Monthly Contest "Rigging"

He has four rings, five playoff losses and seven no playoffs. He’s playing to win AND to win additional credits. I wouldn’t begrudge anyone the chance to go for a five credit season.

But it also remains my belief that you should never be incentivized to NOT win championships.

I do think you are misunderstanding my question. I can see he makes the playoffs 55% of the time (almost double my 28.6% rate). I’m not questioning the skills. He can both win the challenge and the leagues but the question is whether there is an objection to others competing for the challenge.

If you’re asking my opinion, I would say others should just compete better. I don’t think you should punish one players success in order to make it easier for others.

Six teams from a category theme league could still finish 1-6 then.

Absolutely, which is my entire issue in a nutshell.

As mentioned before, a while back, in a league with ALL BOMBER PARKS & NO PITCHER OVER $1.00 Million, the entire league comprised the top 12 of the contest.

It was a long running league and not meant to skew the contest per se, but it did whether intended or not.

Question still here. I like transparency. And I note that you do seem to earn a lot of credits through the monthly challenge program.

To wit. (Completed months only. )
August. 1St place
July. 1st place
June. 1st and 2nd place
May 1st and 2nd place
April. 2nd place
March. 2nd place (and 4th)
February. 1st place
January. No place
December. 8th place (with the free credit randomizer)
November. 1st and 3rd
October. 1st place
September. 3rd place
August. 1st and 3rd place

So 36 credits earned. Please don’t take this the wrong way. But it seems that for the past year you have dominated the monthly challenge. Is the objection that there is someone else trying for the monthly challenges now? Admittedly doing it differently than you do.

Not at all, the issue is that AN ENTIRE LEAGUE has been created to completely dominate the contest.

Fair is fair and leagues with crazy rules literally designed to "hijack" the contest is not fair, that is my issue.

And for the record, what you don't see is the credits burned on teams that may not have finished "in the money" or didn't have a .500 record. So it may have cost me 30 credits to win those 34 credits.

I enjoy the contests but simply believe they should be played on a level playing field to give me and everyone else a fair shot at winning.

Just wanted to point out that during all this discussion regarding the issue, Sweet Swinging 26 has managed to move into third place in the challenge based on projected SB's.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/event/challenge/49

And he has done this without "gaming the system."

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1785990

As of today, 11/11/24, 11 of the top 13 teams in the contest are all from the same league.

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/event/challenge/49

Someone posted last week that if the entire league is "going for it" maybe they hurt each others chances of winning. Well, I would submit this as proof that when the rules are this extreme it still doesn't matter.

Now, the current contest, % of wins vs saves, seems like a contest that cannot be "gamed", but this SB contest is clearly able to be manipulated badly.

And if you're wondering about the twelfth team in that aforementioned league, don't worry, they are ranked 17th currently.

Life ain’t fair….get over it.

Life ain’t fair….get over it.

Neither is Cheating ...

Quoted from SOM

"SOM365 record book is restricted to Auto Leagues because they provide a uniform set of league parameters, and are free of the unusual and often stat-skewing characteristics of the many theme leagues our creative community invents."

SOM365 seems to view the monthly challenges differently and leaves it up to the commissioners and participants to discover creative ways to accept the challenge. In the SOM monthly challenge guidelines, there is no mention of cap, ballparks, or any specific parameters that may or may not be used, etc. The leagues in question in this discussion fulfill SOM365 requirements. If SOM wanted to restrict league parameters, they would, could, or should have.

Hamilton17 brought up a great point and Cirrhotic Liver reinforced it. SOM brings in 12 credits. They give away 7 for the contest (3-2-1) + 1 WC and they award 2 for league champion and 1 for the runner up. A net gain of 2. They should want MORE participation in monthly challenges. A broad range of leagues provides that; regardless how they are set up. Subscribers will make a decision whether the challenge is for them .. or not.

Here's more from the Strat High Command:

Speaking generally here, we don't typically crack down too hard on people creating leagues that go for monthly challenges. The idea behind the challenges is not particularly hyper competitive, but more as a fun alternative to playing the game normally.

A suggestion was to restrict it to auto leagues, which while it certainly levels the playing field, kind of erases the aspect of actively going for the challenges that we want to preserve. We want people to engage with them and not just idly happen in the background, so we've been fairly lax with people making leagues for challenges.

That said, we've gotten a good deal of feedback on this of late, and do agree that having a single league dominate the rankings so thoroughly on its own is a bit silly. I'm not sure where we would want to draw the line here just yet, but a safe enough compromise would be likely limiting the impact such a league could have, rather than banning them outright.