Assunto: Creating a think tank

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Excellent points. I'll have to ponder that a bit and see if I can come up with counterpoints or modifications. I tip my hat to you, sir.

Lol.

I went to school for financial and behavioral economics. So I tend to think about everything in tangents and derivatives (how 1 change can cause an effect, which causes a series of changes, each causing a series of their own effects).

I'm not saying it's an idea to scrap by any means, but it really has to be thought out and implemented WELL (something I sadly don't think PPM is capable of at this point).

Because at the end of the day, basic economics is what everything is built on.

1) people respond to incentives. people will naturally move towards what provides them with the most benefit, with the least cost.

2) every action has a side effect, often times, these side effects are completely unforeseeable.

3) one of the most funamental side effects is the "substitution effect." That is... if people STOP doing something, they usually START doing another (and vice versa).

Think about food. If steak prices double, then people buy less steak. But people don't just eat less. They buy more chicken, or fish, or pork. They've "substituted" one for the other.

So in terms of changes in PPM, you always have to think about why people would WANT your idea in the first place (what's their incentive), and then what the side effects are. In this case, what people will STOP or START doing because of the change.

...

I'm not trying to sound preachy or know-it-all, so I hope it doesn't come off that way. I just feel like this sort of way of thinking isn't natural for a lot of people. And it's a particular point of frustration of mine with many of the changes that PPM makes (in which all too often, the side effects are seemingly not considered in the slightest).

That's why it's a think tank. What I wrote down were just the mad ramblings of one bored person trying to procrastinate instead of painting his kitchen or writing a 35 page paper. I certainly didn't put the thought needed into it to implement it right away.

I agree, I'm not scrapping it yet, but there are definitely other factors to consider that may change the proposal drastically.

1) The diminished value of loaned players would likely be reflected by their value on the market. I imagine that a loaned player would stick with a team for one season or so. If the team didn't use the player, then the player simply wouldn't get experience. I suppose it might be a good idea to allow a team to terminate a contract sooner, perhaps automatically if a player isn't used enough (to try to avoid the problem of competitors taking players on loans to prevent them from gaining experience).

You would simply have to plan for the assumption that the player won't be back next season.

2) Newer teams would still end up buying the lower tier players. These players would still be too low OR to play; they would just be too low a*OR to play now and would still not be worth training and keeping in the long run. Even with more experience, they could still have the same relative quality to the large number of other players (who could also have more experience than before) on the markiet.

You will still get the penalty if you have too many players on your team. If few enough people take advantage of the system that to take advantage allows a player to move up a tier in quality, then that player would simply sell for a little more money, perhaps a little later. They would still have the same relative value compared to the other players on the original team. In any case, to counter a potential problem of a decrease in the players made available, the amount of players available for loans from a team could be limited to n.

If they costed substantially more, it would be because the players are better (and they managed to become better compared to the majority of comparable players on the market that weren't loaned), so it wouldn't really hurt the teams that would have bid on them without experience. If too many of the players from a particular tier increased in value, then the whole tier would increase in value, as well as the higher tiers, so that the current limit of the demand on the market would impose similar prices on the players anyway.

3) Overall, I think the above concerns wouldn't hamper the idea, though I would suggest allowing contracts to terminate sooner and limiting the amount of loans from and to teams. The main additional concern I would have would be competitors trying to prevent playesr from gaining experience.

Sorry, but this is gonna be a long post because there's a lot of introductory info at the beginning (so you understand what I'm talking about at the end).

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Background information:
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honestly, your idea kind of makes me think of embedded options.

At the very basic level, there's 2 kinds of options in financial markets; each always involves a buyer and seller.

1) Call - the buyer of the call option, can decide to "call the asset" (basically take ownership of the asset) at a time of his preference.

2) Put - the buyer of the put option can decide to "put the asset" on the seller (basically force the asset onto the seller) at a time of his preference.

...

Lets think about it in terms of loans. Consider a bank that gives you a mortgage loan to buy a house. The house is the asset.

At any point, you can pay the bank everything that you owe on the loan. Effectively, you buy the bank out, and become full, sole owner of the house (the asset). This is the embedded call option in the loan.

Also at any point, you can decide not to pay anything anymore. At this point, the bank will take the house from you. Effectively, you have "put the house" onto the bank. In this case, you exercised the embedded put option in the loan.

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Recommended Changes to Proposed Lending Structure:
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So using the above in the example of loaning players, i wonder if your idea could be structured to include embedded options. Meaning, giving the borrower the right to exercise a call or put the asset (the player).

Summary of recommended revisions:
1) Loaned players do not count towards the lending team's player cap.

So in hockey, if you have 47 players on your roster, and have loaned out 10, you would effectively have a 37 player roster (no penalties for having "too many players".

This makes sense though. You can't use the player, because he's loaned to someone else. This also shows you the risk involved if the borrowing team exercises their "put option." If the borrowing team, sends the player back, it COULD put you over the player cap.

2) The borrowing team pays 1/2 of the normal daily expenses for the player. The lending team does not pay money in player expense. The lending team EARNS 1/2 of the normal daily expenses for the player.

So if a player has daily expenses of -$2,000 per day. The lending team would make +$1,000 per day from lending that player. The borrowing team would spend -$1,000 per day on the player. That's a net effect of $3,000 for the lending team. That's the incentive to the lending team.

The incentive to the borrowing team is that they get a player that would normally cost them $2,000/day (if they bought the player on the market) for $1,000 a day (and they didn't have to spend the cash to buy the player outright on the market).

3) The lending term will be equal to 1, 3, or 5 season(s). Players will automatically return to the lending team at the end of the term.

again... the incentives:

- Lender may want a shorter term if they are worried that in the longer term the player might be "called." This mitigates some of their risk due to the embedded call option.
- Borrower may want a shorter term if they only need a short term boost. This may be the case if they are making a playoff or promotion push, or if they chose a "bonus" type of sponsorship deal, and they want to make sure they maximize their bonus money.

- Lender may want a longer term if they are not planning on using the player any time soon (perhaps a 15 year old that won't be used until he's AT LEAST 20 years old), and they're worried about the "put option." This might worry the lender if they have a bunch of players loaned out. If all or several of them came back after 1 year, the manager might struggle to re-lend them the following season.
- Borrower may want a longer term if they want to use the player the entire time they're building up their team. New managers may want this option the most (since it takes several seasons to build up facilities to the point where training your own players even matters).

4) The experienced/lending team takes on all of the risk (This isn't a change so much as an outcome of the changes listed above).

As the lender and therefore the "seller" of the embedded call and put options, the lending team assumes all the risk. This makes sense, since they are profiting from the arrangement (see number 2), and getting free exp for their player.

If the borrower decides to take the player, they can "call the player" (take ownership of the player) from the lending team. The cost to "call the player" would be equal to a defined/set amount, such as the player's current daily salary x10 seasons. So a player that costs $5,000/day would cost the borrowing team $5,600,000 to "call" (take ownership of). That way, if a borrowing team decided they really liked a player, they could take ownership of that player.

If the borrower decides to give the player back (to move their strategy in a different direction), they can "put" the player back on the lending team for no cost, at any time. The player would immediately count towards the lender's player cap, and the lender would resume paying ALL player expenses.

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Theory:
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This setup would create structure to WHAT SORT of players teams will lend. Maybe they don't lend that 500 OR 15 year old with 85 AvQ or a 18 year old future superstar goalie because they fear that the borrowing team might exercise their call option. This makes sense though, because lending teams shouldn't be able to just get free exp (and cash) for their future superstars with no risk.

On the other hand, maybe a team decides they want to "rebuild" and start playing young guys. So they lend out their older players to teams looking to make a big push.

For example, let's say a lending team lends a 2000+ OR player, eliminating $90,000 per day from their expenses. The lender would get $100,800,000 if the borrowing team exercised their call option to take the player. As long as the borrowing team doesn't call the player, the lending team essentially makes $135,000 per day from the deal (from not having to pay the $90,000/day expenses + gaining $45,000/day in income). That would be equal to a $15.12 million benefit during the course of a single season.

Under the proposed rules, the lending wouldn't (necessarily) have to be done only between old and new teams.

It could be done to benefit even teams that have both existed since day 1 of season 1.

Two final changes I didn't think about when writing the last novel...

1) One thing I realized after reading through my post above is that free agency and the market must be accounted for as well. You can't lend a player out and then sell him (because the team buying the player may not want to be a lender). I think this is similar to what cataclysm talked about above (where he said loaned players would sell at a discount on the market).

The below eliminates that as a possibility.

- Regarding Free Agents:

As I said above, the "terms" of the loans could be 1, 3, or 5 seasons. Terms longer than a player has remaining until free agency are not allowed.

So if a player will be a free agent in 4 seasons, you can't loan him for 5. If a guy is a free agent in 2 seasons, you can't loan him for longer than a single season.

- Regarding market transactions:
The lending team cannot sell the player on the market (or even list him for sale) during the duration of the loan.

If you're thinking you might want to sell the player in 2 seasons, then you should plan on only lending the player for 1 season, because if you lend him for 5 seasons, and the borrower does NOT exercise their put option, you'll have no way to get the player back until that 5 seasons is over.

2) If a borrowing team goes dead, it is the EXACT SAME as an exercised put option. So if a team has borrowed a player for 3 seasons and goes dead after 1.5 seasons, the borrowed player is returned to the lending team at the time the borrowing team goes dead (after 1.5 seasons).

I am a little late to this party. sorry about that, because i am about to write a novel of my own...

I like the analogy of the put/call options. I have seen this subject bandied about several times over the years. This is the most sensible approach yet.

The main downside I see to this idea is the artificial competition levels it creates in the lower levels. It forces teams to loan and borrow players to remain competitive, but it raises the competitive levels of every lower league except D1 and D2. I say this because of the stipulation that you can only lend players to someone 2 levels below the lending team.

And that brings up the question of what happens to borrowed players when a team promotes? I realize this is more a technicality, but it has real consequences. For example, a D3 team has borrowed players from D1. The D3 team promotes to D2. It is quite likely the promoting team did so because of the borrowed players. If those players go back to the lending team, the promoting team may not be able to support the promotion. And, that takes us back into the debate you and Corey were having a couple pages ago about the economics of promoting versus not promoting.

Now, back to an older topic: facility depreciation. I like the idea as a whole. I agree this is more than the regular maintenance costs already used in the game. But, I think the depreciation time frame being proposed is too short. Loss of a level would not take the time needed to build a facility. Basic depreciation rules (even accelerated depreciation) take place over longer time frames. I would suggest extending that out to loss of a facility level after 2-3 seasons. It still has an economic effect, but it is not an immediately crippling one.

off topic kind of but this happened to me couple days ago, teams should not be able to cancel freindly games with no notice i had guy cancel our game 24 hours before it was played and he rescheduled with a differant team and no it wasnt playoffs. that caused me to lose out on revenue and send fans home unhappy. games should not be able to be canceled without a grace period of 5 days or so in my opinion so you have time to reschedule a game for the date they cancle fortunatly i had stockpile of cash so it wasnt a big deal to me but if i was just getting by like some teams are few of those could really put the hurt on franchise that depends on ticket sales. it should be easy to implement with simple what if code (two lines of hidden text on calender page )

generic example below this is just a hello what if game code would have to be differant but you get idea

//If the time on your browser is less than 10,
//you will get a "Good morning" greeting.
<script type="text/javascript">
var d=new Date()
var time=d.getHours()

if (time<10)
{
document.write("<b>Good morning</b>"
}
</script>

this might be fun and it should be easy to implement. managerial ratings. could be as simple or complicated as we want . idea is each time a manager picks right tactic (advantageous one in game play) manager gets one point. at 500 points wich would take quite a while to reach, the manager is inducted into ppm manager hall of fame on a page somewhere on the site. perhaps a prize of a pro pack for week could be givin by ppm for achieving hall of fame status. later other bonuses of maybe 10 points for winning your league can be granted to manager also or other rewards for other team stats/finishes. the game already records who picks a winning tactic so it shouldn't be to hard to count and keep track of them as a game/season/career stat. much like manager experience. don't know if there would be an interest in this or not by other players. it could get very complicated by adding in tons of rewards for stats I tried to keep it as simple as possible in this thread so its easy to explain and for developers to implicate, comments?

hmm no replies ill try another idea, if all 5 players on the ice ( lines + defensive pairing) would be from the same country, logic dictates their chemistry would be better for the simple fact they all speak the same language. therefore they can communicate better on the ice togather. maybe give a 3 to 5 percent ability increase in tabulation of game results for the lines that meet that qualification? it would also encourage more home nation players per league id think. in real life its very hard to manage get results from a team that speaks 15 different languages that's why the pro teams dont collect tons of players from different countries around the world, sure 5 or 6 is not huge problem but 15/16 players that speak different languages are uncoachable. I don't think it would take anything away from the game but would make it much more realistic.

they should limit how many international players can dress to play in a game. so new teams would be able to net great players as the market value would decrease a lot.

I like the improved chemistry for having players of the same country

I see where you are going with this. But, I am not sure it would work because, for the most part, players needed to be competitive are all foreign. At least this is so for the US, maybe not so much for other countries. So, limiting the number you can dress hurts both new managers and experienced managers. It would create a very interesting dynamic, though. A lot of managers would have to restructure their teams almost immediately.

As an aternative thought... There is already a 25% salary penalty for hiring foreign players. Market price is bad enough, but the salary penalty has more long term consequences. Any thoughts on what would happen if it was reduced or done away with? Is it really needed at all? Other than sucking some extra money out of the economy, does it really accomplish anything?

The increased chemistry idea has merit. More so than the manager hall of fame idea, though I do like that. But, remember, adding realism can only go so far in a game.

Let's carry the chemistry analogy a little further, I have foreign players that have been on my team several seasons. Would the chemistry penalty or benefit (depends on how you look at it) remain the same, or be reduced over time? That would be incredibly hard to code, but it is possible I think. I know this sounds like I am slapping the idea down. I am not. But, we need to be careful on how much "realism" we try to add.

Now that said, the core concept this is all addressing is availability of home country players. The problem is that all relates to the Sports Acadamy. There are set percentages and probabilities of quality players getting produced by any single Sports Academy. (NOTE: changing those probabilities could ruin the whole game.) The more teams there are in a given country, the more SA's there are, the more quality players will be produced overall. This means that countries with smaller manager numbers will have fewer players. Simple math. This means that managers in smaller countries must hire foreign players to be competitive.

There is already a salary penalty for hiring foreign players. You have essentially proposed an ability penalty for too many foreign players. Someone else proposed a limit to the number of foreign players allowed in a game. And, I actually like all three ideas. The problem is these limitations hurt the smaller countries and newer teams, in my opinion.

So, my question to the think tank is: How do we make this more equitable for them, without ruining the game for the rest of us?