CONTRACT EXTENSION DEMAND ISSUE!

[NBryant]

A couple of outsider comments. First, I will begin with IMO one of the worst aspects of this game are the financials. With that he will never satisfy everyone and there will be these discussion after every updated/upgraded version of the game as he moves it forward. In a multiplayer league you, the GM, will determine what that player is worth by bidding on him during FA. This could end up exceeding his expectations but at some point should also have them be able to settle for less compensation later in the FA rounds if no one wants to pay for them early on. More so though in both Multi and Single player settings you must manage your CAP. That may mean you can't afford them and have to pass while finding someone else you can afford. This should not be uncommon. In that other game, FOF ,which has an amazing CAP system, there are multiplayer leagues in which highly rated and valued players sit because you cannot afford them. That or you pay for them and cut your rosters value somewhere else. Even so these "other" leagues have accepted it for what it is and roster management and the financials has become a major component in the enjoyment derived by playing the game. Are some of the requests astronomical? Absolutely, again though, that is what it is.

My point, it changed. Brooks explained the change. It is what it is. Again I have appreciated Brooks response to feedback and his desire to try and create a foundation that satisfies his market. I have seen him do this from the very early days of PFS when it was first introduced on the old TWS site. There is a point though where the designer can only do so much based on their design decisions and the consumers have to just use it as is.

[Fire-Bred]

A couple of outsider comments. First, I will begin with IMO one of the worst aspects of this game are the financials. With that he will never satisfy everyone and there will be these discussion after every updated/upgraded version of the game as he moves it forward. In a multiplayer league you, the GM, will determine what that player is worth by bidding on him during FA. This could end up exceeding his expectations but at some point should also have them be able to settle for less compensation later in the FA rounds if no one wants to pay for them early on. More so though in both Multi and Single player settings you must manage your CAP. That may mean you can't afford them and have to pass while finding someone else you can afford. This should not be uncommon. In that other game, FOF ,which has an amazing CAP system, there are multiplayer leagues in which highly rated and valued players sit because you cannot afford them. That or you pay for them and cut your rosters value somewhere else. Even so these "other" leagues have accepted it for what it is and roster management and the financials has become a major component in the enjoyment derived by playing the game. Are some of the requests astronomical? Absolutely, again though, that is what it is.

My point, it changed. Brooks explained the change. It is what it is. Again I have appreciated Brooks response to feedback and his desire to try and create a foundation that satisfies his market. I have seen him do this from the very early days of PFS when it was first introduced on the old TWS site. There is a point though where the designer can only do so much based on their design decisions and the consumers have to just use it as is.

But when it costs just a couple million more to bring back an elite player rather than a depth player that is a problem. Depth players contracts should not be as close to an elite players contract. Thats the problem.

[zac]

A couple of outsider comments. First, I will begin with IMO one of the worst aspects of this game are the financials. With that he will never satisfy everyone and there will be these discussion after every updated/upgraded version of the game as he moves it forward. In a multiplayer league you, the GM, will determine what that player is worth by bidding on him during FA. This could end up exceeding his expectations but at some point should also have them be able to settle for less compensation later in the FA rounds if no one wants to pay for them early on. More so though in both Multi and Single player settings you must manage your CAP. That may mean you can't afford them and have to pass while finding someone else you can afford. This should not be uncommon. In that other game, FOF ,which has an amazing CAP system, there are multiplayer leagues in which highly rated and valued players sit because you cannot afford them. That or you pay for them and cut your rosters value somewhere else. Even so these "other" leagues have accepted it for what it is and roster management and the financials has become a major component in the enjoyment derived by playing the game. Are some of the requests astronomical? Absolutely, again though, that is what it is.

My point, it changed. Brooks explained the change. It is what it is. Again I have appreciated Brooks response to feedback and his desire to try and create a foundation that satisfies his market. I have seen him do this from the very early days of PFS when it was first introduced on the old TWS site. There is a point though where the designer can only do so much based on their design decisions and the consumers have to just use it as is.

Thanks for the added thoughts to this topic and welcome the different viewpoints you have made here. While I do agree with some points here, I also disagree with some that I'd like to comment on. First, I am 100% on board with idea that being a game developer is a challenging job and one that you 100% right in noting that "he will never satisfy everyone". With that said, boards like this exist so we can point out our thoughts on game issues so the developers can consider them and hope my data presented has brought a level of detail to what I believe is a major issue but if the game developers view the data differently, that is okay. Secondly, I think the best thing a game can do in cases where it's "hard to please everyone" is give the user the ability to have more control (more settings) which is a big thing requested here. That way I can help our league achieve financial balance and other leagues can achieve their version of financial balance in terms of demand. First I think a balanced financial system and player demand is an extremely important thing to 'get right' in a sim/GM type game like this. An unbalanced financial system is killer for a league. Every single mid to lower-rated player hitting free agency is a huge deal IMO.

So you noted free agency. And yes, free agency is the great equalizer where demands really mean nothing and it becomes a market-based system that players here will eventually get paid essentially what the market tells them they are worth. So what is my issue with players hitting free agency and just getting paid the correct amount there? Imagine a league where every player after their rookie contract (or any contract for that matter) hits free agency. Why would I waste my time drafting players in rounds 2-7 and developing that talent if not a single player will eventually talk extension with me and come back with realistic demands. By the time these drafted players finally start to develop in year 3 or so, they'll ask for way too much money and all hit free agency. And then once they hit free agency, the market will correctly pay them WAY less than they originally requested. Given how the game currently works in our league, essentially every player rated lower than 85 OVR (which is essentially all round 2-7 picks and late 1st round picks) will hit free agency. If I'm a GM, I am trading away every pick I have after pick 20 because why waste time developing them. I'll just use those picks to acquire win now talent and later just build up my roster in free agency with 25-26-year-olds as it'll be STACKED with young talent. It 100% devalues drafting and developing talent outside of free agency.

To be clear, I'm not asking for a system where every player can be extended on the cheap. In fact, I don't want cheap extensions at all. I just want extensions to reflect how players in the league are currently paid. I thought in '21 player demands were somewhat high but within reason and reflective of how similar talent is already paid around the league. Now player demands are 50+% higher than '21 and based on my data, not at all reflective on how similar players are paid. How is a system where career backups are asking for top 10 money at their position as a norm a good system? But yes, there should be 'flavor' with the system where players on average ask for the higher range of what similar players are paid as a norm but occasionally venture away from this norm. In rare occurrences, players should give hometown discounts and on the other side of the spectrum, a small percentage of talent should be more greedy and ask for way too much money. But as a norm, every single player should not be asking for way more than the market says they are worth is near game-breaking. As noted, player demands in real life (and also historical free agency contracts in our league), do not work off a linear line. Most elite players get paid much better than an average starter. Career backups don't ask for 40% of a the best player. As noted earlier, the best WR cap hit is $22 million. In this game, it seems like a high 70s OVR type (backup in our league) is asking 40% of the max, or nearly $9 mil. $9 mil would make a player the 15th highest-paid WR. So we have backup WRs asking for top 15 money as a norm despite not a single similar WR currently making near that much? As with many things in society, there's a top tier of players that tend to get paid very very well and then quickly players start to be more "replaceable" and their market values plummet. This is the case in the NFL, case if you look at free agent contracts in our league, but not the case in contract demands in '22

[Cleasby]

Really like the comment on "if you can't please everyone give the user the ability to customise" exactly what OOTP does with their league settings.

[brooks_piggott]

TLDR; I'm going to add variables so people can tweak the salary breakpoint curves. end TLDR;



At this point I'm a bit confused with some of the arguments here. I can't tell if some of the feedback is due to sandbox leagues or new leagues from scratch, or if the issues are in existing leagues. I agree that any existing league that converts *may* have issues (hence the config options to change things I'm offering to put in) but I will put some design tenants here just so folks are aware:

1. We don't check player rank. We will not build a system that is based on rank. If 2 players have identical attributes they are considered to be equal and will request equal pay, even if one is on the bench and never sees the field and the other is on a top team winning super bowls. I choose this direction because I don't want people hoarding talent and not paying for it. Just because you happen to have 3 90+ QB's on your roster doesn't mean your #3 should be a min deal because he's third string. Sorry, end of discussion, that part won't be in the game. Other than adjustments made in tenant #2...
2. The salaries are all individually considered. There will never be an "identical" salary because every player has adjustments made based on personality, ratings, similar players, and performance. Home town discounts? They're in already. Morale killing a relationship? Already in. Prima Donna demands? Yep. Plays with buddies and wants to stay? In. Adjustments for similar rated players. In. Adjustments for greedy guys. In. Adjustments for age? Yup. Experience? Sure. Depth chart? Of course. Contract Length? Yes. There are dozens, if not hundreds of variables that go into this. We can certainly disagree with the weight of some of the decisions made, but in general, this is all working as intended.
3. This is not the NFL salary system. It's an approximation for "realism" but it is tailored more for ease of use for players than having to deal with a true NFL system. This means you can't compare what happens in the game with "real life" because we're not trying to do the same things. We provide a lot of different features to give leagues the ability to shape their finance world to their liking, but just don't expect it to work exactly like the NFL since we never intended it that way. It's meant to be just complex enough to be believable, but still allows for casual users to participate without having to break out spreadsheets of dead caps, and signing bonuses, roster bonuses, cap hits, variable caps, and on and on. While we try to add more features as we go (RFA as an example) we are not really striving for 100% compliance with NFL rules, so temper your judgements and expectations accordingly.

I just don't want folks to read through this thread and think that things are "Broken". I believe that the overall system worked well in PF21 but there were flaws related to positional maxes and differences between positions. That's been fixed and the system should work better in PF22, especially for newly created leagues. But with the shift came the issue with the transition point not working for some folks (again, I can't tell if this is multiple people or just one single league this is affecting) but we can solve for that anyway. I still don't agree that a 60 OVR should make 1 mil, a 70 OVR should make 1.5 mil, and 80 OVR should make 2 mil and a 90 OVR should make 25 mil, but whatevs... I'll give you all the power to decide what structure works best for you. If you find better numbers that work for default leagues or cpu leagues let me know and I can adjust the numbers for future users who I'm sure would appreciate it.

[Fire-Bred]

TLDR; I'm going to add variables so people can tweak the salary breakpoint curves. end TLDR;



At this point I'm a bit confused with some of the arguments here. I can't tell if some of the feedback is due to sandbox leagues or new leagues from scratch, or if the issues are in existing leagues. I agree that any existing league that converts *may* have issues (hence the config options to change things I'm offering to put in) but I will put some design tenants here just so folks are aware:

1. We don't check player rank. We will not build a system that is based on rank. If 2 players have identical attributes they are considered to be equal and will request equal pay, even if one is on the bench and never sees the field and the other is on a top team winning super bowls. I choose this direction because I don't want people hoarding talent and not paying for it. Just because you happen to have 3 90+ QB's on your roster doesn't mean your #3 should be a min deal because he's third string. Sorry, end of discussion, that part won't be in the game. Other than adjustments made in tenant #2...
2. The salaries are all individually considered. There will never be an "identical" salary because every player has adjustments made based on personality, ratings, similar players, and performance. Home town discounts? They're in already. Morale killing a relationship? Already in. Prima Donna demands? Yep. Plays with buddies and wants to stay? In. Adjustments for similar rated players. In. Adjustments for greedy guys. In. Adjustments for age? Yup. Experience? Sure. Depth chart? Of course. Contract Length? Yes. There are dozens, if not hundreds of variables that go into this. We can certainly disagree with the weight of some of the decisions made, but in general, this is all working as intended.
3. This is not the NFL salary system. It's an approximation for "realism" but it is tailored more for ease of use for players than having to deal with a true NFL system. This means you can't compare what happens in the game with "real life" because we're not trying to do the same things. We provide a lot of different features to give leagues the ability to shape their finance world to their liking, but just don't expect it to work exactly like the NFL since we never intended it that way. It's meant to be just complex enough to be believable, but still allows for casual users to participate without having to break out spreadsheets of dead caps, and signing bonuses, roster bonuses, cap hits, variable caps, and on and on. While we try to add more features as we go (RFA as an example) we are not really striving for 100% compliance with NFL rules, so temper your judgements and expectations accordingly.

I just don't want folks to read through this thread and think that things are "Broken". I believe that the overall system worked well in PF21 but there were flaws related to positional maxes and differences between positions. That's been fixed and the system should work better in PF22, especially for newly created leagues. But with the shift came the issue with the transition point not working for some folks (again, I can't tell if this is multiple people or just one single league this is affecting) but we can solve for that anyway. I still don't agree that a 60 OVR should make 1 mil, a 70 OVR should make 1.5 mil, and 80 OVR should make 2 mil and a 90 OVR should make 25 mil, but whatevs... I'll give you all the power to decide what structure works best for you. If you find better numbers that work for default leagues or cpu leagues let me know and I can adjust the numbers for future users who I'm sure would appreciate it.

Do you have a timeframe on this new feature?

[brooks_piggott]

Not really.... may be able to get a patch in but may have to wait for DDSCF release. Kind of hard to keep switching back and forth.

[zac]

At this point I'm a bit confused with some of the arguments here. I can't tell if some of the feedback is due to sandbox leagues or new leagues from scratch, or if the issues are in existing leagues. I agree that any existing league that converts *may* have issues

Thanks for consideration here to add more user control (settings) here at some point in time. I see we don’t see eye to eye but at least these settings will allow us to alter some contract demands how we see fit. To answer some questions you posed above, this post was made due to an issue we’ve seen on a multiplayer online league that moved from ‘21 to ‘22. You say that “[you] believe that the overall system worked well in PF21 but there were flaws related to positional maxes and differences between positions”. I 100% agree with this statement. I thought 21 worked great. So when we moved into ‘22, it was a notable issue to go from a game we thought worked fine in contract demands to switching the file over to ‘22 and and seeing demands go up 50%-70% from the exact league file we were playing in ‘21. We even set specific position maxes as noted on the first post of this topic. I understand every league may experience’22 depending on how they startup their league but I hope you can understand the frustration when an area of the game we thought mostly ‘worked’ in ‘21 changed by 50+% in a given area. Applied to a different area of the game for context. If I thought QB passing stats were great in ‘21, and I switch the league over to ‘22 and passing yards are up on average of 50-70%, I’m probably going to have issue with that.

I still don't agree that a 60 OVR should make 1 mil, a 70 OVR should make 1.5 mil, and 80 OVR should make 2 mil and a 90 OVR should make 25 mil, but whatevs.

I’m not asking for 80 ovr to be paid 2 million just to be clear. But if a 90 ovr is asking $12 mil (which they are), and 80 ovr on average shouldn’t be asking $8 mil (on average) IMO. And as for a 70 ovr, in our league that is essentially a 3rd string backup on most teams. Our minimum contact for 70 ovr is 500k so a 3rd string player asking $1.5 mil is actually makes a lot of sense for our league. That’s 3 times the position min for 3rd string type players for the most part. Right now we have clear career backup quality players asking $5+ mil (or nearly half of what pro bowl types are asking). Point of all this is it’s clear to see how the system may work for one distribution of talent in a league but not another.

1. We don't check player rank. We will not build a system that is based on rank. If 2 players have identical attributes they are considered to be equal and will request equal pay, even if one is on the bench and never sees the field and the other is on a top team winning super bowls. I choose this direction because I don't want people hoarding talent and not paying for it. Just because you happen to have 3 90+ QB's on your roster doesn't mean your #3 should be a min deal because he's third string.

Last reply, When noting rank, I was not noting rank on a specific team. I was noting rank in a given league environment. So a team having two 90 overall QBs would still have to pay them well as they would still rank as the best QBs in the league regardless how they rank on a given teams depth chart. A 75 overall WR in one users league environment could be the 10th best WR in their league because they have Lower ratings but in another league that same WR could be the 80th ranked WR. My point was just that They should not be paid anywhere near the same just because they have the same ratings. So not sure how two top QBs being in the same team applies to my point on using ranks.

But regardless, I appreciate the responses here to seek a resolution.

[brooks_piggott]

Rank applies across teams as well... still not doing it. If every QB in the league was rated 100 OVR I'm not giving the first one 50 million and the last one 1 million just because they're ranked last.

And next time I'll be sure to consult with existing leagues before I make changes to the game. I didn't realize that the financial model was going to be that game breaking.

[Sharkn20]

I like the new financial system, looks pretty solid, great players asking for great contracts. As it should be, that's why there is a financial cap in the NFL and here. Please don't change that.

What I might change, which I think is the main problem is that at the end of FA, you can get pretty solid players for peanuts, so definitely get that minimum request in, even if the players have to sit out one year (and decline accordingly), that will be a lot more realistic, but teams with plenty cap, should have enough to sign these players without getting to it.

I play in a league in which they purposely wait for the TC stage to sign pretty good veterans for peanuts, I don't think that should be like that.

Keep up the good work Brooks!