- Posts: 368
- Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2016 11:53 am
- Location: Old Town
Sat Apr 11, 2020 7:35 pm
In reviewing STRAT's attempts to address the super reliever situation, and the extreme pitcher advantage, and increasing the price of bargain players, I am reminded of totally unrelated parallel.
Catalina Island, 26 miles off the coast of Long Beach, California,has a large number of unique species of animals. The island began to have a problem with erosion in certain areas, ---the issue was studied and it was determined that the island population of wild boar and goats had grown, and these animals had been eating so much of the ground fauna and bushes, that that caused the erosion.
So they figured that they could solve the problem by removing every single boar and goat from the island. Which they did, and to some degree, the issue of erosion receded.
However, another issue arose in its place. There was one species of animal that lived on the island, whose only natural enemy was the wild boar. In fact, when encountering this animal, a wild boar would stomp it to death.
So a year or so after they removed all the wild boars and goats, the rattlesnake population on the island started to increase significantly, to the point where it became a serious problem.
So by fixing one problem, another perhaps more serious problem arose....
Whenever one designs a game, particularly a game that involves strategy, there will always be players that figure out how to "game the game" and gain an advantage on how to best use certain resources of the game. And then what often happens, is that other owners complain, and the game creators then try to redesign certain aspects of the game to minimize these "loopholes".
As some of you have already noticed, this has had some perhaps unintended results, i.e. rattlesnakes in the grass. Perhaps rather than by reprogramming how the game engine/reliever functions/Extreme players function, perhaps the simplest method would be to increase the salaries of those players in the game that are used for the super reliever strategy and for to the advantage of the extreme balanced players.
That would be so much simpler, that would mean if you want Sutter, sure you can have him, but based on what his value can be, it is going to cost you an arm and a leg. Same with some of the extreme players that are often used to great advantage.
One simple change they did make, that I do applaud, is the requirement of a minimum of 5 relief only relievers. That simple change was definitely needed/
Which leads to my last thought. There are a large number of players in the database that are simply not used or almost never used. Which says to me, that their salary is too high based on the value that they bring to the party. If those salaries for those players are reduced based on their value/use, and the price of the high value/always used players goes up, I think there would be a far greater use of more of the players.
I could be wrong. But I do sense that trying to address the issue by making programming changes, may have some other undesired and unanticipated consequences, when perhaps the situation could be addressed much easier just by changing some of the salary parameters.
Catalina Island, 26 miles off the coast of Long Beach, California,has a large number of unique species of animals. The island began to have a problem with erosion in certain areas, ---the issue was studied and it was determined that the island population of wild boar and goats had grown, and these animals had been eating so much of the ground fauna and bushes, that that caused the erosion.
So they figured that they could solve the problem by removing every single boar and goat from the island. Which they did, and to some degree, the issue of erosion receded.
However, another issue arose in its place. There was one species of animal that lived on the island, whose only natural enemy was the wild boar. In fact, when encountering this animal, a wild boar would stomp it to death.
So a year or so after they removed all the wild boars and goats, the rattlesnake population on the island started to increase significantly, to the point where it became a serious problem.
So by fixing one problem, another perhaps more serious problem arose....
Whenever one designs a game, particularly a game that involves strategy, there will always be players that figure out how to "game the game" and gain an advantage on how to best use certain resources of the game. And then what often happens, is that other owners complain, and the game creators then try to redesign certain aspects of the game to minimize these "loopholes".
As some of you have already noticed, this has had some perhaps unintended results, i.e. rattlesnakes in the grass. Perhaps rather than by reprogramming how the game engine/reliever functions/Extreme players function, perhaps the simplest method would be to increase the salaries of those players in the game that are used for the super reliever strategy and for to the advantage of the extreme balanced players.
That would be so much simpler, that would mean if you want Sutter, sure you can have him, but based on what his value can be, it is going to cost you an arm and a leg. Same with some of the extreme players that are often used to great advantage.
One simple change they did make, that I do applaud, is the requirement of a minimum of 5 relief only relievers. That simple change was definitely needed/
Which leads to my last thought. There are a large number of players in the database that are simply not used or almost never used. Which says to me, that their salary is too high based on the value that they bring to the party. If those salaries for those players are reduced based on their value/use, and the price of the high value/always used players goes up, I think there would be a far greater use of more of the players.
I could be wrong. But I do sense that trying to address the issue by making programming changes, may have some other undesired and unanticipated consequences, when perhaps the situation could be addressed much easier just by changing some of the salary parameters.