Meet the 5-time PL Champion, Free-to-Play Gold Saucer Wonder Squares + AMA

[ElementalKnight]

Originally Posted by Orcin

The missing element in your calculation is the same card being sold multiple times. For instance, I have bought and then sold quite a few historical diamonds in my quest to collect only cards with no prior stats. Or people try out a card and don't like the performance.

The other thing missing from my calculation is that collections lock them away. Those things are harder to quantify, and you're right, I'm not taking that into consideration. But if you're hunting for Averill, I wouldn't count on a bunch suddenly showing up.

[HiDesertAce]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Stop controlling the Kiddo Davis cards. Don't you have enough money already?

it me

[One Great Matrix]

Do you have any other teams ElementalKnight?

[ElementalKnight]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

Do you have any other teams ElementalKnight?

Ah, I was wondering when I was going to get this question. One license, three accounts, so three teams. All teams are FTP (I can provide evidence if this is important to people). I use the other two teams for market stuff as well. Both are perpetually in silver. They're not good point generators, and neither has had good pack luck either (no purchased packs; challenge mode packs only). I use those two teams for riskier flipping and for market scouting. I've never transferred points or players between teams, and I've never bid on an auction from another of my accounts. I've done my best to understand the rules as set forth by the devs and stay within them.

[One Great Matrix]

OK.

The skeptic in me wondered if you funnelled all your talent into the Wonder Squares because I did not watch the whole video (yet, lol), but I didn't see...INCREDIBLE point gains on the pages I did view. I don't know about anybody else but I'm not overly skeptical to the point I want to see any further proof myself.

[ElementalKnight]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

OK.

The skeptic in me wondered if you funnelled all your talent into the Wonder Squares because I did not watch the whole video (yet, lol), but I didn't see...INCREDIBLE point gains on the pages I did view. I don't know about anybody else but I'm not overly skeptical to the point I want to see any further proof myself.

I actually thought more people were going to be skeptical along these lines. I'm happy to make transaction history videos for the Midgar Mako and Junon Cannons if people want. I'd like to think that my not having been banned is proof of following the rules. I'm not sure how to evidence that I only have one license, but multiple licenses wouldn't have been free-to-play in my book (I'm a PhD student—I don't have that kind of disposable income).

While watching the video, it might be easier to follow the balance as opposed to trying to follow individual transactions. It was a pretty constant cycle of reinvesting, and I typically made a purchase for my team when my balance got cushy enough, so it's hard to see huge gains on any one page. I think watching for those major purchases might be most helpful.

[One Great Matrix]

I think I know what you mean...you had to populate your team, so you're utilizing the PP so no huge PP gains.

[ElementalKnight]

Originally Posted by One Great Matrix

I think I know what you mean...you had to populate your team, so you're utilizing the PP so no huge PP gains.

Yep, that's right. One of the things I considered doing was not spending any points on my team at all at first—literally trying to accumulate as many points as possible—and then purchasing the players I wanted all at once once I had enough PP to build the team I wanted. That would have better taken advantage of the snowball effect of capital. But once sims started, I decided that wasn't going to be very fun.

[Argonaut]

The system doesn't even let you bid on auctions put up by a team on the same license, it will give you an error. I tried to transfer some lowly Bronze cards from one team to another at a fair price and it wouldn't let me. This was before I knew about the strict rules. Even so I suspect OOTPD is more interested in the outlier transactions.

[allenciox]

I think I remember them saying that the historical pull rate was 3/8 (37.5%). There are over 400 unique historical diamond cards in the game (probably closer to 450 now).

(1/30)*(3/8)*(1/400) = .00003125

So a few of things are "worse" than you mention above. There are actually 687 non-live diamond cards in the game (385 hitters, 302 pitchers), and I believe that the pull rate for lives is 70% rather than 5/8. Thus the equation should be:
(1/30)*(.3)*(1/687)= 1/68700=.00001456 for non-diamond packs. This might also be affected by the "size" of the diamond. Another thread has presented evidence that high diamonds (65-69) are more rare than low diamonds (60-64).

[ElementalKnight]

Originally Posted by allenciox

So a few of things are "worse" than you mention above. There are actually 687 non-live diamond cards in the game (385 hitters, 302 pitchers), and I believe that the pull rate for lives is 70% rather than 5/8. Thus the equation should be:
(1/30)*(.3)*(1/687)= 1/68700=.00001456 for non-diamond packs. This might also be affected by the "size" of the diamond. Another thread has presented evidence that high diamonds (65-69) are more rare than low diamonds (60-64).

I thought it was 70% in PT 19 but 62.5% in PT 20. Not sure about that though.

Are there really 687 non-live diamonds? That's way more than I had thought. I must have underestimated how many have been added since release.

I'd be really surprised if diamond drop rates were different based on overall rating. Can you link what you're referring to? I'm curious.

But you're right, that only adds to the point that the drop rates for non-live diamonds are really low. Thanks for the info.

[atabakin]

Originally Posted by ElementalKnight

I thought it was 70% in PT 19 but 62.5% in PT 20. Not sure about that though.

Are there really 687 non-live diamonds? That's way more than I had thought. I must have underestimated how many have been added since release.

I'd be really surprised if diamond drop rates were different based on overall rating. Can you link what you're referring to? I'm curious.

But you're right, that only adds to the point that the drop rates for non-live diamonds are really low. Thanks for the info.

It was 75% in 19, 70% in 20.

[ElementalKnight]

The now-8-time-champion, free-to-play Gold Saucer Wonder Squares just posted the T-5th best record in PL history, including what might be a contender for best record after the all-star break in PL history.



Edit: The team won the 11 games before the all-star break, too. So this season had a 75-2 stretch. I'm now wondering if I hadn't position trained 100 Ozzie from scratch at 2B to start the season if we'd have squeaked out a few more wins.

Edit x 2: It was brought to my attention in Discord that we also posted the 2nd best PL team ERA of all time.

[HelpDodgers]

Originally Posted by ElementalKnight

Edit: Transaction history added: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ERcYlxWx8U

I'm a little dim, and impressed you pressed the button 700+ times, but is there a guide to the highlight pages?

[ElementalKnight]

Originally Posted by HelpDodgers

I'm a little dim, and impressed you pressed the button 700+ times, but is there a guide to the highlight pages?

The best I really have to offer as a guide is this:

Originally Posted by ElementalKnight

While watching the video, it might be easier to follow the balance as opposed to trying to follow individual transactions. It was a pretty constant cycle of reinvesting, and I typically made a purchase for my team when my balance got cushy enough, so it's hard to see huge gains on any one page. I think watching for those major purchases might be most helpful.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by ElementalKnight

The now-8-time-champion, free-to-play Gold Saucer Wonder Squares just posted the T-5th best record in PL history, including what might be a contender for best record after the all-star break in PL history.

Edit: The team won the 11 games before the all-star break, too. So this season had a 75-2 stretch. I'm now wondering if I hadn't position trained 100 Ozzie from scratch at 2B to start the season if we'd have squeaked out a few more wins.

Given your success and considering that you already have Ozzie, do you think you might release some of the bottleneck cards for the rest of us? Thank you in advance for your kindness.

[ElementalKnight]

Originally Posted by Orcin

Given your success and considering that you already have Ozzie, do you think you might release some of the bottleneck cards for the rest of us? Thank you in advance for your kindness.

I'm only tracking six cards right now. I get some of the big fish sometimes, but, honestly, this is a systemic issue. There are clearly others watching the bottleneck cards closely—as they should. I'm not on all the time, and again, I've ramped down what I've been doing since I made this topic.

The devs seem to clearly want the bottlenecks, because they keep structuring the missions this way (and some of them have been even worse than usual recently). There are ways to ameliorate this and not destroy competitive or market balance. We'll see what they choose to do in PT21.

[Sipimi]

Originally Posted by ElementalKnight

The devs seem to clearly want the bottlenecks, because they keep structuring the missions this way (and some of them have been even worse than usual recently). There are ways to ameliorate this and not destroy competitive or market balance. We'll see what they choose to do in PT21.

Isn't it "good" for the game to have bottleneck cards ? I mean, I'm the first hurt by this (FYI I have none of the top cards) but would it be more "fun" if everyone was playing 100 Ozzie ? I wish I had him, but at the same thing I wouldn't want everyone to be able to collect and play him, there would be leagues of Ozzie playing against Ozzie. Since I'm not spending money nor quitting my job to watch the AH full time, I have to accept the fact that I'll never get to play him.

[UltimateAverageGuy]

Amazing how 75% of this thread is just people hating

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by Sipimi

Isn't it "good" for the game to have bottleneck cards ? I mean, I'm the first hurt by this (FYI I have none of the top cards) but would it be more "fun" if everyone was playing 100 Ozzie ? I wish I had him, but at the same thing I wouldn't want everyone to be able to collect and play him, there would be leagues of Ozzie playing against Ozzie. Since I'm not spending money nor quitting my job to watch the AH full time, I have to accept the fact that I'll never get to play him.

Well, yes and no... I think its actually rather complicated.

I do agree with you that the best cards in this game should be relatively exclusive. They should be the end result of either incredible luck or a combination of precision focus and deliberate patience (though this last quality can be augmented and in the extreme removed by the ability and willingness to purchase points).

The issue with bottlenecks is that they can be considered a false barrier. Bottlenecks do not represent a true increase in difficulty so much as an administrative delay. Just look at all the reported incidents of required silver, bronze, and iron cards being the ones that hold up the completion of a mission. These are cards whose price point and drop rates should not be so extreme as to make them exclusive. There should be plenty of them in game, but there are none where they are needed. I understand why I go ages between sightings of Diamond Eddie Stanky, but its harder to understand why sightings of Silver Aurelio Lopez are also few and far between.

The acquisition of Special Edition Ozzie Smith should be difficult. If anything, it should be more difficult than it is. However, this only works if the difficulty is genuine, not little more than a contrived nuisance.

Speed bumps don't make a road more difficult to navigate - just slower.