Winterball Changes

[rockybull]

I want to propose a change to maybe improve this file. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, i didn’t want to say anything, but I’m going to just say it now, because I believe it needs to be said. I think winterball in this league is ridiculous the way it is, and I’m not the only one that believes this. When I first joined here, I didn’t think anything about winterball, I just assumed it was similar to other leagues that have had it, but I have to say, it’s much more extreme in this league than any other that I have ever played in and I think it has messed with the file way more than it should.

First off, winterball just manipulates the file anyway; if someone jumps big 6-8 points in winterball here, guess what? You guessed it; someone else in the file is going to unfairly have to shit the bed just because some lucky player got a great roll in winterball. Even if it’s 3-4 points or whatever, same shit. This messes up peaked and unpeaked players, when it shouldn't. Also, I’ve noticed some teams over the years seems to be getting better rolls, which is fine, it’s all luck, but some of this is substantial, and it’s better to let the file give you lucky jumps or whatever than silly winterball rolls.

I realize for this league, that winterball is probably, unfortunately, here to stay because of the cash situation, and that’s a good way to get rid of cash. I will say this, of the legit mogul leagues out there, this is the only one still using winterball, which I think is outdated and to me really shouldn’t be used. But since it’s likely here to stay, I think it should be tweaked a good bit. Seems like over the years a lot of drops I’ve noticed, just overall in the league, and I think a lot of them have to do with winterball. Obviously, you will have drops from players anyway, that’s mogul, but here it seems bigger that I’ve seen in the past and it sometimes doesn’t feel like mogul to me, I’m not sure if it’s just me or what, but that’s honestly how I feel.

Last league that I was in that used winterball, was outahere, they were more conservative on jumps and throughout the years, I didn’t feel that the specs or mlb guys were just gonna take hits bad, and that was thanks to the winterball they used. Here is what outahere used:

Skill program outcomes
300 day injury..............1% (1)
100 day injury..............3% (2-4)
30 day injury...............8% (5-12)
No change..................30% (13-42)
+1 peak....................25% (43-67)
+2 peak....................25% (68-93)
+2 health, +2 peak..........8% (93-100)

If you notice, they didn’t use predicted like we do here, and I believe that is a major reason why it messes up the file here, and this is what we use here in FCM:

1-4: 250 day injury
5-10: 50 day injury
11-45: No change
46-140: +1 predicted
141-175: +1 predicted, +1 peak
176-185: +2 predicted, +1 peak
186-195: +2 predicted, +2 peak
196-200: +3 predicted, +2 peak

To me, the predicted is just too big of a thing here. I’ve been in many different leagues in my time in mogul and this file just feels weird and different to me, I’ve felt this way for awhile, but I can’t keep quite anymore. I’m sure most will likely just write this off and not care, but I feel this is a problem and I feel using outahere’s way would be better for the file, no using predicted, go with the peak. I also think going from 1-100 is better than 1-200. I think if we get rid of using predicted, and go with 1-100 scale that this file will start acting normal and not be manipulated because of the insane winterball that is making mogul have to fix things on its own, which I think is a problem. It’s less of a problem if we do like I propose.

Overall, I feel changing this can really be the next step for this league, and can improve this file even more. This is no knee-jerk reaction; I’ve been looking at this file for awhile, and I firmly believe that winterball is more of a problem here than people may want to admit or understand. To me it doesn’t feel like mogul sometimes, not really sure how to explain it more, maybe most think it’s fine, but to me it’s not fine at all and I do believe it is a problem.

[warpriest]

I like these proposals especially shrinking the result range in half. Also, if there is an overuse or overemphasis on predicteds, mogul seems to have to compensate for that making for wild fluctuations in overall/peak which does not seem realistic at times.

[Vertigo]

The more I play Mogul, the more I dislike any kind of player editing beyond personal information. Anything that lessens that is a step in the right direction in my book.

[Atlbravesfan27]

I'm in favor of doing away with winter ball for these reasons. It can taint the natural progressions of other players. I know it's here to help rid some of the cash in this league but there have got to be other ways to spend cash. Even if it's for petty things like nick names or stadium names or stadium improvements or whatever. There has got to be a way

[mike]

To be fair to WB it doesn't quite work exactly like you say it does Rocky. Not every jump is going to mean a drop somewhere else. It only means a drop somewhere else if they start crossing the talent distribution thresholds. So unless a spec goes from in the 80's to in the 90's from their WB then nothing happens to the file on that level anyway. That being said I've always hated any type of tinkering with the file especially with predicted stats as mogul can sometimes be wonky with them anyway hence the sanity check button before you start new games. On top of that in case a spec does pass a threshold or even if they don't there is a good chance because of their WB they will in time so whether directly or indirectly it's going to happen. As far as the money issue I really don't think it would have any effect. Other things will now just become more expensive. You want a 6th round pick? Well maybe now instead of anywhere from 2-5mil for it you may pay 10mil or guys in FA just get bigger contracts. I highly doubt we'd start seeing stockpiles because they hurt your money making ability once you have gathered to much unless your earmarking for stadium upgrades. For those reasons I would be more than happy to see WB go.

['PR']

I am in favor of getting rid of WB all together. I feel letting the file control it's own fate is the best way to have authentic and fair results. WB use to be great for the league, but we are at a point where the elastic clause of the league needs to come into play. We can set minimums on cash for pick deals, or even pay like 10M or 20M and have a limit of 3 players they would like to boost health wise annually. We can come up with something better than destroying the talent pool with WB.

[rockybull]

To be fair to WB it doesn't quite work exactly like you say it does Rocky. Not every jump is going to mean a drop somewhere else. It only means a drop somewhere else if they start crossing the talent distribution thresholds. So unless a spec goes from in the 80's to in the 90's from their WB then nothing happens to the file on that level anyway. That being said I've always hated any type of tinkering with the file especially with predicted stats as mogul can sometimes be wonky with them anyway hence the sanity check button before you start new games. On top of that in case a spec does pass a threshold or even if they don't there is a good chance because of their WB they will in time so whether directly or indirectly it's going to happen. As far as the money issue I really don't think it would have any effect. Other things will now just become more expensive. You want a 6th round pick? Well maybe now instead of anywhere from 2-5mil for it you may pay 10mil or guys in FA just get bigger contracts. I highly doubt we'd start seeing stockpiles because they hurt your money making ability once you have gathered to much unless your earmarking for stadium upgrades. For those reasons I would be more than happy to see WB go.

i don't want to get into a big argument about this cause i think overall we agree about winterball. but, while some jumps at that moment may not cause guys to fall right away, those boosts could help those players get good, get better and end up causing others to just randomly drop. and yes, if a player has 84 peak, gets a 7 point peak jump, he's 91 peak, bam, gonna knock someone else down some because of this, could even knock other players down cause of this, maybe they recover, maybe not, never know with mogul.

there are likely things about mogul distribution that we'll never fully understand, especially when you play with it like that, winterball manipulates the file, which can cause all kinds of stupid shit. even things you or I cannot understand. i believe messing with the predicted is causing more problems than you understand, or anyone for that matter, and i'll firmly stand by this.

that's all i want to say on that, we agree overall about winterball, we'll leave it at that.

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I am in favor of getting rid of WB all together. I feel letting the file control it's own fate is the best way to have authentic and fair results. WB use to be great for the league, but we are at a point where the elastic clause of the league needs to come into play. We can set minimums on cash for pick deals, or even pay like 10M or 20M and have a limit of 3 players they would like to boost health wise annually. We can come up with something better than destroying the talent pool with WB.

outahere also used a health program in winterball too:

Health program outcomes
+2 health..................30% (1-30)
+4 health..................35% (31-65)
+5 health..................20% (66-85)
+5 health, +1 peak.........10% (86-95)
+6 health, +1 peak..........5% (96-100)


there could be tweaks to it where you get rid of the peak increase and not add as much health.

again, i'd love to completely get rid of winterball, but not sure if the league wants to do that, so that's why i brought up what i did, which absolutely would improve the league file. the health program would def be best way to go if winterball is here to stay, cause you're not improving predicted or peak, just editing health, which isn't near as bad.

hopefully, this at least gets the league talking and we can move on and find out the best course of action for this league going forward. currently, what it is here, i do not like at all.

[JRWorcester]

Im all for getting rid of Winterball I find ways of getting rid of money. Everyone else can too. I wonder if this is a reason why some of my players have fallen off so badly.

[mike]

If WB did stay around I wouldn't want a health program. Health is heavily tied to overall and would prolly cause more jumps than WB does currently.

[rockybull]

If WB did stay around I wouldn't want a health program. Health is heavily tied to overall and would prolly cause more jumps than WB does currently.

i don't know if i would agree with that. i don't think it would generate more jumps, i've never heard that before and in outahere i never noticed that with my players or any others. health can be a bit random anyway. i've seen some guys with 68 health sometimes stay healthier than guys with 81 health or so. i could be wrong about the health and you could be right, if so that's fine.

but what i've noticed so far in this thread, most of us don't want winterball around anymore (i'm honestly surprised, but happily surprised) but even if it's kept, i'm hoping it's backed way down like i posted originally at the very least. if so i think it's a great thing for this league going forward, but even better if it's completely gotten rid of.