Subject: II.3

I agree. You can extend it to 50+ days with Pro Pack...

Congrats Xenons on your 3rd place finish. A little disappointed in my team's effort today, but overall an excellent season for the Raging Pigs. Looking forward to taking another step forward next season.

Screaming Weasels are throwing the championship.

What happens when a defunct team wins? Do they get promoted?

Screaming Weasels have made a mockery of the game. Blatant attempt to throw games. PPM should have a way to deal with this type of activity.

The problem is that it is a sound choice to do so.

By staying down, Screaming Weasels will win far more games and thus improve their OTR. They will gain a higher seeding in the national cup and they will rake in more attendance money from league and friendly games alike.

At the same time, they don't need to spend as much on players. The Screaming Weasels can sell off their best players and put that money towards facilities and the arena. They can develop young players on the cheap and increase their capacity.

The benefits of staying down far outpace the rewards of promotion. The fault lies not with the Screaming Weasels but with PPM which has created a systemic disincentive towards promotion.

Thanks. Your team controlled the puck in the offensive zone more and you had a lot more powerplays but my goalie played well and yours didn't. A lot like how some of the NHL playoffs have gone this year..

Well said.

The game shook down exactly how I wanted it to - lots of scoring chances both ways.

I was hoping to capitalize on my team's supposedly better shooting and goaltending. Unfortunately for me, your shooting and goaltending performed better in this game than did mine.

Agreed. Managers who promote without strategizing and end up in the bottom 4 in the new league will simply hurt their team. A team promoted too soon can have their plan set back by multiple seasons.

So how do we fix this so that the plan isn't set back?

More money?

Here's an idea: What if teams could only protect X many players who played > Y many games the previous season and the new teams to the division had a draft for the remaining players, akin to an expansion draft. Give new teams division ready players.

I don't know how you fix it other than flattening the differences between the league levels. The problem is, for example, that in III.2, our strongest team had 114 strength and the new teams coming up had 40. The gap between the leagues makes it so it's extremely hard to promote correctly.

Also, the cost to a team who is hanging around 12th to 16th place in a league for a few seasons is enormous and thus not making it worth it in comparison with dominating a lower league.

Basically, the only time a team should want to promote currently is if their strength gives them a good shot at being 8-10th at the end of the next season.

Well, I've played games, granted, friendlies, and beat teams that were coming up (equal importance, not matched tactics) like, 12-1, for example, and not just once, multiple times, then in league play, maybe only squeaked by them 4-1 or something like that, again, with equal importance. I think, as much of a gap there is, there will always be one, take, soccer for example. A team in the Championship will get promoted, but, will most likely get relegated at season's end. Only after a while will they build up the team to stay in the Premier League. Wigan, for example. Won the Championship in '05, and have been up since. Never a good team, but, enough to stay up. At the same time, they've gotten blown out 9-1, 6-0, by teams in the top 10. I don't like how people can throw games, but, at the same time, sometimes you don't know how a team will finish, on paper, it could go some way, but end up another. Ex. I played Beaver Slayers a couple seasons ago to a 2-0 loss, despite having double the OTS, hitting tactics, and murdering them in every other game I played, and beating teams they lost to. I don't think with the current layout of the game, there is a way to prevent throwing games.

I think the big thing in the EPL, for example, is that when you get to the premiership, your sponsorship rates go through the roof, and it really makes it worth while.

I think PPM needs to do something along those lines. More of a gap between leagues so that it really pays to stay up.

The argument then becomes the gap is widened between the top teams and the lower teams. It will make people want to promote. But it will increase the spread.

My thought to that is this:

Make the sponsorship money gap between 1st and 20th in a league smaller.
Make the sponsorship money gap between 1st level and 2nd level leagues bigger.

And so on.