Perfect Team and Diminishing Returns

[alanohio]

It occurred to me recently that OOTP Perfect Team is a textbook example of diminishing returns.

Early on, time and effort matter. Building a roster, learning the auction house, and making smart decisions all feel impactful. But as more seasons pass, more cards are released, and more players invest heavily in both time and money, the curve changes.

Progress stops being additive and becomes defensive.

At a certain point, you’re no longer improving your team — you’re just trying not to fall further behind. Power creep raises the ceiling every cycle, and those who establish an early advantage benefit from compounding effects: earlier access to top-end cards, better auction leverage, deeper meta knowledge, and the ability to absorb variance. That advantage doesn’t plateau; it compounds.

For players outside that top tier, returns flatten. More grinding or spending yields less relative improvement, and eventually there’s a ceiling you simply can’t break through, regardless of effort. Variance can mask this for a while, but over time it becomes clear that the sim isn’t deciding who wins, only how competitive the loss looks.

I don’t think this means Perfect Team is “broken” or poorly designed — it’s doing what a live-service collectible mode is built to do. But it does mean that the mode quietly shifts from a game of choices and progression into an ecosystem where long-term parity is impossible.

Recognizing that has helped me enjoy PT more for what it is: something that’s most rewarding early in the cycle, when decisions still matter, rather than a mode where everyone can realistically keep pace forever.

I’m curious how others see this — especially long-time players who’ve watched the curve change over multiple years.

[alanohio]

One possible middle-ground solution—without touching the existing Diamond/Perfect ecosystem—might be voluntary league stratification at the All-Star break.

At that point in the season, teams could optionally “opt out” of the main progression path and enter a Gold-only, Silver-only, or Bronze-only league, with roster eligibility capped accordingly. Diamond and Perfect teams would continue competing against each other as they do now, preserving the high-investment endgame and card economy.

For everyone else, this would create something different—but arguably more engaging:

• A smaller, more stable card pool
• Week-to-week leagues where single roster moves actually matter
• Lineup tweaks, pitching order changes, or one new card having visible impact
• Competitive balance driven more by decisions than accumulation

It wouldn’t be about “escaping” competition—just choosing a version of it where returns don’t flatten out as quickly. The higher tiers still get their arms race; the rest of the field gets a mode where effort and experimentation feel rewarding again.

Not suggesting this is easy to implement, or even that it’s the right solution—but it feels like the kind of structural option that addresses diminishing returns without trying to roll Perfect Team back to something it no longer is.

At the very least, it reframes the conversation away from blame and toward how different kinds of players might coexist in the same ecosystem without one experience crowding out the other.

[Scoman]

Perfect Team is a suckers game...like a scratch off or pull tab card,cant believe so may people fall for it,worst thing that ever happen to OOTPB from a players point of view.

[Fabtron7]

Originally Posted by Scoman

Perfect Draft is a suckers game...like a scratch off or pull tab card,cant believe so may people fall for it,worst thing that ever happen to OOTPB from a players point of view.

Are you talking about Perfect Team or Perfect Draft? Perfect Drafts are a sub-mode of perfect team.

[alanohio]

Originally Posted by alanohio

One possible middle-ground solution—without touching the existing Diamond/Perfect ecosystem—might be voluntary league stratification at the All-Star break.

At that point in the season, teams could optionally “opt out” of the main progression path and enter a Gold-only, Silver-only, or Bronze-only league, with roster eligibility capped accordingly. Diamond and Perfect teams would continue competing against each other as they do now, preserving the high-investment endgame and card economy.

For everyone else, this would create something different—but arguably more engaging:

• A smaller, more stable card pool
• Week-to-week leagues where single roster moves actually matter
• Lineup tweaks, pitching order changes, or one new card having visible impact
• Competitive balance driven more by decisions than accumulation

It wouldn’t be about “escaping” competition—just choosing a version of it where returns don’t flatten out as quickly. The higher tiers still get their arms race; the rest of the field gets a mode where effort and experimentation feel rewarding again.

Not suggesting this is easy to implement, or even that it’s the right solution—but it feels like the kind of structural option that addresses diminishing returns without trying to roll Perfect Team back to something it no longer is.

At the very least, it reframes the conversation away from blame and toward how different kinds of players might coexist in the same ecosystem without one experience crowding out the other.

An added thought... to sweeten the deal for the company, the "opt-out" could maybe cost $10. or so... providing a secondary income to cover the cost of setting up a second level of leagues to maintain. If 20% of the teams opted out, that could generate ~$30,000. At $20 it would be $60,000.

PS: I'm not heavily supporting these ideas, just offering options that "might" make someone at the top think "huh..."

[LeeD]

Currently, it's not difficult to construct a competitive High Silver/Low Gold team full of 100 to 102 cards by completing Live Series, Launch Plus, Baseball Reference, and the missions to obtain Variant Stieb, Sale, and Halladay. There are also some worthwhile, team-specific PT Elite missions that don't cost an arm and a leg.

I'm thinking that card tier cap leagues are a solution in search of a problem. The real, underlying problem is that the majority of players aren't familiar enough with the system as a whole and aren't optimizing their resource management. If you're FTP, sell what's no longer useful in order to buy what is useful now. This is especially true in the end-game stage, which we have just reached.

[alanohio]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Currently, it's not difficult to construct a competitive High Silver/Low Gold team full of 100 to 102 cards by completing Live Series, Launch Plus, Baseball Reference, and the missions to obtain Variant Stieb, Sale, and Halladay. There are also some worthwhile, team-specific PT Elite missions that don't cost an arm and a leg.

I'm thinking that card tier cap leagues are a solution in search of a problem. The real, underlying problem is that the majority of players aren't familiar enough with the system as a whole and aren't optimizing their resource management. If you're FTP, sell what's no longer useful in order to buy what is useful now. This is especially true in the end-game stage, which we have just reached.

I don’t disagree with the mechanics you’re describing — it is possible, at this point in the cycle, to assemble a competent High Silver / Low Gold roster through missions, Live Series, and selective selling. From a system-knowledge standpoint, that part is working as intended.

Where I think we’re talking past each other is on what that roster actually represents in practice.

Having 100–102 viable cards right now doesn’t put most teams in a position to compete — it puts them in a position to survive. You’re treading water, managing variance, and hoping for favorable league placement rather than meaningfully influencing outcomes. That’s not a failure of optimization; it’s a consequence of where the overall power curve is this late in the cycle.

At this stage, the question for a lot of players isn’t “Can I improve my resource management?” but “What am I improving toward?” When incremental gains no longer translate into competitive movement, the rational response for many isn’t to optimize harder — it’s to disengage until the reset in March.

That’s the gap I’m trying to address.

The idea of an optional, mid-season branch isn’t about escaping competition or compensating for poor play. It’s about offering an environment where decisions regain leverage: smaller card pools, tighter margins, and formats where a single roster move or strategic adjustment can still swing results week to week.

Diamond and Perfect already serve players who want — and can sustain — the arms race. My suggestion is simply that there may be room alongside that for a version of PT where diminishing returns arrive later, not sooner, and where continued engagement feels productive rather than merely defensive.

If nothing else, I think it reframes the issue away from “who’s playing wrong” and toward how different player types might coexist longer in the same ecosystem — which, from a retention and revenue standpoint, seems like a conversation worth having.

[Fabtron7]

What you're missing here is that a lot of the best players in the game are actually guys that specialize in mid-level tournaments over league play. So they're going to opt into those path-b leagues and clean everyones clocks every week... which will just lead to more complaints as the same people getting curb stomped now get curb stomped again.

[alanohio]

One clarification that might help address the concern about tournament specialists “cleaning clocks”:

Teams currently positioned in Perfect or Diamond leagues would not be eligible to opt into the branch leagues.

That restriction matters.

The purpose of these leagues isn’t to create a new competitive ladder for top-end teams — it’s to give mid-tier and capped teams a way to keep playing meaningfully once upward mobility has effectively ended for the season.

At the All-Star break, teams have largely sorted themselves:
• Perfect / Diamond teams are still in an active arms race
• Gold / Silver / Bronze teams have mostly hit structural ceilings

Letting Diamond or Perfect teams drop down would defeat the point. Those teams already have:
• Access to the broadest card pools
• The strongest economic engines
• Viable paths to continued progression

Branch leagues are meant for teams that don’t have those options anymore.

This also addresses the “tournament specialist” issue directly. Many of the players who optimize heavily for mid-level tournaments are doing so from positions of strength — often backed by deep inventories and top-end cards. Excluding Perfect and Diamond teams removes a large portion of that pressure at the source.

And again, this isn’t about protectionism. It’s about alignment.

Players who are still legitimately competing at the top stay in the main ecosystem.
Players who’ve reached their seasonal ceiling get an alternate track where:
• Card constraints are explicit
• Expectations are clear
• Week-to-week iteration still matters

If someone dominates a Gold or Silver branch league under those constraints, that’s fine — that’s competition. But it’s a very different experience than being outgunned by rosters that were never intended to coexist in the first place.

At the end of the day, this is still about retention.

Right now, the choice many players face in July is:

“Keep grinding without agency, or step away until March.”

Giving them a third option — stay, but play differently— is the goal.

Whether this specific implementation is right or not, I think the idea that Perfect Team should offer a way to remain engaged for more than six months is something most of the community would welcome.

There are solutions for every problem, but there has to be a willingness to discuss possibilities to uncover them.

[Fabtron7]

Do you not think there would be a strategy where teams dumped their rosters a couple weeks beforehand to ensure they’re in gold or silver tier when the branching begins?

[alanohio]

This isn’t whining — it’s an observation about how the mode actually plays out for most people.

For a large share of Perfect Team players, the season stops being competitive around the All-Star break. Not because they mismanaged their teams, but because the gap becomes structural. At that point, many players don’t rebuild — they disengage and wait for March.

That’s not an attack on whales or top-tier teams. The game is clearly designed to reward deep investment, and it does that well.

And as for concerns about people gaming the system — the game already has the tools to control that. Perfect Team tracks card tier, roster composition over time, promotions, and historical peak level. Any branch system wouldn’t need to rely on “what your roster looks like today.” Eligibility could be based on peak tier reached, roster snapshots taken weeks earlier, minimum tenure rules, or simply excluding teams that reached Diamond or Perfect altogether. It could run a scan and simply say yes or no on the question of whether you qualify for the branch organization. None of that is new or exotic.

The real question is whether the company is content with the second half of the cycle being meaningful for only a small percentage of the player base. An optional, well-guarded branch path wouldn’t take anything away from high-end competition — it would simply keep more people active instead of checking out.

This idea may not be perfect - but dismissing the conversation as “a solution looking for a problem” sidesteps a real retention issue that repeats every year.

[Fabtron7]

I don’t think you’re whining at all and I think the game in general is not very new-player friendly and needs stuff like this. I’m just trying to find the holes so the can be patched in the pitch phase and not in the “too-late” phase

[alanohio]

Originally Posted by Fabtron7

I don’t think you’re whining at all and I think the game in general is not very new-player friendly and needs stuff like this. I’m just trying to find the holes so the can be patched in the pitch phase and not in the “too-late” phase

I’m with you on that. What we don’t know is whether the powers at the top are happy with where the game is, or not. If they are, then we’re spinning our wheels. If not maybe these kind of ideas may get some attention.

[brewertoby]

Originally Posted by alanohio

I’m with you on that. What we don’t know is whether the powers at the top are happy with where the game is, or not. If they are, then we’re spinning our wheels. If not maybe these kind of ideas may get some attention.

I love the fact that you're thinking about ways to improve the game and your ideas aren't inherently flawed so please don't take this as me discouraging the topic in any way.

Your ideas are based on the premise that people are into Perfect Team for the grind of getting up to the highest levels. I'm sure there are many people that do this and for those people, maybe your ideas hold merit. But i think where the idea may be flawed is what you consider the main motivation for playing. You're right that i give up trying to advance somewhere around the all-star break. Don't get me wrong, i still try to field competitive teams within the leagues I'm placed in, but i don't really care if I move up. Moving up is just a bonus. The point for me, and presumably many others, becomes completing the missions. I literally eschew buying cards that could improve my team in favor of buying cards that will complete a mission.

[Fabtron7]

Originally Posted by alanohio

I’m with you on that. What we don’t know is whether the powers at the top are happy with where the game is, or not. If they are, then we’re spinning our wheels. If not maybe these kind of ideas may get some attention.

As someone who’s been around Perfect Team for years and occasionally in close contact with the powers that be I’d guess this stuff falls onto the “juice isn’t worth the squeeze” pile. But could for sure be wrong.

I’ll also say they’re very sensitive to possible tanking and this could be looked at as a tanking incentive.

[alanohio]

Originally Posted by Fabtron7

As someone who’s been around Perfect Team for years and occasionally in close contact with the powers that be I’d guess this stuff falls apart onto the “juice isn’t worth the squeeze” pile. But could for sure be wrong.

Some old phrases come to mind; "Resting on one's laurels" or "Basking in past glory"... Everything, even the best of things, can get boring. In other words, even living near Disneyland will eventually feel like the last thing you want to do eventually. If PT remains a 6 month adventure, more and more "regulars" will move on as they find out there's nothing new and exciting to explore. I really hope that isn't the future.

[Fabtron7]

Sadly I think it more that OOTP is a company with about 11 employees total and only 3 are developers. So they really need to pick their spots.

[alanohio]

Originally Posted by Fabtron7

Sadly I think it more that OOTP is a company with about 11 employees total and only 3 are developers. So they really need to pick their spots.

One does have to wonder, however, if a $10-$20 "upgrade fee" to move as much of 2/3rds of the membership into a new league structure would be more economically advantageous then finding ways to get the whales to spend even more money.... They already have 15,000 teams. If 10,000 of them paid even $10. to move, that's $100,000... even if half of them paid that, it's $50,000. Hard to imagine they could squeeze another 50 grand out of the top players.

[LeeD]

Speaking as someone who's running A LOT of teams through various past license purchases...

Team numbers overstate the number of actual, involved players. This is especially obvious if you look at the ghost teams in Iron leagues. Many, many, many teams are sitting on the bottom with zero missions completed and thoroughly outdated rosters. Like, five thousand of them, or about one-third of all teams. Many of the other two-thirds are owned and operated by core players with multiple teams, which again gives a false impression of active player numbers. A better gauge of player participation is Twitch and Discord activity, which is heathy if not overwhelming.

So...

It's not like OOTP and Perfect Team are setting the world on fire. There are ways that this could be improved, but there's also some largely unknown cap based on interest in this game specifically and baseball in general. It ain't Minecraft. It's not even The Show, which is still basically a console game that mimics TV baseball without paying a lot of attention to realism (unless your definition of realism is eye candy that resembles a Fox Sports broadcast).

The dev team has done a good job with base game. The improvements made since OOTP19 are phenomenal, and 19 was a major jump from 18.

Despite my frequent criticisms, they do a pretty good job with Perfect Team. What gets them in trouble are unintended consequences, things like the introduction of Combinators last year, which required a mid-cycle correction.

This is why I'm hesitant to support structural changes to PT. We don't know what kind of effect this proposal would have on Card Shop valuations or mission completion in the latter stages of the yearly cycle...and neither do the devs, although they probably have a better idea than we do.

Look at it this way. There's bound to be a drop-off in player interest after the Series wraps. People will gravitate toward winter sports sims. Four months Opening Day to All-Star Game. Four more to the Series. Four more until new release. Throughout, PT is gradually shedding active players. The devs have to decide whether this new, self-restricted play style will rekindle enough interest from midseason onward to warrant their time and effort, while also taking into account the inevitable drop-off during the IRL offseason.

Worth it? I don't know, but I'm skeptical. This could be something that's better handled through something like the theme team clubs and friend-only leagues.

[Fabtron7]

To support the above statement… I have 10 teams in PT26, all of which are connected to past years licenses and pretty much all Ghost ships. There’s probably even a few more I could activate but I honestly can’t remember all the usernames at this point.