Warrior General Games

The Problem:
Right now the top teams like Pro and WL teams all try to recruit players ranging from 60-70 ideally. The problem with this is players only stay at that level range for one or two seasons at the most. Because of this, these top teams have huge roster turnover every season and will probably have to replace at least 1/3rd of their roster

The Solution:
Let players boost for 10 seasons until their plateau season (just as it is now). Make the plateau a TRUE PLATEAU (no training, no boosting, no xp, no vxp, etc). Extend this true plateau to 1-2 extra seasons (2 to 3 seasons of plateau).

What this does:
-Allows younger and older players to compete on a level playing field for longer. Players in their last season of plateau will have no advantage over players just beginning their plateau. Basically allows for multiple generations of end-game dots to compete on the same level with one another.
-Allows teams to cope with decline better. As it stands now it is near impossible to transition players that are about to decline for younger players without putting your team at a disadvantage for at least one season (combination of lower leveled players and team chemistry hits). Extending the plateau allows teams to transition their aging dots (ending plateau) for younger dots (beginning plateau) without losing a competitive edge. This is possible because the younger dots they are transitioning to have reached their peak and not at a disadvantage. Also, with 2-3 seasons of this true plateau it allows teams the opportunity to better spread out their roster turnover so the chemistry hits are not devastating.
-Makes recruiting easier. An extended plateau increases the number of end-game dots (both good and bad). With more good dots (not caring about the bad ones) in the pool to choose from, there will be more opportunity for teams to recruit and field more competitive teams. This increase in end-game dots will also spill over into the lower leagues AAA and AA to improve the competitive balance there as well.
-Makes AA and AAA leagues competitive again. AA and AAA leagues will actually be GOOD again instead of barren wastelands. Where do you think think these top teams are getting their players when they are looking to reload with younger talent? AA and AAA. This leaves a huge void of FAs for AA and AAA teams which also leads to more gutting when owners can't fill holes in their roster. There is a big problem in this respect with league structure, but an extended plateau also indirectly affects this.
-Helps prevent gutting/mergings. To go along with the above points. If it is easier to transition aging players (whether it be in the form of having a larger window to turnover rosters with less chemistry hit, having more end-games dots that that are competitive over multiple generations, or not losing players to elite higher league teams) owners/coach will be less likely to become frustrated with the process and therefore less inclined to feel the pressure to gut their team and either give up or merge with another good team.
--Increases the enjoyment agents get from their players. This is the biggest reason we should have an extended plateau in my personal opinion. Right now the name of the game is to cap build for 8 seasons to eventually have a good player for 2 seasons, then start over. If the plateau was longer, people who spent over a year on building their player could actually ENJOY their player's prime more than 2 seasons.

From beenlurken and various posters in the thread:
Other ideas/concerns that agents would like to see in conjunction:
- Shorten the length of player development (ie. player builds peak at 70ish around season 7-8ish and then have their 2-3 season plateau before decline sets in.
Only problem with this is that changing player development is a much more difficult change to make... most likely require the game to wipe the slate clean and start over.
- $$$ Some feel this may not be profitable for Bort. There are always ways for Bort to ensure that he makes money to support this game, even with an extended plateau. For example, it has been suggested that agents continue to spend flex (as they would when boosting) for the extra plateau seasons. Every player would get one plateau season. At the end of that season the player could either begin decline of spend a flex boosting fee for an additional plateau season (a player may only get 1 or 2 extra plateau season depending upon what we set it at).
-->My personal feelings on this are Bort loses a lot more money from customers who quit because they feel they aren't getting their money's worth out of their player than he would from people not boosting a few dots for 2 or 3 seasons. More seasons in your players prime give agents more enjoyment by seeing their dots perform at their highest level. Most agents also have multiple generations of players, so Bort will still be getting plenty of flex revenue.


There are more advantages to doing it this way, but I just wanted to get this out there and get some discussion started. I will add to the list of positives as I think of more. I think most people would be in favor of this.

+1

I used to be one of the people against a lengthened plateau. After seeing the effect of the one season plateau my opinion has now changed.

Here are all the points made from the old thread....

http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=2633031

Even just an extra season or two would help (doesnt have to be 3-4 season of plateau).

You'd have to be fair as well and balance it for Bort's economics.

I'd say

Day 320 - Daily XP stops and only game XP applies{Boosting Allowed}
Day 400 - Game XP Stops{Boosting Allowed}
Day 440 - All XP Stops{Boosting Allowed}

Day 441-480 Gradual Decline{Boosting Allowed}
Day 480-XXX Harsh decline{No Boosting}

That will "cramp up" the upper tier players and create a narrow level gap that will allow a shortened turnover for teams at the top.

Originally posted by william78
You'd have to be fair as well and balance it for Bort's economics.

I'd say

Day 320 - Daily XP stops and only game XP applies{Boosting Allowed}
Day 400 - Game XP Stops{Boosting Allowed}
Day 440 - All XP Stops{Boosting Allowed}

Day 441-480 Gradual Decline{Boosting Allowed}
Day 480-XXX Harsh decline{No Boosting}

That will "cramp up" the upper tier players and create a narrow level gap that will allow a shortened turnover for teams at the top.

day 320 is too early to stop the daily XP - that's still 1000 XP a season (or 1 level) you are dumping

Originally posted by william78
You'd have to be fair as well and balance it for Bort's economics.

I'd say

Day 320 - Daily XP stops and only game XP applies{Boosting Allowed}
Day 400 - Game XP Stops{Boosting Allowed}
Day 440 - All XP Stops{Boosting Allowed}

Day 441-480 Gradual Decline{Boosting Allowed}
Day 480-XXX Harsh decline{No Boosting}

That will "cramp up" the upper tier players and create a narrow level gap that will allow a shortened turnover for teams at the top.

IMO that ruins my first point of lower leveled teams being able to compete with higher leveled teams. Ideally players should grow, eventually hit their prime, then remain there for a few seasons before declining. Boosting kind of ruins that by letting those players keep growing after hitting their prime.

Not only lengthening the plateau we should also end building much faster. Build your player for 7 seasons and play at top level for 5 more then retire.

Would solve a lot of problems and get us much better competition over all.

Originally posted by Sik Wit It
IMO that ruins my first point of lower leveled teams being able to compete with higher leveled teams. Ideally players should grow, eventually hit their prime, then remain there for a few seasons before declining. Boosting kind of ruins that by letting those players keep growing after hitting their prime.

Yeah but no boosting ruins Bort's economy....you have to "see it" from his side too.

My point is knocking out the daily XP reduces the in game level ups from 6 and 5 every other season to 4 and barely 5 then 4....much shorter porch.

Originally posted by william78
Originally posted by Sik Wit It

IMO that ruins my first point of lower leveled teams being able to compete with higher leveled teams. Ideally players should grow, eventually hit their prime, then remain there for a few seasons before declining. Boosting kind of ruins that by letting those players keep growing after hitting their prime.

Yeah but no boosting ruins Bort's economy....you have to "see it" from his side too.

My point is knocking out the daily XP reduces the in game level ups from 6 and 5 every other season to 4 and barely 5 then 4....much shorter porch.

It might be 3 seasons of lost boost cash for him, but it will also be partially offset by the fact that a lot less people will quit his game because they're fed up they're not getting their money's worth.

Edit: Also people will keep their players longer which means they won't get that retirement flex back so soon, which means they'll need more flex to boost their other players anyways.

Simply pushing decline back one season (implementation - freeze all declining players at their current declined spot) would help teams not gut so much, make older players more viable, and lower the retirement rate from season to season...

Though retirement is at a higher rate currently than it will be in the future, because this season, all the S1s were going away. And there were more S1s than S2s.

Bort needs to see it from OUR point of view. We pay anywhere from $33 to $99 for a player to see them compete at the highest level for one season...maybe 2 if we're lucky.

Originally posted by The Wolf
Not only lengthening the plateau we should also end building much faster. Build your player for 7 seasons and play at top level for 5 more then retire.

Would solve a lot of problems and get us much better competition over all.



I agree

+1

Yep. Seems inevitable to me.

The game right now is designed so that nobody cares about minor leagues, which propagates slow building.

I slow build my dots, so that's just the way game is, but I think it's a bit of a ripoff from a consumer standpoint. You can say anything you want about how it's a choice to slow build, but the reason we ALL slow build is because the minor leagues suck. They are boring. Competition is lackluster, and most leagues are non-competitive.

Give a reason to compete in the lower leagues without ruining the future of our careers, and that would be a major boost.

Beyond that, if you give us a reason to actually try to compete in the minor leagues, then you have to make it so competing in the minors doesn't ruin your career in the higher tiers. As it stands, if you do not slow build, your career will peak out in AA, more or less.

We are building, building, building, building, retiring. Nobody actually gets to enjoy their dots at the high tiers. And, I'm sorry to mention $$, but it's rather expensive to put all this money into our dots and then only enjoy their performance for 3 or 4 years.

The BBB leagues used to be fun (believe it or not), but when the system all changed to minor leagues, it became a pointless endeavor.

An extended plateau would be so much more entertaining. An extended, and slower, decline would be so much more interesting.

The current player career model really benefits Bort, and Bort alone. I mean, c'mon, throw us a friggin' bone!

Another alternative I have considered is that Bort should create a TRUE minor league system where players can spend the first 2 or 3 seasons of their careers building, and then their career timeline would not begin until they left the minor leagues. This would allow for a longer peak, while keeping the current decline format. While I don't agree with the steep declines that begin in the second season of decline, I also don't expect Bort to change everything that needs changing all at once (it would be a logistical nightmare, for sure). But we need something. And we need it sooner than later.