Maintaining Parity

[knicks0929]

Hey, I know the Y4 competitive balance issue has been sort of beaten to death, but here goes. I'm looking for any regular players who actually keep tabs on their league and make league changes to combat the issues with competitive balance. Let me know what your strategies are; I'm looking to compile some of the ideas for maintaining parity here, for my own reference and the reference of others, if they wish to use it. Any help/ideas are much appreciated.

[boomboom]

Are you talking about a solo game/league or a multi-player league? A Multi-player league wouldn't have a Y4 competitive balance issue.

[justanewguy]

I've been trying to think up a system for quite some time that is realistic and effective but doesn't require so much work that it makes the game less fun.

I've noticed that tweaking league settings can help maintain some balance. Promotion through the minors up significantly helps small market clubs bring their prospects along. Lowering salary demands slightly, increasing league revenue slightly and increasing contract renewals somewhat, these help them actually hold onto their players.

Turning up stats vs. scouting helps offset poor spending on scouting, turning medical spending effect on injury way down definitely helps lessen the impact of lack of medical spending (I think money meaning less injuries is ridiculous anyway), and turning up aging randomness can make up a little for teams in the bottom of farm spending.

In my current dynasty, Kansas City somehow turned into an absolute powerhouse, won the world series 3 years straight, and has been consistently at the top of the division for 10 years. The Pirates have made the playoffs several times. The Yankees have not dominated, and the World Series is won as often by medium sized markets as large markets. I'm in the 2020s right now. Sometimes all it takes to get a bad team going is a slight boost, and once they gain fan loyalty and a little luck, they become successful. There's push/pull to this, and Kansas City's winning seems to have had a negative effect on the large market White Sox.

When I'm feeling like being a commish, I have a few things I'll try. Sometimes I take a fixed amount of cash from each of the top 10 revenue teams and relocate it to the bottom 10 revenue teams. I will usually repeat this every three years, and it helps (but not all that much) in keeping some clubs from hording star players and allowing smaller market clubs to have better players. Sometimes if a team has perpetually terrible fan loyalty, I give them a boost.

[ohms_law]

The biggest thing to do, for the "Y4 problem" directly, is to immediately reset player salaries. Tools -> Advanced Tools -> Recalculate Salaries. If you do that, then you hardly have to do anything else.

[m4rk6]

The biggest thing to do, for the "Y4 problem" directly, is to immediately reset player salaries. Tools -> Advanced Tools -> Recalculate Salaries. If you do that, then you hardly have to do anything else.

At what salary setting? I'm playing with +20% salary rating, to what level should I increase or decrease it before recalculating salaries.

[knicks0929]

The biggest thing to do, for the "Y4 problem" directly, is to immediately reset player salaries. Tools -> Advanced Tools -> Recalculate Salaries. If you do that, then you hardly have to do anything else.

Two questions.

1. Can you go into some detail about what this does and how it solves the problem, please? Thanks.

2. Let's say I've already started a game, and am just now entering the point (I'm in my fifth year) where competitive balance is becoming a problem. Is it too late to use the method you prescribed?

[ohms_law]

At what salary setting? I'm playing with +20% salary rating, to what level should I increase or decrease it before recalculating salaries.

The salary setting doesn't really matter.

Two questions.

1. Can you go into some detail about what this does and how it solves the problem, please? Thanks.

2. Let's say I've already started a game, and am just now entering the point (I'm in my fifth year) where competitive balance is becoming a problem. Is it too late to use the method you prescribed?

Using Recalculate salaries reset's all players salaries to the internal game valuation. See, Mogul's financial system looks a lot like real baseball's does, but there are several things that are missing (MLBAM, revenue sharing, luxury tax, additional contract options, etc...). The 2007 and 2008 rosters are set up by default to use very close approximations of real players real world salaries, though. Hopefully it's as apparent to you as it is to me why that would be a problem.

If you're already in year 5 then it's really too late to use the Recalculate salaries tool, since most of the "real" salaries are already gone. The best thing I can think of to do in that case is... get involved in everyones signings (FA and arb) for a couple of years, I guess. Be sure no one goes into debt at all (if they do, just reset their cash to $1 at the end of the season). Upgrade stadiums aggressively, especially for the small market teams. Catknight says that he's had quite a bit of success with giving players No-Trade Clauses, too.

[etothep]

I've been trying to think up a system for quite some time that is realistic and effective but doesn't require so much work that it makes the game less fun.

I've noticed that tweaking league settings can help maintain some balance. Promotion through the minors up significantly helps small market clubs bring their prospects along. Lowering salary demands slightly, increasing league revenue slightly and increasing contract renewals somewhat, these help them actually hold onto their players.

Turning up stats vs. scouting helps offset poor spending on scouting, turning medical spending effect on injury way down definitely helps lessen the impact of lack of medical spending (I think money meaning less injuries is ridiculous anyway), and turning up aging randomness can make up a little for teams in the bottom of farm spending.

In my current dynasty, Kansas City somehow turned into an absolute powerhouse, won the world series 3 years straight, and has been consistently at the top of the division for 10 years. The Pirates have made the playoffs several times. The Yankees have not dominated, and the World Series is won as often by medium sized markets as large markets. I'm in the 2020s right now. Sometimes all it takes to get a bad team going is a slight boost, and once they gain fan loyalty and a little luck, they become successful. There's push/pull to this, and Kansas City's winning seems to have had a negative effect on the large market White Sox.

When I'm feeling like being a commish, I have a few things I'll try. Sometimes I take a fixed amount of cash from each of the top 10 revenue teams and relocate it to the bottom 10 revenue teams. I will usually repeat this every three years, and it helps (but not all that much) in keeping some clubs from hording star players and allowing smaller market clubs to have better players. Sometimes if a team has perpetually terrible fan loyalty, I give them a boost.

Your ideas intrigue me. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[knicks0929]

Thanks, Ohms.

Using Recalculate salaries reset's all players salaries to the internal game valuation. See, Mogul's financial system looks a lot like real baseball's does, but there are several things that are missing (MLBAM, revenue sharing, luxury tax, additional contract options, etc...). The 2007 and 2008 rosters are set up by default to use very close approximations of real players real world salaries, though. Hopefully it's as apparent to you as it is to me why that would be a problem.

Yeah, I see why this is an obvious problem. I equalized cities at the beginning of the game, though (and helped a few teams out during the transition). Would that equalization amount to the same (or better) as such things as revenue sharing and the luxury tax?

One other question, and perhaps a pointless one. Does just throwing some cash at underperforming teams help at all? I know Cash Reserves have no effect on Payroll Budget, but it seems like upping poor teams cash reserves might help them from completely floundering, or might allow them to exceed their budget for a few years. What do you think?

[ohms_law]

Yeah, I see why this is an obvious problem. I equalized cities at the beginning of the game, though (and helped a few teams out during the transition). Would that equalization amount to the same (or better) as such things as revenue sharing and the luxury tax?

I'm sure that it helps, but I've never really tried it so I don't really know how much or in what way. I think Catknight tried it though when he did his testing, which he posted in the Competative Balance thread in the Suggestions forum.

One other question, and perhaps a pointless one. Does just throwing some cash at underperforming teams help at all? I know Cash Reserves have no effect on Payroll Budget, but it seems like upping poor teams cash reserves might help them from completely floundering, or might allow them to exceed their budget for a few years. What do you think?

Actually, it doesn't. The only thing that the AI pays attention to is it's budget and weather or not it's in debt. The AI will exceed it's budget (by up to 30%, to be precise), but only if it's not in debt.

[knicks0929]

Thanks, Ohms, helpful as usual.

http://forum.sportsmogul.com/showthread.php?t=174080

There's the CatKnight thread you referenced. I think you should include it in the "Best of" Sticky, even though it's not technically a General Discussions thread.

[YEAH DAAAAWG]

Cash is actually the primary thing the AI looks at when deciding whether or not to re-sign/release players, the budget is just a guideline from my understanding.

As far as what I do:

1. When I see a team is crushing the competition, like the Cardinals won 123 games in the first season of my 2000 Brewers dynasty, I lowered their cash for the off season so they'd sign few, if any players. And if they dominate again this season I'll do it before resignings so they'll be forced to release players.

2. And vice versa. When I see a team struggling big time I give them a lot of cash so they can re-sign the players they need to and sign a big name guy in FA'cy.

3. I'll take control of the CPU teams for the beginning of the off season and I'll give the worst one or two teams the best FA's available. Like the Texas Rangers finished with the second worst record in baseball in my 2000 Brewers game so I signed them the top Free Agent on the market, Bernie Williams, and gave him a NTC so they wouldn't end up dumping him for mediocre prospects. I had the worst record and signed Jorge Posada for myself.

4. As ohms mentioned, recalculating salaries is always good.

5. My settings are tweaked big time. The settings I use are:

• League Revenue - +20%
• Salary Demands - +0%
• Injury Frequency and Severity - -20%
• Medical Staff Effect - -50%
• Amatuer Draft Talent and Aging Randomness - +20%
• Draft Predictability - -30%
• HoF Careers - +0%
• Effect on Negotiation - -50%
• Effect on Performance - -100%
• Promotion to MLB - +30%
• Promotion to AAA - +40%
• Promotion to AA - + 50%
• Promotion to A - +60%
• Contract Renewals - +40%
• Contract Lengths - +10%
• Trade Frequency - +40%
• Platooning - +0%
• Stats (vs. Scouting) - +60%
• Mimic Historical Drafts - -100%

I haven't really played deep enough to tell if those settings help a whole lot, but I think they will. I also may change some Draft Talent and others.

6. Mostly, I just make sure to keep an eye out for it right from the start.

[ohms_law]

http://forum.sportsmogul.com/showthread.php?t=174080

There's the CatKnight thread you referenced. I think you should include it in the "Best of" Sticky, even though it's not technically a General Discussions thread.

Good idea.

Cash is actually the primary thing the AI looks at when deciding whether or not to re-sign/release players, the budget is just a guideline from my understanding.

The AI doesn't look at the amount of cash it has on hand at all. All it does is check to make sure that it's not in debt.

[YEAH DAAAAWG]

The Ai doesn't look at the amount of cash it has on hand at all. All it does is check to make sure that it's not in debt.

What if you put the cash at 0$, will that prevent it from re-signing players?

[ohms_law]

Yea, it'll completely stop the AI from signing players.