Subject: Creating a think tank

The money's more important. Currently if you promote and immediately demote, the OTR hit is so severe you end up making less after demoting than before you promoted. This encourages tanking and avoiding promoting when the object of the game should be to do the best that you can.

I like your idea Cap, but they do need to put much better players in the draft. Also, maybe a lottery for the bottom 5 teams for the draft order, this would prevent tanking to get the first pick. The sports academy pulls would remain the same for everyone. How about a salary cap for teams? The salaries are already calculated for each player now. This would make it more difficult for the upper teams and would force them to flush some talent to get under the cap. This would definitely make it a much more challenging and interesting game for all involved. This would help the lower teams a bit while not decimating a good manager. This would add another challenge to the game and would reward those who manage well, not just keep getting better than every team because of the money he has. If you are a lower team, but a good manager of the cap, it would help but not at the detriment of any one else. Thoughts?

My first thought on a salary cap is that I like it. My concern is that top teams with no facilities to build will accrue even more money and drive up the price of players, especially top prospects, even more than they are already. If you want to fix the system, it all circles back to finances.

They can have all the money they want.....the salary cap would be the same for everyone. They would not be able to dominate the game with their money like they do now. Once they hit the cap, they cannot spend more on any players unless they dump em or put em on the market to make salary room for a new player. We still need to have some incentive for the top teams, because they worked hard to get there. They could buy expensive players for whatever position they feel is important or buy all expensive youth......but at some point, the salaries will rise on those players and the manager will have to decide how best to get his team under the cap. Let go certain players, buy more young ones with lesser salaries, etc. In addition, there has to be some advantage to the top managers, because they worked damn hard to get were they are. This will manifest itself when lesser managers have not gotten enough money to spend to the cap. However, they would have several different ways to move up the ladder, older players with exp, mixture, build from the bottom up......etc. This system would allow for so many different ways to manage your team. Thus, the lesser teams would have some hope of moving up the ladder and actually having a chance at beating top teams.....all depending on how you build your team. This exactly what happens in the NHL. Teams have to drop players that have too high a cap hit or keep him and release smaller role players. It is a balancing act and managers have to fill holes with cheaper alternatives if he has several star players. However, if the manager keeps everyones salary somewhat in check his team could be a better team.......just depends on the manager and how he builds his team. That is the whole point of this game. You are a manager of a hockey team.......how do you best fill out your line up, what is the strategy for the future, dealing with the cap.......too many options to count and it serves everyone from top to bottom. Still some advantages to a higher team, but much less so than now. Ability of a lesser manager to use his ability to create a great team with a lower salary but still competitive if built right. Lastly, you know I am cutting my own throat here.........

My point was that lower salary stud youth prospects would likely go for a mint with nothing else to dump money into. I definitely appreciate that you're open to these ideas considering you would be heavily impacted. I just think not addressing the sponsorship structure directly renders it all moot. Have you gone through and tried to compare offers in I.1 top to bottom? The disparity between 1st and 6th is alarming from the information I've been given.

I see your point, but those lower salary studs....there is no experience in em. I think an experienced and balanced team could beat a young stud team. The point is, it would be possible. Once those stud youngins start aging.....and it wont be long before the salaries get out of control, the team has to make some exceptionally important decisions. All higher end teams would have to deal with this and a substantial amount of talent should flood the market. At first, money will be king, but eventually, different strategies, more talent on the market, etc, will trickle down throughout and hopefully bring the disparities down. Depending what the strategy employed, one will work well against some teams, but not against others. I happen to think that experience is a vital stat for a good player. Lets say a lesser team concentrates on lower salaried players with high exp. That team will be competitive, even with a young team full of studs. The cap makes managing much harder, many more important decisions, good managers will rise to the top and then deal with different issues and strategies when he was a lower team. Maybe it wouldn't work like I think......just seemed like a good discussion thread. To be blunt, as long as I am a decent manager and restock my cupboards with fresh talent, I will be around the top of League I for a long long time. I just feel there needs to be some kind of adjustment that makes the team disparities closer and more dependent on the manager.....not money.

The adjustments to the draft were actually Ziggy00's idea.

All of your ideas sound good to me. The proper balance would need to be found, but it could work. The only problem is that though I like the idea, some other managers might not have the patience to mess around the cap if it were to be made too tedious.

One problem is the speed of the game. If the game were 10 times as fast, there would be a better chance to catch up. Teams that start late can catch up, it's only that it will take at least 20-30 seasons. Maybe older players could eventually get negative CL to help with the problem.

Experience is another problem, as it makes it harder for younger players to catch up in OR and effective OR. This is especially going to be a problem for when the elite level 15 sports academy prospects start to get old and continue collecting experience. Experience should be capped.

0 CL makes players' skills decline. In a way it does make people catch up.

Headhog, I do like your ideas and I agree the game should be more about managing your team. I just don't think the current financial system is ideal. There's more incentive for me to stay in a lower division I dominate than to promote to a league I may demote from the following season. The financial impact from lost OTR is HUGE. The game should reward you for trying your hardest. If I try my hardest and fail, it's worse for me than not trying.

I agree with what you are saying. That should not be the case, it should be the opposite. Not sure how that can be fixed?

That's why I supported a version of Canucks' proposed idea. If there's a ceiling and floor per division (based on number of divisions/country) for sponsorship offers, it lessens the impact of promoting and demoting. Naturally, things like facility level and OTR can still be taken into account. TBH I haven't put a lot of thought into a fix as historically PPM won't even acknowledge a problem with the financial structure. If we actually want to discuss the issue, which it seems we do, I could see if there's anything I could add beyond what Canucks proposed.

Well, the whole point of this thread is to banter about new ideas and how to hopefully fix what is seen as a problem. The more the idea is refined and accepted by others, the greater the chance for change. Sure, bring in Canucks proposal and lets all take a look at it.

I see my name... what info doth thou want?

You mentioned earlier in the thread, that you had discussed this or had some ideas about our topic earlier? Maybe I just misinterpreted