After moving the league from DDSPF '21 to DDSPF '22, it's quickly jumped out just out of whack contract demands are in the new game. The elite players (for simplicity say 88 OVR+) are all demanding contracts as you'd expect and very similar to '21. But once you get into what I'd consider average starter and lower-rated players, demands do not downscale well at all. In this mid to lower tier of players, extension demands have increased notably compared to DDSPF '21. I'll get into the data below but I've randomly selected about 50 players that are on the last year of their contract and looked at what they demanding in '22, what the same player demanded in DDSPF '21, the average contract for what I'd consider a "comparable player" not on his rookie contract, and the max contract for a comparable player.

I'm finding contract demands in nearly all cases to be up 40%+ (75% increase on average) in this mid to lower-tier players from '21 to '22. I'm going to try to attach a spreadsheet to this post that lists all of the ratings, personality ratings, current salaries, and extension demands, but I'll note a few below. Again, the elite players are fine, but not the lower players. This actually is part of the issue because we have specifically set position maxes. If we lower the position maxes anymore, the elite players will become too cheap.

so before getting into that, here's our settings in '22. CAP is $150 million and all position mins are at 175k.
QB: Pos max setting is $25 mil
WR, CB, DE, T: Pos max setting is $20 mil
RB: Pos max setting is $18 mil
LB: Pos max setting is $18 mil
FS, SS: Pos mas setting is $15 mil
G, C, DT: Pos mas setting is $14 mil
TE: Pos max setting is $12 mil

The spreadsheet has more but here's some example of the changes from '21 to '22:

QB Vaughn (81 OVR, age 26, ovr rank 37th best QB):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $12.8 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $4.6 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $2.1 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $4.4 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 21 value money rating

QB Locker (78VR, age 28, ovr rank 51st best QB):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $9.6 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $4.6 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $566k
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $900k
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 71 value money rating

RB Ball (79 OVR, age 25, ovr rank 62nd best RB):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $6.5 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $3.7 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $1.2 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $2.5 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 78 value money rating

WR White (96 OVR, age 36, ovr rank 3rd best WR):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $12.1 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $12.3 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $11.7 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $15 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 64 value money rating
**as noted, elite players look fine most of the time in demands**

WR laFell (85 OVR, age 31, ovr rank 36th best WR):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $10.3 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $6.4 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $5.5 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $7.5 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 82 value money rating

WR Enunwa (75 OVR, age 25, ovr rank 118th best WR):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $7.2 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $3.0 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $1.7 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $2.8 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 55 value money rating

T Graf (84 OVR, age 25, ovr rank 41st best T):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $6.7 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $3.8 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $2.7 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $5.6 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 67 value money rating

T Williams (73 OVR, age 26, ovr rank 89th best T):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $4.4 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $2.4 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $798k
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $1.8 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 21 value money rating

DE Ngata (91 OVR, age 33, ovr rank 10th best DE):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $16.4 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $10.0 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $7.7 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $11.1 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 87 value money rating

DE Perry (74 OVR, age 26, ovr rank 90th best DE):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $4.6 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $3.0 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $805k
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $1.3 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 79 value money rating

CB Allen (86 OVR, age 26, ovr rank 36th best CB):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $13.7 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $8.6 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $4.1 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $6.6 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 93 value money rating

CB Powers (80 OVR, age 30, ovr rank 69th best CB):
'22 Demand (wk 2): $7.8 mil
'21 Demand (wk 2): $3.7 mil
Avg Contract for Similiar Player: $2.7 mil
Max Contract for Similiar Player: $5.0 mil
Value Money Rating (76 is avg): 80 value money rating

For the '21 settings, max contracts were limited to $25 mil, min contract for 95+ was $2 mil, 90+ was 1.75 mil, 80+ was 1.25 mil, 70+ was 500k, 60+ was 175k.

As you can see, we have demands that despite position max settings being lower than the main max setting in '21, extension demands are WAY up in '22. The average starting CB is paid $3.7 million and we have a CB outside the top 50 of the best CBs asking for almost $8 mil a year to extend. And this isn't just a few players, this issue applies to almost every single player.

I'd love for this to be looked into if possible or open to ideas if anyone has settings that would help this issue in '22. Right now, our league is looking at basically every single player hitting free agency until this is fixed. It's what I'd call a borderline game-breaking issue.

Really great analysis and the spreadsheet shared in the slack channel is very insightful. Looking at this I would guess the scaling is slightly off in comparison to 21. I am wondering whether there is a optimum cap the game should now run on or whether player contract demands are being driven by factors which are leaning to influence their demands more.

It's a tougher situation to get right in the code in comparison to FA where players have a offer or no offer to consider. Here there is an additional layer between happiness personality and then their talent or their perception of their talent which drives the contract demand.

It does require another look from this and what we have seen in the CSFL as even with the awesome changes to control min/max by position the curve on demands is not in the right place for the average players in general.

backing this. whatever scale/curve is used to determine these was definitely thrown out of wack in this engine, especially on the lower end and the mid tier. Also adjusting the position max does not change the scale at all.

I'm not sure I can do much at this point. I think the curve is pretty reasonable... we don't use OVR anymore, but an internal measure, but it roughly tracks to 90+ being between 75-100% of the max, 80 and above is 45-75% of max, 70 and above being 20-45% of the max and everyone else coming in between 1-20% of the max. I can't deflate 80-ish players too much more or it really compresses the lower end salaries.

This is a serious issue. Not only that but the scale seems to have changed from FA builds. Also the "values money" trait is clearly meaningless in the current game.

Thanks for the reply, Brooks. I appreciate the efforts on this game but I just really struggle to understand why all players (outside of the elite) are having 50%+ increases from '21 when most considered '21 to be a tad high anyways. If the demands were not broken in '21, then increasing them this much is game-breaking. Now literally nobody will extend players in this league and essentially every player will hit free agency which is about as game-breaking as you can get IMO. The NFL cap is $30 mil more than our league's cap and we have the 69th best CB asking for over $7 million. That's about $8.3 million converted to NFL cap. There are 13 CBs in the NFL with that cap hit and this player is our 69th best CB. And this example is repeated at every single position.

70 and above being 20-45% of max is a lot. If max is $20 million, that's still about $5-9 million AAV. Players rated in the low 70s in our league aren't even backups, more like backups to backups. First of all, I assume this is all based on player rankings, not player ratings. An 80 speed, 80 agility, 50 strength CB in one league could be the 15th "best" CB (for simplification) but 50th best in another league.

To me the data presented makes it super clear that the percentages noted in your reply need to be sharply decreased. I repect it if your opinion differs but just stating how I see it.

I just stuggle to see how raising extension demands 50% from '21s game is justified from my experience.

Essentially, I'm mainly curious what has changed so much from '21 and why was this change put in? Was '21 system broken? We have position maxes LESS than our main max setting in '21 but contracts are WAY up. Was this sharp increase intended? And if they are way UP, that means either DDSPF '21 extensions were broken and work was put in to intentionally raise extension demands to fix '21s low demands. Or If you say '21 was not broken then it seems that '22 has to be broken then if they are up 50% over a prior system that was not broken. 21's demands and '22 demands are so different, one of them has to be considered broken.

It just seems very clear that some changes need to be reverted because we didn't have many issues with the final product of PF21.

And as noted, player demands should be based on rankings, not ratings. 73 agility for example could be totally different in different leagues. One league he could be the 3rd highest agility and another 73 agility is the 85th highest

Brooks_Piggott wrote:I'm not sure I can do much at this point. I think the curve is pretty reasonable... we don't use OVR anymore, but an internal measure, but it roughly tracks to 90+ being between 75-100% of the max, 80 and above is 45-75% of max, 70 and above being 20-45% of the max and everyone else coming in between 1-20% of the max. I can't deflate 80-ish players too much more or it really compresses the lower end salaries.

Wouldn’t it make more sense if it was based on similar players salaries?

that's the other issue, the % noted above should be lowered but this too. Not that my system is perfect in identifying "similar players" but '21 was better (but not perfect) in guys asking for what other players were paid. In the post, I noted what was average pay and the max pay for what I considered 'similar players'. I even took out all players on their rookie contract to not have that lower the averages. Guys in '22 are not only asking way over the average for similar players but asking well over the max for similar players existing contracts.

It can't really be compared to PF21 because the whole model is different. This was requested to be able to more accurately build a league that is similar to real life NFL. So yea 90+ players get the top end contracts, 80+ "starters" still get way above average salaries, and 70+ players are middish contracts with filler players, etc. rounding out the bottom. The existing modifiers in the game (age, experience, personality, values, skills, comparison players, etc.) is all still affecting salary demands like it did in PF21... only the ranges have changed.

Normally the feedback was opposite of what you're talking about... people talk about how easy it was to get 80-90% of the performance in a player but only have to pay 20%. The numbers now (depending on how you set up your finances) require teams to balance if they want to keep 80 and 90 players at that premium or if they want to bolster with more draft picks or more 70's and 80's players to offset things. In my mind it makes more sense if an 80 player provides you with 80% of the value of a 90 player, then their salary should be 80%.

It also could be just shock from the model changing that drastically and your league may need to set up different finances until the "economy" kind of catches up.