Whales should rise faster...

[HRBaker]

In retrospect, I'm kind of disappointed in the responses. The general opinion seems to be that the current format provides Whales with a strong income of PPs resulting from huge team talent differences - and changing that would be "punishing" these teams who seem to have an unlimited checkbook anyway. I mean, really, they could simply buy their team, and we defend their right to be subsidized by our existence? And I'm not convinced the Whales would spend any less because their access to the lower levels was reduced.

In any case, it's clear I'm in the minority - although that fact alone surprises me.

I like PT, and will probably continue to play... although I'd enjoy it a lot more if I wasn't getting my butt kicked by teams I have no hope of beating.

It's ok with me if we let this post die at this point.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Ideally, you'd take the "report to the admins" option, which the admins follow up with the "banning for unfair play" option.

I did, but there are only 4 seasons left in PT20. Lower levels in general don't report these issues because lower levels are not very active.

From the example shown, Promotions should not be 4, but 5 to 8 from lower levels. That would prevent this PP hoarding. 161-1 and loses the best of 5 series to the WC??

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by daves

I did, but there are only 4 seasons left in PT20. Lower levels in general don't report these issues in general because lower levels are not very active.

From the example shown, Promotions should not be 4, but 5 to 8 from lower levels. That would prevent this PP hoarding. 161-1 and loses the best of 5 series to the WC??

Thats not going to stop tankers like this; they’ll just figure out where to start tanking right before they clinch the playoffs. I do think the last couple versions have made strides in discouraging some of this behavior as well (although the playoff tank is still I think an open one that the admins need to pay more attention to, to the point that someone above a certain win threshold should have their roster scrutinized if they lose a round in the playoffs - certainly luck happens but so, too, does people replacing a 155 win roster with one filled with Iron players).

ETA: this isn’t even whale behavior. Whales want to spend money and get up into the elite leagues where they can earn the most prestige. This is the behavior of a person who wants to short circuit the money-or-time dichotomy of Perfect Team by cheating. I really wish OOTP would cotton to this more quickly than they do, as they’re losing money by having people like this in their game.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by daves

I did, but there are only 4 seasons left in PT20. Lower levels in general don't report these issues in general because lower levels are not very active.

From the example shown, Promotions should not be 4, but 5 to 8 from lower levels. That would prevent this PP hoarding. 161-1 and loses the best of 5 series to the WC??

Agreed that most people are hesitant to “tell on” others by reporting them to the admins, particularly in the lower levels where many people are not actively monitoring others or care enough to say anything (as you pointed out).

People buying their way to the top by purchasing a ton of points is just a reality we have to deal with in any game like this. If someone wants to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to simply buy the best cards then that is their prerogative and I don’t expect Markus and the team to turn that away. If you want to spend money to win, that’s fine. As long as you are always trying to win.

What I would hope is that the admins could be more aggressive in proactively monitoring and reprimanding people who are tanking or similar. I would think it would be fairly easy to have algorithms to monitor things like relegated teams which used extremely weak cards compared to what they had available, teams which pulled their strong cards for the playoffs to avoid promotion, teams using players out of position to create weak defenses that drive slugfests, teams which only play a strong offense with extremely weak pitching, and other obvious ploys. I wouldn’t suspend them. I would have severe and quickly growing point penalties after a first warning. Something like 50K for a first offense, 100K for a second, then 150K and so on. If you don’t have the points in the bank, then the system automatically sells off your cards at base value (20K for perfect, 4K for Diamond, etc) starting with your strongest cards until you have paid the fine.

[Spieler]

Cripes. Week 2. Half the teams are getting promoted. The chance of some being around .500 is, uh, perfectly normal. Whether the best team won 140 or 100 is irrelevant.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Spieler

Cripes. Week 2. Half the teams are getting promoted. The chance of some being around .500 is, uh, perfectly normal. Whether the best team won 140 or 100 is irrelevant.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Agreed that it is not a big issue in the early going. My thoughts are more about preventing issues we have regularly seen over the past few years once the initial shakedown is over.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by professor ape

Agreed that it is not a big issue in the early going. My thoughts are more about preventing issues we have regularly seen over the past few years once the initial shakedown is over.

Okay, but after the first couple weeks, what you see are:

a. Whales starting later who spend all of 2 weeks in the bottom 2 leagues. It sucks to be in a league with them but they wash out soon enough.

b. People who tanked to the bottom and who are now accruing points.

This isn’t about whales, not really at all. The whales and the casual players and the people who are trying to get an edge through understanding the game mechanics and baseball and spending extra time are all allied on this.

[Spieler]

A good chunk of the 'pros' sat out opening weekend to get a whole week in the Entry Pool. It is what it is.

Maybe next year there is some motivation to not sit out opening weekend. Run entry pool sims 2x or even 3x as often as the following first full week maybe.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Spieler

A good chunk of the 'pros' sat out opening weekend to get a whole week in the Entry Pool. It is what it is.

Maybe next year there is some motivation to not sit out opening weekend. Run entry pool sims 2x or even 3x as often as the following first full week maybe.

Actually, having, say, the opening week season be worth double the PP would incentivize people to buy the game and log in ASAP, which I have to imagine would benefit OOTPDev. That and maybe overall lowering the PP given out during the entry pool to a fraction of what you get in a regular league. I don’t think anyone should see an incentive in sitting in the entry pool for any particular length of time.

[dkgo]

If you aren't a whale then the name of the game is always going to be PP generation. Most players aren't stupid, you can tell pretty quickly that PP is earned from doing good things (90% on offense) and your team does a lot more good things against bad teams. There are a lot of bad teams at the lowest level so you want to play them as much as possible.

It has been a problem from day one that playing the game "right" will earn you a tiny fraction of the PP and get you stuck in league purgatory compared to sandbagging and playing Bagwell at SS and tanking but not tanking and every other related strategy to push PP generation while still technically following the rules or not getting banned.

[Marleigh]

Originally Posted by Spieler

A good chunk of the 'pros' sat out opening weekend to get a whole week in the Entry Pool. It is what it is.

Maybe next year there is some motivation to not sit out opening weekend. Run entry pool sims 2x or even 3x as often as the following first full week maybe.

Its not just about the short entry pool, you will also skip 2 tiers if you do well in entry pool in the first weekend

[professor ape]

All I know is that I was able to complete the Live missions with 20K in the bank and a solid tournament team before those who waited a few days to start left the entry pools. I only spent $10 on the first day to get some points to build that tournament team.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by professor ape

All I know is that I was able to complete the Live missions with 20K in the bank and a solid tournament team before those who waited a few days to start left the entry pools. I only spent $10 on the first day to get some points to build that tournament team.

That's the way to do it. But, there are some who just choose to ignore tournaments and collections and wonder why they can't win. I'm waiting until after the first update, when all the live teams get 5 - 10 more cheap players before completing it.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by bailey

That's the way to do it. But, there are some who just choose to ignore tournaments and collections and wonder why they can't win. I'm waiting until after the first update, when all the live teams get 5 - 10 more cheap players before completing it.

That would have been a smart route, but I’m just too impatient for that. I set a rule for myself that I wasn’t going to let my bank get below 20K while working on the missions. I got lucky early and picked up a Chick Hafey 98 PEAK card which I was able to sell for 60K. That funded a good bit of my Mission work. The packs were coming in quickly for the first week so I sold off duplicates and watched the Auction House for “reasonably” priced cards to complete the team missions. I was surprised at how quickly it came together.

[JibGuy]

Looks like we have a bad tanker in my league today. He made the playoffs in both rookie and stone leagues. Now in the iron league, there are only four (bad) bronze players and the rest iron and below on his roster and reserve list. The team has lost every single game so far and is averaging giving up 10 runs a game while scoring around 2. Most of the players that are now playing are seeing their first action ever, so either he dumped all bronze and above to the inactive list or posted them on auction. Or maybe switching directions and having an iron theme team.

[Torgonius]

Originally Posted by JibGuy

Looks like we have a bad tanker in my league today.

But did you report it in game?

[JibGuy]

Originally Posted by Torgonius

But did you report it in game?

Absolutely

[bailey]

Originally Posted by JibGuy

Looks like we have a bad tanker in my league today. He made the playoffs in both rookie and stone leagues. Now in the iron league, there are only four (bad) bronze players and the rest iron and below on his roster and reserve list. The team has lost every single game so far and is averaging giving up 10 runs a game while scoring around 2. Most of the players that are now playing are seeing their first action ever, so either he dumped all bronze and above to the inactive list or posted them on auction. Or maybe switching directions and having an iron theme team.

I think it is a legit strategy to sell everything (probably at a profit) upon reaching iron to retreat to rookie and buy the good cards back and repeat.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by bailey

I think it is a legit strategy to sell everything (probably at a profit) upon reaching iron to retreat to rookie and buy the good cards back and repeat.

I think it’s a legit strategy to report people who do this.

[JibGuy]

Originally Posted by bailey

I think it is a legit strategy to sell everything (probably at a profit) upon reaching iron to retreat to rookie and buy the good cards back and repeat.

Even if done in a way that makes the team into an absolute joke?

Edit - The starting pitching ERA is nearly 18