Originally Posted by Stormhound
Well...I guess I've got company, at least, in getting relegated from Diamond. Sorry to hear, Magus978; I empathize.
As of this writing, the same identical squad that squeaked into the playoffs in Diamond last week is almost certain to lose 100 games this week. If it were a real baseball team, you'd surely wonder how such a disaster could happen. But there were no key injuries, no major slumps, no free agent departures...none of the stuff that befalls a MLB team. I still have 8 players rated in the top 10 of the league in Team Position Rankings. So what gives?
Simply put, I didn't improve the team. Really, at all...even with the missions I was able to finish, I made no major acquisitions (in fact, I'm not even sure there were any marginal ones). Pack drops were little help, because I already had a lot of the low-level players except for the ones that just came out, and I haven't lucked into a new perfect in weeks. Tournaments are getting harder and harder to score rewards from, because the whole game is set up to reward people who throw large amounts of time and money at it...and I'm not (and never will be) one of those people. (Up for debate is whether I will bother to throw any money OOTP's way next year, even for the base game.) I exist on the margin of Twitch drops and occasional lucky tourney results where I squeak into a reward round. I'll never ever see the inside of a PTCS, so those cards...which are frequently better than "normal" ones, or so it would seem...are never going to make my team list. Combinators...well, don't even get me started on those, just see "Tournaments, not winning". So I'm in a Red Queen's race at this point, and the hurrieder I go, the behinder I'll get.
Mind you, none of this is a real surprise. I read up before deciding to try PT this year, and fully expected what's happening (if anything, it went better than I expected by making Diamond, when I figured I'd be lucky to get to Gold). I guessed...correctly, it seems...that my best chance for a high peak would be muddling through the Entry League as best I could, then going full-bore on live missions. I'm fully aware that I'm not in the real target audience, and that I'm not going to make their company any significant money beyond whatever tiny bit Twitch streaming makes them. And I'm good with that...I don't figure they'll cater to me, because I surely won't cater to them. At this point, if I had a chunk of money and had to make the choice, I'd sooner spend it supporting my favorite Twitch streamers, because they're providing superior entertainment value and community compared to PT-the-game.
So...I've had my speech, and I've had my peak, and now I figure that barring an occasional surprise from a pack drop, my team is now starting a long slide downward due to my unwillingness to spend money to keep it competitive.
Well, ha...I guess it is a little like a real-life team, after all. Enjoy your board; I'll leave it in peace.
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