Tanking

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

When you refer to building a team, are you referring to my active players or all cards on my account? I don't personally believe in having multiple teams (ie fine for others, but not for me), and I fear being penalized for the aforementioned all Expos team if I a) have better non Expo cards on my team, and 2) do not always run an all Expos team. Do I risk running afoul of the TOS if after 2 seasons of running all Expos and getting relegated, I then decide to run all Yankees and whomp my competition, or even worse, revert to the best overall team I could field?

If there were tournaments, I'd have alternate ways to itch this scratch I'm feeling. Just saying :-D

As I said, if you're doing it to explicitly farm PP, then that wouldn't be allowed. Otherwise, I don't imagine a problem. And that Expos team may not get you relegated so quickly if you build it properly. Pedro, Johnson, Langston, Dennis Martinez is not a terrible rotation. And with Vidro, Guerrero, Pete Rose, you at least have the start of a decent offense (although maybe stretching a little bit adding the Pedro and Rose cards to the criteria...)

[Dogberry99]

Okay, so maybe an all [ANY TEAM] theme isn't the best example to use here because it could still be competitive. My concern was more about switching from a less competitive and/or underperforming theme to something that is far more successful

What I'm gathering is that a lot of leeway will be granted to any theme, independent of said theme's efficacy.

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

As I said, if you're doing it to explicitly farm PP, then that wouldn't be allowed. Otherwise, I don't imagine a problem. And that Expos team may not get you relegated so quickly if you build it properly. Pedro, Johnson, Langston, Dennis Martinez is not a terrible rotation. And with Vidro, Guerrero, Pete Rose, you at least have the start of a decent offense (although maybe stretching a little bit adding the Pedro and Rose cards to the criteria...)

But how would you determine if someone is tanking to farm PP? I can't even see a scenario where that would be more effective than actually trying your hardest all the time since you'd get almost no PP while tanking. The only tanking exploit I could think of is if you're playing your own team on another account and pitch position players all game.

[Will_L]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

FYI, "deliberately losing" is against the TOS in the license, so if we see a team with all perfects keep them all on the bench, play they iron cards for a season to drop to a lower tier, and then try to rake in the points, we can take action against that team. Yeah, we're not going to ban you being an idiot and not fielding your best team, but if you deliberately go out of the way to essentially cheat the system, we can do stuff about that.

I was planning on using one of my three teams to field an all iron team when the new season starts just for fun even though I know I'll get trashed. Hope you won't consider that "deliberately losing" since my better players will be off the active roster.

[One Post Wonder]

I'm just guessing, but probably they're going to look for obvious things.

If there's a team with weak cards that is set up in such a way that makes baseball or thematic sense, they probably have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if a teams lineup is made up entirely of slugging first basemen then that might draw a stern reaction.

I'm sure that whoever performs the manual review of such teams is going to be lenient and use common sense before banning someone.

It being a security measure, they're not going to reveal the process here. But I trust it to be sensible.

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by One Post Wonder

If there's a team with weak cards that is set up in such a way that makes baseball or thematic sense, they probably have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if a teams lineup is made up entirely of slugging first basemen then that might draw a stern reaction.

What about a lineup entirely of catchers? Somebody mentioned that they were already doing this

[Maddox]

The things people get hung up on baffles me. I can't see why anyone would tank on purpose.

Plus it seems like it would be pretty obvious if the did.

Bronze league - Team of all Golds and above
Silver league - swap out team for all commons
Bronze league - back to your original team.

All to maybe gain a few thousand extra points in a week? Seems the definition of too little benefit for two much effort

[Kushiel]

I cannot see why anybody would do it. I also do not see why people are preoccupied with it unless they are trying to feel out the repercussions.

[Zorro]

Originally Posted by Maddox

The things people get hung up on baffles me. I can't see why anyone would tank on purpose.

Plus it seems like it would be pretty obvious if the did.

Bronze league - Team of all Golds and above
Silver league - swap out team for all commons
Bronze league - back to your original team.

All to maybe gain a few thousand extra points in a week? Seems the definition of too little benefit for two much effort

Yeah, I don’t get it either. But I also don’t understand why anybody would want more then one team. It is taking up all my time to manage one team. I am not smart enough to manage two teams let alone three.

[AirmenSmith]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

I cannot see why anybody would do it. I also do not see why people are preoccupied with it unless they are trying to feel out the repercussions.

Or maybe people have experienced this in other online games before? And that has impacted their enjoyment. That's why P2W is such a touchy subject.

[stl jason]

Originally Posted by Zorro

Yeah, I don’t get it either. But I also don’t understand why anybody would want more then one team. It is taking up all my time to manage one team. I am not smart enough to manage two teams let alone three.

heh... 2 teams here (trying my hand at a dynasty thread to log their progress as well)... just speaking for myself/how I'm playing... it's actually pretty easy to manage them both... I'm only using/spending points I gain with in-game achievements and card sales; so not like there are a lot of lineup changes to do... pop in when I get home from work, see how each team has fared while I was gone... maybe buy a pack or two if they racked up enough points (and hope for a player upgrade)... check the auctions for any good deals that will expire in the time I have before bed...

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

we could certainly look at ways to cap how many points you can earn (something like "you only get paid the first 10 times you earn an achievement each season")

Please don't do this. Please don't do a deep dive into 7000+ teams to determine if they're sitting guys. Let people have fun with their teams. Let people determine their lineups and rotations the way they damn well want. Time is precious and life is short, let PT players spend their time however the hell they want. If players want to sit their diamonds/perfects/golds for whatever reasons, why the hell is it anyone else's business? Who the hell is anyone to tell anyone else how to set their own team?

OOTP has always been about playing your game how you want. Markus and his team have been active proponents of that for the last ~20 years. No reason PT should be any different. Sit back, enjoy the show and reap the rewards from creating an incredibly fun addition to an already great game. It's ok to say No to requests that don't make logistical sense.

This game is damn near perfect as it is, don't be persuaded by all the whining & complaining that's been going on for the past couple weeks. Good lord, please don't change anything in PT based on the contents of this thread. This is easily the most uneducated, idiotic, total nonsense of a thread on the PT boards yet. Lock it already and just burn it.

[Matt Arnold]

Yeah we're not going to overreact to theoretical situations. If tanking truly becomes a widespread problem we may act, but I don't expect it to be an issue.

I mean, if someone is at the top league, it's not like the people at the next league down are going to be running chumps. And I can't imagine someone wanting to lose for like 3-4 weeks in a row to get back to the bronze league, just so that they can maybe get more points by beating other teams?