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Post by Paul - Jays GM on Mar 18, 2009 15:02:54 GMT -5
the option is in the advanced tools menu - you can reset all team grades and basically start from scratch. I don't think that dropping the spending amounts to $0 has an immediate impact as it has been stated (but I have not tested it)
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Post by San Diego Padres on Mar 18, 2009 15:50:34 GMT -5
the option is in the advanced tools menu - you can reset all team grades and basically start from scratch. I don't think that dropping the spending amounts to $0 has an immediate impact as it has been stated (but I have not tested it) Once again....you cannot change the grades, without it simultaneously changing others. It is not an option.oops....he is rightoops again, it's wrong. Doing it that way and everyone is A+ at the end of the season except pittsburgh.....D+
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Post by Mosko on Mar 18, 2009 15:55:08 GMT -5
"On a side note, when a team has a lot of cash does it effct there own teams revenue or the entire leagues" i always thought that with tons of cash, attendance drops since fans dont like owners making tons of money and sitting on it...i think i read that in the mogul forums. It just affects the team with excessive cash. I don't know the reason why it works this way, but it does. To see it demonstrated, just add a zero to one team's cash (say, from 70M to $700M) and then sim a season. That team's attendance and revenue takes a huge dive, but nobody else's is affected.
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Post by Scott on Mar 18, 2009 17:03:54 GMT -5
Alright, so it seems like we are moving in this direction (at least to me)
1. We are going to set all teams spending levels to $0 on all three expense categories. This will get everyone on an even playing field by the end of the season
2. In order to deal with the influx of cash, the short term option that makes the most sense to me is to add a player to each team making $25M a year. This would just be for the 1977 season. That allows us to play this year and use the season to test the revenue levels which is really friggin complicated because a lot of things go into that including the current way we do things such as cash bonuses. If we are going to change it, we mise will factor everything in and only change it one time. I was involved in setting the current revenue level at +40% when we made the switch, and it is hell to test. We should be able to accomplish that in one season's time. I understand the $25M player is not that wonderful of a thing, but I think we can all deal with it for 1 season's time though. It is just like having expenses, so it is going to be business as usual as far as your revenue and profits are concerned.
3. Before next season, we implement the new revenue policy and we should be off to the races at least until we have move game versions in one of the upcoming seasons.
Enough with these changing peoples grades stuff. Apparently it does not work the way you would think it would work. I have not had much of a chance to look at it myself, so I am just going off of what other people have said. I don't think the Padres GM needs to repeat himself 10 more times, so lets drop that subject please.
The only issue I would like to know more about is the injury situation with everyone at $0 medical spending. Maybe I will have a chance to look at that tonight. Maybe not.
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Post by Exposgm on Mar 18, 2009 17:18:14 GMT -5
And while we are completely overhauling this thing, lets take a look at the fact that our revenue was probably set to high to begin with. Many teams in the league have way too much cash. Almost no one has too little cash, which should not necessarily be the case normally. There should be a reasonable mix of everything. Finances aren't perfect, but it is the farm systems that is the most urgent. Still, I see a lot of people are discussing this as well, so I will reply to some of that. Also, we need to make sure putting medical at 0 for everyone does not cause injuries galore. I wouldn't think so with everyone at A+, but who knows. In the tests I have run where expenses are set at Zero, I have watched this closely. It's easy, once the year is over, hit F8 and look for Injuries, going through it team by team. There was some injuries, not an extremely lot more, and most of the players injured had health grades below 75. Chances are, with the medical grades reaching A+ at some point, there is going to be more injuries until that point is reached, and then less once everyone is at A+. That's probably what happened in my tests: most of the injuries occured between April and July. Also, some teams are effected by poor performances (probably a bogus lineup) or high ticket prices. This needs to be addressed before a real picture can be obtained. In my tests, ticket prices were lowered to more reasonable numbers for teams like TEX and MON (still under playoffs ticket prices). I hadn't done this in the first test, and by 1978 the Rangers were broke. I also agree with Scott about the bonuses. I know they are there to encourage participation, but they are a lot of work on Terry's part to process and sometimes simpler is better. Maybe a penalty for not participating in league votes, discussions, and awards should be in order. Keeping track of the bonuses is work, for sure, but I remember what the league was like before we had them. But the 2k8 obviously changed the dynamics about trading, since we now have so many players in the minors. Instead of getting rid of the bonuses as some have suggested, I was (already) thinking about reducing them, such as giving out 250k per trade instead of 500k, reducing article bonus, etc... I cannot dare to stop paying bonuses for articles. We're already just a handful of owners writing articles: Twins, Braves, Expos, Brewers, Rangers, and occasionnally some others. As for handling out penalties? We already have penalties for retired players (under certain circumstances) and just added some for making mistakes in the lineups. 23 owners voted in this year's Awards, extremely impressive. I'd rather hand out penalties for finishing last in your division than for not voting or not writing articles. On the second point about potentially getting rid of the cash cap. That is a double edged sword. If having higher cash only hurt the individual teams (which I believe it does in 2k8 as opposed to the whole league in 2k4), and we got rid of the cash cap, I guarentee that teams besides the Braves would not see a good FA for quite a few years. I would be spending cash like it grew on trees on free agents because I would have no where else to spend it especially with expenses at 0 now. This may happen even with the cash cap, but I can guarentee it would without. Yup, getting rid of the cash would be nightmare. It's working as it is, so we're keeping it. As for Terry's idea of the fake contract or the scouting expense, I would rather see us adjust the settings so that the numbers work themselves out instead of fudging them. Adding a fake player with a special contract doesn't sound ideal, but it can avoid us a lot of downtime. I appreciate the guys testing the finances, that is helping out a lot. But we have to be careful playing with these settings, take our time to test it several times and then watch out for different aspects of the game, see if we're not missing something. If we do decide to delay the season while we try to find the proper settings, maybe we're looking at an extra downtime of two weeks to a month. We may end up losing owners over this. Adding a fake player with a big contract will take less time. It can allow us 2 things: minimize the downtime so we can start the season, and continue the testing like we're doing now, allowing us to re-adjust once we are fully satisfied with our test results. This could be 1978 or 1979, it doesn't matter. I have offered to have my bonuses forfeited at least 5 times now, but it is always turned down by Terry. I was so close of accepting it this year. Your offers are noble, Scott. But the help you're giving me always convinced me not to go through with it. But we still have to decide what to do about the extra $25M or so that everybody will have. I've seen four options: (a) Deduct $25M from everybody's cash at the end of each season, (b) add a phantom player with a $25M salary to everybody's roster, (c) Change the revenue level in the game from +40% to 0% (or whatever it takes to get back to where we need to be), or (d) do nothing, realizing that everybody will have so much cash that practically no usable free agents will ever be available. The other discussions relating to the excessive cash in the league AS IT IS NOW can be discussed separately. That is exactly it. Mosko's 4 proposals are exactly what we need to focus on. I can live with idea (a), would rather go with (b), am open for (c) but as a later solution. The real problem is the farm. This is what got the discussion started in the first place, and this is what we need to correct. It is MY biggest concern at the present time and I believe that if we don't react about this issue, we're not going to help the league at all. Last thing about the cash: no one proposed anything about the salaries. We lowered the salaries to try and reflect numbers from the 2k4, but in reality we may have lowered it too much. Many players get signed to rather cheap contracts. This already cuts down on the number of free agents as it is. Perhaps the combination of salary demands at -10% plus 3 negotiations cuts down too much on the salaries. With the salaries higher, even the richest teams wouldn't have as much cash today.
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Post by San Diego Padres on Mar 18, 2009 17:52:29 GMT -5
Enough with these changing peoples grades stuff. Apparently it does not work the way you would think it would work. I have not had much of a chance to look at it myself, so I am just going off of what other people have said. I don't think the Padres GM needs to repeat himself 10 more times, so lets drop that subject please. Sorry about beating that horse to death, but it seems every time I say it, someone suggests doing it.
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Post by San Diego Padres on Mar 18, 2009 17:56:48 GMT -5
the option is in the advanced tools menu - you can reset all team grades and basically start from scratch. I don't think that dropping the spending amounts to $0 has an immediate impact as it has been stated (but I have not tested it) It is not an immediate change, it takes time over the course of the full season to work, but it works with all teams. The reset works for a little while and then teams like PIT go down the toilet in ratings.
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Post by boffer on Mar 18, 2009 18:39:40 GMT -5
By setting farm system expense to $0 All TMBL teams farm system will end-up at A+ by the end of the year. To me this is the only way to get all farm system working in a short period of time. I would agree to this charge. By setting scouting expenses to $0 All TMBL teams will end-up at A+ by the end of the year. (Tested it 5 times) By setting Medical expenses to $0 It will take more then 1 season (1 season and a few month) to get all team at A+. (Tested it 5 times) But sometimes when you access the league editor at the end of the year all team ratings change and in all 3 categories. About the cash bonus some teams do need it. It did help my Red Sox when I joined the league, allowing my team some extra cash to make some buy-down and sign players I would have not be able able to resign without this cash bonus help. Having a player (pitcher) in R league earning X amount of cash to level the extra money all team will make for the first season or two, seem like a good solution until we find the proper setting for league revenue.
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Post by MarinersGM on Mar 18, 2009 18:44:38 GMT -5
Ahh Terry A penalty for finishing last?? I don't like my odds on that one. Who do I make the check out to? On the serious side, I like what I'm hearing so far It sounds like we are on the right track.
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Post by Scott on Mar 18, 2009 18:55:54 GMT -5
About the cash bonus some teams do need it. It did help my Red Sox when I joined the league, allowing my team some extra cash to make some buy-down and sign players I would have not be able able to resign without this cash bonus help. It is not really about needing it or not needing it. It is about whether or not it should exist. In the old days (yes, I have been here a really long time) with no bonus, in the situation you describe you would have dropped the players you couldn't sign. This actually made free agency worth something because there were reasonable players in it every year. We should not be in the situation we find ourselves in now where hardly any good players make it to free agency because everyone has an unlimited amount of cash for the most part. As for buydowns, this really doesn't affect anything. From conversations with people in the league, I am not quite sure that everyone understands the effect (or lack thereof) of a buydown as far as your finances are concerned. Lets take for example, 1B Scott Manning. The Braves have decided to resign him to a 4 year $10M deal. This is obviously a total contract of $40M that the Braves will pay Mr. Manning over 4 years. If the Braves do not buy him down, they will spend $40M of their cash. If the Braves do buy him down, they will pay $20M up front and Mr. Manning's new contract will be 4 years for $5M for a total of $20M over the next 4 years. With the up front cost of $20M, and the new contract of $20M, you have a total of $40M, same as before. So, you are spending $40M either way. It is just a matter of timing. ALL buydowns do for anyone is give an easier picture of where you stand with your finances over the long run because you pay a lot of the cost up front. There is not a single other positive factor with a buydown. You are going to pay the same amount of cash with or without the buydown. The main negative factor is you might want to trade that player before the contract is up, and if you do that, then you actually paid the player a lot more money than you originally would have. Not sure I needed to go through all that, but I have had some conversations with even the most highly regarded managers in this league in which I came out of not really thinking they understood what was going on. And it actually brings up another point: Why do we have buydowns? But we can save that for another day.
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Post by boobiegibson4three on Mar 18, 2009 19:01:12 GMT -5
i thought buy downs had two other positive affects....
first that they limited your cash reserves, thus helping your teams attendance. Also for some reason i thought this help lower the player's future salary demands. I could be really wrong on both of these points.
Sorry to get off topic again.
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Post by Scott on Mar 18, 2009 19:04:39 GMT -5
i thought buy downs had two other positive affects.... first that they limited your cash reserves, thus helping your teams attendance. Also for some reason i thought this help lower the player's future salary demands. I could be really wrong on both of these points. Sorry to get off topic again. I think its alright to be off topic at this point. Everything above seems pretty set to me depending on tests. Point #1: Technically you are right in this regard. Especially if we did not have a cash cap or a cash to point conversion. But since our cash cannot go above $80M anyway, it doesn't matter much. Point #2: It has 0 effect on salary demands. That I am 99.5% sure about. At least in my experiences.
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Post by Halos on Mar 18, 2009 23:01:33 GMT -5
I've been very busy the last few days, so this was a lot to digest at once. I do agree that some teams are fighting an impossible battle, so change probably does need to happen. I wish there was a way to simply bump up some of the lower-level farm systems to keep the competitive advantage I have worked to build. Since that doesn't seem possible, setting all expenses to $0 seems to be the best solution from others' tests.
Before we get too involved in test sims, I think we should make all teams post their opening day settings. I know my team is all kinds of screwed up on the current file. After that, we can run a few more tests to make sure the $25M man works (I'm assuming this is the easiest 1 year fix, but we can look into other things). Then we could get the season under way and have at least 1 season to test league finances before what looks to be a major financial overhaul.
If we are able to figure that out in 1 season, some of us should apply for a job with the US Government...
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Post by Exposgm on Mar 18, 2009 23:21:49 GMT -5
Before we get too involved in test sims, I think we should make all teams post their opening day settings. I know my team is all kinds of screwed up on the current file. After that, we can run a few more tests to make sure the $25M man works (I'm assuming this is the easiest 1 year fix, but we can look into other things). Then we could get the season under way and have at least 1 season to test league finances before what looks to be a major financial overhaul. If we are able to figure that out in 1 season, some of us should apply for a job with the US Government... That's a very good idea. I'll catch-up on all the lineups posted lately and make sure every team is fine before posting the new file. If we are able to figure that out in 1 season, some of us should apply for a job with the US Government... Need some Canadien workforce? ;D
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Post by stros on Mar 19, 2009 9:56:02 GMT -5
This same kind of problem has been in every version of the game since 2k6.
I think that there may be something that will mess with the grades if you go into commish mode during the season, no matter what you reset everything before hand.
has anybody checked to see if 2k9 addresses this issue? if not maybe 2k10 will, once its released.
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Post by Paul - Jays GM on Mar 19, 2009 17:33:46 GMT -5
my other league uses 2k9 and the same problem exists - we are still investigating possible fixes (this disucssion will feature prominantly in my proposals in outahere)
I can get a beta test of 2k10 if anyone wants, Clay has offered it to me but I have not replied to his offer yet.
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Post by Scott on Mar 19, 2009 17:35:22 GMT -5
I am currently in the midst of a fairly detailed test of revenue levels. I will report those findings when I have them.
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Post by Scott on Mar 19, 2009 18:32:04 GMT -5
Alright, here is the solution, and now lets get the season moving. Assumptions used: 1. Expansion Teams were excluded as there was no comparision data from 1976 2. I assumed Revenues needed to be $25M less than last year (which is the expenses which are now free) 3. Atlanta Braves were moved back to Local Blackout to compare to last year 4. Angels and Rangers ticket prices were moved to a more reasonable level of $21.00 5. This was done with postseason revenue included for both 1976 and 1977 so I was comparing apples to apples. 6. I used many different revenue levels, but the two below are the closest to where we need to be. Calculation: 1. Goal Revenue was calculated using 1976 Total Revenue for each team and then subtracting $25M from each team to account for the lost expenses. 2. Average Revenue was calculated by running 3 simulations. The results of the 3 simulations were averaged to come up with an average revenue. 3. The % difference is obvious. I do not need to explain that. Results: Revenue set at +0%Goal Revenue | Average Revenue | % Difference | $1,358.6M | $1,454.9M | 7.09% |
Revenue set at -10%Goal Revenue | Average Revenue | % Difference | $1,358.6M | $1,239.4M | -8.77% |
Interpretation:Obviously to get this perfect, we actually need a level of -5% which the game does not make possible (of course). However, I believe we have been operating at too high a level anyway since we made the switch. This has had many negative results, with the most important being that no good free agents are ever available for people to make a run at. This was never the case back when this league was founded. We always had teams close to bankruptcy and having to make big decisions which is the way it really should be. I also have the above calculation broke out by team, but that is too much work to type in. In summary, the teams taking the biggest downturn with this appear to be the following: Braves (-9% & -15%), Dodgers(-16% & -32%), Giants (-18% & -27%), Angels (-8% & -28%). The first 3 I can almost guarentee are performance based. Those three teams are not going to perform nearly as well this year as they did last year. The Angels situation is probably because I needed to lower ticket prices more than I did in combintation with the fact they did not perform too well. Those 4 teams weigh down the calculation. Without those four teams, you gain about 3% on each calculation above. Proposal:Given the above, I propose a league revenue level of -10% with all expenses set at $0. I also propose a 50% reduction in all cash bonuses being handed out.
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Post by Mosko on Mar 19, 2009 19:43:31 GMT -5
Thanks, Scott. Very concise. Did you reset the ratings before doing this or leave them where they are now and let them gradually reset themselves over the course of the season?
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Post by Scott on Mar 19, 2009 20:22:43 GMT -5
I left them where they were and let them reset themselves to A+ by the end of the season. I actually watched the progression, and it appears everyone's ratings jump within the last 2 months of the season.
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Post by Halos on Mar 19, 2009 21:12:44 GMT -5
Now that everyone will have A+ farm systems, should we down-grade the talent in the draft? Pretty much everyone in the Braves and Reds system look to be future major league talent. I don't want to get to the point of having guys with predicted averages at .350+, which I think we already have a few.
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Post by boffer on Mar 19, 2009 21:23:08 GMT -5
Alright, here is the solution, and now lets get the season moving. [ Proposal:Given the above, I propose a league revenue level of -10% with all expenses set at $0. I also propose a 50% reduction in all cash bonuses being handed out. Or we could go 0% revenue level and keep spending on medical like we did in the past, like this we will be closer to your figure of -5% revenue level.
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Post by Scott on Mar 19, 2009 21:29:21 GMT -5
Or we could go 0% revenue level and keep spending on medical like we did in the past, like this we will be closer to your figure of -5% revenue level. I am not sure that is really the case, but I would have to think about that a little harder. Trying to think about it now is giving me a headache.
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Post by Exposgm on Mar 19, 2009 21:29:21 GMT -5
Now that everyone will have A+ farm systems, should we down-grade the talent in the draft? Pretty much everyone in the Braves and Reds system look to be future major league talent. I don't want to get to the point of having guys with predicted averages at .350+, which I think we already have a few. That is indeed something worth considering. Amateur Draft Talent is currently set at 0% and Draft Predictability at +100%. I'd be curious to see the effect on development if we lower these. Last thing we want is end up having superstars everywhere.
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Post by Paul - Jays GM on Mar 19, 2009 22:52:14 GMT -5
Scott- great work - I fully agree. As for draft talent and predictability, I don't think that we need to reduce the talent level - with the recent expansion we don't want to risk over-diluting the system, but predictability may need adjustment. One thing to remember is that some players will still see a jump in thier ratings while others will drop - it is a hidden element of the game's mechanics.
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