Negative Winnings rule .... revised

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:10 pm

I usually have to let the stuff that Dark Lord says roll around in my head to make sure I see all the angles. This is one of those occassions.

Getting ready to start the new season of the MBBL2 in a couple months. That league uses basically the LRB rules, but we don't have aging as the coaches really didn't like it ... (at least the vocal ones didn't).

I've decided to add this rule to the MBBL2 format:

If your cash roll at the end of a game is negative, this amount is deducted from your treasury. This may cause your treasury to go negative. If it does, the negative amount is recorded to your roster as a team debt (ie negative cash). Negative treasuries will be treated as if they are positive treasuries for Team Rating points.

So if I as a team coach completely ignore trying to manage my Team Rating, my cash will just keep becoming more and more negative which will mean I'll have no ability to replace players at all on my squad. Its also means my TR will continue to climb to represent the pressure being placed on my team to perform from the sponsers covering the debt the team has incurred.

Now a team could spiral into a hole that they could not recover from with this rule, but only if they don't take steps to correct the trend as a good team manager. This avoids any forced loss of rerolls or forced retirement of players like Dark Lord disliked. It also avoids a team having a bad gate ... rolling a 1 for cash and ending up with -30k in winnings when they have 20k in the treasury and losing a player or reroll because of it. If the team has a good game next time and gets 10+k in winnings they'll be back in the black.

I think this makes the negative cash rule work a lot better and open up the rule to more coach choice than forced decisions.

Grumble ... you and I were in lock step on a negative winnings modifier ... I'm curious what you think of this as a change to that rule.

Thoughts?

Galak

neoliminal · Post by **neoliminal** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:17 pm

How, exactly, would you get money back into your treasury?

Obviously if the negative money counts for positive TR, you're still going to end up getting negative money results.

I assume you would want people to try and cut TR themselves, but since there's no way to remove RRs, you're asking people to guess their proper RR level right off the bat. If the RRs are wrong (too high) then the team will be hindered from ever having the right amount skilled players on the roster and there's nothing the coach can do about it.

Without a choice to remove RRs, the only thing left if to cut players. Let's assume I hit a negative roll and I'm now at -20K. This amount will certainly continue to "rise" so that next game I might be at -40K... or so. If I decide to cut a player, then I have to start paying back this money, so I have two choices:

1) Immediately cut my roster size.
2) Not worry about the negative winnings at all.

In case one, the roster should be cut past the point of negative winnings.

In case two the team is doomed.

Asperon Thorn · Post by **Asperon Thorn** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:39 pm

I think you still have the option to remove rerolls, in order to lower your TR. I just don't think it is forcing you to.

Maybe (and I hate giving money back to coaches, but . .) if the debt exceeds the original cost of the RR, allowing them to sell it to alleviate the debt. (RR costs 60 K, 120K after start up. Team has spiraled down to 70K in Debt, allow them to get rid of a RR in order to alleviate 60K of it.)

Asperon Thorn

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:40 pm

neoliminal wrote:Without a choice to remove RRs, the only thing left if to cut players.

Actually Neo ... this is on the Hot List. Nothing in the LRB prohibits or allows for if you can remove Apothecaries, Rerolls, Cheerleaders, Asst. Coaches, etc. So there is a question in the Q&A of the Hot List if you can.

Personally ... I see nothing wrong with this. So all the above are fully allowed in the MBBL2 ... and if if the BBRC says you cannot ... well since the MBBL2 is my league ... it will still be allowed. MBBL is straight LRB with experimental rules so that's different.

Now I disagree with your contention about having to always immediately cut players.

Let's take the rolls of Falk's Crusaders ... one of the biggest teams in the MBBL2 before it retired. TR 297.

Its cash rolls with Negative Winnings in its last 4 normal games were:

30k, -20k, 40k, 20k

So if they had spent their treasury down to 0 after the 30k win, they would have been at -20k after the next game. This would have added 2 points to their TR for the next game ... no big deal. The next game they won 40k which pays off the 20k debt and now they are back to 20k in cash.

So let's take a scenario like you painted Neo ... a Wood Elf team with a 0k treasury with a team that has let his TR go up and has his 16 man roster.

-10k, -20k, -30k
.... okay so now he's 60k in debt ... that's still only impacting his TR by 6 points (ie not a major effect really). He decides its time to take control and retires 3 lineman with 77 SPPs between them. That slices 36 points off his TR, and this takes his TR from 231 to 195. The extra 20k a game allows him to post some winning cash rolls.

+40k, +10k, +20k

Now he's got 10k in the bank again. Yeah he went 6 games without being able to buy players for his team, but that was his choice when he didn't take any steps to fix the problem of his TR vs the gates he was getting and expected future winnings.

The Bugman's rule can cause a severe effect to your team for what might only be a one game shortfall. In my opinion, this is much better at getting to the point of team management by also allowing you to base your decisions on what is the probable future winnings of your team.

Bottom line ... its very similar to the old rule ... but it allows the coach to make the decision of when his team will bite the bullet and retire the players .... or rerolls if the Q&A is answered the way I think it should be.

And before you ask ... no I don't care if someone wants to remove a reroll and immediately buy it back. Personally, I have zero issues if a team is allowed to burn off its treasury if they desire to. I'm sure the world of BB has charities just like our world does.

Galak

Dark Lord (retired) · Post by **Dark Lord (retired)** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:51 pm

Yes, I like this.
This is what I meant. It gives management over to teh coach and not the dice.
The old rule immediately gave me foreshadowing of some poor coach playing a semi-final and winning but suffering a good amount of casualties, and then on top of that being forced to retire a player or reroll right before the big game.
If something like this happened to me I would not have enough time in the day for all the curses I would want to say.
This rule allows that same coach to have a chance of winning that game and fixing his team before he goes on to the next season. The next season the rule will probably hit him even harder but at least his losses and coaching pains will happen at a point where he can still pull it together.

Good work.

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:02 pm

Okay ... thought that was what you were suggesting.

Oh and Neo ... ran some very quick numbers.

Okay ... let's assume that your team is FF 9 and normally plays FF 9 teams. ... if you look at FUMBBL they have several FFs much higher than 9 but let's go lower for sake of discussion.

Now let's assume average dice rolls for gate for your total FF 18 game which would be a gate of 63,000.

In order for your team to lose money MORE often than it GAINS money in a game your TR would have to be 276+. At this point I WANT the teams to start hitting the wall and hit it REALLY hard. So explain to me again, where the continual downward spiral effect is here. I know you are a huge fan of TR 200 being a max point for team ... so

At TR 250 with a 63k gate, If you win, your winnings will be between: 0k and 50k. .... hmmmmmm .... that's not even generating negative cash for the game at all. At TR 200, its STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE in the long term for have a downward cash spiral as -3 is the highest negative cash modifier and 3.5 is the average winnings even if I always lose (ie in the long term, I'll average 5k a game in winnings at TR 200 if I always have a -3 modifier). So I'm really confused to hear your comments about this modification and your concern over a downward spiral effect when I know where you currently stand on maximum TRs.

It allows a coach to manage his winnings expections without the sudden jolt one game penalties, and I agree with exactly what Dark Lord is saying. If I'm playing round 5 of the MBBL2 which is the last game before the finals and I've got 0k in treasury and get a -10k on my gold roll and am FORCED to retire a player or lose a reroll right before I play in the finals where I'm guaranteed a 100k bonus ... there wouldn't be enough time for me to finish swearing either.

Galak

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:10 pm

neoliminal wrote: Let's assume I hit a negative roll and I'm now at -20K. This amount will certainly continue to "rise" so that next game I might be at -40K... or so.

Neo after the math I presented .... do you still think that the words "will certainly continue" are correct?

Just making sure ... cause if you still feel that way I want to understand why as this is the major difference between our opinions. I don't think its a certain spiral at all anywhere in the TR ranges we are trying to aim teams to be in ... ie 175 to 250. If you disagree can you let me know why?

Sorry for all the CAPS in the first/second reply post ... very very long week and a client that I could kill but legally not allowed to ... came through in my responses to your post initially.

The nicest thing is ... this is a REALLY easy rule change for the PBeM tool to add in. One new setting and code changes in 3 modules should add it in. I like the easy ones ..

I really like Milo's Handicap table (even more than the MBBL one), but as a programmer it scares the beejeebies out of me to handle the code changes to allow it in ... definitely not easy.

Galak

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:15 pm

i find it hard that people ever thought you couldn't choose to remove rerolls or coaching staff whenever you wanted

i have always played you can cut anything you want off your roster, don't remember reading in the rulebook you couldn't

besides its retiring high spp players that will drop tr far more than a reroll will ever drop the tr, can't see why someone would drop a rr over a player anyway when they cost more money to get back

i can't really see a problem with these rules other than coaches who ignore it but they should soon learn that doing that will lead their teams to destruction

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:36 pm

I was totally anti negative income, as put forward in the BBB rules set, but this I like.

Robotorz · Post by **Robotorz** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:40 pm

Same as Darkson here!

Dark Lord (retired) · Post by **Dark Lord (retired)** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:56 pm

Grumbledook wrote:i find it hard that people ever thought you couldn't choose to remove rerolls or coaching staff whenever you wanted

i have always played you can cut anything you want off your roster, don't remember reading in the rulebook you couldn't

Yeah, that's us too. I remember when it was questioned. I wasn't playing that night and the call came through (I was commish). First i heard the complaint that so-and-so had removed his apothecary and wizard to reduce his TR and lessen the handicap against him. Then i heard from the coach who said, "I fired them, so what?"

Open and shut to me.

The only thing you couldn't tweak in my league was Fan Factor. (this was 3rd edition)

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:59 pm

yer same on fumbbl only ff you can't lower deliberatly

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:06 pm

Do you only allow firing in the post game phase though? I can just see someone firing when they know who they'll face (in a challenge setting obviously).

Dark Lord (retired) · Post by **Dark Lord (retired)** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:33 pm

Yeah, it was only post game. The dispute started in my league because he fired them post game but was going to play a second game that night. So he knew what he was doing when he fired them, though it was during the "purchasing" phase.

Xtreme · Post by **Xtreme** » Thu Aug 28, 2003 9:53 pm

My league has actully been playing that way already. We only have 5 teams that have hit that wall so far though so not a whole lot of testing but everyone likes it. The highest team rating we have seen so far is 285. After that they had to trim it back to continue on. It helps achieve that up and down in team history gives some rebuilding time. Much more interesting for team histories. Since we play several seasons witht he same teams we like to have them have their tough times along with the glory times and this has workied for us.

Somewhere along the line we misinturpeted the rules on firing though as we always said it was not possible to take fan factor or rerolls off of your roster, as rerolls represented your teams practice and experience we thought that was something that couldn't be taken away. something new to look at for us I guess.