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Whats the earliest I should be looking for signs of the Y4 problem and problems with my competitive balance? Because I was just looking at my standings in season one, and its only Sept. 1, and there are already teams with 88 losses (Orioles), 91 (Crusaders, expansion team in Brooklyn), 85 (Marlins), and 91 (Nationals). All the team's are doing well with cash, but I want to try to spot this before it becomes a problem, if at all.
Y1 shouldn't be an issue.
The problem, and the way to avoid it if you really want to put in the effort, is with free agency and re-signings. Long story short, the talent drifts to the larger market clubs and there's not enough coming through the farm systems (nor do they stay long enough) for the weaker teams to recover.
Houston got around it pretty well by making sure the AI doesn't do anything dumb (vetoing trades if needed and handling the re-signings himself, then watching FA to make sure no team starts stockpiling, making a few trades that make sense and so forth.)
Cash reserves have nothing to do with it. Unless cash is very low (like $1) the AI doesn't factor that into its calculations.
Ok, I just noticed that there were some pretty high loss totals for it just being Sept. 1st and I wanted to make sure I got to it before it became any sort of issue. Thanks :).
The expansion team is probably what's really throwing a monkey wrench into things. Beef them up during the off-season, and things will get better. While your at it, knock a few million bucks out of all of the large market teams, and buff up (slightly! one or two ranks.) the stadiums for the small market teams. That always helps pretty significantly, and it's something that people often over look. Fan Loyalty is huge in drawing attendance, and the stadium is actually the largest factor of fan loyalty.
So if you were 0-162 but had a state of the art stadium, people will still come?
What I've been able to do to help with the Y4 issue (which has worked alright so far) is at the start of my franchise. I always start mine in 2008 with current rosters. Before I do any kind of trading, playing, signing, etc.. I go into each team and tweak their fan loyalty, farm system ratings to A+, upgrade their stadium settings and usually turn on equalize cities.
Once I do that, I then go into the league settings option and turn up the draft talent to about 20% and team resigning and contract lengths to 10%.
So far, I've noticed that not many teams will break that 110+ Win threshold if they do at all. Typically, the only team that does that is mine because I generally gut my team, trade all veterans for top prospects and wait out the suckfest for about 3 seasons and then have a team full of upper 80's, mid - to high 90's. Granted, I usually am only able to hold onto a team like that for about 4 seasons on average without going broke but that's the only thing I've noticed so far.
That stadium would be sold out...0-162. I'd want to be there!Quote:
Originally Posted by asianinvasion
Me Too!
How good is equalizing cities at preventing the Y4 problem, or at least helping to prevent it? Does it help a lot?
I wouldn't say it helps an extreme amount, but it does help 'some'.
I say some because even with cities equalized, it still really depends on your fan base and stadium of how much money you'll make and payroll budget as the seasons progress. That's why I tweak all the stadiums, except for the major-market teams, and fan loyalty & farm system.
Is that realistic? Yankee Stadium, Fenway and Wrigley are the oldest stadiums around...they draw a pretty good crowd, if I remember correctly. Perhaps I should take this to the suggestions thread, but...I wouldn't want the Marlins building a new stadium to mean that they get more sellouts than an established, long-standing club.Quote:
Originally Posted by ohms_law
I think fan loyalty/attendance should be based on the team's performance, coupled with the history of the club. Then other smaller factors should weigh in - affordability, stadium comfort, player popularity, etc etc. Two years ago, the Rays struggled to have 8,000 at a game. A few weeks ago they had 31,000. Same stadium.
Obviously, their recent success is a factor. I'm just saying - people would crowd to see the Red Sox game, even if there were NO seats, and everyone sat on the grass. Some parts of loyalty/popularity transcend park comforts and age.
Equalize stadiums equalises everything but ball park factors.... the fan base should be equal as well.
Equalize Cities
Contract Renewals +50%
Happiness effect on Negotiation -50%
Happiness affect on performance -100%
That's what I do.
And it works well?
Short of running every team, it's the best I've found.Quote:
Originally Posted by YEAH DAAAAWG
How does having inflation on or off affect this? Because I want to turn inflation on in my 2000 Brewers game until I get the payroll/salary demand levels until they are where they are present day and then turn it off, but not at the cost of competitive balance.
You're not going to get the payroll/salary demands to match up to real-life levels. It's not possible because the entire structure is set up differently. An average major league pitcher in real life usually gets a $10 mil-per-year salary or so, while in Mogul, this is usually half that. Good bench players in real life get around $2.5 mil say, which isa bout the same as in Mogul, so when you change the salary demands and it matchs up in one area, it'll mess up another area.
I'm not worried about that unless it would cause a huge problem. I just want to get overall salary demands and payroll levels to where they are now because I'm having a hard time gauging what I should be spending on who and whats a reasonable contract and whats outrageous and what have you.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoustonGM
Eh...
I was just reading posts at random and ran across this one. This seems to be a serious problem, what exactly is the Y4 problem? Tried searching but y4 is too small for the search.
In late era games (say 2006+) I turn inflation off. I'm not sure if it helps or doesn't help, but I know it doesn't hurt.
Turning player happiness effects down helps a lot. I know for a fact turning player happiness effects UP really, really blows the league up. I imagine it's because too many of the high talent guys want to play for a winner, and won't do well unless they are.
I now leave draft talent alone. I turn draft PREDICTABILITY down to -50 or so, as that helps mitigate the effect of teams with great scouts dominating the draft. Similarly, I encourage the AI to use stats instead of scouting (+50) and mitigate the difference between medical staffs (-50)
I experimented with lowering revenue and salary, but I think I'm happier at +20/0.
In 2008 games especially, but it doesn't hurt in any season, 'recalculating' salaries seems to help.
Note in one game I played, I lowered my revenue to -30/salaries to -40, recalced, then about half way through the season switched back to 20/0. Those few years of not really having to worry about making payroll (since the players were still 40% below normal salary) seem to have helped the small market teams.
m4: Welcome! For a crash course, do a search for 'competitive balance.' You're looking for a thread I started called (I think) Competitive Balance: The Y4 Issue. You can also search for threads STARTED by me (CatKnight) and it should come up.
Just did a test I thought you might be very interested in.
Key: (Teams 114+W/100+W/100+L/114+L)
Y1: 0/0/1/0
Y2: 0/0/1/0
Y3: 0/1/1/1
Y4: 0/1/1/0
Y5: 0/1/1/0
Y6: 0/1/1/0
Y7: 0/2/1/0
First, my base settings: Salary Demands -40, Medical Staff Ef -50, Draft Predictability -50, Player Happiness of Negotiating -50/Performance -100, Promotions +30/50/70/90, Contract Renewals +50, Stats vs Scouting +50
Equalized Cities
The main concern when salary demands are so far off from revenue is too much cash entering the game. Therefore, after every playoff season I checked to make sure no team had more than $50 million (adjusted for inflation). If that had happened (it didn't), I'd have slapped them back to $25 million.
Having demands off from revenue also mitigates the damage to large payroll teams by having equalized leagues. It gives the AI time to get them under control.
As you can see, things went great until Y3, when a team inexplicably fell to 38-124. We know the AI can't rebuild teams, so I gave these guys the top 3 FAs in Y3, and the top FA in Y4, giving them all no-trade-clause contracts. This brought that team back into respectability by Y5.
Teams winning or losing 100 games are a warning, not a danger sign. I made minor adjustments to their fan loyalty (A to C, C to A etc.) if it seemed warranted. When a team lost 100 games two years in a row I gave them an FA also.
You can't really do much to bring winning teams back into line except adjust their fan loyalty and other expense ratings downward, and take away cash. If any team HAD breached 114 games, I'd have knocked their cash total down to $1. I know for a fact that convinces the AI it's time to cut payroll (and talents.)
So, adjusting settings does work. I think the ones I mentioned above are what I'll use going forward. Still, if you're willing to be a little interventionist to slap down the huge winners or help out the little guy, I think you can keep things stable with minimal effort. Basically, the key (unless something's REALLY gone wrong, like our 38 game winner in Y3) is to start small and don't overreact, but as the trend continues respond more and more forcefully until it reverses. And it does. The 100 game loser in Y6 and 7 won the Series in Y3. :)