What's Coming in Perfect Team 24!

[dishnet34]

For our fine folks here who missed the stream or prefer to have content in written form, here's what was discussed in the PT24 Reveal Show tonight. You can view the YouTube VOD here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAbELWjcT4E


LOYALTY REWARD INFORMATION!
If you've played Perfect Team in the past, we typically give packs at the start for people who've played PT for a long time. This year is no different:

If you've played Perfect Team since...
PT19: 3 Diamond Packs and 5 Gold Packs
PT20: 2 Diamond Packs and 4 Gold Packs
PT21: 1 Diamond Pack and 3 Gold Packs
PT22: 2 Gold Packs
PT23: 1 Gold Pack

All rewards will be given out when starting your team, on the same screen as starter packs.


NEW LOGIN REWARD SYSTEM!
Last year, we introduced a login reward system that would reward people for logging into the game with points and packs. This year, we bring that back, but in a different way.

This year, the login reward system will be a 30-day schedule, all packs, with a certain number and type on any day. See the first screenshot below for the complete schedule.

The big kicker with this year's login rewards? They will not reset back to Day 1 if you miss a day. This way, you won't miss out on any of the rewards in the schedule if you take a break!


BIGGER REWARDS FOR PROMOTIONS!
This year, we're giving out bigger rewards for promoting your team to the highest levels of Perfect Team, with achievement multipliers and one-time rewards for your first promotion to some of the highest levels!

Multipliers:
1.5x achievement PP multiplier in Gold League
2x achievement PP multiplier in Diamond League
3x achievement PP multiplier in Perfect League
All other leagues will have regular PP values for achievements.

One-time rewards for first promotion to higher levels:
First Gold League promotion: 25,000 PP
First Diamond League promotion: 50,000 PP
First Perfect League promotion: 75,000 PP


PITCHER BABIP IN PERFECT TEAM
The new Pitcher BABIP rating, in a nutshell, shows off how well a pitcher is able to control batting average on balls in play (BABIP). The higher the rating, the better at controlling BABIP they are.

The BABIP stat will feature below movement on the back of the card along with an "HR" rating, which is reminiscent of the old movement rating (basically, how good a player is at suppressing home runs). A look at what it looks like is in the screenshot from my slideshow below.

Myself and Paul Sporer, our new Content Director, talk about the implications quite a bit at the 15:50 mark of the YouTube VOD - in a nutshell, there's two different factors to take a look at now when it comes to movement, and could be a big help for guys who are both groundball pitchers and flyball pitchers alike, possibly moreso for guys without big swing-and-miss stuff, to try to suppress balls in play themselves.


PARTNERSHIPS!
This year, Perfect Team is proud to partner with a number of different places for content in this year's game, some familiar and some new!

TOPPS
Perfect Team will be partnering with Topps once again this year for content, but it's going to look a bit different! This year, the Topps partnership will focus on cards based around the MLB Dream Bracket event from 2020, where 64 historic baseball teams squared off in OOTP21 to see who was the best.

Cards in the Topps set will range from Iron to Perfect cards, and there will be a new and different mission structure, which will be revealed at a later date.

Pulling a Topps card will also earn you a code for 100,000 coins and 10 Series 1 Baseball Packs in the Topps BUNT app! (Limit 1 code per user). The first set of Topps cards will kick off soon, so stay tuned for more!

BASEBALL-REFERENCE
This year, Perfect Team will be partnering with our friends at Baseball-Reference for different sets of cards throughout the year, which will feature both packable cards and missions! Stay tuned for more about this partnership in the near future!

FANGRAPHS
This year, we're excited to be partnering with Fangraphs for our annual Future Legend cards! The cards will be based in concert with Fangraphs' Top 100+ list, with the cards and sets to be revealed at a later date. Any Top 100+ player can show up in any set, so stay on your toes!

SPECIAL PLAYER RELATIONSHIPS
Perfect Team will feature three historical players, to be announced after launch, that will have special events and cards tied to them! Each of the players will have a card at every card tier, and you'll find them in packs and missions. All of the cards will have different actual pictures from that player's career, with charity events surrounding each of them! This is gonna be fun to have actual pictures of some historical legends in the game once again!


BALLPARK CHANGES IN PT24
This year, PT24 will be featuring a new way ballparks will be handled. Ballparks will now be selected from a list of real and historical MLB, Minor League and KBO ballparks, each with their own park factors and a year attached! (Yes, the Default ballpark is still available.)

At the beginning, in Entry Pool, you will have 5 ballparks to choose from - the default stadium and four other real MiLB ballparks. As you progress through the levels, you unlock more stadiums to choose from, no matter if you're demoted or not! Each ballpark has its own unique characteristics and park factors. A couple screenshots from the Beta of the ballpark list are attached.

This will help foster more creativity, flexibility and strategy to ballparks in PT24!


TOURNAMENT CHANGES IN PT24
There will be plenty of new things coming to tournaments in PT24, in all different facets! First things first, players will still have 3 regular tournament slots and 2 Perfect Draft slots, so that stays the same from last year.

Daily Tournaments
This year is going to put more of an emphasis on Daily Tournaments. There will be 7 categories of Daily Tournaments available, with each category having a few daily tournaments associated with them. The categories are Open, Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond and "Wild Card" tournaments.

Each category will have its own leaderboard, similar to how leaderboards worked in PT23, with weekly prizes for how well you do! If you finish in the Top 128 in a particular category, you will qualify for the Perfect Team Championship Series in that category! We'll talk more about that in a bit...

Weekly Tournaments/Perfect Drafts

Many of the weekly tournaments return, as well as Daily and Weekly Perfect Drafts, each with their own leaderboards as well! Quick Perfect Drafts will not be in PT24.

Quick Tournaments
Quick Tournaments have been streamlined in PT24, with 8 traditional Quick Tournaments and 5 Entry Fee Quick Tournaments available at launch (the latter of which we'll discuss in a bit).

There are 8-team and 16-team variants of the traditional quicks, with the 8-team varieties popping up in the Open Quick, Low Diamond Quick and Diamond Quick formats, while the 16-team variants show up in Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Open Live quick tournaments. This new layout is designed to fill and fire quick tournaments more rapidly than ever!

Choice Packs
Choice Packs will return at launch as prizes for Weekly and Daily tournaments. They will follow the same format as PT23, where you pick one card from a selection of 6 cards available.


PTCS/PTMS QUALIFICATION
Each month, there will be 10 different PTCS tournaments based on the leaderboards for the 7 daily variants, the weekly tournaments, and the 2 Perfect Draft variants. The top 128 teams in each category from a qualification period (usually about 4 or 5 weeks) will make the PTCS.

This year, players will receive points for how well their team does in a PTCS, which will then go to a PTCS leaderboard. There will be two PTCS leaderboards, one for traditional tournaments (the 7 daily formats and the weekly format), and another for Perfect Drafts.

The Top 64 teams from the PTCS leaderboard will go to the Perfect Team Master Series, of which there will be separate tournaments for traditional tournaments and Perfect Drafts.

A (hopefully helpful) flowchart is provided at the end of this post to give kind of a visual of how this all works.


ENTRY FEE TOURNAMENTS
This year, PT24 introduces Entry Fee tournaments, a new concept we're trying out. How they work is that there is a small entry fee (as low as 1,000 PP) that goes into the prize pool, which will be distributed based on placement in the tournament.

The game will start with 5 entry fee tournaments available, all of them Quick tournaments. Three will have entry fees of 1,000 PP, one will have an entry fee of 5,000 PP, and one will have an entry fee of 10,000 PP.

Payouts are currently as follows:

64-team 1,000 PP Tournaments (2 at launch): 50k PP for 1st, 10k PP for 2nd, 2k PP for 3rd/4th, Standard Pack for 5th-8th
16-team 1,000 PP Tournament (1 at launch): Entire 16k pot for 1st, Standard Pack for 2nd
32-team 5,000 PP Tournament (1 at launch): 130k PP for 1st, 30k PP for 2nd, 2 Gold Packs for 3rd/4th
32-team 10,000 PP Tournament (1 at launch): 250k PP for 1st, 70k PP for 2nd, Diamond Pack for 3rd/4th

More tournament setups coming later!


PT LIVE
Perfect Team Live is a daily opportunity to set lineups based on the Live cards you own, and based upon the real-life performance, you will get rewards in Perfect Team!

Lineups in PT Live are made up of 9 batters, 2 bench players, 2 SPs and 2 RPs, with usage limits based on card tiers (2 Perfects max, 3 Diamonds max, 4 Golds max). You'll earn points every day for each hit, inning pitched, win and more the player does in real life!

Position eligibility is tied to the position the player has on the front of the card. Training in PT will not carry over to PT Live. There will be a cutoff time each day to set your lineup, and after the cutoff, you can set your lineup for the next day.

On top of daily rewards, there will be weekly and monthly leaderboards, with special rewards for teams finishing well in each time period!

PT Live will be available shortly after launch; we're hoping to have it ready by Opening Day, but it might be a tiny bit after that. Stay tuned for more.


PT PLUS
PT Plus is an optional $6.99 30-day subscription package for Perfect Team that comes with plenty of benefits, including:

• Double the daily login rewards!
• Extra tourney slot each for regular tournaments and Perfect Drafts
• 1.5x multiplier for all achievements across the board (multiplier stacks with higher-level league multipliers)
• Exclusive home ballpark selections
• Bonuses on PP purchases
• One extra surprise per month!

PT Plus subscriptions are not stackable on top of each other, are not refundable, and are not auto-renewable. If you purchase multiple subscriptions for a team, they will be added to the end of the previous subscription (Example: If you purchase 2, you'll have PT Plus for 60 days.) The maximum allowable PT Plus subscriptions is 24.

If you decide to not renew PT Plus, the rewards you get with PT Plus (including the exclusive ballparks) will be deactivated.


OTHER NOTES:

• Last year's PT licenses are GOOD FOR THIS YEAR! You will NOT have to re-register your accounts!
• Live updates will once again be monthly
• Training and previous card history will NOT be carried forward when cards are sold.
• Players with partial stock training on their card will play at full training in tournaments and Perfect Drafts (Example: A card with a 70/70 position rating in LF, a 50/100 in CF and a 75/90 in RF will play like a 70/70 in LF, a 100/100 in CF, and a 90/90 RF.)
• Perfect Drafts will now show how many players you have seen at a position.

EVEN MORE FUN THINGS COMING!

• New types of packs!
• The return of the Perfect Team World Championship!
• Charity livestreams!
• MLB player livestreams!
• So much more!

TWITCH PROGRAMMING NOTES:
This Week in Perfect Team: Weekly episodes of This Week in Perfect Team will have a new live time, Thursdays at noon Eastern. This change from our regular 9pm ET was made so that if things go wrong with a card launch (i.e. server issues and the like), our server team in Europe is awake and ready to act quickly to remedy a situation.

While cards will go live after the noon Eastern stream, we've made the decision to also offer a live replay of the TWIPT streams on Twitch at 9pm Eastern on the same day, our traditional timeslot.

This schedule will go into effect AFTER the March 23 TWIPT episode, which is at the normal 9pm Eastern time slot.

Perfect Team Friday Showdown: The Perfect Team Friday Showdown Perfect Draft tournament will return Fridays at 8pm ET during the PT24 cycle.

Perfect League World Series: Once Perfect League begins in PT24, we will bring you live coverage of the Perfect League World Series from start to finish! These streams will happen Sunday nights when Perfect League is active.


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Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy this season of Perfect Team! (This took me an hour to do at 2 a.m., and now I must sleep :P )

[SOOPAMAN]

PT PLUS just made me NOT ordering this year

I am not in the pay-per-win model, sorry

[Kushiel]

I thought last night's show was fantastic. It appears that several complaints made by myself and others have had a genuine attempt to address. A couple things like the ballparks really excite me. The PT+ is something I am not sure of. I don't really mind the $6.95 cost because I will look at it like a subscription game and not as P2P. At least I hope it turns out like that. I just am worried that it could be a negative impact.

Anyway, thanks for a good reveal show.

[spartacus007]

This looks awesome. I've never been good at Perfect Team... but this looks like it should shake up a lot of strategies so maybe I'll find a winning combination.

[Slicefella]

Originally Posted by SOOPAMAN

PT PLUS just made me NOT ordering this year

I am not in the pay-per-win model, sorry

I really don’t understand this line of thinking. I get that at this point subscriptions are a little off putting, but to me this is a great way for non-whales to spend a little money and earn more rewards for actually playing the game. You know that people can literally buy any card they want right since this mode was introduced? This changed the competitive landscape in no way in my opinion, other than allowing people like me that don’t want to spend a lot do money, but some money to earn more rewards.

[dishnet34]

One thing I wanted to add in this morning is the content strategy for PT24, as was described by Paul Sporer last night. Here's the transcript from the VOD:

Rob (dishnet): What was the thought process going into the year for PT24? We've done quite a few different things in the past; what are you bringing to the table for 24?

Paul: I would say the main foundation is to focus on individual seasons a bit more. Love PEAK cards, there'll still be plenty of PEAK cards, but I want to highlight premium seasons, put them in focus, and also continually create options for players. There shouldn't just be one "right answer" at every position that everyone's chasing. We want multiple options at every position so you can build your team in different ways. If you want to have a different play style, there should be a way to build a premium team at that level. That's the driving focus there.

(Sarcastically) Of course, there's going to be an inordinate amount of Tigers, I think. (dish starts laughing) I think 75 percent of the launch deck is Tigers, 52 percent of the individual sets are just Tigers-based, so that's a driving force as well. A lot of Deivi Cruzes coming out this year! (End sarcasm)

Rob: I like what you're saying about choices, and I think that's what we've been trying to do in the past, trying to give choices to players for how to build their lineup. You could go with a contact or a big power build, and there's going to be quite a lot of factors that will help you out this year as a player to try to achieve those goals, is that right?

Paul: Absolutely. I saw a question [in chat] about whether there will be a lot of versions of the same player. There can be, but they'll be different. We don't want two diamonds of the same player or two that are too close together. If there's going to be multiples of the same player, they should be vastly different. So, players that have different phases of their career, yeah, there's a chance they'll get 2, 3 cards. But they will be different. I don't want there to be overlap where there's a slight difference here or a slight difference there, otherwise there's no real reason to put that card in.

Rob: I know we can't spoil much, but what are some of the big things you're looking forward to in terms of content this year?

Paul: One of the things you've already kind of hinted that we're going to get into, I think the Pitcher BABIP is going to change the way a lot of pitcher cards are made and what it's going to do. It's going to open up some more avenues for different pitcher cards to be better. There's been some struggles with those certain types of pitchers who are contact management guys that maybe don't have the elite strikeout rates, but put up brilliant seasons or even brilliant careers. The game doesn't always get those guys perfect. At times, we've kind of had to gas them a little bit in their swing and miss, in their Stuff rating, just to make sure they're a playable card, even though that's not the exact route that we would want to take. Now with the Pitcher BABIP category, that's really going to open up the window to give them the cards they deserve in the build they deserve as well.

[Orcin]

You might also want to pin the first post in the PT forum. I went there looking for this info first.

[tentin_quarantino]

Not too excited about PT Plus tbh. It won't stop me from buying the game, but I'm not picking up another subscription, so I guess that besides whales, that's another way I'll be at a disadvantage this year. :\

I am very excited about PT Live though. It sounds kind of like a Rotisserie Baseball thing, except it's just for PPs and you can use any Live card you own, or am I misunderstanding?

[noelypants]

Originally Posted by Slicefella

I really don’t understand this line of thinking. I get that at this point subscriptions are a little off putting, but to me this is a great way for non-whales to spend a little money and earn more rewards for actually playing the game. You know that people can literally buy any card they want right since this mode was introduced? This changed the competitive landscape in no way in my opinion, other than allowing people like me that don’t want to spend a lot do money, but some money to earn more rewards.

I think you've got it backwards. Let's say I've got 100,000 PP and a whale has 1,000,000, the 1.5x multiplier means I gain 50,000 PP and they gain 500,000. This effect could be amplified by the multiplier scaling with higher league levels. This seems like it should shift the balance further toward the folks who are spending more money, even more than it already is. Maybe somebody smarter about economics has a reason this won't be the case, but that's my initial reaction.


As far as the subscription model in general, it feels a bit like when some food delivery app or whatever adds an extra fee. You're paying more for the same thing, but they convolute the process to obscure the price change. It comes off like they've got you by the balls and they know it, so they are going to hit you with an extra charge. But they need a friendlier spin, so they call it a "service fee". It's not a 1:1 comparison, but it's hard not to feel like it's a way to make Perfect Team more expensive without really making it better.


Note: I love OOTP, I buy the game every year, I don't want to come off as some perpetually furious customer. I just think the pay-to-win stuff is depressing, because Perfect Team would be really fun without it. Just my two cents.

[thejojo]

Originally Posted by dishnet34

LOYALTY REWARD INFORMATION!
If you've played Perfect Team in the past, we typically give packs at the start for people who've played PT for a long time. This year is no different:

If you've played Perfect Team since...
PT19: 3 Diamond Packs and 5 Gold Packs
PT20: 2 Diamond Packs and 4 Gold Packs
PT21: 1 Diamond Pack and 3 Gold Packs
PT22: 2 Gold Packs
PT23: 1 Gold Pack

So if I played PT19, 21, 22 and 23 (having only skipped PT20) the I get 2 Diamond Packs and 4 Gold Packs?

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by thejojo

So if I played PT19, 21, 22 and 23 (having only skipped PT20) the I get 2 Diamond Packs and 4 Gold Packs?

If you skipped PT20, then you get 1 Diamond pack and 3 Gold Packs

[thejojo]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

If you skipped PT20, then you get 1 Diamond pack and 3 Gold Packs

Ok thanks!

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

I'm not here to criticize or discuss - just to give a little feedback. I played a TON of PT last season until around the end of the baseball season then took a break. I was thinking about coming back, but I'm not interested in this subscription model so I won't be playing anymore. No hard feelings to those who do or anything - I'm buying OOTP24 because it seems to have some historical play improvements so I'm not anti-OOTPD.

In some ways I'm kind of thankful PT has turned into a much more money-focused model - I was wasting time I could be spend either doing productive things or playing different games. (In fact, I imagine solo OOTP is going to benefit from my no longer playing PT.)

[PyreDruid]

So paying for packs isn't enough you want those of us with three teams to pay more per month than a non pay-to-win online game costs, for benefits that only widen the gap between non-whales and whales even if we pay?

I've already committed to playing PT this year with some friends, but this is the last year for OOTP for me with this. Been a nice ride, but this is a bridge too far, utterly ruins the last shreds of a fun mode you had going.

I don't mind paying developers for products, even pay to win ones, but this is such a bad idea it makes me want to spend money even less, feels disrespectful to any casual players you have.

[kurzov]

Can't change the name of my default stadium anymore?

[ChessSafari]

Originally Posted by noelypants

Let's say I've got 100,000 PP and a whale has 1,000,000, the 1.5x multiplier means I gain 50,000 PP and they gain 500,000.

Huh? Respectfully, I don't read it that way. That math doesn't make sense to me. I must be missing something. My understanding is that the 1.5x multiplier is on in-game achievements only, a very minor portion of the PP pool. Bonuses on PP purchases are TBD but are likely to be much smaller - along the lines of waiting for the monthly discount windows that usually start in June. That's just an assumption on my part, but I don't see it as a big deal.

In any case, I am retired on fixed income and definitely not a whale. I am competitive and hope to reach Diamond Level each year. In other words, I have a limited budget and I prefer having options of where to allocate that budget.

I will gladly pay for a PT+ subscription that has a positive EV, which packs definitely do not. Based on past years, except for the beginning of the cycle, packs have a negative EV and decline even further over time.

Once PT+ has a negative return, then I will drop that as well. Meanwhile, I anticipate that it will make the game more fun and interesting. Time will tell.

[ncap99]

I knew watching the PT24 preview stream that the PT Plus thing was going to ruffle feathers. The reality is you were already playing a pay to win game for the most part. Almost everything you get with PT Plus is essentially just PP you could have bought in PT23 anyway. With the exception of the tournament slots and exclusive parks (which I seriously doubt will make a big difference) all it is is packs and PP.

The ONE thing I will concede is the tournament slots give a much greater chance to get into PTCS tournaments based on points where there are exclusive rewards that are rarely available for sale. But you still have to win those tournaments, or at least place consistently high.

I have no problem at all paying what is the equivalent of hitting a Starbucks once a month for it and I'm glad they added it.

[Jasimino]

kinda disappointed about the training and history not being kept when buying a card.

[tentin_quarantino]

Originally Posted by Jasimino

kinda disappointed about the training and history not being kept when buying a card.

Really!? Sorry, but that's terrible.

That was a nice part of the experience, to buy a card and see how it had been used, what teams it was on, what awards it had won. I can't believe this is being removed tbh. Wow.

[Drivehud.com]

Originally Posted by tentin_quarantino

really!? Sorry, but that's terrible.

That was a nice part of the experience, to buy a card and see how it had been used, what teams it was on, what awards it had won. I can't believe this is being removed tbh. Wow.

+2