Talent Issues 2022

[rockybull]

Alright, well maybe I can help here.

Part of what is causing the problem between DJ and Rocky is that we aren't all being totally honest here. DJ - you aren't just looking to deflate talent. At least it isn't that simple. If it was, lowering the minor league talent rating would effectively help with that. In all honesty, it's probably a better method. Instead, you want to lower the talent while at the same time promoting parity. What Rocky is reacting to is the idea that CURRENT talent is going to again be punished in order to accomplish this. Meaning that teams like his are going to suffer worse than others for no other reason than his success. (Please correct me if I'm wrong Rocky)

The problem is - talent is relevant. If every player in the file as a 90, it doesn't mean they're all the same. I guarantee you I could form a team full of 70s and 80s right now and beat just about any team in the league. This black and white view that "too many 80s and 90s = bad" just doesn't make any sense to me. I'd take Adam Smith (an 82) over half the 90s in the file. The problem is, when the file decides to punish 90 players down, it does it in a way that punishes just as many legit, great 90s players as it does the ones that are inflated piles of crap. And if we keep trying to slaughter the 90s players in this fashion we're going to crush the fun of playing in a league when you often get 3-4 year career paths.

As it stands right now, we're going to continue the disproportionate push to have rookies excel which, by definition in Mogul, is going to crush veterans. You want to talk about a lack of realism? Our current prospect development is wildly unrealistic.

Frankly - I like where the talent levels are and even if they needed to go down I would wait at least a few seasons before I reacted to any changes made. And, in the future, we need to be honest that we're looking to kill talent and promote parity - which is not the same as promoting realism. Deepening the effects of what we've already done is going to further reduce realism.

First off, good reply to this. I honestly just feel that this is being done needlessly and told DJ a few hours ago on the shoutbox that who cares if there are a bunch of 90's players at these positions, not all are all that great. You have to look at the vitals, and the vitals is the key thing in mogul. I told him I thought he was overreacting cause he is putting too much stock into overalls and not the vitals. He told me that I was flat out wrong, so whatever.

I also feel like every few mogul years he will bring this up trying to perfect the system(it isn't realistically possible) and that if he doesn't get enough volunteers that he is probably going to want to panic and do something. I personally think DJ is his own worse enemy right now with this. If he wants to hurt good teams with more parity with this, then fine. But, at least go in and knock down farm systems from 93 to 85, otherwise I think he is just pissing in the wind with his whole idea.

I pretty much agree spot on with what you said Andy, I'm in agreement, I think the file is damn good right now honestly.

[dejota]

I can't believe I have to publicly state that I understand the difference between vitals and overall and, furthermore, it's assumed I'm completely disregarding it...What do I have to do to get some credit around here?

I've navigated two major changes to the file 10 seasons apart without ruining it. And since Rocky can't get over all these moves I haven't even made yet I will reassure everyone (for the 14th season in a row) I won't do anything I feel the majority of the league doesn't support. Particularly when it comes to file changes there's never going to be a rash decision on my part. I can't promise 100% accuracy, I'm not perfect but this presumption that I'm being overzealous and steering us into a proverbial iceberg stops now because my intentions are completely in line with Sean's statements.

[AndyP]

Then why not slightly lower prospect development rather than cull more veteran talent?

[Cdawg]

I agree w/ the lowering of the draft/prospect development. I still feel like I'm in rebuild mode(or again will have to partake in it in a few seasons) and would rather get it out of the way than to continue to throw away players.

Also what happened to lowering FA's w/ 80+ Overalls who sit in FA all season long? While 3 isn't a major deal. it might have saved some other vet who was actually on a team from being killed off. IDK I'm just going w/ the flow.

[dejota]

The goal of lowering talent caps is to help rebuilding teams if we just try to water down talent by stunting prospect growth we'd be making it more difficult on them. We'd also impact all 30 teams randomly since we won't be able to choose which prospects the game turns into a dud. I also don't fully understand how that would play out. Would the sliders just cap predicted peak stats or would the killing occur during development? I don't know but it seems riskier to me and it would actually hurt rebuilding teams since future prospects will have crappy vitals.

OTOH, lowering talent caps with volunteers/excess FAs we don't impact anybody unwillingly, it's proven to not wreak havoc on the file and will actually help rebuilding teams since they don't have to acquire as much talent to be relevant and the game will have fewer vitals (indirectly admittedly) to distribute it's finite number of stats to.

[GoIrish]

as a rebuilding team, I am fine if it is lowered. Does not matter to me, I am in a long rebuild project anyways.

[rockybull]

Even when I was rebuilding I was fine with the farm system lowered, because I know full well that if you actually spend some time to actually draft you can develop good spects with 85 farm. Right now, you can draft hard all you want, but some guys in the 4th round are going to be better than some 1st rounders. Why? well some of it is a crapshoot honestly. Honestly(I could be big time wrong), but I believe that if you lower farm system to 85, it will actually make you have to pay attention and actually draft. You will still get some 4th rounders outplaying some 1st rounders, but I don't believe it will be as big as it is now. Again, I could be dead wrong on this, this is just my thoughts on this part. If I am proven wrong, I will admit that I was wrong.

DJ, you even admitted yourself that you don't fully know how it will impact everything if you lower farm system. Hell, I think it would help a lot, but you don't know if it will or won't, that is why you don't want to do it. I think you need to do some tests or something, just because you don't know if it will do right or not, isn't a reason to not have an open mind about it. You completely dismiss knocking farm systems down, and you have always dismissed it, not just this year.

[dejota]

FACT: The only way to cap talent is with talent caps. If there were other means to control talent Clay wouldn't have programmed this function.

It's designed to be the constant that allows other features to be variables (which allows for ebbs and flows of talent/prospects/HOFers/etc. within the boundaries that is the talent caps). Without this constant the variables produce an ever expanding talent pool that's why when we needed to expand talent early in FCM history we had to increase talent caps after adjusting peak end/start/longevity (the variables) didn't work.

If you think knocking farm will accomplish this you're trying to debate a fact. I'm not trying to be a jerk or pretentious this is how the coding of the game works.

[AndyP]

To be frank though DJ, you haven't always had the best grasp on the effects of the talent levels in the past either. You were basically unaware that talent caps would cause every developing rookie to kill a veteran.

At this point - what do you plan to adjust? You're trying to hide behind two shields when it is convenient - parity on one hand and realism on the other, but unfortunately, Mogul has pitted these two things against each other. You can't have both and you continue to deflect legitimate arguments by picking and choosing which of these shields you want to hide behind.

When it comes down to it, I would rather sacrifice NFL-style parity for something more realistic in terms of career paths. I'd certainly be strongly in favor of slowing down our prospect development trends. What people are asking for is a combination - if we are going to cap talent than we need to start reducing the veteran killing tendencies. In other words, reducing talent may be more acceptable with people if it is coupled with another adjustment that will help prevent these 250+ day injuries that the game is using to kill our veteran players.

So all that said - just how much deeper do you plan to cut talent? Just what is your vision here? Part of the reason you're having such a strong backlash is it sounds like you're trying to shove medicine in our mouths because you know better than we do. Some actual discussion of the pros and cons would be nice.

[dejota]

We're debating how the game processes data, this isn't a debatable topic it's just fact. You both are trying to have two conversations as if they're one topic. Talent caps and career paths cannot be addressed together. Both means of adjustment have completely separate outcomes and one isn't something I've done before. I think it's unfair that I'm being accused of being overzealous and rushing in blind on one hand while being persuaded to fix the problem with means I fully admit I don't grasp (and neither do you guys for that matter, at least any more than me). And then being told doing so is a bad thing. One solution has been done successfully, one has not. One accomplishes lowering total talent, one does not. But if FCM doesn't agree that's fine, but adjusting career paths when most everyone agrees it's solid doesn't make sense to me. Especially in the context of cumulative talent. Like I said from page 1 that's a completely different debate IMO and mixing the two results in this.

Either way consider it dropped it's not worth opening pandora's box to strive for realism at this point.