Rant on Cap

[gmoney41]

That light bulb symbol just went off over my head. I don't think I want to pay for this game, even though I am loving the beta.
I was just looking a cheap catchers as free agents since I am letting one of my two high priced ones go free agent at the end of the year. I see that even though I have 36 dollars in the bank, I can't sign a very cheap free agent, because I am "over the payroll limit".

I don't really understand, first we see you make such a big deal of not paying playoff team revenue because it is not realistic. But now we have what ammounts to a salary cap, which MLB doesn't have and won't have for the forseeable future.

[Dee Dreslough]

We didn't have a cap before, and people were accidentally (or on purpose) driving themselves into such debt that they could never climb out...and we were getting many complaint emails about that. It made the game vastly unplayable for a large number of poeple...the solution that seemed to leave the most people playing the game was to create a system to prevent this kind of thing. They can still play, protected from budget mistakes, and you can still play, although not exactly the way you want...so, it's not a 100% solution.

We'll have to find a middle ground for this feature somewhere...it's not realistic to have a salary cap, but there also needs to be a way to imitate the fact that in real life, the owners will have limits placed on their spending by either creditors or financial institutions...

-Dee Dreslough

[gmoney41]

Re: the owners will have limits placed on their spending by either creditors or financial institutions...


But I have 36 points in the bank. Why can't I spend one to buy a cheap catcher?

[ozias]

gmoney

You may have to lower one of your expenses for a second or two and then try to sign the player, after you sign the player raise your expenses back up to where they were. ;)

Hope this helps,

John

[william4192]

Dee (or Clay)--

Get rid of the cap. I have not played with the cap, I just stumbled on to this thread. The point is to balance talent AND finances. I understand the "dumbing" down of the game to include no money, no concessions etc.. (and pretty pictures:) , but a cap? I realize that you are trying to make this playable for all, but have you thought about doing what OOTP did? They have a full version for those that like baseball sims (thus OOTP 3). Then they made a "dumbed down" verision called Season Ticket (I think that is what it is called). Is this possible? I think this would clear everything up and make EVERYONE happy. Just an idea.


BTW Clay did you get my emails with those files?

[Japherwaki]

William

Keep in mind that this is for the online game, not the CD game. This thread was put in the wrong section. The CD game does not have a cap, and hopefully, it never will (unless baseball wisens up and puts one in). But in the online game, it's necessary, because people will take a team, load it up with expensive talent, and run the team into the ground financially in the hope of winning the World Series. When the team is no longer competetive (the free agents leave and the team has no way to sign more), the person quits the league and finds another one. Salary caps are against the spirit of Baseball Mogul, but this style of play is even more so, and you have to take the lesser of two evils.

But the CD game should not be affected by this. It's purely an online thing.

Japherwaki

[gmoney41]

You are correct sir, I posted this message in the wrong place.
The cap is on the online version of baseball mogul.
I will not pay for the online version with a cap.

[Clay Dreslough]

The real problem isn't the accidental over-spending. The new budget guidelines should help with that.

The real problem is people signing 1000+ points of payroll to 7-year contracts and then crushing the league with superstars while they sink into debt. They can't re-sign players but they don't care since they have an all-star team for 7 years.

With the leeway allowed by fiddling with expenses, I felt this was the best solution. But you bring up a valid point about cheap players. Perhaps the limit shouldn't apply if you are signing a 1-point player, or a player that costs less than your team's average salary...

Clay

[william4192]

Oh, ok. (blushes) This makes perfect sense. Sorry Clay. I always wondered how you would fix that in online play. The MLML does not allow an owner to trade a player for the period of one year after signing or resigning a player to help fix this. The commish also steps in if finances get out of hand. But I see how this would work also.

[Slugger222]

Clay,

You cannot please all of the people all of the time. :)

In the case in question, the player can probably lower his expenses enough to sign the player, and then raise them back up again.

I've been here for the abuse years, and the limit (it is not really a cap) is a good fix. It helps to prevent the over signing that had gone on in the past, and it helps maintains play balance.

It would help if people know that they can lower their expenses in order to temporarily raise their limit long enough to do any cheap signing that they need to. Unfortunately, people either do not know that this option is available, or they think it is cheating, somehow.

Future owners, Look at it from this perspective......

You are the General Manager - not the owner.

What the limit represents is the amount of money that the existing ownership, in conjunction with the financial institutions, are willing to let you - the General Manager - use to build a competitive ball club.

In this game, it comes in the form of a legislated limit, instead of phone calls from the head office.

[mikeh5]

Is it possible to make the salary limit/budget an option that the commissioner can turn on or off when a new league is created? Once we go pay for play if there are leagues full of active owners, this may become less of an issue so maybe we could afford to live without it in some leagues.

[James Grove]

The optional budget limit is a good idea, and one we are already considering as a new feature.

Cheers,
James