Warrior General Games

OK, we all know recruiting is a pain. It's a pain because everyone wants to play for a winner. This creates a situation where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because sub 500 teams can't recruit talent.

My idea to fix this would be a level cap much like the NFL's salary cap. At the beginning of each pre-seasson the conmputer would average the the level of each player in a league and multiply it by 53. That would be the level cap, as in each team had to fill it's roster within that many player levels. I.e if the league average was 30 then a team would have to fill it's 53 man roster within 1590 levels.

If you go over the cap, you get promoted to the next league up until you hit pro, the no cap league.

There wouild also be a cap min, if your team didn't have 80% of the cap number by the start of the season you would get demoted to a league where you were inside the cap.

This would do several things:

It would accelerate the realignment of the leagues and make for better competition.

It would increase the value of gameplanning. Right now if your matchup is off by 3 or 4 points all the gamplanning in the world won't change the outcome of the game. You will just get outplayed.

It would force top heavy teams to spin off some players to free agency making recruiting easier on everyone else and make competition more fair.

It would keep players from jumping teams in search of a winner. Easier recruiting and more competiton means that in any given season anyone could win it.

We have a pretty detailed discussion of this in one of the private forums:

Originally posted by matta

've thrown this out in the main forum but no one ever responds. Maybe I'll get better response here, because I can't see a negative with this plan:

All the current problems of GLB (gutting, difficult recruiting, players heading to lower leagues, etc.) are about money. The fact that a BBB team can generate roughly the same amount of cash as a Pro team is ridiculous and unrealistic. It's like the Valdosta State football team selling out the Georgia Dome for tickets that are only 10% below the price of the Falcons.

To fix this, what Bort should do is cap the number of ticket sales a team can get per game based on that team's level. For instance, a Pro team can sell out the stadium ( a Pro team or premiere Div I-A conference, such as the SEC stadium), an AAA team can sell a max of 55,000 seats per game (a major Div I-A conference, such as the ACC), an AA team can sell 40,000 seats per game (a Div I-A mid-major conference stadium, such as Conference USA), an A team can sell a max of 25,000 seats (a reasonable Div I-AA stadium), and a BBB team can sell a max of 10,000 seats (a Div II/III stadium). He can also create some requirements for selling Club (for instance, AA and above) and Luxury (for instance, AAA and Pro only).

This would do a couple of important things:

[1] It better approximates reality. If Valdosta State did rent out the Georgia Dome for an entire season, they'd probably get only 10,000 or so fans in that place (at a max) per game. That's what we're proposing here: no matter how big your stadium is, you have a finite fan base that depends on your league.

[2] It will create competitive leagues. As the game matures, only AAA and Pro teams would be able to make really high figure salary offers. That would incentivize the high lvl / better builds to move up to Pro, while the lower level teams will be forced to settle for lower level players, since that's all they'll be able to afford. Right now, the talent pool is spread too thin - there are a limited number of high level guys and virtually every team can afford them. With this system, you limit the number of teams can afford high level guys, thus creating a better supply / demand balance.

[3] It decentizes gutting. Right now, a guy can move a Pro roster an $40 million to a BBB team, build a full stadium, and suffer no consequences while he crushes his opponents. In this new system, the guy suffers a penalty in that his team development is stunted for several seasons until he can promote a few times and increase stadium revenue.

[4] It creates a reason for guys to want to promote to the next level. More than once we've seen a capped league team throw a conference championship because they wanted to avoid promotion...

[5] ... and for good reason. Last season, SEA A teams that were capped at 21 promoted into an uncapped league that mid 30 guys. People just couldn't compete, and with recruiting problems, they couldn't get enough high level guys to make a difference. The level cap system is a bandaid for new leagues - this is a cure.

[6] It discourages sandbagging for stats. Right now, there are plenty of lvl 40 guys floating around BBB, A, and AA because they're getting offered as much from the low level teams as they are from the Pro teams, meanwhile they can start and be an all-star at the lower levels.

This seems like such a good idea to me. It's self-organizing, it's self-sustaining, and it's simple. Why Bort doesn't do it or even discuss it is beyond me.

So what am I missing (I've got to be missing something)? What's the big problem with this plan? Thoughts?

Originally posted by matta

So what am I missing (I've got to be missing something)? What's the big problem with this plan? Thoughts?


My only problem with these sort of ideas has always been that people should be allowed to play together and there shouldn't be a mechanism in place that forces teams to break up because of finances. For example, even though I had an awesome team in seasons 2/3, we lost in the playoffs and were not promoted. I don't think it would be fair to tell my players that they have to leave a team they love just because of salary restrictions.

However, now that we have the new promotion system (gutted teams move down), it means that 2-3 teams move up instead of just one, so I can't see how this would happen now. You would almost have to intentionally tank a game to avoid promotion now.

Originally posted by Krunchy

However, now that we have the new promotion system (gutted teams move down), it means that 2-3 teams move up instead of just one, so I can't see how this would happen now. You would almost have to intentionally tank a game to avoid promotion now.

And that's one of the benefits. Right now, guys in capped leagues are tanking games to prevent promotion and are gutting teams to lower levels to be more competitive. This system would eliminate the incentive to do that - if you want to be able to afford your current players, after some period of time, you have to win games with those guys and move up.

I get the issue with guys wanting to play together and with agents with 40 players that want them all on the same team - but when those players are all 35-40, and they're playing in SEA A against other teams in the 22-27 range, the high level team wins everytime. That's not fun for the low level teams or the high level team.

The higher the level, the less the levels matter. So I don't think this would really work.

i think there just needs to be a strict salary cap, at the moment every team in USA Pro has lvl 40+ players - where is the superstar? they all are...there are NO teams in the NFL with a superstar in every position. In the NFL they try to make sure every team is competitive. In GLB whoever has the highest level players will have a better chance of recruiting more high lvl players. Almost every league has a team that goes 16-0 or 15-1, and a team that goes 0-16.
If you make a salary cap so that each team has lvl 25s with 3 or 4 lvl 37+ as there superstars it will make it much more realistic and make more teams competitive.

Make a salary cap strict so that each player has to be paid min salary to be able to afford a few superstars

Originally posted by Jed
The higher the level, the less the levels matter. So I don't think this would really work.

Which is why a salary cap beats a level cap. If a guy has a great build and puts up good numbers, the higher level teams will be able to offer him higher salaries, and he'll migrate up the league level (assuming there's some new incentive to promote offering higher salaries, like Fame).

Right now, you have very high level guys going to A and BBB teams because they can run up the stats and win some trophies. I'm involved in two leagues right now, and both leagues have had Pro teams gut and move to the bottom level of the region because they were "tired of losing".

A salary cap hurts teams that move down because they'll generate less revenue. Right now, there's essentially no disadvantage to move to BBB from Pro. In addition, it creates a more realistic game. As I mentioned before, do you think the Valdosta State football team could sell out the Georgia Dome? In this game, they can.

Originally posted by Krunchy
Originally posted by matta


So what am I missing (I've got to be missing something)? What's the big problem with this plan? Thoughts?


My only problem with these sort of ideas has always been that people should be allowed to play together and there shouldn't be a mechanism in place that forces teams to break up because of finances. For example, even though I had an awesome team in seasons 2/3, we lost in the playoffs and were not promoted. I don't think it would be fair to tell my players that they have to leave a team they love just because of salary restrictions.

However, now that we have the new promotion system (gutted teams move down), it means that 2-3 teams move up instead of just one, so I can't see how this would happen now. You would almost have to intentionally tank a game to avoid promotion now.

See, in my system you could still play together, you'd just get promoted. It would be up to the owner whether or not to replace backups with lower level guys or deal with the tougher competition in a higher league.

The money cap idea is good too, especially as more money centric player options get added to the game. It's silly that level 1 guys can buy equipment but level 40 guys beg & scrape for bonuses to keep equipment current. That idea solves that issue too.

Originally posted by Jed
The higher the level, the less the levels matter. So I don't think this would really work.

The problem is higher level guys only want to play for "winners." Everyone with a decent build would rather sit on the bench in the playoffs than get 60 reps a game on a 500 team. If a team isn't winning the talent leaves and there's nobody in free agency.

This would do away with some teams having level 38 backups going against teams with level 28 starters. Either cast off some talent to the FA pool, or get moved to a place where everyone has a team like yours and risk being a 500 or less team yourself.

One issue I have with the level cap is how realistic it is. In college football, there's no one reviewing players and saying "yeah, well, you're too good so we're going to move you to Div I-A".

What does happen is that the compensation is different. Div I-A schools have more money, so they offer 1) scholarships, 2) ancillary support (tutors, personal trainers, nutritionists), 3) better facilities (weight rooms, dorms, practice fields, training equipment, etc.), 4) more exposure to Pro scouts and TV time (which leads to larger and more likely contracts in the NFL).

So, why does a top recruit go to Div I-A and play for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and not D-III and play for the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets? The compensation ability of the school.

However anything is better than what we have now. The current system basically says that Waynesburg draws as many fans and makes almost the same income as Georgia Tech, and that both teams have the same potential to grab top players. It's completely unrealistic and doesn't allow for team development.


edit: now if a lower school wants to throw all their eggs in one basket and go after a superstar, sometimes they can get him (see Alcorn St. and McNair). However, to do that they generally have to sacrifice the quality of the rest of their team (if they offer McNair a full scholarship, they can't ofter several of the normal partial-scholarships that lower tier schools offer).

This trade off between getting forty lvl 30 guys or one lvl 45 guy and thirty-nine lvl 27 guys makes setting a roster more interesting and complicated.