Minimum "Superstar" Salary required?

[Carplos]

I don't know if this actually a bug or a designed limitation (or something I'm doing wrong), but I've found if you don't have the typical "Superstar" salary set to at least $9,000 it will give everyone in the league the minimum (or slightly above it) whether it's $1 , $2000 or whatever.

For that matter, even it's set at $9,000 only one or two players will get around there, while everyone else, including other "Superstars" and good players get around the minimum. In addition, when those players hit free agency or sign extensions, they sign for around the minimum as well.

It seems unwilling to use the curve you set up, until you get at least into the mid-5 digits.

[Carplos]

Okay--I can get the small scale I want (4/5000 down to 1600) if I lower the financial equivalent. As long as that doesn't have any adverse affects on a larger scale, that's fine, but it seems weird that you'd have to adjust the financial co-efficient because I thought all it did was scale salaries down.

[Zeyes]

Yep, I've noticed the same problem...makes low-level curves pretty much useless, unfortunately. It's not so much a problem for single leagues, but if you want to have, say, a major league flanked by a bunch of indy minor leagues, the financial coefficient isn't really the answer.

[Carplos]

Originally Posted by Zeyes

Yep, I've noticed the same problem...makes low-level curves pretty much useless, unfortunately. It's not so much a problem for single leagues, but if you want to have, say, a major league flanked by a bunch of indy minor leagues, the financial coefficient isn't really the answer.

Unfortunately setting the co-efficient too low doesn't allow a larger scale to work properly.

I'm trying to find a happy medium that works both ways.

[Carplos]

Doesn't seem to be a happy medium which will work both ways, which is disappointing.

It's not so much a problem for single leagues, but if you want to have, say, a major league flanked by a bunch of indy minor leagues, the financial coefficient isn't really the answer.

Well, with the gap between major league and independent salaries, you could make it work just fine if those are the only leagues you want, you'd just have to deal with higher than real independent salaries.

The more and more leagues you add, though, the higher you need salaries to be for "independent" or foreign leagues, if you want gaps.

Hopefully this is something that can be fixed, or at least confirmed as a limitation with the engine.

[Raidergoo]

What are the coefficients and the data points on the curve?

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

What are the coefficients and the data points on the curve?

This is from memory as the league files are gone, so it may not be completely exact, but one of my longer-running test leagues had something like the following:

single league at AA level, no minors
financial coefficient: 1.000
minimum player salary: $4,000
superstar: $15,000
star: $12,000
good quality: $10,000
above average: $8,000
average: $7,000
below average: $6,000
fair quality: $5,000
poor quality: $4,000

Result: A few superstar players (but by far not every top player in the league) would sign FA contracts for $11,000 while basically everybody else would sign for $4,400 and in some rare cases for $4,800. So there seem to be two issues at work:

1) The financial coefficient is clearly geared towards an MLB-type salary structure as it seems to be linked to the minimum salary "steps" that the game will consider when making contracts, and a structure in the low five-figures is just too small to accomodate more than two steps at the default coefficient.

2) the designations (superstar, etc.) seem to be linked to the full ratings scale, rather than the actual stats output by the players. So, given that my league was at AA level (and very few players' batting/pitching ratings exceeded 14 out of 20 or so, even if they might bat .400 or have an ERA of 2.00), nobody was getting contracts above the "good quality" level. That's probably a design choice and not easily fixable in the code, and it can probably be worked around by just not using the high-end values for a custom salary structure, so I'm not too worried about that part. The first issue would be nice to see addressed though, as the financial coefficient isn't a very good workaround for the reasons previously mentioned.

[Carplos]

2) the designations (superstar, etc.) seem to be linked to the full ratings scale, rather than the actual stats output by the players.

That's what I thought at first, but when I lower the coefficient or raise the salaries until they work, "Superstars" in my league where 11-12 is top rating (on a 20 pt scale) get superstar salaries.

If you use normal PCM/MLE, you still get the salary problem if you set it too low.

[Carplos]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

What are the coefficients and the data points on the curve?

In the league where I noticed this problem, I left the coefficient at 1.000 initially.

The curve was:

$1600 min
$4000 superstar
$3000
$2750
$2250
$2000
$1900
$1800
$1700

At first I thought it might just be there wasn't enough of a curve, but even using a default curve from the $4000 point doesn't help.

Like Zeyes said, lowering the coefficient is fine if you're doing a single league universe, or a universe where salary structures are all similar, but you can't really do a universe with big gaps with this issue.

[Carplos]

I think this is my first "bump" ever. (I could argue that Raidergoo did ask me a question. )

[Swimmer]

I've been doing an 1871-whenever league with fictional players, and setting the financials between each year based on the GDP Shares spreadsheet. Financial Coefficient won't work in this case because I don't want existing contracts changed; i.e. if someone has a 4y 10,000 contract this year, I don't want it change to a 10,010 contract next year just because the coefficient changed.

Anyway, while my numbers are really low in the 1870's and 80's, then all my players just get the minimum salary (which is around $250).

I agree with the guess that using really low numbers overwhelms the minimum increments built into the negotiating AI. Seems like the program should scale those increments based on the range between minimum and Superstar, though.

It would also be nice of the coefficient didn't scale existing contracts, too.

[battists]

I'm sorry for the awfully slow response to this thread.

Obviously, some time has passed since you posted this issue, and the 1.0.2 patch has since been released as well. Are you still seeing this issue?

Please let me know!

Thanks,

Steve

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by battists

Are you still seeing this issue?

For the most part, yes.

New League under 1.0.2, same salary curve as in post #7, inaugural draft:

$11,000: 24 players
$9,900: 13 players
$8,000: 5 players (all arbitration)
$7,500: 2 players (all arbitration)
$7,000: 1 player (arbitration)
$4,800: 33 players (all autom. renewed)
$4,400: 230 players (206 regular, 24 autom. renewed)
$4,000: 100 players (18 autom. renewed, 82 arbitration)

Other than those 8 players with middle-of-the-road arbitration contracts (this seems to be new), it's still exactly the same situation...a few superstar players making top money, and the entire rest of the league getting the minimum, or the minimum plus 10%, or the minimum plus 20%. The big middle of the salary curve simply doesn't get used by AI-calculated contracts.

Simming ahead to the off-season, the same thing...free agents almost invariably sign for $4,400 or $4,000 per year, with a small handful signing for $10,000.

[battists]

Alright, I logged this as TT # 2306.

We'll see if Markus is interested in tweaking this at all.

Thanks,

Steve

[Markus Heinsohn]

fixed

[battists]

This has been claimed fixed in the next patch, but has not yet been verified.

Thanks,

Steve

[Zeyes]

Hooray!

[Carplos]

Heh. Actually just logged in for the first time in a couple of weeks (got distracted by getting back into FM for a bit. Silly World Cup...) and this was one of the things I was going to check.

This will definitely be one of the first things I check.

Thanks a lot!

[battists]

Originally Posted by Carplos

Actually just logged in for the first time in a couple of weeks

Gee, hadn't noticed, with all the thread notifications from you I received today.

[Carplos]

Sorry

I've been playing with the patch since it was released, but got distracted from coming here for a bit and the last week I've just been too lazy to check... then I finally logged in and there was, er, quite a backlog on my subscriptions/notifications.