*"some thoughts on contracts" a Counterpoint

[Memento Mori]

I generally think that most of what you and Spec wrote is reasonable, but I have to draw attention to something.

Now this is the point wherein we diverge. Speculadora has suggested two additional measures that I simply cannot support. The first is reducing the normal DSFL salary of recreated form $5 Million to $4 Million because.....we should. We haven't blatantly stripped recreates of anything in a while so perhaps it's simply that. As it stands, recreates already lose out on actual TPE and a small bit of money via the rookie tasks. Beyond that, a series of rules through the league's history has removed any semblance of TPE based advantage a recreate could have gotten, restricted when a recreate can utilize the money advantage that is always argued as being the heart of all these rules. And woe to you, recreate who isn't rich to start with. We as a league have spent nearly 3 years making sure you know that we do not give a solitary flying fuck about you. We stand in a world where it is entirely and intentionally set up so that a new player is simply and undeniably capable of earning more TPE in a career than a recreate is. Why lower a recreate's DSFL pay after all that? At some point, you have to put down the stick, wipe the blood from your hands, and bury the horse. 

This paragraph is ridiculously over-the-top, but the sentiment is something I've seen from several older users and recreates recently. Recreates are not hard done by. A max earning new player who created at the trade deadline will out-earn a max earning recreate who created at the trade deadline, yes. But how common are max earning new players created at the trade deadline?

In the S24 class there was between zero and two depending on how you interpret it, as neither Kyamprac or Maglubiyet are strictly max earners given that they've been passed by recreates.

In the S23 class there's two - Amidships and gbfn - and then a few others who created around the same time but didn't strictly max earn. This group (Sylphreni, DarknessRising, Naosu) are still among the top of their class in TPE, but the gap is generally wider than that of the 12 TPE rookie task because the recreates haven't max earned either.

In the S22 class there are zero. Had he not gone inactive, BadLck could have the highest TPE in the class. But he did, so he doesn't.

But what about new creates who create during the offseason? Do they have an advantage over recreates? The answer is no. The TPE that you'd earn from creating at the trade deadline is much more than the 12 you earn from the rookie task. If you created at the S23 trade deadline, you would have the opportunity to earn up to 33 TPE from tasks that closed before the r/NFL recruitment post went up on the 20th July (5th-11th AC, training, PT4, Trivia 4, 12th-18th AC, training, PT5, Trivia 5, Week 16 Predictions).

If you recreate in the offseason rather than at the trade deadline, you can't take advantage of these TPE opportunities. But if you recreate in the offseason, you have two players in the league for the upcoming season. To recreate in the offseason is to sacrifice this extra TPE for the ability to have two players in the upcoming season. If you care more about your next player's max TPE than you do about your current player playing one more season, recreate at the trade deadline. You can't have your cake and eat it.

With regards to TPE, the following is true if you take advantage of all TPE opportunities: Trade deadline new creates > Trade deadline recreates > Offseason new creates > Offseason recreates. The only group with an advantage that can be described as unfair are the max earning trade deadline new creates, of which there are almost none.

Let's talk about money advantages then. The line, "And woe to you, recreate who isn't rich to start with." sticks out. New creates can earn $3m from the rookie task. New creates only have a money advantage over recreates who have less than $3m in the bank. Thankfully for recreates, you get paid a full season's salary if you join a DSFL team as a post-trade deadline waiver recreate. Right now, this is $5m. Spec's suggestion is to reduce it to $4m. This is still more than is earned for doing the rookie task. Once again, the only advantage is held by trade deadline new creates, and again, there are almost none of those.

Finally, I'll address the "We as a league have spent nearly 3 years making sure you know that we do not give a solitary flying fuck about you" line. Every single online game has a delicate balance to strike with regards to wanting to retain current players as well as attract new ones. If you give older players too big an advantage, it reduces retention rate of new players. If you give new players too big an advantage, then older users will feel wronged and lose interest. Recreates have a TPE and money advantage over new creates, except in the rare circumstances that a max earning new create creates at the trade deadline. There were 284 players in the S22 draft, 93 players in the S23 draft and 75 players in the S24 draft. Of these 452 players (I know the number of new players is less but I am not going to count all 300+ of them), somewhere between two and seven actually had a relevant advantage over recreates.