Perfect Team burn out?

[Magus978]

I got burned out at two points. After the summer PTCS and about a week ago. Once I reach a level where I'm meeting up with enough resistance to keep me stuck in said level for awhile, I become less and less interested. I'm now hitting the point where I'm missing days of throwing my bronze tournament team into quickies, so it might be all over for me until 23 sooner rather than later.

[HRBaker]

Looking at my teams this morning, they all reached Silver between 22 and 27 weeks after release. One or the other have made Gold for a week before they got smacked back down to Silver, and it's now to the point even if I add a top rank player, it's not enough to change my floating around in Silver.


Since we're now in week 38, I don't see any way I'm going to find my interest rekindled unless I land more than one killer-card (near impossible). That leaves me about three months to get into something else until PT23 comes out.


Even when it does, I'll be a one team member next year and enjoy the ride for about 20 weeks or so.

[Orcin]

I have moved on. The fact that it took over a week for me to see this thread and respond says it all about my level of interest.

Game balance in this version is far worse than the previous two. Card performance is so erratic that the game is either (a) designed to be completely random or (b) little more than a game of War with baseball pictures instead of numbers on the cards. True game balance requires the player to believe that he can influence the outcome through better skills/tools. Instead, we have only the frustration that results from no control over the game experience.

The game economy was destroyed for the second year in a row - this time by giving an unknown (but large) number of people a huge (11 million or maybe more) headstart in perfect points. This was not discovered by the player base until the summer, but it explains a lot about how these "free-to-play" teams were able to complete every mission on drop. Pretty easy when you can just buy all of the cards with free money.

The pace of the content rollout was akin to water torture, forcing us to play most of the season without many of the elite Hall of Fame players. The best shortstop in the game was Arky Vaughan for most of the year. Arky Vaughan!?!?!! When those premier cards finally arrived, it was anticlimactic due to game interest being in severe decline among much of the player base (end of baseball season, too expensive, discouraged by random results).

The one saving grace of the ordeal was the Discord community, which made the game more interesting by providing a place to commiserate with other losers in real time. However, that community has been taken over by Internet bullies, and the company refuses to do anything about it. The keyboard warriors have made the game community into an "us and them" faction war between the discord patrons and the forum users - a war which is completely one-sided since no one here knows or cares about what they think.

I am not going to play next year's version. I am convinced that the financial success of this year's game will make next year's into more of what I dislike. It was a great run, but I will be finding something else to do.

[daves]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I have moved on. The fact that it took over a week for me to see this thread and respond says it all about my level of interest.

Game balance in this version is far worse than the previous two. Card performance is so erratic that the game is either (a) designed to be completely random or (b) little more than a game of War with baseball pictures instead of numbers on the cards. True game balance requires the player to believe that he can influence the outcome through better skills/tools. Instead, we have only the frustration that results from no control over the game experience.

The game economy was destroyed for the second year in a row - this time by giving an unknown (but large) number of people a huge (11 million or maybe more) headstart in perfect points. This was not discovered by the player base until the summer, but it explains a lot about how these "free-to-play" teams were able to complete every mission on drop. Pretty easy when you can just buy all of the cards with free money.

The pace of the content rollout was akin to water torture, forcing us to play most of the season without many of the elite Hall of Fame players. The best shortstop in the game was Arky Vaughan for most of the year. Arky Vaughan!?!?!! When those premier cards finally arrived, it was anticlimactic due to game interest being in severe decline among much of the player base (end of baseball season, too expensive, discouraged by random results).

The one saving grace of the ordeal was the Discord community, which made the game more interesting by providing a place to commiserate with other losers in real time. However, that community has been taken over by Internet bullies, and the company refuses to do anything about it. The keyboard warriors have made the game community into an "us and them" faction war between the discord patrons and the forum users - a war which is completely one-sided since no one here knows or cares about what they think.

I am not going to play next year's version. I am convinced that the financial success of this year's game will make next year's into more of what I dislike. It was a great run, but I will be finding something else to do.

I agree and understand. I know you and I started in the original PT19 version. I am not sure what they are going to do to entice players to play PT23? This version was Perfect draft. But right now, I plan on not playing Perfect team 23. I might get the app and play seasons but not PT.

Side note, not sure if there was a realistic upgrade in SS over Arky? Beside the over-priced hard to get Honus.

[ubernoob]

Originally Posted by daves

I I am not sure what they are going to do to entice players to play PT23? This version was Perfect draft. But right now, I plan on not playing Perfect team 23.

You are acting like there will be a population problem with PT, lol. It will be fine, and quite large next year still.



Card collecting modes like this are the most popular thing in sports game for a reason.

[Syd Thrift]

I played it a little last year and tried to play it this year but it’s just not all that fun for me. There’s like one meta for the best players at each level and all going against the meta gets you is a lower chance to win. It just doesn’t strike me as a lot of fun and then to make matters worse it feels like a lot of the meta for not dropping a lot of cash in is to figure out how to lose creatively so that you repeat levels with better talent. So… meh for me. I think MLB The Show, which PT is designed after, does a much better job of providing that alternative meta in creative ways that make more sense (and of course the arcade element means you can have all the best players but still lose if your opponent has better hand eye coordination, which is in and of itself a way to counter the meta).

One thing I do have to say to be fair to PT’s meta… Arky Vaughan was legitimately one of the best shortstops in MLB history. His career ended early and he died young so he’s largely forgotten but he was extremely good and treated as an extremely good player in his prime as well.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

One thing I do have to say to be fair to PT’s meta… Arky Vaughan was legitimately one of the best shortstops in MLB history. His career ended early and he died young so he’s largely forgotten but he was extremely good and treated as an extremely good player in his prime as well.

I won't argue that. However, Honus Wagner is clearly better, and did not appear until a pack-only add in November. That's the point.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I won't argue that. However, Honus Wagner is clearly better, and did not appear until a pack-only add in November. That's the point.

I thought the roll-out was well done this year. I don't care one whit what names are on the cards as watching real baseball (or any sports) is boring, boring, boring. The novelty of saying the game is like War is only partly true. There are only 760 slots in the Perfect and Diamond leagues combined and 500+ mission complete players have the same cards. However, you can differentiate yourself from the pack with sliders, ball park factors, and micro-ing for favorable matchups.

Maybe, to make the game more exciting, every card should have a unique fictional name and card ID's and ratings of opponents' players are hidden, so you don't know what you are facing? Stats only for PT? Nobody could copy your team and forget about collecting data because of hidden card ID.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

It just doesn’t strike me as a lot of fun and then to make matters worse it feels like a lot of the meta for not dropping a lot of cash in is to figure out how to lose creatively so that you repeat levels with better talent.

As a F2P player (other than $10 on Day 1 to boost my initial tournament team) I found the balance to be quite good. My main team has been competitive at Diamond since late spring and I have had fun with the missions throughout. I spent most of my time focused on building an effective tournament team. Earning steady packs from tournaments is much more effective than the “tanking for points” approach and was a fun challenge all in itself. I stayed focused on my Bronze team but know a lot of people who spent the bulk of their time playing around with the different tournament formats. The bottom line is that PT does not have to be just about following the meta with your main team. There are lots of ways to have fun with it.

[ubernoob]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I won't argue that. However, Honus Wagner is clearly better, and did not appear until a pack-only add in November. That's the point.

Okay and then when Honus Wagner is the best shortstop out of the gate next year, and when someone you deem worse is better because they released later in the season I'm sure you'll be here to complain about that too.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by ubernoob

Okay and then when Honus Wagner is the best shortstop out of the gate next year, and when someone you deem worse is better because they released later in the season I'm sure you'll be here to complain about that too.

No, I won't be here.

[professor ape]

While I get your frustrations Orcin, I challenge many of your broad statements.

ORCIN: Game balance in this version is far worse than the previous two. Card performance is so erratic that the game is either (a) designed to be completely random or (b) little more than a game of War with baseball pictures instead of numbers on the cards. True game balance requires the player to believe that he can influence the outcome through better skills/tools. Instead, we have only the frustration that results from no control over the game experience.

RESPONSE: If the game was “completely random” then there wouldn’t be the meta lineups and staffs that we love to complain about. Players’ results in real baseball are still highly random even at a season level. I’ve done studies where you take a player’s expected rates of events and randomly generate 650PA seasons. You get wildly different seasons just based on luck. It’s a truth of the game. While I think that the game mechanics could certainly be improved, I believe they work much better than many of us acknowledge.

ORCIN: The game economy was destroyed for the second year in a row - this time by giving an unknown (but large) number of people a huge (11 million or maybe more) headstart in perfect points. This was not discovered by the player base until the summer, but it explains a lot about how these "free-to-play" teams were able to complete every mission on drop. Pretty easy when you can just buy all of the cards with free money.

RESPONSE: I don’t know all of the details of the settlement which gave a group of players their windfalls of points at the start of the season but my understanding is that it was a limited number of people involved. Yes, it is very frustrating that those people got a very large head start and I hope that is not repeated in the next cycle. However, to broadly state that this destroyed the game is an overreach which diminishes the effort of the many F2P players who worked to build competitive teams. I have completed all but a few of the most recent missions without being part of that settlement and having dropped only $10 at the start of the season. I found the economics to work well. Completing the missions was challenging but doable for F2P players willing to put in the time. I never felt pressure to spend real money and have been at Diamond or Perfect for 25 straight weeks. I don’t begrudge those who spent real money to build their teams. That’s part of the game and gives the company the revenue to keep developing and improving the larger game.

ORCIN: The pace of the content rollout was akin to water torture, forcing us to play most of the season without many of the elite Hall of Fame players. The best shortstop in the game was Arky Vaughan for most of the year. Arky Vaughan!?!?!! When those premier cards finally arrived, it was anticlimactic due to game interest being in severe decline among much of the player base (end of baseball season, too expensive, discouraged by random results).

RESPONSE: Looking back, the overall pace was fine for me. I might have aimed FH3 to wrap up a bit earlier in October but we got content throughout the season an the FH arc built up well over the months. I don’t want too many top cards early in the season. I like having increments improvements as the season progresses and would actually argue that there were too many top cards early on. There is no right answer to please everyone, but considering all of the variables and challenges I think they did a great job.

[Thundercrack]

Why were people given millions of free points? What settlement? Is this a commonly known thing?

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by Thundercrack

Why were people given millions of free points? What settlement? Is this a commonly known thing?

I don’t want to misspeak and spread erroneous information. It was not widely communicated but is out there and fairly well known. I know there were discussions about it earlier this year but I’ll defer to others to provide links.

[mpatt75]

Originally Posted by Thundercrack

Why were people given millions of free points? What settlement? Is this a commonly known thing?

Yeah, what is this?

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by daves

Side note, not sure if there was a realistic upgrade in SS over Arky? Beside the over-priced hard to get Honus.

Dahlen and Ripkin, in that order. Both are upgrades against LHP and viable alternatives against RHP. Dahlen is my SS of choice as he is also a speed merchant, unlike the other two.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The game economy was destroyed for the second year in a row - this time by giving an unknown (but large) number of people a huge (11 million or maybe more) headstart in perfect points. This was not discovered by the player base until the summer, but it explains a lot about how these "free-to-play" teams were able to complete every mission on drop. Pretty easy when you can just buy all of the cards with free money.

I thought I knew as much (and as little) about the details as anybody else not directly involved in it, but "but large"? Where did that come from?

The keyboard warriors have made the game community into an "us and them" faction war between the discord patrons and the forum users - a war which is completely one-sided since no one here knows or cares about what they think.

LOL.. that's certainly true. I had no idea 'they' even existed.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by Hertston

I thought I knew as much (and as little) about the details as anybody else not directly involved in it, but "but large"? Where did that come from?

They tale grows in the telling. It didn't "destroy" the game economy, either. If anything, the hefty prices for live cards at the start of the game jump started my personal game economy as I was a seller of live cards.

[mpatt75]

Originally Posted by bailey

They tale grows in the telling. It didn't "destroy" the game economy, either. If anything, the hefty prices for live cards at the start of the game jump started my personal game economy as I was a seller of live cards.

What did people have to do to get free points?

[Hwilensky]

Yes, Inquiring minds want to know.