertston

Yes. And no.

Ultimately, Perfect Team is a numbers game. There is no need to be particularly 'good' at tournaments, only to have a competitive team in them. The least skilled player can build that simply by observing the players the tournament winners use and acquiring them. For example, if you enter five tourneys and the same player is used by three or more of the winners - acquire him. Don't do anything too bizarre with tactics, and you will get results. As a rough guide, one in eight players in each tourney win something and what that adds up to has far more to do with how many they enter than anything else. As they say, you have to be in it to win it.

There is, of course, considerable luck involved in what cards you draw but, again, how much depends on how many packs you open. Those guys, and indeed myself, have opened literally thousands of the things. Even if a Connor or Dickey doesn't drop, across that number many good and sellable cards will. A piece of luck and good placing in a128 player tournament can also yield very valuable cards on occasion.

Add into that an eye for an opportunity - the professor's acquisition of cheap silver packs at exactly the right time is a good example - and you've as good a chance as anybody. Treat it as a collectable card game with a baseball skin rather than a baseball game per se, and you have the right mentality to do well.

Clearly my problem is tactics because I have not cashed in a tournament since Monday. I've found the strategies to be completely hopeless if you don't know what you're doing, and I apparently fall into that category.

My scouting of players has let me down more than ever this year as I barely even know what our team's strengths are. If I go by what the game throws back at me, we are awesome at being completely awful at every aspect. Getting the players that the winners use means nothing when you have absolutely no idea how to implement them properly. That's how I've pretty much given up on regaining any kind of tournament traction. My team has been garbage since summer PTCS Bronze. It's going to stay that way, and there's nothing I can do about it other than read it and weep.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Magus978

Clearly my problem is tactics because I have not cashed in a tournament since Monday. I've found the strategies to be completely hopeless if you don't know what you're doing, and I apparently fall into that category.

This is a small audience here so I drop one of my hidden gems for the Bronze tournaments. The Tyler Wells (57OVR) card is a highly underrated starting pitcher. I also find that a big thing for the Bo7 32 team tournaments is to run with an eight man pen. Some of the better starters have low stamina and the format does not have any days off for your pen to get rest. I’ve seen a lot of teams which do well in the first round or two but then they hit a stretch where their pen gets spent by a couple of extra inning games and/or slugfests and then they are screwed.

[daves]

Originally Posted by professor ape

This is a small audience here so I drop one of my hidden gems for the Bronze tournaments. The Tyler Wells (57OVR) card is a highly underrated starting pitcher. I also find that a big thing for the Bo7 32 team tournaments is to run with an eight man pen. Some of the better starters have low stamina and the format does not have any days off for your pen to get rest. I’ve seen a lot of teams which do well in the first round or two but then they hit a stretch where their pen gets spent by a couple of extra inning games and/or slugfests and then they are screwed.

So there are 3 teams in the final four in the Iron tourney. Their ACEis Tyler Wells.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by daves

So there are 3 teams in the final four in the Iron tourney. Their ACEis Tyler Wells.

I’m talking about using him in the Bronze tournaments as a starter.

[Magus978]

Originally Posted by professor ape

This is a small audience here so I drop one of my hidden gems for the Bronze tournaments. The Tyler Wells (57OVR) card is a highly underrated starting pitcher. I also find that a big thing for the Bo7 32 team tournaments is to run with an eight man pen. Some of the better starters have low stamina and the format does not have any days off for your pen to get rest. I’ve seen a lot of teams which do well in the first round or two but then they hit a stretch where their pen gets spent by a couple of extra inning games and/or slugfests and then they are screwed.

Interesting about Tyler Wells. I don't see anything special about him. The Extreme FB doesn't sit well with me at all, and combined with his sketchy movement, anyone with any semblance of power in their lineups will crush him (if they don't strike out) and it's goodnight da lights.

I was somehow able to finagle an extra pitcher into my bullpen (Erskine Mayer), but now I'm punting backup defense. Not a trade-off I'm comfortable with at all.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Magus978

Interesting about Tyler Wells. I don't see anything special about him. The Extreme FB doesn't sit well with me at all, and combined with his sketchy movement, anyone with any semblance of power in their lineups will crush him (if they don't strike out) and it's goodnight da lights.

I was somehow able to finagle an extra pitcher into my bullpen (Erskine Mayer), but now I'm punting backup defense. Not a trade-off I'm comfortable with at all.

His 90 Stuff and 70 Control are great, he has a very small platoon split and his 50 stamina is a plus compared to most of the “must have” starters. In my recent tracking he has had a 3.27 ERA in 388 starts. Take it or leave it.