*Minimum Contracts: What to do?

[iamslm22]

I've said this before, I'll say it now. Contracts WILL increase with recreates. Right now a large number of our members are first time sim leaguers who are super happy with their current team because they were the first team to take a chance on them. When it comes to recreate time people will move around more and want to make more money.

[bovovovo]

I've said this before, I'll say it now. Contracts WILL increase with recreates. Right now a large number of our members are first time sim leaguers who are super happy with their current team because they were the first team to take a chance on them. When it comes to recreate time people will move around more and want to make more money.

Agreed. Hopefully at least lol

[CDub2]

Yeah but sometimes it's not a person being only a player. The Otters have at least 4 players in their front office who handle scouting, strategy, and all sorts of other tasks that other teams would only have a GM do. These might be considered normal players because they aren't technically GMs, but they are by all accounts heavily invested in their team. Which is more in their best interest, charging more money for a contract to earn more TPE or taking a cheap contract to help the team that they put time and effort into managing find success? The lines are blurred in situations like this and to them being selfish is actually putting their team first, because they are already dedicating free time to make the team better, why not make your job easier and give your team more cap?

Okay. I get that. Two things. 1) If they mean so much to the team in terms of scouting an strats, they should be rewarded for it with a larger contract for the work they put in. I'm not trying to dissuade people from loving their favourite team. And home town discounts should be a thing. But when have we every heard of Tom Brady taking a minimum contract to help out the Patriots. He does plenty of strategizing and other tasks team wide.

2) The top guys taking minimums to help their team defeats the purpose of a salary cap or money in the first place. Why don't we just let people choose who they play for if no team is gonna be put in a cap crunch from "team players" that take minimums. See Tom Brady point above.

I get that you're saying that these players want to take low contracts to help the rest of the team out, I get that. But it's not fair to teams that pay their players a decent and fair wage because they don't have a league job, you know?

[Molarpistols]

Raising the minimum wage does nothing but cause inflation.

Minimums get too high, and there will be active players not on a team because no team can afford it, especially when players start asking for more money.

With OL prices as is, most teams have around 55 million in cap left for the other 18 starting positions on the roster. That's just over 3 million per person.

The 3 mill minimum sets in at 600 TPE, that's sometime in a players 4th-5th season. A lot of players will hit higher than that and force the next minimum, meaning another player is going to have to take less than 3 mill, or sit in free agency collecting dust.

[timeconsumer]

Okay. I get that. Two things. 1) If they mean so much to the team in terms of scouting an strats, they should be rewarded for it with a larger contract for the work they put in. I'm not trying to dissuade people from loving their favourite team. And home town discounts should be a thing. But when have we every heard of Tom Brady taking a minimum contract to help out the Patriots. He does plenty of strategizing and other tasks team wide. 

2) The top guys taking minimums to help their team defeats the purpose of a salary cap or money in the first place. Why don't we just let people choose who they play for if no team is gonna be put in a cap crunch from "team players" that take minimums. See Tom Brady point above.

I get that you're saying that these players want to take low contracts to help the rest of the team out, I get that. But it's not fair to teams that pay their players a decent and fair wage because they don't have a league job, you know?

I get the fairness argument, and I agree with it. Caps are there for a reason and they make sense.

But let's not use NFL as an example. This isn't real money. I can't go buy a house with it. I can't pass it to my children. You will never get the same incentive with league money as real money. Full stop.

Instead I am trying to tell you not how people should act in order to maximize the competitiveness of the game. I am telling you how they do act. We can't view this thing in a vacuum and assume people will do what is best for the entire league. They will do what is best for them which in this case of this league and this game sometimes means taking a cheap contract. Winning is fun. People play this for fun. Cheaper contracts can mean more wins. More rings. More fun!

So I like the idea of having some sort of outside incentive that contracts can add that you can't get elsewhere. I don't want it to be TPE because of reasons I've discussed in earlier articles. Contracts need to come with an incentive that isn't TPE but is something else of significant value. And I think something like the idea we discussed above of having a "token" to skip a PT attached to your contract value. Either a ratio like 1 token per $2m in contract or one token per $1m taken above the minimum cap hit....you get the point. This gives people not only cash to skip media/graphics, but also tokens to skip PTs. We appeal to people's laziness. They can be max earners for less effort simply by using the market to its full effect.

[nunccoepi]

Ok, I suggested this in the discord and it got shut down fast, but I'd like to hear some actual reasoning on it....could we allow people to use their money for a second player? So, for example, it would cost 40 or 50 million to create another player.

I know (mostly) the league history with multis and I get the problems there, but if it's regulated correctly, I wonder if it might be ok. It would even have the benefits of incentivizing people to stock up on money, adding more high quality and active characters to the league which will be especially important once all the NSFL retires, and also forces the slowing of development of players because TPE would have to be allocated between the two players.

Ways of regulating it could be that the process has to be very transparent--everyone would know about the new player, has to be done with the same username/email account and IP address(es). I honestly doubt there would be much conflict of interest, but in case there is, we could make a rule requiring a gm to draft his own multi.

[timeconsumer]

Ok, I  suggested this in the discord and it got shut down fast, but I'd like to hear some actual reasoning on it....could we allow people to use their money for a second player? So, for example, it would cost 40 or 50 million to create another player.

I know (mostly) the league history with multis and I get the problems there, but if it's regulated correctly, I wonder if it might be ok. It would even have the benefits of incentivizing people to stock up on money, adding more high quality and active characters to the league which will be especially important once all the NSFL retires, and also forces the slowing of development of players because TPE would have to be allocated between the two players.

Ways of regulating it could be that the process has to be very transparent--everyone would know about the new player, has to be done with the same username/email account and IP address(es). I honestly doubt there would be much conflict of interest, but in case there is, we could make a rule requiring a gm to draft his own multi.

I don't have a problem with it, but I don't think it's a solution for the issue at hand. We're talking about a ton of money. That's not contract money, that's media money. The kind of person willing to work to earn that and maintain both players is a media guru who won't worry about the contract. Also you're likely to only attract the most loyal who will only want to play for their current team anyway with both players, it could make the problem worse! Just a hypothesis but I don't see it as a solution to this problem, however I also don't see it as a problem on its own.

[CDub2]

I get the fairness argument, and I agree with it. Caps are there for a reason and they make sense.

But let's not use NFL as an example. This isn't real money. I can't go buy a house with it. I can't pass it to my children. You will never get the same incentive with league money as real money. Full stop.

Instead I am trying to tell you not how people should act in order to maximize the competitiveness of the game. I am telling you how they do act. We can't view this thing in a vacuum and assume people will do what is best for the entire league. They will do what is best for them which in this case of this league and this game sometimes means taking a cheap contract. Winning is fun. People play this for fun. Cheaper contracts can mean more wins. More rings. More fun!

So I like the idea of having some sort of outside incentive that contracts can add that you can't get elsewhere. I don't want it to be TPE because of reasons I've discussed in earlier articles. Contracts need to come with an incentive that isn't TPE but is something else of significant value. And I think something like the idea we discussed above of having a "token" to skip a PT attached to your contract value. Either a ratio like 1 token per $2m in contract or one token per $1m taken above the minimum cap hit....you get the point. This gives people not only cash to skip media/graphics, but also tokens to skip PTs. We appeal to people's laziness. They can be max earners for less effort simply by using the market to its full effect.

1) If we all agree with having a fair salary cap, then why do we also encourage circumventing it by players taking the minimum salary just because they don't need the money?

2) Why not use the NFL as an example? It's the NSFL. We're pretty much named after it. It's a simulated league based on a professional football league... like the NFL. And to your point, you're right, you can't but a house with the money, BUT you can gamble it, you can buy things that other users with less money can't (pro equipment) and here's the kicker, you can pass it on to your children (like a future recreate). Full stop.

3) You're right. Winning is fun. People always want to play for winning team. It doesn't mean we should continue to allow the abuse of the contract system. Unless something changes, the team with the active players with the most money will win the championship because of their ability to circumvent the cap by taking minimum contracts. It could lead to a point where active player TPE doesn't play a major role in team formation. It depends which team can afford the best filler free agents if all the actives are taking reduced contracts.

4) Not a bad idea with the PT tokens. But it doesn't really solve the minimum contract abuse issue. It's really just an incentive to the people on top who don't need money and don't want to contribute.

[Oles]

PT Tokens are and always will be a bad idea. It came up last season in relation to jobs, to make jobs more appealing, and didn't pass.We should not be discouraging activity because one player can just grab a high value contract, and basically do nothing but have as much TPE gain as someone with a minimum contract who does everything available to them. If we're already basing contracts off possible TPE earnings, we shouldn't also say well you can earn that TPE for free. I will never be for anything that circumvents gaining TPE, value should come in activity, not logging on once a week to update and use your pt tokens and be just as good as anyone else. I just cannot get behind the idea that is PT tokens in any form

[37thchamber]

you don't end up with two separate accounts where one is used for everything and one for everything except one thing.

That's.... not what I suggested, though.

Not that it matters, looks like the division of currency won't happen anyway. :shrug: