This Has My Attention: New Questions

Again, this is where my ability to communicate must breaking down. I’m not saying anybody is lying about anything. I’m seeing patterns repeat and I’m reporting those patterns. I’m wondering if other people are seeing the same things I’m seeing. Some are. Others are not. I can accept it’s maybe just me seeing patterns where there really aren’t any. This entire game is predicated on that search, however, so right or wrong I am always looking.

If Strat doesn’t want to discuss the details of the game play, for whatever reason, that’s their decision. They don’t owe me an explanation of anything. But I am a customer and I do have some questions.

Having said that, I’m winning rings at the same rate I’ve always won, more or less I think. I posted a 106 win team in there somewhere. There are no sour grapes here, or damaged ego. I guess what I’m doing is posing to myself a philosophical question. Would I continue to play if I knew for a fact that as a result of my skill level I was being asked to share some wins with the field? Because, at this time, it appears to me that that is what I’m being asked to do.

Most times a few wins have no bearing on my current standings. But sometimes they do.

I suspect if your suspicion is true, then the starters get a boost against the better teams but since in my experience usually the better players make the playoffs anyway, then you are playing more established players with less of a bias.. It will be interesting to see if there is a pattern, will let you know.

I mean the help page and the wiki certainly include no mention of a welfare program redistributing wins to new players, and in fact include several statements to the contrary. So if it's real Strat's either lying about it or I guess unaware of it?

It's interesting how you characterize the game as a search for patterns. For me it's the opposite, the key for me is to resist the natural urge to search for patterns, and instead let the math explain the chaos.

If Strat doesn’t want to discuss the details of the game play, for whatever reason, that’s their decision.

They actually discuss it, in the help page and the wiki, in an extremely detailed fashion. Save for a few max rules the game's engine is almost fully transparent, which is what makes it great.

I wont' begin to speculate what codes are imbedded into the 365 game but I can tell you over the last few months several of our fellow members went outside the 365 universe and have been playing LIVE games via TEAMS/ZOOM/GOOGLE MEETS etc..camera's showing the dice rolls.

I can tell you it's been FUN as hell AND some quirky stuff does show up that we say to ourselves "if this were to happen in 365, we'd think Hal was behind it".

ps.....anyone who wants in to our private league, we are in the middle of 1955 card set but looking to start a new league in the late fall/winter.

One of my friends (an elite player) quit because all the dice rolls are not displayed, the fatigue rules are ambiguous, the manager settings are not thoroughly explained, etc. He wanted full visuals of what is taking place in the games. I think it's that uncertainty, paying for a game but not knowing how it all works (and having no way to find out), that really drives people nuts.

The main thing for me is that the best players tend to get the best results, so even if things are not "fair" it is still fun, as long as we're all affected equally at the top and the bottom. Nobody would enjoy being singled out as a top manager but if all the top managers get similar disadvantages it's not as bad. I mean, I'd obviously prefer if everything was 100% fair but there is no way to ever know.

It's a shame Strat can't do something to make everyone happy. Remaining silent on the issues that players struggle with most is imprudent and negligent. Saying "We didn't do it." does very little to dispel suspicions. They should, IMO, be doing more to make the player base feel comfortable and confident in the legitimacy of the game. Aka, instead of us asking each other for proof, they should provide the proof themselves.

Strat published an extremely comprehensive wiki detailing how the game works. Nobody reads it and everyone still complains that Strat is not transparent and hiding things. They may as well have not published the wiki at all, for all the goodwill it got them. They probably correctly anticipate that any further "proof" they offer up will be met with an identical reaction.

Perhaps the Wiki just isn't good enough? If it was, more people would be using it one would think. I personally dislike wikis and many others do as well (I did check out the Strat Wiki though). The Wiki also does not give all the details, that was Strat's decision. Nowhere does it go into specifics (actual numbers) of how the manager settings work, fatigue ratings and methodologies, etc. It is not too much to ask for paying customers to have full access to the rules.

Furthermore, the game replayer does not divulge all the info, which was another major complaint I have heard. Bottom line: Sometimes things just don't get a good reception, rather than defending the company and blaming the players for not liking the Wiki, perhaps you should accept that the players are not totally out of line in wanting to know all the details of how the game works. Also, I think defending Strat on this matter (when the players are clearly very upset) does more harm than good as it encourages Strat to behave as they are and further discourages the disgruntled players.

Nothing personal, just expressing my honest thoughts on the matters. This is and always will be an important discussion as it is one of the main factors which causes players to quit, which is especially important when they're VERY good customers.

Perhaps the Wiki just isn't good enough? If it was, more people would be using it one would think. I personally dislike wikis and many others do as well (I did check out the Strat Wiki though). The Wiki also does not give all the details, that was Strat's decision. Nowhere does it go into specifics (actual numbers) of how the manager settings work, fatigue ratings and methodologies, etc. It is not too much to ask for paying customers to have full access to the rules.

Furthermore, the game replayer does not divulge all the info, which was another major complaint I have heard. Bottom line: Sometimes things just don't get a good reception, rather than defending the company and blaming the players for not liking the Wiki, perhaps you should accept that the players are not totally out of line in wanting to know all the details of how the game works. Also, I think defending Strat on this matter (when the players are clearly very upset) does more harm than good as it encourages Strat to behave as they are and further discourages the disgruntled players.

Nothing personal, just expressing my honest thoughts on the matters. This is and always will be an important discussion as it is one of the main factors which causes players to quit, which is especially important when they're VERY good customers.

This game has and is continuing to lose great managers for the very reason eloquently stated above. We are paying to play a game, we should know the details about how it works, all the details. Is that really too much to ask?

This game has and is continuing to lose great managers for the very reason eloquently stated above. We are paying to play a game, we should know the details about how it works, all the details. Is that really too much to ask?

Maybe they should. Though I would offer there is no other entity in their space doing that with a comparable product that I know of.
It is an interesting topic because I think they predate all the other types of games at this level of statistical immersion, so when they started there was no alternative to being transparent...else no one could play.

Now, they have the same core engine, but have pieced in digital enhancements...which are not at the same level of transparency.

As a comparison, look at OOTP baseball. There is ZERO information on the quantitative meaning of the player ratings, zero information on the game engine. The company has repeatedly said sorry--that is proprietary and contains the essence of the value of our product. You have no idea about how an at bat is played out. all you get are results.
And go ahead and web search it--you get nothing but random reddits etc that are conjecture from players.

I don't claim to know what it is they need to do to build their business. But I think no matter what it is they are doing, secret tweaking, no secret tweaking, whatever...
...neither seems to be producing massive growth*, so if nothing else...whatever is being done I would do the opposite if it were me.

*And if you remove all the alts who reinvent themselves, which is fine if someone wants, but they aren't new customers so it is probably even a little worse than it appears.

As a comparison, look at OOTP baseball. There is ZERO information on the quantitative meaning of the player ratings, zero information on the game engine. The company has repeatedly said sorry--that is proprietary and contains the essence of the value of our product. You have no idea about how an at bat is played out. all you get are results.

This is what gets me. Strat's engine is like 97% transparent. Its primary alternative, which is 1000x more popular, is 0% transparent. And yet some people cannot stop obsessing about the 3% of the game that is not fully transparent and are convinced they have a god-given right to know the details of that 3%. Backfire specifically mentioned the fatigue system as non-transparent. Which is absurd. First of all, the POW rules govern fatigue in the vast majority of cases. And in the remaining cases, the bullpen v3 wiki devotes about a thousand words to explaining how pitch counts works. What more could Strat possibly do?? Especially when 99% of the people who think they're entitled to a full accounting of the 3% would never believe anything Strat told them about it regardless, and continue to insist that there is yet more black box unaccounted for that Strat is not copping to. And what exactly is there to "dislike" about wikis, this is a complaint I've never heard before. It seems like a basic and simple and common way of presenting information. It's literally just words and links on a page.

If you're obsessing about the tiny sliver of non-transparent game engine in a game that is almost fully transparent, it's brain worms, pure and simple. You're creating a whole fantasy world that exists within the black box, which contains all the answers to why you don't win as many games as you "should." The cope is almost as transparent as the game engine itself.

Max, I am a salesman, I sell stuff for a living. That is what Strat does, they sell their game. We're the customers. When there is a major problem that upsets a lot of the best customers it just makes sense, as a salesman, as a company, to take action. It doesn't matter if you disagree with people's reasoning on this, those people are still upset and present a major loss of revenue. That's not good for anyone. As for me, like I said, I'm having fun and I'm going to continue to play. But that doesn't mean I'm happy to watch some of the best managers pack their bags. We all essentially want the same thing, a happy player base.