This is long, but when someone states that us folks looking for a more level playing field are simply coming up with excuses, I felt I needed to fully explain where I'm coming from - and where I think others are as well. I apologize for the length of this...
I think many of you are missing the point(s).
1) PT is NOT real baseball. That has to be rule number one because if you want to play REAL baseball, you play the classic game.
2) PT is a card collecting exercise where cards are valued based of player performance. Based on this value, different cards have different values.
3) Games are scheduled for these "collections" to play against each other, and rewards are given for both achievements and "team" performance.
4) Cards can be obtained in many ways; Free, Rewards, Missions, Tournaments, Achievements, PLUS real money can be used to simply buy the best (or better) cards.
All good so far, right?
5) There is no substitute for money. If someone has, or chooses, to spend $1000 real dollars on his card collecting, he simply has one of the better teams. If he chooses to stock his roster with 26 "100" cards, he can do so in short order.
6) MOST people don't have that kind of a bank account - or choose not to spend their money in that endeavor. As a result, you also get MOST teams who spend far less or maybe nothing at all.
Before I go on, I need to make 2 things clear.
(A) I have NOTHING against people who chose to spend money. It's their choice, it's their money. Go for it.
(B) F2P teams can, given the knowledge AND time, eventually get into the same club as the spenders and become a Whale. Instead of doing it almost overnight (in Rookie Level) it will take weeks, likely months, but there are enough options in the game to do it.
Moving on...
So far, we have two types of players; People who can spend money and BUY their team, and people who chose not to (or spend far less) and have to BUILD it from the ground up. This second set of people must replace "money" with "time".
With a game that pits ALL of these teams together, it's obvious that "Whales" are going to play weaker teams do a lot of butt-kicking. The CONCEPT of the game is that the "Whales" will eventually move up the ladder and compete for Perfect Level Championships - thus leaving the weaker teams in the lower levels to battle each other.
That all sounds great - but it's not what happens.
1) You always have new teams joining the game and some of those teams are people who spend money - thus there is ALWAYS going to be Whales in the lower levels kicking butt.
2) there are some Whales who simply enjoy winning 130 games a year, and do anything they can to put themselves in the lower levels to do just that. After all, to some it's better to win 130 games than compete with someone of equal ability.
Now, finally, what causes this problem... the Promotion/Relegation system.
As it stands, you START at Rookie level and move up the ladder as you get better. You move up based on your performance (which is the way REAL baseball would work under these conditions). BUT... in the need to fill up the pyramid, too many weaker teams move up with the Whales. Mixing in the Whales that are still moving up with the Whales who keep themselves in lower levels - it turns out a calendar year simply isn't enough time to actually let the Whales float to the top. I would suspect 2 years would not be enough time because there are too many variables keeping the stronger teams spread throughout the levels.
So, how do you fix that?
Now we get back to what I posted earlier; rate teams based on their card "collection" from Day One. OVR is a reasonable value to do that, come up with a formula if you must. Then place teams into the 8 levels each week based on those ratings.
> Week One of the new version would have all 8 levels filled from the start.
> Teams would move up only if they broke the threshold of the OVR filter.
> All teams would play other teams of equal ability
> Whales would be at the top from the beginning
> Weaker teams would fill the lower levels
>Whales would never (very unlikely win 130 games or kick butt on weaker teams because they wouldn't play them)
> teams in lower levels could still build their teams in whatever way they wanted to move up the ladder
basically nothing changes other than HOW you move up, but a lot of the issues we've been discussing the past 2+ years go away.
NOW, THAT BEING SAID... I don't know how that would affect the business model. After all, OOTP has to make money, and they would have to decide if this kind of change would bring in more money, less money, or be moot. As much as I'd like to see the game this way, I have to understand that OOTP's livelihood has to come first.
Off my soapbox.
