Tanking Rule Change -- Feedback Wanted - Page 4 - Hardball Dynasty

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I have absolutely no doubt that trying to code anti-tanking logic into the game is a disaster in the making.

You'll invest a lot of time and money into it. Time and money that could have been invested in fixing or improving other things.

You'll never come up with an algorithm that will work in every case. So you'll keep modifying to code, spending more time & money. Until you eventually realize it was a bad idea & take all of the code out of the game.

I don't think anyone who's followed your customer support practices believes you'll actually enforce your own tanking algorithm. You'll let anyone who complains and waves $25 at you back into the world. So why bother spending money developing the code?

How about you just enforce the rules in private worlds? If the commish or a majority of the returning owners say they want the tanker out and can point to a reasonable interpretation of the world rules, you toss the tanker from that world. You don't need a computer program to do that. How many thousands of dollars in programming costs would that save you?

How about you stop bending over backwards to get another $25 out of the few customers that blatantly tank and show them the door. I'm sure this would cut your customer support costs. Have you ever added up how much you pay your customer support people and figure out how much one tanker costs you in support time dealing with tickets?

How about how much revenue you lose when people drop the game because they get frustrated because the same few teams win every season?

How about if you optimized the experience for the customers you want to stick around and cut lose the customers that cause your good customers grief?

Not every world needs, or should have, anti-tanking rules. With hundreds of worlds, there's certainly room for some number of worlds where anything goes.

Not every business problem can be handled with a computer program. Sometimes it takes a person exercising a bit of good business sense.

11/4/2011 2:36 AM

MikeT23

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Posted by kahrtmen on 11/3/2011 7:21:00 PM (view original):
I agree that we should dump the credit for last place teams, but I doubt anyone tanks because of the credit. The reason people tank is to get top draft picks and spend 50m+ on IFAs. If we put a cap on the total money in prospect, that would solve this problem, but we have been down that road already in the past.

Someone is always complaining that $24.95 is too much. Do you think someone at 60-90 and a couple of games out of 4th won't throw a few games down the stretch for a couple of bucks if they don't like the price of the game?

While I wouldn't mind a prospect cap, it doesn't solve the tanking problem. Tankers gonna tank. Minimum win rules are the only cure for that.

11/4/2011 6:33 AM

hartjh14

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Posted by tufft on 11/4/2011 2:36:00 AM (view original):
I have absolutely no doubt that trying to code anti-tanking logic into the game is a disaster in the making.

You'll invest a lot of time and money into it. Time and money that could have been invested in fixing or improving other things.

You'll never come up with an algorithm that will work in every case. So you'll keep modifying to code, spending more time & money. Until you eventually realize it was a bad idea & take all of the code out of the game.

I don't think anyone who's followed your customer support practices believes you'll actually enforce your own tanking algorithm. You'll let anyone who complains and waves $25 at you back into the world. So why bother spending money developing the code?

How about you just enforce the rules in private worlds? If the commish or a majority of the returning owners say they want the tanker out and can point to a reasonable interpretation of the world rules, you toss the tanker from that world. You don't need a computer program to do that. How many thousands of dollars in programming costs would that save you?

How about you stop bending over backwards to get another $25 out of the few customers that blatantly tank and show them the door. I'm sure this would cut your customer support costs. Have you ever added up how much you pay your customer support people and figure out how much one tanker costs you in support time dealing with tickets?

How about how much revenue you lose when people drop the game because they get frustrated because the same few teams win every season?

How about if you optimized the experience for the customers you want to stick around and cut lose the customers that cause your good customers grief?

Not every world needs, or should have, anti-tanking rules. With hundreds of worlds, there's certainly room for some number of worlds where anything goes.

Not every business problem can be handled with a computer program. Sometimes it takes a person exercising a bit of good business sense.

The problem is that CS is lacking the good business sense, so they have to find a solution through programming.

11/4/2011 8:54 AM

MikeT23

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I didn't read all that as tuft usually has some silly comment but a program ensures consistency. "Good business sense" doesn't. I don't know about you but I'd prefer they be consistent.

If tuft is complaining about their admission of ignoring the game for a year and half, I agree. I'm not real happy about that but this thread shows me that they're putting some effort into the game again. Since I didn't leave in 2010 despite poor CS, seeing something now is encouraging.

11/4/2011 9:01 AM

silentpadna

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I think the only way to really rid the tanking issue is to remove so much of the predictability that exists. You don't have to go so far as having multiple busts in the 1st round, but I'm not against the idea of having a few each year. Same thing goes with the IFA's. As many of the posters have said, getting an MVP level at the top of the draft is usually pretty easy (even with the varying draft class quality). It's also easy with respect to IFA's.

The temptation for the top of the draft is only a part of the factors at work. The bigger temptation, to me, is the lure of the IFA market. Because the number of bidders is lower, the transfer of large sums of money that direction is almost guarantees you a good shot at an MVP level player. It also takes some owners completely out of the FA market and the potential to compete that season.

I think making the game a little tougher would make it a lot better. I would remove some of the predictability in the following ways:
1. Draft Prospect Signability risk is pretty easy to figure out given the existing wording. Allow scouts to be wrong about that.
2. Randomize development patterns - make them non-linear (or less like an RC time constant). Pitchers typically develop with plateau leaps for example.
3. Hide the non-player payroll actual numbers for every team. No budget items should be seen by other franchises.
4. Make signability a little less predictable - allow some guys as FAs or IFAs to sign the first offer or pick a lesser bid. Some guys just want to play where they want or they'll sign when the first franchise offers the combination they're looking for. Don't show contract demands - ever. Let the bidders figure out how much they are willing to pay.

These are just pieces of ideas I've heard, but I think game improvement in general will help turn down the tanking component. I don't think it can completely go away, but you can make a dent in it.

Currently the predictability is what allows tankers to be almost universally successful where it's tolerated.

MWR helps, but it's really a band-aid. Take away the predictability - make it a harder game, and you'll see a better game. Unfortunately, it almost looks like a choice between 1) a better game with a drop in revenue (due to some customers not liking unpredictability) or 2) pretty good game with artificial 'rules' in place and plenty of revenue.

I would like to see the game be a better mirror of the real thing - but the revenue concerns for WIS are a very real part of the risk of making things better.

11/4/2011 10:04 AM

kjmulli

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i liked the idea of giving private worlds the option to adjust the threshold. what i think would work too is give private world commissioners something like a world settings page that would be similar to what you see when you're creating a fantasy football league on yahoo, etc. any changes to those settings would generate an automatic message on the world chat to say the world settings have been changed. and there could be a few options in there like minimum win requirements, prospect budget caps, etc.

there could also be some variations of the minimum win rules in the sense that if you don't reach them, you could either be removed from the world automatically at rollover (not sure if that's programmable or not) or you just wouldnt be able to have more than 20 mil in prospect payroll.

11/4/2011 10:09 AM

kjmulli

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this could also coincide with a searchable "join a world page" where you could search for worlds with mwr, prospect caps, etc. just like you search for ppr fantasy football leagues

11/4/2011 10:10 AM

soursurfer

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The Private World Settings seems like a pretty fantastic suggestion to me, kjmulli.

11/4/2011 10:17 AM

MikeT23

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Every time I read "random busts", I cringe. I don't know if people don't understand the meaning of the word or just don't know what they're asking for. To make it simple, I'll combine one explanation. One owner can get multiple busts in one season or consecutive seasons. Completely wrecking the draft for an owner investing 40m(not counting signing bonuses), perhaps season after season, can send that team into 50 win hell for many, many seasons. Random does not mean everybody gets one every 7 sesaons. It means "random".

11/4/2011 10:36 AM

kcden

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Posted by MikeT23 on 11/4/2011 10:36:00 AM (view original):
Every time I read "random busts", I cringe. I don't know if people don't understand the meaning of the word or just don't know what they're asking for. To make it simple, I'll combine one explanation. One owner can get multiple busts in one season or consecutive seasons. Completely wrecking the draft for an owner investing 40m(not counting signing bonuses), perhaps season after season, can send that team into 50 win hell for many, many seasons. Random does not mean everybody gets one every 7 sesaons. It means "random".

I don't see why anyone thinks this needs to be ADDED anyway... 1st round busts DO already happen pretty regularly. Go back and look through the 1st rounds of your world's drafts and you'll see a bunch of players where you say "How the hell was this guy picked #4 overall?" The first overall pick in one of our early drafts in Doubleday barely ever made it to a #5-Caliber starter. And, as it is now, these busts are usually due to something that the owner did wrong (didn't put the time into the draft, didn't have good enough scouting, etc.), as it should be.

11/4/2011 10:43 AM

MikeT23

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Or injury. Most of the "random bust" people want a random 10th rounder to be a star but, as I've said many times, if you turn this game into a game of random chance, it loses it's appeal.

11/4/2011 10:53 AM

silentpadna

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Posted by MikeT23 on 11/4/2011 10:36:00 AM (view original):
Every time I read "random busts", I cringe. I don't know if people don't understand the meaning of the word or just don't know what they're asking for. To make it simple, I'll combine one explanation. One owner can get multiple busts in one season or consecutive seasons. Completely wrecking the draft for an owner investing 40m(not counting signing bonuses), perhaps season after season, can send that team into 50 win hell for many, many seasons. Random does not mean everybody gets one every 7 sesaons. It means "random".

I agree. Random is random. Scouting fails, even when there is consensus. Who was the consensus #1 the year Tim Lincecum was drafted? Andrew Miller. When was Lincecum drafted? 11th. (I remember that one so well because the Mariners let him go by at #6 for Brandon Morrow, who still has high potential). Who's going to come out of 2011's dratt? Will Rendon be the stud? Or wil Gerritt Cole hit the upside the scouts project? Or will Trevor Bauer be the "next" Lincecum? Or will one of those guys never make it?

I'm not totally sure that randomness will affect tanking, but if it's less of a sure thing, that would at least cast doubt on the incentive to do it. I may be in the minority, but I personally would like the realism better. In the 3 worlds I am a part of, I think most of the guys are deep enough into this game that the randomness would not cause them to quit just because of 'bad luck'. For me, I'm more likely to leave a world where I see obvious successful tanking than one where I end up on the short end of the randomness stick.

Not to mention, randomness with respect to numbers is how the entire simulation engine works day to day in the first place.

11/4/2011 10:55 AM

MikeT23

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First, I'll disagree with your last sentence. 50 beats 100 sometimes but, in the long run, 100 wins. Let's not pretend, even for a moment, that this game is just a random set of results based on some numbers.

Now I'll go back to my first season in Hamilton. First pick. I went back and forth between two players. I took Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Jalal Darling over Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Tris Spilborghs(who went third). Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Jason Goldman was drafted second. All three have had fine careers but I think I made the right call. Maybe the "consensus" number 1 would have been Goldman. I don't know. But we have little numbers, and they're hard numbers, to base our decisions on. MLB doesn't have those numbers. They're making best guesses. Of course, HBD is set-up differently than MLB. HBD needs balanced competition so we start with the same budget. MLB would like balanced competition but it's not make or break for them. It is for HBD because, once you get an unbalanced world, you get lots of openings. It doesn't take long to find someone complaining about slow rollovers. Would Darling busting killed my franchise? Probably not. But it would have been a huge setback. Some owners deal with those setbacks, some just find another team. Deal them 4-5 of those setbacks and they jump ship. Not good for HBD.

11/4/2011 11:05 AM

deanod

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doesn't sound like you agree.

don't think randomness is a good idea, if people want to go in that direction the key would be to make top prospects more difficult to discern. how to do that

1) don't show current ratings
2) make draft scouting projections less accurate

whether that's a good idea is an entirely separate discussion, but this is the only logical way to add randomness to the draft if people want it that way.

11/4/2011 11:08 AM

MikeT23

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panda had some good ideas. I like all of these:

1. Draft Prospect Signability risk is pretty easy to figure out given the existing wording. Allow scouts to be wrong about that.
2. Randomize development patterns - make them non-linear (or less like an RC time constant). Pitchers typically develop with plateau leaps for example.
3. Hide the non-player payroll actual numbers for every team. No budget items should be seen by other franchises.
4. Make signability a little less predictable - allow some guys as FAs or IFAs to sign the first offer or pick a lesser bid. Some guys just want to play where they want or they'll sign when the first franchise offers the combination they're looking for. Don't show contract demands - ever. Let the bidders figure out how much they are willing to pay

But the "random bust" part of his post soured me on everything. HBD needs the bad teams to get better and the good teams to at least level off to survive. Randomizing the draft won't accomplish that.

11/4/2011 11:13 AM

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