Competitive balance discussion

[NYY #23]

Originally Posted by Ryan W.

How did you do this? I've been trying to find a place to do this and can't find it?!?!

Go to Statistics, Sortable Stats, then you can pick whatever view, write report to disk, then copy and paste into excel.

[Maddox]

Out of those common players I have

Sean Doolittle
Buster Posey
Patrick Corbin

Corbin has been more bad than good for me. Buster I added just last season at the end. Doolittle I added yesterday because Keone Kela had decided to live in the 5 ERA range and continually blow saves or lose games far more than his ratings say he should.

Mostly I got them because they were upgrades and affordable. Part of that affordability is probably because there are so many copies already out there.

[el_gringo]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

Right Field
Ichiro Suzuki (80)
Bryce Harper (46)
Paul Waner (34)

This just makes me happy.

[humboldt1498]

How dare people try to build the best team possible as cheaply as possible?!?!


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[Willie M]

Maybe I'm alone in this opinion, but the 100's (especially MLB Live) drop way too often. A 100 card should have everyone excited and if it goes on the Auction House it should be a frenzy.

Instead, I looked last night and saw 7 Mookie Betts (100) on the AH with 0 bids.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by humboldt1498

How dare people try to build the best team possible as cheaply as possible?!?!

There's no reason that they shouldn't. If that's what they want to do, it's a great strategy.

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by Willie M

Maybe I'm alone in this opinion, but the 100's (especially MLB Live) drop way too often. A 100 card should have everyone excited and if it goes on the Auction House it should be a frenzy.

Instead, I looked last night and saw 7 Mookie Betts (100) on the AH with 0 bids.

I was beginning to wonder this myself, especially when you compare instances of players like deGrom (100) to Kershaw (99)



Additionally, one major point this thread should be making obvious is that we are describing the most used players on the best teams. Supply and demand and the resulting price differences will absolutely play a role in this. I expect to see a bit more variety in how top teams look in February or March, but for now, historical players are too rare and expensive compared to acceptable alternatives.

I am fine with this being the current meta in part because I know that there are many wonderful cards that most people have yet to encounter. If anything, I am happy that there are Live cards that can keep up with many of their historical counterparts, since the prevailing wisdom outside this thread has been that historic cards will always be better.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

I expect to see a bit more variety in how top teams look in February or March, but for now, historical players are too rare and expensive compared to acceptable alternatives.

I hope you're right, but I may be in the minority that thinks it won't happen, at least for those that aren't spending a good deal of money.

The question will be, are there enough of those "rare" cards to filter down to the guys that are either playing free or spending a modest amount of money, or are there enough people with bigger resources snatching up the rare cards that they don't come down much in price. To give an extreme example, where there ever be enough "perfect" Ruth cards available on AH for them to ever come down in price, or will those with resources still be on the hunt for one keeping the price high.

I don't know how many perfect Ruth cards there are, but unless there are more of them than there are big spenders, they may stay well out of the price range of the majority of players. Personally, I think they should be rare, but all I'm saying is, I don't ever expect to be able to afford one through the AH and don't see the AH market coming down too much for the rare historical players. I could see the 2018 diamonds and perfect players continuing to come down due to the market being flooded. That will just cause more and more teams to look identical rather than different.

[moalkha]

Rare historical cards are those where real money (hundreds of dollars) is spent and if they come down in price due to oversupply the golden egg will be broken

[Dogberry99]

This game has creep built into it. We'll all be earning a lot of points between now and March. As we get more points, there will be less (in the Auction House) we can spend them on because of the high quality of the cards we already have. If we go the pack route, more packs will provide a similar rate of improvement as our luck gets spread over more and more chances.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by mcdog512

Given the fact I have no idea who deGrom is

You should buy a newspaper every couple o' years to stay in touch.

You are welcome.

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm3

So you could have one team that someone has slaved over, putting together piece by piece, that's just starting to play well after a few weeks, then ends up two weeks in a row in a division with a couple of high rollers, and therefore underperforms.

You know my opinion on scaled rewards for higher leagues (for lurkers, I like the idea a considerable amount), so I won't start that again here and get the thread locked.

BUT... you're touching on something here that does need addressing, and that's the distribution of teams at the end of each season. I've seen this complained about number of times and there's room for improvement here.

IMO the game algorithm should take all of the teams which are supposed to be at a certain level in the upcoming season, sort them by record, with some adjustments for those teams which have been relegated or promoted, and 'deal' them to the leagues and divisions in a serpentine style. That way every division gets projected to have 1 strong team, a good team, and a couple of mediocre to crap teams.

Maybe most PT players prefer things to be random - I'm not sure. But for me, I like any change which increases the amount of skill that the game requires vs random luck.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I priced out this build today. It includes a bench and complete bullpen. You could quibble with some of the choices. For example, I took Cano and Harper over Altuve and Bryant for the bench because I wanted some LH bats there. Of course, the prices shown below were a snapshot but it should be good in the aggregate for a few days at least.

This team can be yours for US $150, or less if you already have some of it and other cards to sell.

Attachment 593536

Or, if you draw a perfect Ruth and get the current minimum (450K PP), you can have one of these teams plus a couple of more modestly priced rare historicals.

[humboldt1498]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

This game has creep built into it. We'll all be earning a lot of points between now and March. As we get more points, there will be less (in the Auction House) we can spend them on because of the high quality of the cards we already have. If we go the pack route, more packs will provide a similar rate of improvement as our luck gets spread over more and more chances.

Yeah, I foresee inflation coming to the auction house for rare historical cards. IMO, buy them now before they get even more expensive.

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[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by Westheim

You should buy a newspaper every couple o' years to stay in touch.

You are welcome.

In 1994 after those a-holes cancelled the world series I swore on a stack of bibles I was done with baseball......but the truth is I'm not done with pre-1994 baseball at all. Just anything after including the now....although I must confess perfect team is making me learn about them through osmosis...

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by humboldt1498

Yeah, I foresee inflation coming to the auction house for rare historical cards. IMO, buy them now before they get even more expensive.

So basically what you're thinking is that all these cookie cutter teams will have points to spend but the only meaningful improvements are on the rarer historical cards, thereby making them even more in demand than they currently are? Interesting...

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by mcdog512

In 1994 after those a-holes cancelled the world series I swore on a stack of bibles I was done with baseball......but the truth is I'm not done with pre-1994 baseball at all. Just anything after including the now....although I must confess perfect team is making me learn about them through osmosis...

It's also making me learn about tons of historical players I never heard of.

I didn't watch baseball from 1994 until about 2003 because of the strike and got drug back in.

[Thalion]

Originally Posted by mcdog512

In 1994 after those a-holes cancelled the world series I swore on a stack of bibles I was done with baseball......but the truth is I'm not done with pre-1994 baseball at all. Just anything after including the now....although I must confess perfect team is making me learn about them through osmosis...

I know what you mean. I don't follow MLB anymore but when I'm listening to the radio, I hear "So and so signed Name-I-Normally-Don't-Know to a 1 year deal for $11 million" and I think, "What?! He's just a silver!"

[Black Death]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Yes, or play from a provided set of real parks that you can choose. I don't see what that has to do with this thread, or why you feel the need to bring it up. If you want to argue about ballparks, why don't you go do it in that thread? Why rehash it here?

For the record, I don't have ANY of these players on my team. I am making the observation that many of the top teams do use this team or an upgraded version thereof. I would say that if you start PT today and spend $150 real money, you can buy this team easily and do quite well at least through gold level.

I was trying to point out in a lighter fashion that you were advocating one aspect of the game should have no variability whatsoever, and now you're saying that their isn't enough diversity in another aspect. I found the dissonance amusing. I'm sorry you didn't. I wasn't arguing anything...just trying to lighten the mood.

"Why so serious?"

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by One Post Wonder

You know my opinion on scaled rewards for higher leagues (for lurkers, I like the idea a considerable amount), so I won't start that again here and get the thread locked.

BUT... you're touching on something here that does need addressing, and that's the distribution of teams at the end of each season. I've seen this complained about number of times and there's room for improvement here.

IMO the game algorithm should take all of the teams which are supposed to be at a certain level in the upcoming season, sort them by record, with some adjustments for those teams which have been relegated or promoted, and 'deal' them to the leagues and divisions in a serpentine style. That way every division gets projected to have 1 strong team, a good team, and a couple of mediocre to crap teams.

Maybe most PT players prefer things to be random - I'm not sure. But for me, I like any change which increases the amount of skill that the game requires vs random luck.

That's not a bad suggestion actually.