Competitive balance discussion

[Dunzie]

20 of the 30 teams in my Perfect League (.339) have a 100 Trout. That's pretty convincing argument he's the best bang for the buck needed for top competitiveness.

I started out the Perfect League 5-12 and looked like it was going to be a disaster. I shuffled my lineup and rotation just slightly without adding any new players (gave some more playing time, others less) and suddenly got hot. Right now I'm on a 14-1 run and have overtaken the top of my division. Not sure if it will last or just an easier swing in the schedule, but kinda shows streaks and runs can happen. Even among all the strong teams in this league / level, there are still standouts with WAY more top cards (some have my team in their reserves basically).

[bobbycockstrong]

Originally Posted by Mooshimanx

My problem is that Gold is quite competitive for F2P or even small money teams, but Diamond and above is unplayable for those teams. You just get smashed by cookie cutter teams all of which have $100 in Perfect Cards (e.g. Trout, Betts, DeGrom, Sale) plus another couple hundo in other perfect cards. I made the ALCS in my Gold league with a 96 win team. My W/L% in Diamond is around .250 with an improved team from last week. That's not acceptable - you can't have a system where you are outright non-competitive for a week at a time. The problem is the economy. It's busted.

And no, it's not like actual baseball because the Yankees don't actually spend 20 times what other teams do. It's sort of like Magic: the Gathering - there's definitely a pay-to-play element in playing constructed decks in Magic but the diminishing returns set in way quicker than they do here.

That's actually what I think the thing the devs need to be looking at - MTG has a "drafting" system where you and all the other players open packs and pass them around (in a 'draft' where you take one card out of each pack and pass it to the next player until all the cards are gone) to fill out your deck - the entire card pool in such a format is the cards that were opened in that draft. Something similar could work out really well here to have more competitive leagues and to provide more value to players who are more interested in picking up budget friendly options and focusing on player/talent evaluation skills.

Yeah but its Tuesday and you are possibly rushing to judgement based on a small sample size. I haven't spent a cent on the game, and half my team is bronze players - but after a very poor start im a couple games out of the wild card in diamond.

I generally agree that it is going to be tough for lower rated teams without diamond+ at every position like half the teams in my league seemingly have, but you can definitely "compete" at diamond at least.

Ideally, what I would really like to see is a separate pool/mode you can opt into that has an overall rating limit on your team. Something like the combined average rating of the 25 players on your active roster is capped at 80 or 75. I think this would be really neat, challenging, and add a lot of diversity to see how people choose to build their teams - where to focus their highest rated players. It would open up a lot of possibilities for teams that you most likely will never see at the higher (diamond and perfect) leagues. And it would likely also result in a lot more tinkering/fine tuning your team, as opposed to set and forget once you hit the higher leagues where the majority of teams are loaded with diamond+ players.

[thakfu]

The way things play out from year to year are rather odd to me. I was a playoff team in bronze, missed the playoffs but got promoted in silver, was the 16th team promoted in gold, then made the playoffs again in diamond. My diamond team had very little change over the gold team. This year in perfect Im in the bottom quarter of the league. 18 of 30 teams have Trout and there is one team that has something like 17 100s. I really wish I could figure out what I did last season.... lol

[omniart]

Originally Posted by ike121212

As a FTP player in diamond, it's a terrible experience. I'm pretty much stuck there for life as a .500 team.

Too all those defending the card diversity, certain players are on 20 teams in my league. It just looks stupid and it isn't fun.

Embrace the spirit of experimentation. Choose a strategy and see how it works. Build a team that has soul and that you'd be proud to lose with. Upset some big dogs, because upsetting the high-cost teams feels sweet.

Yours Truly,
A FTP Player in a Perfect League

[ike121212]

Originally Posted by omniart

Embrace the spirit of experimentation. Choose a strategy and see how it works. Build a team that has soul and that you'd be proud to lose with. Upset some big dogs, because upsetting the high-cost teams feels sweet.

Yours Truly,
A FTP Player in a Perfect League

I've embraced the concept of logging in once a week to see how I did and opening some packs. The game is lot of fun for the first week, but it grows stale very fast.

[shockenawe]

Originally Posted by ike121212

I've embraced the concept of logging in once a week to see how I did and opening some packs. The game is lot of fun for the first week, but it grows stale very fast.

This isn't the type of game you are going to log in once a week, open some packs, and expect to be competitive.

[uschi_baerchen]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

We will take another look through player ratings for next year and see how to improve things. But as everyone else has said, you have to look at the full picture for a player instead of just the overall number. Some players, for one reason or another, have ratings that do differ from their actual value to a team.

As I said, we will certainly revisit things for next year, and our goal will certainly to not be too far off on players. However, the formulae that we use to rank players will certainly differ from everyone else's evaluation, especially when it comes to how you value speed vs defense vs power vs etc... So just because one guy is rated higher than another means he's a better player, and that goes further when you look how they specifically fit into your team or your lineup.

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE leave the Rating as it is. If I could assume, that a 100 Player Plays like Trout always or 78 Kopech like a 78 Kopech, how the hell I could compete against Players who simply spent Money? It is a very high part of the fun to find out, which Players give the highest bangs for bucks. And also leave the decision if it is better to buy DeGroom or Snydergaard AND Betts AND Doolitlle.

[Echo127]

Originally Posted by humboldt1498

I just opened 25 packs and didn't pull a single card higher then silver. What do I win?

You really shouldn't be opening packs until your team is diamond level and above. It's much cheaper to buy upgrades in the auction house.

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk

Don't open packs until you're diamond level or above? So, never?

[freedavebrown]

Open packs whenever you want. It´s a game. I´ve switched over to spending every PP I earn on packs. I like the feeling of knowing I pulled every player on my team from packs. I am 10000% sure my team would be way better if I did not do this. But I enjoy it more.

[max venerabel]

So I'm in Perfect league, and my 98 win team is now looking like a 58 win team... which is fine, I have some work to do. However, I'm wondering, will the best teams in PT just continue to pool a this level, making it tougher and tougher?

Wouldn't it make more sense for there to be endless higher leagues for the most elite teams to compete in? I.e. the top teams in Perfect league graduate to Perfect League Level 2; then those graduate to Perfect League Level 3, etc?

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Echo127

Don't open packs until you're diamond level or above? So, never?

He was just giving good advice. If your goal is to field the best team you can given your resources (especially if F2P), then the auction house is the wise way to go. Once your team has reached a certain level of strength, there will be less options to strengthen it through the Auction House (without spending multiple 100K's to get a Ruth or Wagner), so then going to the packs makes sense in the hopes of catching a lucky break and pulling one of those rare Perfects.

[Zorro]

Why not just kick out anybody who makes it to the Perfect league. That way we get rid of all the good teams. God forbid having to play with winners. It is just not fair.......

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by Zorro

Why not just kick out anybody who makes it to the Perfect league. That way we get rid of all the good teams. God forbid having to play with winners. It is just not fair.......

I'd rather there be more demotions from perfect league so you don't have to be stuck in it forever if you don't decide to spend hundreds of dollars. It is just not fun.....

Especially when my Mike Trout can't even slug over .400 which is 20th out of 20 Mike Trouts.

[shockenawe]

Originally Posted by Zorro

Why not just kick out anybody who makes it to the Perfect league. That way we get rid of all the good teams. God forbid having to play with winners. It is just not fair.......

Or single player leagues for those that just can't stand to be beaten every now and again?

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by shockenawe

Or single player leagues for those that just can't stand to be beaten every now and again?

There you go... leagues with one human and 29 teams that only use the starter packs with the AI manager. I think it would only be a matter of time before people started to demand that the starter packs be nerfed.

[AirmenSmith]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I think it would be pretty easy to drop down a level. Surely it is not that hard to see how to do it.

I agree it is easy to drop down a level but the issue the other users were saying is then you are bouncing back and fourth. So it is one fun week of competitive play and one week of boring play. If this happened every week then I could see it getting old fast.

Either way I like your idea with the tournaments.

[bailey]

This week only 2 players promote to Perfect from Diamond. Bouncing back and forth might be more difficult than you think.

[webdox]

I think many of us old timers (and probably some of the younger guys, too) remember saving up our money as kids and riding our bikes to the party store that sold Topps Baseball Cards and how exciting it was.

The rectangular pink gum.... oh how YUMMY!

That feeling... that joy of opening up a Ricky Henderson rookie card (just for example) is something I think draws many of us to buy packs even though it is abundantly clear using the Auction House is much more wise way to upgrade.

I just wasted 4K on some packs yesterday and got nothing but a couple of old duplicates so I'm done with pack buying until maybe I see one of those Special Packs come up for sale.

Still waiting to open up my first 90+ player... I haven't had any good fortune yet.

[Dogberry99]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I think it would be pretty easy to drop down a level. Surely it is not that hard to see how to do it.

Sure, it'd be easy to drop down a level, but good luck doing that deliberately without violating the Terms of Service.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Dogberry99

Sure, it'd be easy to drop down a level, but good luck doing that deliberately without violating the Terms of Service.

We're not going to penalize teams that put out a sub-optimal lineup. Using the 2nd half of a season to train Ichiro in LF, or your Andrelton Simmons card at 2B is fine. If you're not making a mockery of the game, don't worry.

And honestly, at some levels, the talent is just so strong that it can be hard to actually build a team to actually stay at the level. I just got a team to the Diamond level, and I'm going to need some better luck to stay out of the bottom-4, and that's with a team that's full of Gold+ players, just added Pedro to my rotation, etc... Right now I think I'm 4th worst in the league, and have a few games to make up to get out of that bottom-4. I think my team should be talented enough to do that, but we'll see if my recent roster moves makes me better or not.