Tankers are ruining Perfect Team mode

[bukubukuchagama]

Please fix this problem. I understand that there's tank prevention programmed in, but it's not enough. I hope the developers tighten this up in Perfect Team mode. Really tired of getting swept repeatedly by whales and tankers.

[Ivo Shandor]

I dont play perfect team but whats a tank and whale.

[bukubukuchagama]

Whales are heavy spenders. Tankers are people who deliberately tank their seasons to get a lower relegation where they switch their roster to farm points. Tankers can be whales or non-whales.

[staznak]

The game is made for whales. If you are expecting the Devs to really care about the regular player I wouldn't hold your breath. But I guess here is to hope.

[bukubukuchagama]

I don't mind non-tanking whales. The developers have a right to make a buck. I despise tankers because they disrupt and spoil everyone else's progress.

[GrayFox]

Originally posted by bukubukuchagama:

Please fix this problem. I understand that there's tank prevention programmed in, but it's not enough. I hope the developers tighten this up in Perfect Team mode. Really tired of getting swept repeatedly by whales and tankers.

Got to season two, Stone level and two team on my league are almost made out of Perfect and diamond players, they won like 144 games of 162 last season. Definetly a Pay 2 Win on these starts levels. I suggest that they shoul make a point Cap limit in league too, like in the tournament.

[inosk0pedjfk]

Yes you will be crushed sometimes by PL tier teams until you grind enough (spam tournaments) for rewards and then eventually endgame cards. Time + research = good , Time +research + money = best

[AlterEgo45]

When PT first came out, me and a few other people were like,

"You have to scale rewards according to level. If there's no scaling according to league level, there is no reason to get promoted and people will tank."

And people were outraged. They were mostly like, "No-one will tank. What's the fun in tanking? Why would anyone do that?". Some made that argument "if we scale rewards by level, that will just make the better teams even better"... as if people who build a good team shouldn't be rewarded in game.

I guess the OOTP Devs and a lot of PT players learned some valuable lessons about human nature here.

[Dewguru]

Originally posted by AlterEgo45:

When PT first came out, me and a few other people were like,

"You have to scale rewards according to level. If there's no scaling according to league level, there is no reason to get promoted and people will tank."

And people were outraged. They were mostly like, "No-one will tank. What's the fun in tanking? Why would anyone do that?". Some made that argument "if we scale rewards by level, that will just make the better teams even better"... as if people who build a good team shouldn't be rewarded in game.

I guess the OOTP Devs and a lot of PT players learned some valuable lessons about human nature here.

^ This is needed. I reached Gold as a non-PTW. Hit my ceiling, and had two choices. Stop playing entirely, or tank to drop a level where I can be competitive.

When I'm at Gold, hitting that limbo, where I'm not making the playoffs, not losing enough to get demoted, and earning crap for points, made me realize I had to either invest a lot more cash, or I needed to drop a level (I was a one and done in the playoffs in Silver before my promotion, so not a powerhouse at all).

I'll most likely do it at least one more time, since that's what I'm guessing I'd need to gather enough points to address a couple issues.

[inosk0pedjfk]

I find it fun to blow up my team and go for a different approach when my team gets stuck in a level. Full sell-off and rebuild!

There are plenty of tools out there, my favorite being the doc that has every card in the game ranked based on their average performance data. Many cards can perform way beyond their 'overall' ratings.

There's also some blueprints on building meta tournament squads to spam with for extra pp.

~Time and research can save you a lot of money in this game. Sometimes blowing your team up is better than throwing money at marginal upgrades

[AlterEgo45]

Originally posted by Dewguru:

I reached Gold as a non-PTW. Hit my ceiling, and had two choices. Stop playing entirely, or tank to drop a level where I can be competitive.

When I'm at Gold, hitting that limbo, where I'm not making the playoffs, not losing enough to get demoted, and earning crap for points, made me realize I had to either invest a lot more cash, or I needed to drop a level (I was a one and done in the playoffs in Silver before my promotion, so not a powerhouse at all).

I'll most likely do it at least one more time, since that's what I'm guessing I'd need to gather enough points to address a couple issues.

I played PT for a bit when it first came out. I didn't invest any money in it but really overachieved because I worked the Auction House. Won 2 Championships early on, and I think I was in gold when gold was first getting started. I was thinking, "See... people can hang with the whales". There were a few players like me who really punched above their weight.

But then people starting coming on the OOTP forums and talking about their single game earnings in the bottom league - whatever the bottom league was called right at the very beginning - and they'd brag about how they put up 25 runs or thrown a no-hitter with 18 strikeouts against some team which had been abandoned or run by someone with no clue. And they'd earn almost as much in that one bush league game as I earned in an entire season in the top league.

It was complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and they defended these massive point earnings as though they'd done something special to earn them. I lost interest in the game pretty quickly after that. I considered creating a new team especially to tank, and then post on the forums what I did and how successful it was. But I figured they could fix their own game, it wasn't like the problem was hard to spot. But apparently it was because they've still not fixed it.

OOTP was also coming up with a feature where you could have friends play in the same league as you. Did they ever implement that? It's like an open invitation to cheat and funnel points.

Also the way they try and manually catch cheaters is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

I feel bad for people who invest money in PT (some invest a lot) and try and play it honestly in an environment like that. They're just getting robbed.

[Dewguru]

They didn't implement a league between friends option that I saw. I still think it'd be neat, and they could do it without points. Basically officially hosted leagues instead of the fan hosted ones out there.

And yes, they still didn't fix the point values. I'll admit by the time my team was good enough to escape from Iron, I had a couple games that were crazy, and I probably made more points that one season alone. Outside of that one season, the points earned definitely lessened as the competition improved, which wasn't the end of the world as it was still enough to earn some packs and improve things, until I reached Gold and gave it multiple seasons of play.

Since then, I decided to take a different approach. Instead of building a team based solely on point value, I started building one and limiting it to players I'm a fan of, or who are from my favorite team. It turns out, my position players didn't shift too much because of this in terms of point value. The biggest hit though has been on the side of my pitchers. So, as I rebuild, it's the primary focus point.

So, yeah, I tanked by not playing the highest value set of cards, and it was largely because of the wall that I hit, but now, having changed the focus of my team, the game is at least interesting again for me. So I've no regrets to what I did.

[inosk0pedjfk]

Originally posted by Dewguru:

They didn't implement a league between friends option that I saw. I still think it'd be neat, and they could do it without points. Basically officially hosted leagues instead of the fan hosted ones out there.

there is an option in PT settings to either join friends or join random. you can find friends by searching their username in UNIVERSE and adding them

[ARG]

Originally posted by AlterEgo45:

When PT first came out, me and a few other people were like,

"You have to scale rewards according to level. If there's no scaling according to league level, there is no reason to get promoted and people will tank."

And people were outraged. They were mostly like, "No-one will tank. What's the fun in tanking? Why would anyone do that?". Some made that argument "if we scale rewards by level, that will just make the better teams even better"... as if people who build a good team shouldn't be rewarded in game.

I guess the OOTP Devs and a lot of PT players learned some valuable lessons about human nature here.

To be fair, this year was far from the first year we have been complaining about it, so I doubt that you truly posted something and people seemed clueless tanking would be a thing, because it's been in the game since the first iteration, and the forum goers are very aware of that. I'm not saying it's impossible, your thread could have been visited by mostly newer players, but those of us who have been playing since the Beta before the first release know how too well tanking is part of the game and that OOTP does very little, and usually a whole of a heck of too late, to remedy that.

At one point, a tanker had been identified. With screenshots. Reported multiple times from the proper channels. A Dev chimed in. It took SIX WEEKS to get that team dismantled. It's just ridiculous.

There are a few things plaguing this mode. First, tanking is very easy to achieve, and is the best method to generate points. Second, and it's tied to the first point, there is ZERO incentive to win, aside from bragging rights. Win it all at Stone or at Diamond ? You get the same rewards. Third, and Markus confirmed that would not change, the Pro/Rel system is not ideal for this type of play mode, but Markus loves it and feels it's special and unique, so we are stuck with leagues that are uneven in playfield, or even just in number of teams. If you end up in a smaller league due to league generation (like 20 teams), they still promote and relegate the same amount of teams as a 30 team league.

[bukubukuchagama]

Daf, your post hits it right on the head. I was new to Perfect Team mode when I first posted this. Tanking is just part of the game. As other posters have pointed out there are other ways to gain PP necessary to remain competitive up to Perfect. I've been hitting the auctions making a nice chunk of change along the way. It should be interesting to see what they do with next year's PTM.