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Subject: POLL: Schedule Density and Game Strategy
Posted by: The Bandwagon
- Donor [479521116] Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 15:08
This was a title of one of the messages posted by a administrator on the TSN boards.
It looks like the guys at TSN are looking for ways to change/improve the game. I sent them a idea that I brought up here 5 or so years ago.
Lower the prices of the lower tier players
No one is going to pay 3.5 million dollars + for players like Primoz Brezec, Rashual Butler, Trenton Hassell, PJ Brown, Juwuan Howard, Deshawn Stevenson, Tyron Lue, Jared Jefferies, Derek Anderson, Brian Skinner and list goes on for miles. I doubt many of these players would be picked up if they were listed at 1 million.
When you price your low tier guys this high, it makes those guys a no brainer to stay away from, and makes the 3 or 4 clear cut bargains stand out even more, thus most managers snag up the obvious bargains.
I know you guys try to keep the SNP/pts/per million around the same for every player, but this system doesn't work for the lower tier INCONSISTENT players that make up 70% of the player pool.
My idea is, increase the prices on the top tier players (Top 10-20), and lower prices on the lower tier players allowing managers to have more options to build a team. (Mangers will pay the higher prices for the stars, but not high prices for the lower tier duds.)
I think the reason new managers don't come back to TSN is because of how difficult it is to build an intial roster.
Everyone is always looking for a bargain in life, same applys for this game. I think managers would stay interested, and competitive longer if there were more bargain players to be had and found.
Anyone else have any idea's? Its obvious TSN is looking for some. |
| 1 | ole
ID: 47952614
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 16:07
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I agree 100%
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| 3 | Dave R
SuperDude
ID: 3010361110
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 16:57
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Hey Bandwagon. How's things?
I don't know, when I first looked at prices I was a bit shocked and thought it would be impossible to field a decent team.
But as things have evolved, I think there are enough viable options below the 2-3 Million range to build a team from. As well as some mid priced options.
I quickly threw a roster together the other evening, by all means none the finished product that consisted of:
3 players < 2 million
2 players between 2-4 million
3 players between 4-7 million
2 players > 8 million
And still have 6 million left over. All have good schedules.
Seems like every year we complain about the prices and somehow the Bynums, A. Parkers, Pattersons, Collisons, and others of the TSN universe emerge. I sense this year will be no different.
My email is above, haven't heard from you in a while.
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| 4 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 17:14
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Over the years, I've suggested such a pricing approach to TSN (and Smallworld, before that) on multiple occasions, for multiple sports:
Price the studs at a premium, and price the lower to mid-level players at a more attractive TSNP/$ ratio.
Some years ago, they actually did this. But as regimes have changed at TSN, I think they tend to lose the institutional memory and resort to overly simplistic approaches. In any event, they seldom solicit my input anymore. So I stopped pushing the concept. (I'm not bitter - just realistic.)
In the past, when they've intentionally resisted this approach, it was under the presumption that most of their managers wanted to be able to afford the marquis players, so they didn't want to price those players out of range for opening day rosters.
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| 5 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 17:14
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BTW, what does "Schedule Density" have to do with this thread?
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| 7 | The Bandwagon
Donor
ID: 479521116
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 17:45
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"BTW, what does "Schedule Density" have to do with this thread?"
That was the title of the thread posted by a TSN employee at the TSN message board.
Dave R, things are great here. Yea I found a roster pretty easily, I'm not complaining about that. My point is, most of the top managers will find the handful of bargains. If they lowered prices of the lower tier players, there would be more bargains, and increase the chances that we the managers would choose different bargain players instead of the same 2 or 3.
Juan Dixon, Bernard Robinson, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Luke Jackson at 5 million? Thats insane! The list goes on..... Players priced like that are totally eliminated from the game.
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| 8 | weykool@work
ID: 2842717
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 17:58
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For those of you who have not seen it this was the post by a TSN EE under the schedule density heading posted at TSN:
A big piece of the strategy for Salary Cap Hoops is managing your roster and trades in a way that lets you get the most games out of every position...
I'd like to get your opinion... What if we were to institute position caps... No more than 81 games per active position? It's a radical change in game strategy, for certain. Would you see it as positive or negative?
PLEASE NOTE: This is only theoretical, and would not possibly be implemented before the 2008-09 season if we were to do it at all.
Thanks in advance for your feedback
David Berger
GM, Fantasy Sports
SportingNews
In my opinion this is a very bad idea unless they are going to give us unlimited trades.
Limiting tades and games seems like a not so fun game anymore.
All I can say is they are very serious about making this change for next year....as in it is almost a done deal.
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| 9 | rockafellerskank
Dude
ID: 27652109
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 18:08
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I've always thought "accelerated gravity" would be better. Is gravity still $30K/day?
Let's start gravity at $30K and after X (7-10?)days of gravity, a player would go to "accelerated gravity" where he would lose x (%5)% of his price per day. Eventually he will bottom out at $500k if he is truly worthless or get picked up when his price is reasonable. By 25 - 30 days into the season, prices should be at respectable levels.
Let's say Charles Barkley cost 5,000,000 and is only putting up 10-12 TSPNs. No one owns him. he is at 4850000 and the end of 1 week. under the current system he will never get to around $1m (assume that is the cost he would attract buys). Under the "accelerated gravity proposal (- 5% per day faster 7 days pf $30k falls), he would hit $1M at days 37 or 38.
Of course, the downside is you can't afford to own a gravity player until he gets out of accelerated gravity cause the price hits will kill ya. Maybe the requirements to get out of accelerated gravity are easier than to escape regular gravity. Or maybe a player can only enter accelerated gravity 1x per year?
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| 10 | weykool@work
ID: 2842717
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 18:12
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Hey Rock:
Are you still in that keeper league on the yahoo site?
Those guys are pretty full of themselves.
I hope you kick their azz and make them finish bottom 3.
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| 11 | Soulman
Donor
ID: 016105313
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 18:45
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#8
Limiting games is a very bad idea indeed. I think they should leave the core game mechanics unchanged, at least concerning trades and scheduled/available games. These features make the game what it is and it has worked out for years. If they're absoulutely set on shaking things up they should focus their efforts on the follwing two aspects (which in their current form are half-baked to say the least):
1) Positional eligibility. It's completely ridiculous that players who constantly sub in as C are only F eligible because they won't ever amass 5 starts). For God's sake, if players do play the Center position, give them C eligibility! I sometimes am baffled that at TSN nobody wonders why there are NBA teams with only one C eligible player in a 17-man roster (see Cleveland). Yeah right...
2) Pricing model. Do away with gravity. Instead, do not let a player's price be determined by the percentages of sells/buys for this specific day but instead by the percentage of owners to total teams (e.g. 100% owned > $20m, 0% owned > 100k). Haven't thought about all implications of such a pricing model, but at first glance it could work as starting point for a fair and transparent system that promotes roster diversity. Which indeed would be a great improvement as sometimes it is a bit dull that there are only 20-25 players you conceivably can pick up without losing ground on the top managers.
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| 12 | qwert
Donor
ID: 2910242819
Fri, Oct 26, 2007, 20:05
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I think I'm ok with the current gravity system. There is nothing worse than not being able to make a differentiation pick because of money losses. I think the current system is such that players prices adjust accordingly, but you can still own a player in gravity, if you think doing so is worthwhile.
I definitely don't like the game cap suggestion. This game turns on schedule hopping.
These suggestions worry me. I'm glad they are trying to make improvements, but it sounds like they might end up compromising the game.
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| 13 | davepyro
ID: 22742121
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 00:57
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In my opinion to implement a position cap would be a major disaster. I also agree with lowering the low level salaries. It is absolutely rediculous to see the salaries of some players vs their stats. It stinks!!
I used to be able to sign up 10 or 12 friends to play TSN hoops. Now I cannot get a single one of them to play. The salary changes are too severe and they do not want to have to maintain every day of every week for fear to loose salary.
I am somewhat disenchanted myself and wish someone could recommend another place to play NBA fantasy basketball.
BANDLEADER, Thanks for telling them what we think!!!
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| 14 | Senator Urine
ID: 141130310
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 01:34
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I'm strongly opposed to the position cap also. It would just change the game entirely, and I don't think the number-of-people-playing problem is due to the game. It's probably partly due to the pricing. Newcomers would probably want to draft ten players that they actually know. Most of us are pretty obsessed with this game and devote a lot of time to it, so we're more aware of some of the lesser known names than the casual fan is. After last year I know I've personally used "Oberto" as a noun, verb, and adjective.
I'm actually happy with the current pricing system. A few non-factors are poorly priced as previously mentioned, but overall there seem to be a lot of cheap options that could either be great or be busts, which while frustrating is in reality the fun of the game. Poker wouldn't be nearly as fun if you knew you were always going to be dealt Aces. It would get old.
And who knows, remember Diaw's pricing a few years back? Maybe Luke Jackson will average 35 next season.
Also, I strongly agree with Soulman's #1 about the position eligibility. The current system is pretty arbitrary, and some backups who are clearly playing center for example will never gain that eligibility barring a string of injuries.
The accelerated gravity is a very interesting concept. Sometimes it does seem that something needs to be done about the gravity system, for the purpose of diversifying rosters.
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| 15 | Blooki
Sustainer
ID: 449292712
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 03:48
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I always love how Shaq's IPO is consistently overpriced. In my head I see TSN folk sitting around postulating how out of whack the game would be if Shaq suddenly shot 80% from the line in the upcoming season so the panic and add a couple of million to his price tag.
OK, that added nothing to the discussion.
I agree with Dave R in post #2 wholeheartedly. Prices are fine. I'm actually overwhelmed with how many permutations of attractive rosters I am able to slap together right now. TSN could do a better job, but I do feel like any extra effort would net very little correction in the pricing system. Cheapies have always been and will always be flames for the moths that are TSN managers. So let's say they do drop the prices for the Juan Dixon's and Luke Jackson's of the league. Let me ask you this, did anybody think Theo Ratliff was going to contribute ANYTHING this season? Now maybe he will and maybe he won't, but I think if TSN rigorously combed through the league trying their best to price every player, several clear value picks would eventually emerge for reasons entirely out of their control. So I fully grant and agree that TSN is quite lazy in a lot of aspects of their player pricing even to the extent that we do have legitimate grounds to give them feedback requesting that they try harder, but I feel we are overestimating how much 'better' the game would be if say one of us priced these players. I just feel that clear value players is intrinsic to the game due to factors entirely out of control of anybody within the fantasy sports realm. Frankly, I think that's part of what we all love so much about fantasy sports too.
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| 16 | deejay
Donor
ID: 501182710
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 05:22
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They didnt really get positive reactions to it(position caps), so I dont think they will do that next year.
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| 17 | Soulman
Donor
ID: 016105313
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 06:35
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deejay, what about telling them that if they introduce a positional cap, it looks like half the Gurupie community would stop playing? Just to make sure they don't do anything like this. ;) I'd post it myself, but your voice on the TSN boards is infinitely stronger than mine, so I think it could be useful if you gave Gurupie feedback.
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| 18 | deejay
Donor
ID: 501182710
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 06:47
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sure, but its 41 to 3 for a big fat NO.
that speaks for itself I think. everyone can still go and vote too.
VOTE: NO
Thank you :)
DJ
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| 19 | Soulman
Donor
ID: 016105313
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 06:53
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Ah OK, I hadn't checked what the actual vote status on the TSN boards is. I'll hop over there and make it 42 to 3... :)
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| 20 | deejay
Donor
ID: 501182710
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 07:00
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Soulman,
dropped an email on the guy who posted the idea.
Will keep you informed.
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| 21 | Dave R
SuperDude
ID: 3010361110
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 08:45
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There is no way a positional cap would work in this game. It would change it completely. Isn't the object of the game to maximize games ? Limiting it would bring a totally different dynamic and limit trading activity.
If one could afford to put, say Nash , in at a G position, why ever trade him until he played in the 81 games, or whatever. The market concept of the game is what makes it unique.
Not sure about the position eligibilty as proposed by Soulman, Right now, we have a system, 5 starts gives eligibilty. Who is supposed to monitor that substitution patterns?
Say the Suns start, Nash, Bell, Hill, Marion, and Amare. Amare gets in foul trouble, the Suns want to go small and Barbosa subs in. Who is the C, Barbosa, since he subbed in for Amare, Marion, since he is now guarding, say Krstic, on the Nets?
Or maybe they just don't have a C. Far to complicated to monitor IMO. Basketball is so much different than other sports because the position system can vary so.
I hope that made sense ;
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| 22 | Soulman
Donor
ID: 016105313
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 09:40
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I agree that monitoring substitution patterns is far too difficult so my suggestion wasn't really to determine position eligibility by that. My idea was rather to give all the bigs who from time to time are their team's Center on the court, the corresponding eligibility. Think guys like Horford, Varejao, Milicic etc.
And if teams like the Warriors or the Suns don't really have Center, then I'm fine with giving Marion C eligibility. Otherwise the real game would only be correctly reflected in UH if we were allowed to have an Golden State style roster, i.e. eight guards and two forwards.
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| 23 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 10:29
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Let me throw in a dissenting opinion on position caps.
Frankly, I'm a bit surprised at the strong reactions against a position cap format.
The TSN game didn't used to be schedule driven - although that's been the dominant competitive issue for the last 7-8 years. When I won it in 1997-98, we had only 50 trades for the whole year, and the focus was solely on growing value, with schedule issues a distant priority, since there weren't enough trades to effectively hop from player to player based on schedule.
While I think the extra trade allowances are a good thing (since that's the one (and only) thing that a manager can do!) - I do think that schedule issues tend to drive trading flows too much. If there were position caps for each of G, F, C (say 82 games per slot), it would reduce the need to focus so heavily on schedule, and introduce new strategies. For example, maybe you would try to reduce game exposure in the early months when your roster value is less lofty, and then focus more on schedule in the second half, when you can afford better players. Maybe you even opt to own one or two inactive players (at a minimum 500K) at times in order to be able to afford better players in the other slots.
Frankly, I find the need to continually chase hot schedules a bit tedious. Introducing some other elements into the strategic arsenal would be a good thing, IMHO.
That said, I've had a lot of success with the current model. But I have no doubt that I could succeed with a position cap model. And I'd welcome the variety.
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| 24 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 10:33
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Another advantage of a position cap format would be greater roster differentiation. In the current model, we all tend to gravitate to the players with the densest schedules. With position caps, that would probably not be the case.
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| 25 | The Bandwagon
Donor
ID: 479521116
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 14:01
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If we wanted to play with position caps and score it like TSN, we could do that on yahoo.
I love playing the yahoo fantasy games, but I play TSN because its different from yahoo and all others.
Keep it unique TSN, just adjust some features to be more casual fan friendly.
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| 26 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 14:18
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That's absurd. You can't play the market-based approach on Yahoo. You can't play salary cap structure on Yahoo. You can't play the "everyone can own the same players" approach on Yahoo.
Adding position caps doesn't make the game the same as Yahoo. Not by a long shot.
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| 27 | The Bandwagon
Donor
ID: 479521116
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 15:15
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I understand Guru, I was only talking about the postion cap and scoring part of the game. I know yahoo isn't market based etc. etc. I think most people that play TSN, play it because it is totally different from all the other models. That was the point I was trying to make.
If TSN wants to limit trading based on schedule, they need to look into what you were talking about, and issue you a X number of trades at the beginning.
I think postion caps is a horrible idea for this model, although it would introduce new strategies to the game as you stated earlier.
I think TSN is trying to reach out to the casual fan. I don't think a casual fan would be more inclined to play with postion caps if he had a couple of 500K players sitting on his bench for a month not playing. Too much strategy for the casual fan as it is now.
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| 28 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 15:43
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Actually, as I think about this a little more, I think there is a serious flaw with a position cap system - and I almost got there in some of my ramblings in [post 23].
Suppose that, through active trading and schedule maximization, you could average about 5 GP every 8 days. That might be aggressive, but it might be doable.
I think the point-maximizing strategy would be to put one non-playing $500K player in a guard slot, and another in a forward slot. That leaves $49m available to fill the other 8 slots. By maximizing stud GPs in those other 8 slots, you could come pretty close to 328 GP (4x82) using just 3 active slots for each of guards and forwards. You would need to fill in a few extra games in those last slots, which could be done later in the season when you have more funds to work with and the 2 non-playing placeholders are no longer needed.
So, not only would schedule maximization still be the dominant need, but lower priced players would be rendered virtually irrelevant, except to the extent they could be vehicles to generate gains - because some managers simply won't figure out this strategy, and will continue to pursue cheapies.
I guess this could be cured by setting a GP max that's higher than 82 per slot. But as you do that, you essentially end up with the current game. Or you could reduce the number of trades available, making it more difficult to maximize games through trading. But I don't think that's an appealing option.
Maybe there's still a viable way to do this. But the simple approach has some drawbacks that probably make it less viable than the status quo.
With that in mind, I withdraw my preliminary support.
Carry on...
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| 29 | The Bandwagon
Donor
ID: 479521116
Sat, Oct 27, 2007, 15:48
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I think it all boils down to TSN wants more people to play, and they want to decrease trading based on schedule.
1. X amount of trades at the beginning of the season to reduce trading based on schedule
2. Lower prices on mid-low tier players to increase the player pool for the casual fan to choose from day 1.
3. Accelerated gravity is interesting, experiment with that.
None of the above breaks the spirit of the current game that much. Try it for a season or two, see how it works. If that doesn't work, then maybe take the more drastic steps of implementing a position cap.
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