I just took a F2P team from nothing to PeL winners in 8 seasons. Here's my story

[bailey]

I'm not trying to undermine anyone, but completing collections requires cards to be available and have the PP to pay the going rate. I remember how long I had to wait for just for Freehan just to show up and then had to pay 150K for it. I admire the successful free players like QC greatly, but I have to overcome my shortcomings with cash which is OK, too.

[stl jason]

definitely an impressive meteoric rise through the ranks.... well done... and for anyone who thinks it's easier in friend-leagues like BFF or OL, gotta say it's definitely not... I've had much better success at the top tier out 'in the wild'/set to random than I ever did against the OL/NF2P group...


still searching for that first, elusive Perfect tier championship for my F2P bunch (course, making it a pre-ww2 theme team only serves to limit the potential upgrade pool significantly as well but going to stick with it).... getting very close though... 107 wins and an LCS appearance last season, so on the cusp... 15 pages of dynasty thread postings and counting if anyone is bored and wants to read along from beginning to current day

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Maybe I'm grossly underestimating how difficult it is to come up with this plan since it all seemed pretty obvious, but at the end of the day generating PP does come down to time on the AH. Every under-priced Appling, Faber, Aaron, Baker, Averill, Hiller, Colavito, etc that you are around refreshing the AH for is an instant 60-80K. You can know that the missions are profitable but if you are someone who just checks in when you get home from work you will never see all the cards you need listed.

The point is 30 people all hit the ground running, and all were trying to do that at the same time. With a bunch of committed players, he was the best of us, by far. It wasn't even close.

It wasn't just spotting bargains. It was the way he chained one collection into the next one as efficiently as possible...setting a blistering pace, running laps around the rest of us as we fought for diminishing returns. All while somehow fielding a competitive enough team to rise through the ranks while barely even investing any PP into his roster.

I'm not saying time isn't a factor, of course it is. Literally any activity or hobby requires time to succeed. But to say "it's easy, anyone with enough time can do that" is just nonsense. This involved a ton of preparation & execution (i.e. skill).

[skep]

This is an incredible achievement. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

[dkgo]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

The point is 30 people all hit the ground running, and all were trying to do that at the same time. With a bunch of committed players, he was the best of us, by far. It wasn't even close.

It wasn't just spotting bargains. It was the way he chained one collection into the next one as efficiently as possible...setting a blistering pace, running laps around the rest of us as we fought for diminishing returns. All while somehow fielding a competitive enough team to rise through the ranks while barely even investing any PP into his roster.

I'm not saying time isn't a factor, of course it is. Literally any activity or hobby requires time to succeed. But to say "it's easy, anyone with enough time can do that" is just nonsense. This involved a ton of preparation & execution (i.e. skill).

Yeah, I get all that when looking specifically at the competition set up in yalls new league. And you are right that the F2P genre of game allows you to use time or money as a currency. Grind enough and you can get to where the whales are, I've done it myself.

My biggest point is looking at the game structure as a whole. I think it is a problem when a major feature of the game in collections is literally cut off from people who aren't there to refresh for bottlenecks all day.

[almightytdawg]

Originally Posted by dkgo

Yeah, I get all that when looking specifically at the competition set up in yalls new league. And you are right that the F2P genre of game allows you to use time or money as a currency. Grind enough and you can get to where the whales are, I've done it myself.

My biggest point is looking at the game structure as a whole. I think it is a problem when a major feature of the game in collections is literally cut off from people who aren't there to refresh for bottlenecks all day.

The bottleneck flipping should be significantly curtailed going forward in light of the L7 bug fix, although it may be an issue if there are no sales in a particular 7-day period (I'm not sure how the system handles it or whether the ongoing evolution of all-time average covers it). There is still an adjustment period after new collections come out, which would favor folks with a better intuitive understanding of real values.

At the same time, it's also important to note that bottleneck flipping wasn't the most substantial component of wealth generation. QuC's 200ish-K is probably a league outlier and I can't say how many weeks it may have shaved off; I'd trust him rather than me on that. For my own part, I think my flips have included two cards on collection days, maybe 3-4 Pollets and Slaughters, and maybe another Haddix, maybe about 50-60k total (when I was hunting down The Cat). And it's difficult to understate how much tournies have helped in generating liquidity relative to a pre-tourney PT (QuC generated about 30k+ in the beta week, I generated about 60k before the 8-mans were lowered to 200pp).

In terms of trading time for wealth, collections and tournies did a pretty good job of shortening the time horizon. And finding the right card on the right schedule is often a matter of luck; at least three of my flips had been on the AH for at least an hour, for example. Having so many different cards, and such low odds for generating any specific one, makes shortages of certain cards an inevitability.

Give me 15-20 seasons and I might get to where he got. It's the efficiency and the ability to manage liquidity as an f2p player and not get distracted by the new shiny toys like Posada -- like I frequently do -- that put QuC above the rest of us.

[jda]

Originally Posted by dkgo

My biggest point is looking at the game structure as a whole. I think it is a problem when a major feature of the game in collections is literally cut off from people who aren't there to refresh for bottlenecks all day.

Unlike QuC I actually have a full-time job and usually can't stay up at off-peak hours when many of the top AH bargains appear. I shamelessly used his strategy, though. I also built an elite silver team in anticipation of tournaments, which definitely pushed me a few weeks further ahead of where I'd otherwise be.


At this point after 8 weeks my team is in Diamond and I have a strong roster; it's probably a .450 or .500 team in Perfect. I also have a lot of liquid PP to continue chaining collections; the only reward card I've refused to sell so far is Brecheen, even though almost all those reward cards would have helped my team. Once I finish SD and sell the Hoffman I'll have enough PP to eventually finish OAK; once I sell the Waddell I have no idea what I'll do, but the general sentiment that liquid PP nets you locked cards for your roster + profit from selling the reward cards is absolutely a viable f2p strategy even when you don't have a ton of time to invest.


The "average" BFF team is in gold, has a better roster than the typical gold league team, and is stringing together collections to build their liquid PP base way beyond what a typical f2p team has on hand. Every single one of us is going to end up with a Perfect-quality team eventually. I think that's the big take-home for me: not that QuC has grinded his way to success more quickly, but that the general strategy of "liquid PP is fuel; use locked cards, sell reward cards" is a very viable means of getting an f2p to the same general tier as many whales.


Just my two cents, though.

[dkgo]

You are definitely right that it is the way to go this edition of the game.

I initially tuned them out but started doing some research and realized how profitable they could be at beginning of September according to my posts in the collection mission thread lol. From there I've knocked out basically every mission except for a few really crappy ones like the Royals collection and the majority of lives. It has been quite a boom, but at the same time scouring the auction house constantly isn't that much fun and I don't plan on playing this way next year.

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by QuantaCondor

Follow-up with screenshots of the roster.

I'm an idiot and never once thought about including ratings and stats together in a single custom view. Gonna steal this view QuC.

[pappyzan]

Incredible accomplishment QuC, ditto to what your other BFF'ers have said here. Looking at the locked cards you gained from collections, that's a pretty heady game plan you put into play in a really short period of time.

Now run back out there and get yourself a 2nd PL title.

[Mizzery]

Great accomplishment from the OP, thanks for sharing your strategy.

I do feel like there has been a sea change from 19 where the meta was about prioritizing high MOV factors, RHP starters being more effective than LHP at higher levels, customizing Park factors to lineup construction, etc., to 20 where the meta has been how to maximize PP through auction inefficiencies, collection missions, and optimized tournament teams.

That’s not a criticism, just an observation. All players can engage on lineup optimization, but many players will never have the opportunity to montitor auction prices and inefficiencies for hours at a time, even if they wanted to, due to work and family obligations.

[OMGPuppies]

Originally Posted by stl jason

definitely an impressive meteoric rise through the ranks.... well done... and for anyone who thinks it's easier in friend-leagues like BFF or OL, gotta say it's definitely not... I've had much better success at the top tier out 'in the wild'/set to random than I ever did against the OL/NF2P group...


still searching for that first, elusive Perfect tier championship for my F2P bunch (course, making it a pre-ww2 theme team only serves to limit the potential upgrade pool significantly as well but going to stick with it).... getting very close though... 107 wins and an LCS appearance last season, so on the cusp... 15 pages of dynasty thread postings and counting if anyone is bored and wants to read along from beginning to current day

BFF and OL is definitely tougher competition than an average league. I spent many seasons in OL with no Perfect titles. I finally won one the other day with my Aina Haina Parakeets. Beat a whale with some of the best cards in the game. Miracles do happen.

I was hoping that QuC would post on the forum to show how winning with f2p is possible in a short time with the right approach.

[waittilnextyear]

All other things aside, and maybe not speaking to this thread's original intent, I find the over-the-top adulation on the one hand, and the base, flagrant jealousy on the other hand to be tremendously amusing. We are all humans after all.

I get a vibe of people laying pens down in front of Russell Crowe's John Nash in A Beautiful Mind from one "camp." And, something straight out of Mean Girls from the other.

[Lemandria]

that he's better than you or git good.

Naw, won't sacrifice life for a video game.

Something on your nose.

[Lemandria]

That’s not a criticism, just an observation. All players can engage on lineup optimization, but many players will never have the opportunity to montitor auction prices and inefficiencies for hours at a time, even if they wanted to, due to work and family obligations.

Winner.

Quant, I'm sorry if I annoyed your fanbois. Sorry if you felt attacked, that wasn't really the intention.

You're like the leader of a top guild; clearly you have the skills, but clearly it's a set of skills that not everyone can (or should) emulate or duplicate.

It actually leads me to questioning my own time sink investment here. I'm fascinated by the statistics of baseball, but not the auction house game--not any more. Been there, done that, WoW'd the t-shirt, wasted the hours by the hundreds. But WoW had much, much better AH tools.

I love the collecting, I hate the greed. Because it's addictive, in all the wrong ways. Because there might not be anything in Perfect Team that's as important. Maybe the winning auction house game is really just about everything that PL has to offer.

When it stops being fun, it becomes work, right? I butchered my very first team pretty badly, wasting money on incremental upgrades, yup, so more work required, but naw, you'll probably not catch up before XX shuts down. Better to save a bankroll. Why did you wait on the collections so long, it's too expensive to chase now. I play a shortstop because I feel sentimental about him, not for Good Statistical Reasons. nananana, hopeless case.

Perfect league feels like work, catching up to whales who had 45 seasons of head start.

But before PeL? It wasn't work, it was really fun. No one to tell me "ur doin it rong."



"You can do it!" this whole post screams.

Work and wife and kids and kids and life say, "No, no, you really can't." She wants her husband back. A model of patience, she's been through this before. I'm sure she recognizes the signs of impending Gamer Addiction.

FTP is viable! Sure it is, but the currency is TIME. Oh, so very much time.

And when XX shuts down and XXI rolls out? You can swing that massive bankroll and mad skillz and then you WIN!

And when XXI shuts down and XXII rolls out? You can swing that massive bankroll and mad skillz and then you WIN!

Repeat until it shatters.

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by Lemandria

Winner.

Quant, I'm sorry if I annoyed your fanbois. Sorry if you felt attacked, that wasn't really the intention.

You're like the leader of a top guild; clearly you have the skills, but clearly it's a set of skills that not everyone can (or should) emulate or duplicate.

It actually leads me to questioning my own time sink investment here. I'm fascinated by the statistics of baseball, but not the auction house game--not any more. Been there, done that, WoW'd the t-shirt, wasted the hours by the hundreds. But WoW had much, much better AH tools.

I love the collecting, I hate the greed. Because it's addictive, in all the wrong ways. Because there might not be anything in Perfect Team that's as important. Maybe the winning auction house game is really just about everything that PL has to offer.

When it stops being fun, it becomes work, right? I butchered my very first team pretty badly, wasting money on incremental upgrades, yup, so more work required, but naw, you'll probably not catch up before XX shuts down. Better to save a bankroll.

Perfect league feels like work, catching up to whales who had 45 seasons of head start. "You can do it!" this whole post screams.

Work and wife and kids and kids and life say, "No, no, you really can't."

FTP is viable! Sure it is, but the currency is TIME. Oh, so very much time.

And when XX shuts down and XXI rolls out? You can swing that massive bankroll and mad skillz and then you WIN!

And when XXI shuts down and XXII rolls out? You can swing that massive bankroll and mad skillz and then you WIN!

Repeat until it shatters.

I understand this perspective. And I don't blame anyone here for saying "There's no way I could do this, I don't have that kind of time." I made a comment almost exactly to that effect in EK's thread where he detailed his incredible AH exploits. I guess the difference between his approach and mine (aside from him sustaining his PP generation success over a longer period and with more overall return) is that I used the AH mostly as a collections tool whereas he used it mostly as a market tool for its own sake. He said he ultimately plays PT as a market game; I don't. I play it as a teambuilder, with collections serving as a means to an end and the AH only used to serve that purpose.

The common thread, though, is a detailed understanding of the AH and the ability to exploit the flaws in its card valuations for your own benefit. That takes a lot of time to get nailed down, probably more time than it takes to actually go out and buy the cards themselves. I surely spent more time planning and replanning my AH route and my early-, mid-, and endgame team rosters than I did actually actively looking at the AH for pieces. Collections bottlenecks sometimes throttle some progress, but if you're careful to let the AH dictate your strategy rather than pick a strategy and wait for pieces on the AH, it goes by a lot faster than usual. Waiting for one thing that shows up once a week is slow and frustrating, but if you're looking for 10 different once-a-week cards at once and don't care which one you end up buying, things go pretty quickly so long as you're prepared.

The ultimate message to all the F2P players out there is just this: if you think you can win purely off achievement PP, you're just wrong. It's not enough. You need something else. There are a hundred other F2P players just like you who are just lumping achievement PP into their team, and you are never going to get separation from the field unless you are able to get more PP than those masses. Forget about the whales, you just gotta beat the field. If your analytics are really good, you can maybe be a WC threat in Perfect at most. But that's about as good as it gets without some sort of other edge. And whether or not that edge includes doing 100 collections or doing 50 or even just doing some of the starter ones like Twins and LIVE Oak/Phil/Det, you have to do something. In that sense, F2P success in PT will always have a market game component, because, in one way or another, you'll need to leverage the market eventually to truly be competitive with teams which have a paid-for PP advantage.

Also, I don't get offended at the people who say "I don't have that kind of time." Some people play the game more casually than others, some people have different obligations-- I get that. I'm not demanding that all F2P players match this level of success, or even that other F2P players use collections; everyone has their own goals and the most important thing is to strive to achieve whatever goal you've set out for yourself. I will say that "You must have no life"-type comments are kind of amusing to me though. I have found the amount of time spent on PT during this process to be totally manageable in the context of my family, career, and other hobbies. People who say that just come across to me as reaching for a justification for something they don't understand.

[Lemandria]

I'm sure you've got oodles of efficiency tips.

But please, please, don't publish. Can you imagine the effect on the AH? Heh.

[dkgo]

Coming up with a search string that fits as many cards in it as possible is fun

|y b| is good enough for 96 dusty baker since Im always looking between 90 and 97

[Abnerdoubleday]

The working the AH for success angle baffles me. To each his own, but it seems like a very poor paying job.

[dkgo]

Well for one there are way too many cards in the game so even if you want to buy points to become a whale you still have to be around just to see the player you want become available.

Also it's flawed logic. I'm just refreshing every so often while at work already.

But most importantly playing the AH and completing missions without buying them is a bigger challenge and more satisfying than the actual game for some people. The whale teams all look the same with players in ridiculous positions and strategy that stretches the game logic. Doesn't interest me. I put a decent one together because I could, but the chase is more entertaining than reaching the end.