Relegation

[Tinkerman]

In my diamond league this week (after 5/6ths of the season), 2 teams 1 game over .500, and 2 teams 1 game under are battling for the last 2 relegation spots. At around .500, teams have proven to be good enough for the level they're at, haven't they?

I'll be surprised if the devs haven't already discussed this (and maybe dismissed it...), but how about a golf style cut system to handle relegations? Each level has an evolving cut line over the course of the week (which should be below .500) simply based on how many teams the devs want to move, and any teams below the final cut threshold would be relegated.

[Hertston]

I see your point, but while it's unfortunate to be relegated with a record above .500, I'd still prefer the chance of that happening while knowing where I am throughout the week than constantly moving goalposts. Particularly when how they move is largely dependent on results between teams mine never plays.

[professor ape]

We know going into the week that a certain number of teams will be relegated. If teams right around .500 are on the fence then that probably means that there are a few horrible teams which are inflating everyone else’s records. I’m good with the status quo.
ADDITION: My team has a +55 run differential but is four games below .500 and I am in a fight to avoid my first relegation to Gold since early June. I want my streak to continue but part of me is curious to see what my team can do a level down.

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by professor ape

If teams right around .500 are on the fence then that probably means that there are a few horrible teams which are inflating everyone else’s records.

I can see why you would think that, but in reality, what I've seen has been the complete reverse. Each time I've seen a relegation battle around .500, it's been a very strong, evenly matched league. The teams around .500 have been there because they've had decent records against the better teams, and could easily have traded places with playoff teams if they'd have had slightly better RNG. Teams that solid are way too good for gold, so then you get the daft 130+ win seasons in gold.

Apart from perfect, which is a special case, I thinks it's just bad all round to be relegating .500 teams, but fair enough if anyone thinks it's cool.

[TwanLX2000]

I’m sitting at 92 wins with a +206 differential, in 3rd place in my division with the third best record in my conference. There are a couple teams getting absolutely destroyed by everyone. Last week, I finished second with 84 wins in a league where everyone was around .500 and it was highly competitive. The week before that, I won my division with a negative run differential. Things just shake out weird when there’s this many high caliber teams, and it really is a crapshoot.

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by professor ape

ADDITION: My team has a +55 run differential but is four games below .500 and I am in a fight to avoid my first relegation to Gold since early June. I want my streak to continue but part of me is curious to see what my team can do a level down.

Topical that your team was in that position . How'd it go?

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by TwanLX2000

Things just shake out weird when there’s this many high caliber teams, and it really is a crapshoot.

That's my point!

IME It seems quite rare for really solid teams to finish below around .470, so a "cut" somewhere between .450-.475 would result in the crapshoot being quite a bit less crappy, IMHO.

[TwanLX2000]

Originally Posted by Tinkerman

That's my point!

IME It seems quite rare for really solid teams to finish below around .470, so a "cut" somewhere between .450-.475 would result in the crapshoot being quite a bit less crappy, IMHO.

The only complication I see is that if 25-27 teams can hit that .450 mark by this point in diamond leagues, a more fluid demotion system won’t allow for many teams to be promoted from gold to fill the handful of available spots. Maybe that’s a good thing… I’m willing to entertain that idea, but it’d be a moving goalpost for promotion as well. Unless we increase the number of diamond leagues, which is another thread here with its own set of complications.

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by TwanLX2000

The only complication I see is that if 25-27 teams can hit that .450 mark by this point in diamond leagues, a more fluid demotion system won’t allow for many teams to be promoted from gold to fill the handful of available spots. Maybe that’s a good thing… I’m willing to entertain that idea, but it’d be a moving goalpost for promotion as well. Unless we increase the number of diamond leagues, which is another thread here with its own set of complications.

Yeah, I'm making an assumption that a cut no higher than .475 would capture plenty of teams for relegation. But, with 10-12 teams being demoted from each diamond league as things are, I'm thinking the bottom third of the whole diamond level would comfortably fall under a .475 winning percentage. As long as that's the case, I can't see it making managing the pro/rel numbers any more difficult than it currently is.

The devs tell the game how many teams they want to demote this week (i.e. 240 for diamond), and the game gets as close to that number as it can by producing an evolving winning percentage cut line that is displayed clearly to the players as the week progresses, then finalized after game 162.

[professor ape]

There is no reason to complicate this. IRL, Toronto had 91 wins and was fourth in the AL East while the White Sox had just two more wins but won their division by thirteen games. Life is cruel. I finished with 79 wins this week (and a +56 run differential) but I was just one game clear of demotion to Gold. It happens.

[Tinkerman]

Just to clarify, I'm not moaning about injustice, I'm thinking about the possibility of slightly improved balance. You've spent most of the game concerned with the top half of diamond, which is pretty much the most balanced place to be in the PT Universe. But, with the right circumstances, the fallout from diamond can cause havoc in gold and below, which has been off your radar and where my teams have spent a lot of time.

[TwanLX2000]

Originally Posted by professor ape

There is no reason to complicate this. IRL, Toronto had 91 wins and was fourth in the AL East while the White Sox had just two more wins but won their division by thirteen games. Life is cruel. I finished with 79 wins this week (and a +56 run differential) but I was just one game clear of demotion to Gold. It happens.

As a Sox fan, thank you for reminding me that they were good enough to win the Central by 13 games. It’s easy to forget amid my prickly attitude developed in ~40 years of watching this team.

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by Tinkerman

I can see why you would think that, but in reality, what I've seen has been the complete reverse. Each time I've seen a relegation battle around .500, it's been a very strong, evenly matched league.

I have to agree with the professor on this one based on my own experience. It tends to happen when there are a number of noticeably weaker teams. Those teams fill up most of the relegation spots while most of the others usually beat them; but those who beat them least often end up fighting to avoid the remaining spots despite a 50/50ish overall record.

In contrast, in an evenly matched league I'd expect to see the .500 point in the middle. Even with expected variation around that, it should still be above the diamond relegation zone - if it didn't the league couldn't be considered 'evenly matched'?

[HomerD]

So if they have 30N Gold leagues, and promote 4 gold teams from each of those N leagues, they have to relegate 4N teams from diamond. They want to keep the diamond level "pure" - i.e. every league has exactly 30 teams. So they're pretty much forced to relegate a lot of teams from every diamond league.


If you have this silly idea that relegation is a slap in the face, that's your problem and you need to get over it. It's just what they have to do. If your team really and truly deserves to be at the diamond level, you'll be back quite quickly. I know, I have 3 teams who have been winning over 100 games a year at the gold level for weeks, and finally last week two of them got promoted. One of them is 5-22 and the other 11-16. I expect both to be relegated, we don't belong at the diamond level.

[Tinkerman]

Am I speaking Mandarin or something? I'm ONLY concerned with balance, not whether myself or anyone else is hard done by. I'm quite happy to make suggestions and have them smacked down, but not based on a misunderstanding of the most basic point that I'm making. Hopefully the people that matter have read my comments, understood them, and arrived at their own opinion of whether I'm talking BS or not .

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by Tinkerman

I'm ONLY concerned with balance, not whether myself or anyone else is hard done by. I'm quite happy to make suggestions and have them smacked down, but not based on a misunderstanding of the most basic point that I'm making. Hopefully the people that matter have read my comments, understood them, and arrived at their own opinion of whether I'm talking BS or not .

And that's fair enough. TBH though, I still don't get where the 'balance' issue actually is? Sure, it is possible (although very infrequent) to get relegated with a record of above .500. But doing so is the result of performing inadequately against folks in the league you ended up in. Where you are placed does introduce a certain element of RNG into the mix, granted, but the end result is still determined principally by how your team performs. I've been in diamond for a long time now and although I've certainly seen varying strengths of division, conference and league I've yet to see any I would consider grossly 'unfair' or 'unbalanced'. My results have actually been remarkably consistent week on week.

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by Hertston

TBH though, I still don't get where the 'balance' issue actually is?

Sorry I've been slow, Hertston, work's been fun n games this week.

I'm really talking about gold. Folks in diamond may scoff, but gold's been a lot of fun for me this year. You can use a ton more cards and it's a bit better for Friend League action than diamond. But all those cards can become like sacrificial lambs when a meta diamond team rolls into town!

Between the yoyo silver teams and the yoyo diamond teams, gold is quite strung out as standard. But .500 gold teams can generally give it a decent go against the yoyo diamond teams, so there's still some competitive uncertainty. Drop an accomplished diamond team in there (or several) and things can get messy. I just think that PT can do a bit better at how it defines relegation worthy teams, and smooth the transition between the levels somewhat.

Like you've mentioned, the only obvious 'problem' with diamond is the league allocation that results in significantly stronger/weaker leagues. Relegation works just fine with a balanced league that has a range of teams from good to bad. But here's a slightly extreme example of how the current system can work badly with stronger/weaker leagues:

Diamond league A has 25 good teams (consistent playoff contenders) that finish .475 or above, 5 have to go down.
Diamond league B has 15 bad teams (mostly lucky promotions from gold) that finish .400 or below, 5 have to stay up.

In that case, it's pretty clear that cutting the 20 teams with the lowest win percentage, from the entire pool, would be more effective at weeding out the weaker teams than relegating the bottom 10 from each league separately. If this was scaled up to 24+ leagues, I'd expect balanced leagues to still relegate around 10 teams, with the variation coming mainly from the more extreme leagues. I'm certain that it would be good for balance at the gold level, and all the others!

[TwanLX2000]

Originally Posted by Tinkerman

I'm really talking about gold. Folks in diamond may scoff, but gold's been a lot of fun for me this year. You can use a ton more cards and it's a bit better for Friend League action than diamond. But all those cards can become like sacrificial lambs when a meta diamond team rolls into town!

As a guy who spent about five consecutive months in gold and made the playoffs over 20 times (aside from the occasional diamond promotion [human sacrifice], I agree that it was a lot more fun for its diversity. I do think that has changed since FH3 launched, because a lot of teams stuck in the yo-yo promotion cycle have joined the meta group (myself included), and that now makes up half of gold as well. I didn’t perceive that as much of an issue earlier in the year; I was regularly winning 95-110 games in gold without the best players in the PT universe. I think it’s a symptom of when a game hits its final stage of the power creep, and teams have nowhere else to go but down once the same strength is continually picked up by other teams.

Every team in my diamond league has some variation of the FH3 meta, and some percent of that same roster will be demoted, whatever the threshold at this point. It increases week-to-week. It sucks for those whose theme teams were able to compete with one another at higher levels this year, but I’m trying to find the silver lining (pun intended) with my all Sox team, who leads its silver division after competing in gold most of the year. I just had to resign myself to the idea that it can’t happen in gold anymore at this stage of the game.

[professor ape]

I guess what we are saying here is that we are ready for a new cycle.

Bring on PT23!!!!!

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by professor ape

I guess what we are saying here is that we are ready for a new cycle.

Bring on PT23!!!!!

It's funny that I'm looking forward to having a bunch of crappy cards again!

Overall. there's been a lot of small to big improvements this year. I'm really curious to see the reveal for 23.