hit a wall

[km352]

Originally Posted by old timer

And if relegation is only for the 2 teams at the very bottom...

That's a flaw in the system at the moment. Much of the difficulty you mention would be mitigated if you were playing among a more narrowly-defined group of "peers" in any given season. That's the long-term goal of promotion/relegation. But as things are now, those of us who aren't crazy enough to spend $real on this thing (j/k folks) are likely to get stuck amongst "whales" for an uncomfortable number of seasons. While promoting 40-50% of teams in each league will fill the upper levels more quickly, it only makes the process of "getting everybody where they oughta be" more prolonged. There are a lot of teams at "silver", quite a few of whom will find themselves at "gold" next week, who would've be much happier in the long-term spending a few more week at "bronze".

[spleen1015]

If you've decided not to spend money then get used to the idea that your team won't compete some times. That's the way the game is designed.

I'm running 3 teams, an all bronze team, an all Orioles team and a team like yours where I try to upgrade via the AH or packs. I didn't start the last team until week 2 and my team has been leading the division all year and has the best record most of the year.

I don't expect to win, so I am enjoying the slow progression of my teams.

[traylor45]

I haven't spent a dime either. I also pour almost all my money into packs. Have 7 or 8 golds and 1 perfect now.

The one thing it sounds like I do differently though...I won't buy on the AH unless it's close to it's sell now price. I'll go about 30 for a bronze and up til now I wouldn't go over 120 for silver, but I've started looking slightly higher. I also look at gold's every time I get 1k, but none ever grab my eye, so I get a pack instead.

So not counting two mistakes (Spent 100 on Don Money, not paying attention and thinking he was a silver, and paying 150 for Ichiro, then getting an Acuna and Puig to go in my OF about 2 days later) I've thrown away maybe 100 PP's. The rest I'll be able to get back out by selling at the sell now price, might even get lucky and sell at a small premium on the AH if I get lucky.

You can do like you've done, and short-term have a good team, long-term have a decent to good team...or you can buy packs and hope to have a great team. You'll never earn enough PP to grab a Ted Williams, or Gehrig, or Pedro...but with packs there's at least a chance at it.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

It's a pleasant surprise when you get the rare 4Ks in one inning achievement.

Yeah, this year my team has gotten 4 of the 400 point achievements, but no golds. Doolittle just hit 30 games on his saves streak, so whenever he blows one, that will be a nice boost. Would be really amazing if he could hit 40 games, since I think there's a big jump in points for that.

[One Post Wonder]

There's no doubt that packs are the way to go in the very early game, when nearly anything rated 60 and above can be sold for well over the minimum price.

That first week, whenever I had 1000 pp, I bought a pack. Whenever I didn't have 1000 pp, I'd trade at the AH until I got 1000 pp, then buy a pack. I don't remember how many packs I bought, but I came out ahead on the deal and my draws weren't even lucky. I had a couple of common golds, and 1 diamond. Kris Bryant.

But the deeper into the game we get, the less ROI you're going to see from a pack. In a couple more weeks, a pack will pretty much be a hail Mary where you'll either hit that 5% chance of getting a gold or higher, or have absolutely nothing to show for your 1000 pp.

Many of the best cards aren't even diamonds or perfects, so assembling a team through the AH really isn't as expensive as it would first seem.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Orcin

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

This should be slapped onto the loading screen, in vibrant colors.

[Dogberry99]

There is one additional option that people are dancing around... Tanking.

In the Entry Pool, I focused on building a high powered offense. In season one, it performed well, but the achievements were lacking. In the end, I got no silver or gold achievements. Due to the imbalance that comes with ignoring my pitching staff, we did not promote. This season, the same offense (any upgrades have been to the pitching staff) has garnered me a much larger number of silver achievements (still no golds though, which is how many I got in all the beta testing :-/ ). The weaker competition is letting the points roll in, to a tune of at least 3x more so far than in season 1.

You may be too good to relegate, but how far are you from avoiding a promotion? Maybe its time to train some of your starters on new positions...

[Hrycaj]

To the OP original statement about hitting a wall I can understand him. I beta tested this and it was a blast to open unlimited packs. Had a lot of fun building that team. Of course we couldn't have that in the main release. Since release I have noticed a few things. The auction house has not turned out how I thought it would. After the first week shark feeding frenzy you now have a very difficult time flipping cards. That feature of what the card has gone for in the last 5 auctions really did the flippers in! Which is totally fine but it did eliminate the joy of card flipping for me personally. I also notice that everyone wants the same cards and there are many of the exact same cards on the market at any given time. My club is in a bronze league and many of the teams have the same players. Which is fine also but it does lead you to a stale point once your team is in a certain spot which you can get to relatively quick. What I think/hope will all change this is the tournament feature next year. If the tournaments all have a unique roster building feature (all common teams, all 70's era teams etc.) it would open up the auction house again and allow you a second roster building option while your other team can slowly build once it gets to that grind it out point.

[Zorro]

I think we get so hung up on losing that I think we should just sit back and enjoy playing the game. We never give enough credit to winners, They are either dirty rotten whales or trying to cheat the system or tanking to get a few PT they could buy for the price of a Big Mac. I think we should all sit back , Enjoy the game and give a lot of credit to who ever makes it to the perfect league. Doesn’t really matter how they got there the point is they are the best of the best period. So let’s just have some fun and tip our hats to the winners.

[stl jason]

Originally Posted by Zorro

I think we get so hung up on losing that I think we should just sit back and enjoy playing the game. We never give enough credit to winners, They are either dirty rotten whales or trying to cheat the system or tanking to get a few PT they could buy for the price of a Big Mac. I think we should all sit back , Enjoy the game and give a lot of credit to who ever makes it to the perfect league. Doesn’t really matter how they got there the point is they are the best of the best period. So let’s just have some fun and tip our hats to the winners.

and I think that's what most people are doing... just enjoying the game. There are currently 5154 teams in PT... granted some of us have more than one, but that's still a large number of 'silent' players who aren't posting here and are just playing the game.

[BusterKing]

Originally Posted by Hrycaj

That feature of what the card has gone for in the last 5 auctions really did the flippers in!

IMO this should be eliminated. It takes a lot of the fun out of the game.

[Weaseltail]

I agree about the wall. Eventually you get to a point where you need a big chunk of points to improve - either to buy an upgrade or enough packs to have a decent chance to get a good card.

Absent buying them or getting really lucky with a unique achievement, things just stagnate. That's happened on two of my teams, and I find myself paying much less attention now.

I have had some success raising pp by selling off expensive players and replacing them with much cheaper platoons/specialists. There are a lot of really good silvers and low golds with huge L/R splits. Pairing them up can give you the same performance as an expensive card on the cheap. But even then, there comes a point where your team is set and unless you pay for points or get really lucky, you just sit back and watch.

[Hrycaj]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

IMO this should be eliminated. It takes a lot of the fun out of the game.

Selfishly I agree. I love flipping cards on MLB the show.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by Hrycaj

Selfishly I agree. I love flipping cards on MLB the show.

Does that game also have historic players out of curiosity?

[Asov]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

IMO this should be eliminated. It takes a lot of the fun out of the game.

But if you take it out you should be able to add auctions to a watchlist that show final prices, right now the only way to see at what price an auction ends is refreshing at the last second i think.

[Hrycaj]

Originally Posted by mcdog512

Does that game also have historic players out of curiosity?

Yes they do. A pretty healthy amount actually.

[Maddox]

Originally Posted by Hrycaj

Selfishly I agree. I love flipping cards on MLB the show.

I had no desire to do that. The fact that flipping cards seemed to be almost required to get anywhere in that game is eventually what made me quit trying.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

IMO this should be eliminated. It takes a lot of the fun out of the game.

How does information take fun out of the game?

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Orcin

How does information take fun out of the game?

I can understand the theory. A lot of the times I go to the auction house, and my first thought is "oh, that seems like a decent enough price for him", and then you see the "last 5 sales", and suddenly it's "hmm, maybe I can get him for cheaper".

Sure, over time, things can go up or down. But, for example, say you have a card that usually sells for around 6k. If the last sale price is around that, I'll probably be willing to pay up to maybe 6.5 for him, maybe 7 if I really like him or he fits the team.

But then say someone puts him up really cheaply, and he sells for 4k. Now his last 5 sales are 6,6,6,6,4, or an average of 5600. Now at that point, maybe I start thinking that I shouldn't spend more than 6k on him.

I do somewhat feel that this is part of the reason why modern cards are so cheap. You look at the last 5 sales for a guy like Story, and it shows it at like 1300. I mean, sure, there are like 7 copies on the auction block, but a lot of times it becomes a race to sell lower to maybe get the extra 100 instead of auto-selling. Would his price be drastically different if we didn't display the average? Maybe not. But I don't think it's helping his sales.

I don't know what the answer is, since I do think we need to display some information. Maybe displaying the median of the last 5 sales would help prevent either a really cheap sale or a crazy overpriced sale from skewing things.

[Hrycaj]

[QUOTE=Maddox;4405773]I had no desire to do that. The fact that flipping cards seemed to be almost required to get anywhere in that game is eventually what made me quit trying.[/QUOTE

Interesting. I never thought of it as a requirement myself. I feel like the main requirement was that you had to grind full time to really get anywhere. The flipping just help speed stuff up a bit.