Do you need a good roster to compete and have fun?

[joehart]

Can you compete against better teams, specifically teams that have additional Gold and Silver cards?

Before I get into the details.....this was by far the most fun season and team I managed and we have 6 teams in the family ranging from
only bronze all the way to some whale teams.
I feel I have a much better grasp of all the Bronze players in the game (must-have, good/bad, situational, ...) and what to work on next season.


Our entry level team featured 'only Bronze and below' players (all players higher than 69 were sold) while opponents had often 10-15 higher ranked players on their roster.

After this season, I have come to the conclusion that you can compete in the first few divisions against teams with slighly better rosters.
However, the challenge goes up more and more as you face significantly stronger teams and teams that have great pitching with some great Gold-ranked hitters.


I don't believe at this point my bronze-only team can compete against real whales/teams with superstar rosters.
However, I do believe that a roster with some Silver players on the roster could produce more upsets and have a decent season.

Too often I felt limited by the players I could aquire and wish there were a few more players matching my strategy.
I can't wait for an additional influx of players in the 69 and below rankings.



Record for Rookie league: 86-76 (with 1 game to go).
Currenly, we have one extra game to decide which team makes it as the second wildcard team.
We were in a big battle for the second wild card spot and faced our wildcard rival and the top team for the last 6 games (5-1 record in those six critical games).



A closer look:
I held my own against most teams with starter pack rosters - usually 1 Gold and 3 Silver on their roster.


The divisional rival that I fought for the wild card:
Bend West: 4 Gold, 8 Silver (my record against them: 10-9).


Teams with a much better overall record:
West Tennesee Rebels: 2 Gold, 8 Silver (my record against them: 3-3)
Chino Golden Bears: 2 Gold, 8 Silver (my record against them: 2-5)
Spork's Stars: 3 Gold, 7 Silver (my record against them: 1-5)

I wish I faced these three teams more often to better understand if I could have stayed at .500 or better. I often faced them when I did not prepare my team.


Top team in my division:
Minnesota Chumbawumblers: 1 Diamond, 4 Gold, 12 Silver (my record against them: 8-8) with 3 more games to go.



So where did it all go wrong? Why did I not have more wins and make the playoffs? The fault is my own!!!!

1. Lack of preparation for early morning games.
My record for the games that I missed (22-34). Monthly win-loss record for the early morning games:
5-2 April
2-6 May
3-7 June
5-4 July
5-8 August
2-7 September.

I did not take advantage of 7-Day lineup rosters.


2. Lack of roster preparation for opponents
I often failed to match up the correct pitchers and batters based on ballparks/rosters.
I believe I could have squeezed out a few more wins if I looked more closely at all my opponents.


3. Cold players during important stretches.
I am not sure if this is just bad luck or me not switching them out earlier or not sticking with them until
they came back out of their slump.

I have not found an ideal strategy to deal with players that get cold. Pull them? Stick with them? Make offerings to the baseball gods?


4. Lack of bullpen management
I found a good set of starters for the season but my bullpen was unreliable at times and many games were lost
after the starters came out. I decided to play with an additional batter so the bullpen ran into a few games
when they were over-utilized and the pen lacked rested players.

I assume better management could have prevented some losses.
It is not yet clear if it is an advantage or disadvantage to have an extra batter and one less player in the bullpen.
22 games were lost by just a single run.


Wander Suero who became my closer is tied for 2nd in the league with 39 saves and 6 blown saves.
Real world data to compare against:
Mariano Rivera - .891%
Trevor Hoffman - .888%
Waner Suero - .867



5. Strategy all up. I tried way too many things and moved back and forth. I also did some testing of certain areas to see if they should be reported and changed for the next version.
I wish I would have stuck with a single decision and played it out for an entire season to better gauge results.

Overall, the team had little power (27th in HRs) but produced enough runs to compete:

Runs: 7th
AVG: 4th
HR: 27th
ERA: 8th
D.Eff: 2nd
Ks: 11th


Overall, Thank you Markus and rest of the OOTP team!!!

Also, big thanks to many of the other folks that provided great feedback about players and alternate strategies.
I found that despite not winning the division or getting an easy wildcard spot, the season was a lot of fun and Perfect Team is not just about trying to be the top team in the PT universe and getting caught up in the superstar roster building battle.

There is a lot more to do for long term value.
Example...

Next season, I may provide the team with some additional rewards so I can expand my knowledge of all the available players:
Make the Playoffs - managments rewards the team with a single player ranked 70-72.
Divisional winner - management rewards the team with a single player ranked 70-75.
Playoff winner - management rewards the team with a single player ranked 70-79.

[Westheim]

"Do you need a good roster to compete and have fun?":

No.

This applies to PT, the "standard" OOTP gameplay, every other game there ever was, and the basic human existence - you don't have to be *first* to have a good time. People that DO have to be first to have a good time usually have the worst time. It's on them.

My Raccoons dynasty at one point went through ten consecutive losing seasons. Bad management led to bad players led to more bad decisions, with sprinkles of rotten luck. That vicious cycle lasted more than one real life year. And I still had a good time. Most of the time at least. [Thinking of Juan Diaz and three wild pitches in one at-bat still makes me shiver...]

So many people on these forums would be so much better served if they just shut up with their persistent whining about how they were never getting any gold cards, and how they were not being rewarded enough, and - teacher, teacher! - that guy spent MONEY on the game! Just shut the **** up and play the game, goddamnit. There is an entire, well-known book on how you can play successful ball with no money, too. You might try to work your way up from there.

[Germaniac]

"Do you need a good roster to compete and have fun?"

It depends on what you want personally.

If you main goal is to win, if you want to be regarded as a "winner" here on the boards or by yourself ... Yes, absolutely! If you want to play with the "big boys" you need to have a good roster, a very good roster. Smart card managin won't be enough.

But can you have fun without competing with the very best in PT?

Yes, absolutely! And maybe even more because you won't need to get that one specific player to keep up with the other powerhouses.

It's what convinced me about PT (before it was launched I didn't think I would be interested) - each and everyone can find his personal level of participation and, after the dust has settled, will compete against users that are on the same level.

Of course, in the first few seasons you will have mis-matches ... but it soon will level out.

[Kushiel]

I had fun in the pool with what I had. I had fun in Rookie and A Ball with what I had as I improved. I have a much much better team now and I win more games but my fun level was already maxed so I am having the same amount of fun. I can hardly wait to start over and see what I can build while I am having so much fun. .

[sentry85]

i don't know what your definition of fun is, but i really enjoyed the decision making of which players to play especially with all of the 60 rated to low 70 rated players on my roster and reserve roster. should i go with contact and speed or should i add power to my lineup. how does that added power effect my defense? it may wind up being more fun with these kind of rosters rather than having those loaded teams.

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by sentry85

i don't know what your definition of fun is, but i really enjoyed the decision making of which players to play especially with all of the 60 rated to low 70 rated players on my roster and reserve roster. should i go with contact and speed or should i add power to my lineup. how does that added power effect my defense? it may wind up being more fun with these kind of rosters rather than having those loaded teams.

I built my team from scratch, just like everybody else starting with the starter kit. I seen them improve having fun using all these decisions you speak of and seen them win from my labor. I upgraded when I could because the purpose is to win.That was and is my idea of fun in baseball. I am from the era when everybody did not get a trophy. Only the first place team did. I hate the DH and I hate wild cards in the playoffs. But I do not let that ruin my idea of fun which is "The Great Game" in any form.

Good luck! I hope you do well.

[Maddox]

Here is what I learned in the Beta.

1. It is great fun, even with a lesser team (I had no diamonds, 2 golds and the rest silver or below) as long as the division is competitive.

2. It is not fun when there are Whales in the division and they go 100 games above .500 and wrap up the division with more than a month left on the schedule.

The worst season for number 2 was the second one, which was the first full week after they added the ability to buy points. Week three only saw one true whale in my league and while they ran away with their division and eventually won it all I was lucky I was not in their division.

As long as promotion and relegation works as intended I have hope that it will remain fun with a wide variety of rosters

[Bunktown Ballers]

If you main goal is to win, if you want to be regarded as a "winner" here on the boards or by yourself ... Yes, absolutely! If you want to play with the "big boys" you need to have a good roster, a very good roster. Smart card managin won't be enough.

My experience was the awesome.
I played 3 years..
1st season 72-90
2nd season 98-64 - 2nd seed, (bye) lost 4 games to 2 in World Series
3rd season 83-79 didn't qualify

Awesome experience & cant wait for many many season. I will be one of the casual players, just dont have the extra cash for cards. I hope to meet many new folks within the leagues. Good Luck to all

BB
Team Name: Louisiana Crawdads

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Bunktown Ballers

If you want to play with the "big boys" you need to have a good roster, a very good roster. Smart card managin won't be enough.

We'll see.

I think I had a pretty good roster in the beta without spending much money. You don't need all diamonds to win.