Rate your excitement on 3 Perfect team versions

[daves]

On a scale from 0 to 10,( where 10 is excited-enjoying, 5 average, 0 horrible )
Rate how you excitement today about playing:
Perfect Team 20
Perfect Team 21
Upcoming Perfect Team 22

[Kushiel]

PT19 - 10
PT20 - 10
PT-21 - 7
PT22 - ? (I am excited now as I hope there are not 14,352 Perfect cards in PT22

[dkgo]

20 was my favorite.

21 I think making every elite card a collection reward was a huge problem for the fun. You've got mid level leagues with 25+ copies of live collection rewards in them then perfect league has like 20+ cards which show up on every single team.

But I know my view is skewed because in PT20 I eventually built one of the best teams and win 80% of games in perfect each year which requires a lot of lesser teams to be in the same level.

How can one design the game so that the levels are both somewhat balanced and provide users with reasons to use a variety of cards? Since there is no real skill involved like FIFA to close the gap it seems like an impossible question to answer. Maybe the whales are OK with it as is.

[Magus978]

19 - 4
20 - 5
21 - 7 at the beginning, 2 now.
22 - starting it at 4

I only log in to open packs. Sold everything unlocked off my main team so I could get the players I like, instead of sticking to a meta that hasn't worked out for me. Hasn't made things any more fun, instead it has solidified my position as just another irrelevant team at diamond churning out 75-85 win seasons and getting nothing for it.

Waste of time.

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by dkgo

How can one design the game so that the levels are both somewhat balanced and provide users with reasons to use a variety of cards? Since there is no real skill involved like FIFA to close the gap it seems like an impossible question to answer. Maybe the whales are OK with it as is.

I think it's certainly possible to do this. You need to have a pretty good idea of how cards play, and offer the community a wide variety of playable options with different ratings shapes. You could even go one further with player-specific batting sliders like "play cautiously" (+5 EYE -10 POW... or something that's a roughly equivalent exchange of stats). Then if you have a robust strategic layer like allowing to turn stuff boost on/off at will, early batting subs, embracing the tactical value of the pseudo, you can add a lot of strategic and tactical diversity AND make it so every card doesn't play the same.

Some of that might need more server support than others. A lot of it means extensive testing pre-launch and maybe in-year balancing if one of the switches gets too powerful or too overutilized. But it's definitely possible, and that's even before talking about how you can make a thriving eSports scene by using tourney formats that are interesting and unprecedented (only 2000s+ players but in deadball ERA with no DH... go) along with dedicated casting of both PeL and tournies that creates community storylines for people to follow.

Those things are basically my wishlist for PT22. I don't think a fraction of it makes it in, and I don'[t think OOTPD's strategic vision for how to create an eSport out of PT is really in alignment with where I think it should be as a player. But you never know, and I'm holding out to see what they have rolled up just in case they blow everyone away.

That said:

PT20: 6
PT21: 10 at the beginning, 7 now
PT22: 2 (probably will not play unless they make the competitive scene, esp. esport casting and PTCS formats, way more interesting)

[eldur00]

PT 20 - 9
PT 21 - 9 originally, 0 now
PT 22 - 0

I won't be back unless there are some extremely radical changes. The 7 million perfect cards model was a monumental disaster. It's kinda sad when you pull an historical perfect (as rare as those are) and are disappointed because it's pretty much useless except for the quicksell value. One should never, ever be disappointed into pulling the highest possible value of a card.
I've also voiced my discontent with the pro/rel model (which is funny because initially I thought the model sounded awesome on paper) as it is not a good indicator of talent nor does it places your team within a range of teams you can compete with with reasonable expectations. Between the "new" whales passing through the lower levels, people tanking and just plain bad luck, you can blink and a month has passed and you're still sitting idle despite having a good team.
Honestly, the only thing that could bring me back is if they add some kind of statistical missions, like "hit 2 2B in one game with a Reds 3B" for example. Something that would allow me to actually utilize the thousands of cards that are just collecting dust in a meaningful way, making me do my thing and not worry about too much of anything else. I've played "AH job simulator" for the first few months of this edition looking for cards to complete collections, and that was about as fun as staring at someone who is staring at paint dry. I definitely don't want to do that again.

[dboeyr12007]

I have only been playing 7 months but I sit at a 9 now and a 9 for next version. Would be a 10 if there were more events like the PTCS. There are a few frustrating things, but I still wake up and want to play everyday which is why i give it a 9.

[tbonetim]

While OOTP 20 certainly had issues with its collection missions being roadblocked with one or two cards that made it near impossible to finish, the OOTP 21 model seemed like an improvement but it has made a mockery of diamond cards. In OOTP 20 there was a variety of Diamond and in some cases, Gold cards that could help make your team competitive at the highest levels of the game. Up until about mid July it seemed somewhat similar to 20 but the glut of FOTF cards and then the FOTF Toppers in October made any nearly every diamond irrelevant unlike in OOTP 20.

OOTP 20= 9
OOTP 21= 9
OOTP 22= 5

[bailey]

Originally Posted by tbonetim

While OOTP 20 certainly had issues with its collection missions being roadblocked with one or two cards that made it near impossible to finish, the OOTP 21 model seemed like an improvement but it has made a mockery of diamond cards. In OOTP 20 there was a variety of Diamond and in some cases, Gold cards that could help make your team competitive at the highest levels of the game. Up until about mid July it seemed somewhat similar to 20 but the glut of FOTF cards and then the FOTF Toppers in October made any nearly every diamond irrelevant unlike in OOTP 20.

OOTP 20= 9
OOTP 21= 9
OOTP 22= 5

You can't compare the top level of PT20 80+ Perfect Leagues 2400+ teams, to PT21 top league 40 teams. Even adding Diamond League is just 720 more teams. That means teams in PT20 perfect league would struggle with their gold and diamond cards in PT21. (FWIW, I even had silver cards on my PeL Championship team in PT19) Nevertheless, I agree with your evaluation of PT22 being a 5. Except my reasoning is just "been there, done that". The best thing PT21 had to offer was the Live missions, but so many have complained about it, I think they will change it, and the change will be for the worse. People are buying the game two or three times just to complete the live missions. They added several hundred bronze cards recently, but the opportunity to add something similar to the Live mission series was apparently overlooked.

[Stanley Kuppchaser]

One thing, I think, that would go a long way to generating new interest is stricter friends list option. With that, 30 like-minded folks could separate themselves from the larger PT universe and play with house rules, the way OL, DLL, and BFF do. If the teams were kept together, immune from relegation/promotion, they could develop further rules to restrict rosters so that players don't repeat across the several teams. Being off to side, so to speak, they would not affect the overall competition. Just another item to add to the buffet menu.

[Argonaut]

PT20: 10
PT21: 4
PT22: ??

My interest for PT22 will depend on if they radically reset the power creep and avoid cookie-cutter teams.
Though I admit it's hard to strike a balance between generating revenue and keeping the PT experience clean and fun.

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by dkgo

How can one design the game so that the levels are both somewhat balanced and provide users with reasons to use a variety of cards?

Too many high-end cards. Creating so many "supermen" is a self defeating prophesy. Best cards should be rare. That will drive the price up on all the mid-range cards and create more lineup and pitching variations.


As it is, the same 26 cards will eventually be on all the upper level teams.

[humboldt1498]

PT20: 5
PT21: 8
PT22: 0

I still check on my PT20 teams, but after 95 seasons my teams are pretty much maxed out and my strategy is no longer changing. There really isn't much left to do at this point. I also have had a run of incredibly bad luck in the playoffs consistently losing to worse teams. As a result I haven't wont a PT title in over 20 seasons, not really fun when you put a lot of time and money into the game.

I have been playing PT21 a lot as I just picked up OOTP21 during the Steam sale for $5. It's been fun to build some new teams but I have seen some really weird things. For example, most of the teams I am playing at rookie and stone league so far are "dead teams" which are simply the starter team with zero upgrades. This was never my experience in PT20, but I also started PT20 at launch, so maybe that is the difference? It looks like I will be moving up quickly and I'm sure I'll be getting smoked in a couple of weeks once I'm in a league with engaged players.

As for PT22, I'll probably do the same thing as PT21 and wait about a year to get the new OOTP for $5. My passion for PT/OOTP has decreased significantly the past few years. The pay-to-win model is terrible and I have been completely turned off from paying anything more for PT. This is coming from someone who invested significant time and money into PT19 & PT20. I was so excited when PT first came out, it's really sad to look back and think what the product could have been if they didn't take the pay-to-win model to the extreme.

[dancariaz]

PT20: 5. It was alright till you realized you never beat the P2W teams that literally have all the TOTD and HOF cards among the other top notch ones.
PT21: 0. P2W model of the game didn't change, so I never bothered to play.
PT22: 0. Looks like P2W model still will be the same, no interest in giving it a try.

Even games like MTG and HS are nowhere near as much P2W (and also P2W more) as OOTP PT. As long as it is that way I have 0 incentive to play again.

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by HRBaker

Too many high-end cards. Creating so many "supermen" is a self defeating prophesy. Best cards should be rare. That will drive the price up on all the mid-range cards and create more lineup and pitching variations.


As it is, the same 26 cards will eventually be on all the upper level teams.

Wait, are you advocating for more diversity of perfect cards, or less? Can't have it both ways...

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Wait, are you advocating for more diversity of perfect cards, or less? Can't have it both ways...

FEWER Perfect Cards. Ratings 40-99 represent 98% of the ratings range, thus Perfect Cards should not be more than 2% of the total cards available. Perfect Card values would go through the roof (which they should) and Diamonds & Golds would be significantly worth more than they are now. The net effect would be that rosters would have a lot more variation.

[chazzycat]

Ok, thanks for clarifying. I'm not convinced by your argument, because overall ratings have very little to do with how I value a card. A card's true value is determined by how they play at high levels (the ratings) and/or whether they are included in a good collection or not. Re-classifying a very good perfect card to a 99 overall diamond, would not lower the value at all. In fact it could even go up given that tournaments with diamond-card limitations do exist.

[QuantaCondor]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Ok, thanks for clarifying. I'm not convinced by your argument, because overall ratings have very little to do with how I value a card. A card's true value is determined by how they play at high levels (the ratings) and/or whether they are included in a good collection or not. Re-classying a very good perfect card to a 99 overall diamond, would not lower the value at all. In fact it could even go up given that tournaments with diamond-card limitations do exist.

To add on to this, it's worth noting that the OVR rating of SE cards doesn't matter except to set a floor to their quicksell value. In fact, if a card is expensive enough to be much more valuable than quicksell, the only impact whatsoever that lowering the rarity will have is exactly as chazzy said: making it more valuable in tournaments.

The better view is: I would like the devteam to apply the same method they use for assigning ratings to SEs as they do to packed content, since it seems the latter is mostly an algorithm and the former is hand-tuned. That would lead to a broader set of playable cards potentially at all levels (and nowhere in there does the actual OVR of the card matter to its quality).

[HRBaker]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Ok, thanks for clarifying. I'm not convinced by your argument, because overall ratings have very little to do with how I value a card. A card's true value is determined by how they play at high levels (the ratings) and/or whether they are included in a good collection or not. Re-classifying a very good perfect card to a 99 overall diamond, would not lower the value at all. In fact it could even go up given that tournaments with diamond-card limitations do exist.

I don't disagree that OVR is only a loose rating, and individual ratings in combination are the true measuring stick - however, it doesn't change the concept of what I put forward - which is - there are TOO many "supercards" ultimately resulting in the same (or almost the same) 26 cards populating the best teams in the higher levels.


When you have enough high-end cards to flood the upper 30% of teams with the best players available, you've drowned and diluted the meaning of "best". I think the vast majority of cards available should be Gold and Silver cards - maybe representing 2/3rds of the entire database.


This would make it harder to reach your goals and make more successful rosters other than the same "best 26 cards available".

[Leo_The_Lip]

I enjoyed PT 19 and was pleased by PT 20 which I'm still logging into and buying cards for. I'd rate that a '7' on the scale.

PT21 has turned into a sludge of 100 cards that have destroyed the game. It reminds me of 1984 where 'some pigs are more equal than others." Having a 100 Trout who can't even get over the Mendoza line so I have to sit him is poor design.

I think the most important improvement PT22 needs is to get the 'little kid' factor back in the game. Most of us--all, I hope--have fond memories of Little League and going to games with our dads. That got squeezed out of PT21 with the onrush of yet another 100 card.

I like to let my grandson open packs (when possible) and he loves seeing the players. He'll ask questions when he sees one with his first or last name. When a silver, gold or diamond comes up, he'll bounce around a bit. When I see those silver or golds, I have to push myself to feign excitement similar to his because I know they are useless for my teams.

Where is the joy in PT21? Where is that sense of excitement as the packs rip open?

Put that back in the game.