Competitive balance discussion

[Orcin]

The bottom line here is that we will need to wait until we are 5-6 weeks into the launch version to know how this will play out. Assuming it works as designed, there will be a fat group at the top trying to squeeze every ounce out of their bullpens full of 100's, and there will be three-four levels of the rest of us with fun competitive pennant races and playoffs. Win-win scenario. The company gets its money and we get a great game to play all winter.

[Thalion]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The bottom line here is that we will need to wait until we are 5-6 weeks into the launch version to know how this will play out. Assuming it works as designed, there will be a fat group at the top trying to squeeze every ounce out of their bullpens full of 100's, and there will be three-four levels of the rest of us with fun competitive pennant races and playoffs. Win-win scenario. The company gets its money and we get a great game to play all winter.

This exactly right here!


It's going to be a LONG time until OOTP 20 launches, so the teams we start with in a few weeks, we are going to have to keep for that period of time.


My guess (and this is strictly a guess) is that Markus and team do not forseee a situation where everyone is running around with diamond and perfect cards a month or two after launch.


What I think we will see is a settling of the market and a tightening of the availability of pp. Cards will get more valuable. Packs will become harder to get.



You have 1k in pp? Do you buy a pack now and open it to either fill a hole in your lineup or bank it and others you may earn this week to possibly spend it next week (or the week after) in the AH for that gold card you really want?


From what I've read, some people have already embraced the possibility of that kind of outcome. They are willing to wait, bide their time, compete in a league appropriate to the level of their team, and build at their own pace.


Others seem to be unable to accept that possibility. (Note... that I am ONLY hypothesizing. I am in no way in any position to speak with any kind of authority on their model).


And I get that. A lot of it has to do with the times we live in. We tend to be a highly competitive society who have gotten used to having things we want now. Saving for the future, waiting, those are things we are not used to. I am not making a value judgement as to whether that is right or wrong, but that is the way I see society in general now.


But I don't think that is OOTP's business model and we are going to have to adapt to it.


Down the line, it wouldn't surprise me to see it break into even more levels beside the 5 that are planned now to further segment the groups.


In the end, I think OOTP is trying to give eveyone the opportunity to find their own level of fun.


If you want to spend your life savings on Mike Trout and Babe Ruth and go head to head with the other hyper competitive whales, Go knock yourself out.


If you want to pore over statistics, colored bars, and tweak your team with the next great analytics discovery, go have fun.


If you delight in playing the AH market, watching trends, and creating financial spreadsheets that would put Wall Street traders to shame, have fun storming the castle.


If you just want to pick your favorite players.... your favorite team.... and build from there, go ahead.


Heck, if all you want to do is build a team based on whatever criteria you can come up with (all bronze, only players who became managers or coaches, only players whose last name starts with S, or whatever floats your boat) go ahead!


Because you know what, OOTP is betting that there will be other players who will have teams similar in effectiveness to you and will do their best to group you accordingly.


But I'm guessing there is one thing OOTP doesn't want... and it is players who demand that everyone find fun in the game according to only THEIR (the player, not OOTP) criteria.


Will it turn out this way? I have no idea. But I'm willing to give them a chance and find out.


And this is coming from someone who just two weeks ago couldn't even fathom the appeal for something like this. I started two weeks ago and I'm having a blast.


Now back to my compiling a list of players who became managers....

[Fyrestorm3]

Originally Posted by pstrickert

Here’s what I wonder. What if someone spends $100 to stack their team and, because of it, 20 people who would’ve spent $5 each drop out altogether before spending a dime? The same revenue is generated for OOTPD, but 20 potential players leave with a bad taste in their mouths. Who wins?

This right here is my one and only concern regarding the way the system is currently set up. If we get a whole bunch of new players when PT exits Beta, some of those will be big spenders and some will not, but both will exist in Rookie, Single-A, and Double-A, alongside each other, for a few weeks. Once P/R sorts everything out, we should hit a good balance, but I can absolutely see a F2P player getting frustrated at being in a league with a whale two seasons in a row and giving up on the game early on.

I obviously do not think that is a reasonable reaction, but just judging from the number of posts we've gotten on the subject in just two weeks, it appears to be a somewhat common one.

So yeah, I share the concern that the whales might push out a group of F2P players, not because of any inherent flaw in the system, but because of a lack of reasonable reactions to the whales' existence in the first place.

[Westheim]

Honest question - are the Rays quitting because they are in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox? Last thing I heard they were finding new creative ways to squeeze out an advantage to make much of rather little. Lots of non-paying players in PT will do the same.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Anyway, Markus has said that you can win without spending your lungs in PT. But this will be the reality: If you DO spend your lungs, you will USUALLY be ahead of the game without much struggle.

Until you reach the level where the sharks play

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The bottom line here is that we will need to wait until we are 5-6 weeks into the launch version to know how this will play out. Assuming it works as designed, there will be a fat group at the top trying to squeeze every ounce out of their bullpens full of 100's, and there will be three-four levels of the rest of us with fun competitive pennant races and playoffs. Win-win scenario. The company gets its money and we get a great game to play all winter.

This. Well said.

[Markus Heinsohn]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I am still waiting for someone to define the tipping point between reasonable and whale. Some people have said my $20 is not enough to be considered "spending to win". That's a relief. I no longer have to be personally offended by these anti-PTP threads and I can rejoice when I win the major league level in an essentially free manner. That said... how much is too much? What level of spending makes you complain and stop playing?

There will be users eventually (we don't have this type yet) who will spend thousands of $$ in PT. These are the whales. Right now we only have little baby dolphins in the system, so really no point in complaining just yet

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

There will be users eventually (we don't have this type yet) who will spend thousands of $$ in PT. These are the whales. Right now we only have little baby dolphins in the system, so really no point in complaining just yet

Excellent point. When $70 was called a whale I said next year just $10 a month would be $80 from April through November. That is peanuts to a business trying to work for their customers as you do and have since I started playing in 2015. In fact it would probably strain you to be able to continue this side of the game if you averaged less across the game's base players. Just my opinion, but I want you to be profitable because I love baseball and this has opened a whole new ballgame so to speak.

[Clavette]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

There will be users eventually (we don't have this type yet) who will spend thousands of $$ in PT. These are the whales. Right now we only have little baby dolphins in the system, so really no point in complaining just yet

I consider myself a killer whale

[captainbuttercream]

I really think this is a lot of preemptive worrying and some false assumptions.

I havent spent a penny on microtransactions, I just finished 102-60. I've probably opened 250-300 packs off of PP earned from performance and selling off cards.

[Ty Cobb]

It’ll end up that we have a rule five style draft to keep guys with fat pack box from corralling all the good players.

[pstrickert]

Originally Posted by captainbuttercream

I really think this is a lot of preemptive worrying and some false assumptions.

I havent spent a penny on microtransactions, I just finished 102-60. I've probably opened 250-300 packs off of PP earned from performance and selling off cards.

250-300 packs? To quote John McEnroe, “You can’t be serious!”

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by captainbuttercream

I really think this is a lot of preemptive worrying and some false assumptions.

I havent spent a penny on microtransactions, I just finished 102-60. I've probably opened 250-300 packs off of PP earned from performance and selling off cards.

I spent $20, sold every card except 35-40 on my roster, and I think I have been very lucky with achievement points. If I spent every point on packs, I still would not have opened more than 100 packs.

[zrog2000]

I'm almost embarrassed to say how many achievements I got this season.

2 gold/11 silver/144 bronze

[captainbuttercream]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I spent $20, sold every card except 35-40 on my roster, and I think I have been very lucky with achievement points. If I spent every point on packs, I still would not have opened more than 100 packs.

I'm 100% serious. I managed to get lucky an pull a perfect. I made the decision to sell my only gold after a few months in entry pool and just focus on finding the high performing bronze and silvers. I sold every gold and diamond, a long with any unused silvers, and constantly reinvested in packs. I only went to the auction house for very specific cards. I pulled a perfect, used him for 1 month and then sold it for 110k.

I made specific upgrades but held on to my bronze and silvers that were performing. I sold a bunch of 'flashy' that were probably better than what was on my roster because I was happy with the performance

Even now when I have like 5 diamonds and 3-4 gold, some of my top performers are bronze platoons and relievers.

I give full permission for the devs to confirm that I havent spent a dime.

[stl jason]

I'm just impressed there's someone out there with 110000 points to spend on a single auction

[Déjà Bru]

So in my league, the two superpowers (104 and 107 wins) ended up battling it out because they are both in the same subleague. It's 3-3 in the subleague finals. One of them is about to be very disappointed but the winner will feast on the other subleague winner, a mere 97 wins and not nearly as well-stocked.

Oh, the file is ready to be downloaded. Heh, the guy who apparently spent more lost the subleague finals. That's the way it goes.

Now the Class A Series, which portends to be a massacre. I cannot watch!

But I will check in later to see how it went.

EDIT 1: Holy Smokes! The underdog won the first two games of the Series. It's now 2-1 in their favor with another update in a few minutes . . .

EDIT 2: Yeah, the powerhouse took game 4, too, so now the series is tied 2-2. Looks like normality is reasserting itself.

EDIT 3: Holy Smokes, again! The underdog FIGHTS BACK! They are up 3-2 and are one victory away from vanquishing Goliath. Unfortunately, "tomorrow" is an off-day and I think this thing is going to 1AM EST so it's bedtime. As with the real World Series, I can't stay up late enough to see the end! I'll check in tomorrow AM.

[One Post Wonder]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

There will be users eventually (we don't have this type yet) who will spend thousands of $$ in PT.

Is this a serious projection? I've not seen any user on here, no matter how pessimistic (or optimistic, depending on your viewpoint) make a statement like that before.

If so, what do you anticipate these users spending that on? Right now, anyone could buy the best player at every position (regardless of your definition of "best"), with no flipping or achievement pp, for about $200, $300 IMO. Certainly not $1000.

What kinds of things will be added to PT in future which would lead you to believe that projection is possible?

[Maddox]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

I'm almost embarrassed to say how many achievements I got this season.

2 gold/11 silver/144 bronze

0 gold/1 silver/61 bronze

To the guy who opened hundreds of packs I can only say you got lucky. With the achievements I got and $5 I put towards stubs I have opened fewer than 20 packs. I have not gotten anything above a silver and no pack would have earned me my points back, let alone make a profit.

[Thalion]

Originally Posted by Maddox

0 gold/1 silver/61 bronze

To the guy who opened hundreds of packs I can only say you got lucky. With the achievements I got and $5 I put towards stubs I have opened fewer than 20 packs. I have not gotten anything above a silver and no pack would have earned me my points back, let alone make a profit.

Did you forget to sacrifice the San Diego Chicken to the Baseball Gods?