Competitive balance discussion

[scott1964]

Originally Posted by Whoofe

some ppl are lucky

and the rest are like me

I still have one gold player. in beta I finally opened my first diamond, about 2 days before the end of the beta lol

I did too, got Corey Kluber a few days left in beta

[acclaim99]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

The crazy AH and the packs have been kind.

[IMG][/IMG]

Oh. My.

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

Wait... Am I understanding this correctly? No tournaments until OOTP 20's PT?

That's not the impression I had either.

Then I looked at the 'upcoming features' thread and saw that you're understanding correctly, there are no tournaments planned until OOTP 20.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Plus there's also a huge difference between teams that may be throwing hundreds of dollars at their team to buy all the perfects, with the people who throw 5 or 10 bucks here or there to buy a few extra card packs. Figuring out which teams "belong" in each division would be an extra nightmare.

This. This. This.

You separate the playerbase by whether or not they've spent money and you will get SO much more imbalance among the leagues. It puts the people who pulled a Perfect card and sold it for thousands of points in a league with the less fortunate F2P people, while the people who spend 5 bucks and pull nothing better than a Silver get placed with the teams who've spent hundreds of dollars. Why do people think that's more fair than the P/R system?

Regardless of what's more fair, though, I think the biggest issue is that setting the game up like this will stop people from spending money on it. I'm the kind of person who isn't going to spend big bucks, but might throw
$5 at the game every once in a while to have some fun opening packs. But if that $5 is going to immediately shunt me into a league with the big spenders? No thank you, my money is staying in my pocket.

From both a financial and a competitive standpoint, it just doesn't make sense.

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

Regardless of what's more fair, though, I think the biggest issue is that setting the game up like this will stop people from spending money on it.

This is it right here. You can't sell the experience of being a whale to people if there aren't any plankton.

[thakfu]

From a development standpoint, I don't see how you could possibly have a money league and a FTP league. You're not gonna cut people off from buying, even if they swear they never will. And then what happens when someone in a free league decides to throw $20 down and builds up in the middle of the year? You cant really move teams around mid-season. The idea isn't bad but it isn't logistically possible I reckon.

Plus as mentioned earlier, the guys who have multiple diamonds and perfects clearly spent a good amount to do so. I mean, admittedly, I spent $20 cuz I had it to blow, and I've been enjoying PT enough that it felt warranted. It basically netted me a team with a diamond, 6 golds and the rest a mix of silver and bronze. And the diamond (Arenado) and one of the golds only happened because I spent my last 5000 on a gold pack and got stupid lucky. Point being, their are a few tiers to this. My team isn't hanging with the whales but I have an advantage over a cash-free team. It would be a nightmare to sort it all out.

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by One Post Wonder

This is it right here. You can't sell the experience of being a whale to people if there aren't any plankton.

Actually, while your point is taken, I think the whales will be whales either way. My concern is not with the whales or with the plankton, but with all the regular fish (my god this metaphor). Having F2P and P2P leagues turn everyone into whales or plankton; it excludes the people who want to spend $5 or $10 every month or two for fun.

[Maddox]

I have spent $5 during the beta.

I guarantee that there are stacked teams who have spent nothing. Never underestimate the desire some people have to play the market. Buying low and selling for a profit. There are probably some who almost have made a full time job of working the market while the prices are higher.

So, because I spent $5, my team with it's single gold card is destined to always be in the league of sharks?

Anybody who thinks a non-paying league would not already, or at least soon, have stacked teams is just fooling themselves.

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by One Post Wonder

That's not the impression I had either.

Then I looked at the 'upcoming features' thread and saw that you're understanding correctly, there are no tournaments planned until OOTP 20.

Well, dang, I was really, really looking forward to tournaments. That takes the wind out of my sails quite a bit...

Thanks for the response. I tried searching the forum, but I guess neither the force nor the keywords were not strong with me.

[Mat]

People need to just have some patience and let the pro/rel system do its thing.

We are on day 2!

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Mat

People need to just have some patience and let the pro/rel system do its thing.

We are on day 2!

This! We are currently debating wether we should start off with 3 levels on Monday, sorted by winning pct from the Entry Pool. This will balance things out from the start. Thoughts?

Edit: It's decided, we'll do it this way.

[Mat]

do it

[Westheim]

Amazing how each and every small(ish) developer buckles under the persistent nagging of four or five unreasonable people and throws months and years of plans and concepts out of the window just to make them shut up. That'll surely teach them. At that rate, we should have free-to-play-only leagues by the holidays…

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Amazing how each and every small(ish) developer buckles under the persistent nagging of four or five unreasonable people and throws months and years of plans and concepts out of the window just to make them shut up. That'll surely teach them. At that rate, we should have free-to-play-only leagues by the holidays…

You are right. It is the same few people starting every one of these threads. Next week when they are still losing with the three levels that Markus has indicated will happen, they will still be starting these same whine threads for a "safe place" over and over. They will be looking at their 6 starter packs making no achievements, having opened 1 pack for their "First Achievement" PP, again stuck in mediocrity. Everybody gets a trophy syndrome.

I am 46-28 in the Pool play and I trail one of these teams that some of you either fear or are jealous of by 12 games with several more of these teams between them and me. Instead of screaming it is not fair, I am looking forward to competing against them. I want to build my team and play them, not run from them.

[Galeg]

Look, it's baseball. There's only going to be one winner. Even with this change (that I think probably wasn't the right move, but don't hate) unless you are incredibly lucky you still aren't going to win. You have to enjoy the ride, regardless of where you end up. If you can't, I don't why you'd want to play.

Heck, I'm in last place in my entry pool. And I'm still having fun.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Galeg

Look, it's baseball. There's only going to be one winner. Even with this change (that I think probably wasn't the right move, but don't hate) unless you are incredibly lucky you still aren't going to win. You have to enjoy the ride, regardless of where you end up. If you can't, I don't why you'd want to play.

Heck, I'm in last place in my entry pool. And I'm still having fun.

Still playing with terrible Tigers cards? =)

[Galeg]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Still playing with terrible Tigers cards? =)

No, although I did purchase as many of those as I could and am keeping them for the future.



This time around I am the Catch 'Em All and am attempting to use catchers for all positions. I want to test out how well they can learn positions and honestly, once the name popped into my head, how could I not? I think I'm up to about 100 catchers on my roster so this weekend I will have to go through them with a fine tooth comb to see where they might be able to (kind of) play on the field. SS and 2B are problem areas, lol.


Who needs defensive efficiency?

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by Clavette

So no tournaments before 20?

Ichiro could easily be bumped to a 70 without changing any of his attributes. No one would know

Pretty sure every single person playing this game would know if Ichiro was a 70 instead of a 69. Mine is on pace for 294 hits this season and is still batting over .400.

[zrog2000]

I don't understand what the difference is between someone spending $100 on PP and someone who is lucky enough to pull a Babe Ruth and sells it for more than $100 worth of PP. The complainers will still complain about the lucky team that didn't spend any money.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

I don't understand what the difference is between someone spending $100 on PP and someone who is lucky enough to pull a Babe Ruth and sells it for more than $100 worth of PP. The complainers will still complain about the lucky team that didn't spend any money.

And that is the main problem here. They see a guy with certain cards and immediately point fingers. They don't even know whether the guy spent money. He gets blamed anyway. Lots of malicious envy making the rounds.

There is a team in my entry pool that has four perfects and eight diamonds. Did the guy spend money? Probably! But if he was dumb-lucky enough to draw a perfect on Wednesday and sold it for A LOT in the heated market then he could have gotten *a lot* of packs. Enough for four perfects? I don't know.

Malicious envy. Beware.