Increasing Fan Factor price?

[uuni]

I have proposed to our TT-league to increase the price of Fan Factor from 10k/point to 20k/point. I would like to hear the forum's expert opinion about this matter, if you please.

Problem to be solved is the wide difference between coach skills. Currently there are 9 coaches and in the current round-robin league phase before the playoffs the games went so that the future playoff semifinalist four never lost a game to non-semifinalist. Partly this is of course because the latter also have more beginning teams with lower TV than the former.

My main point would be to award some inducements based on the track record of the coach or the team. I found that Fan Factor effectively tracks the success rate of the team or coach. I am hoping that this would be an organic way to give a self-directed amount of inducements. The rate of inducements would seem to decrease as the FF differences would decrease when the games would have more balanced results.

I figure that a "losing" team's FF will linger at about 5-7 FF, "tying" team's at about 7-9, and "winning" team's at about 9-12. This gives us three different classes for team success that differ from each other by about a 3 points. With the normal inducement rules this gives inducements for the lesser faring team of about 30k per class. I figure that the proposed house-rule would widen this effect to double to about 60k per class.

The beginning of Spiralling Expenses should be adjusted to amend this change. I have proposed to increase the begininning of Spiralling Expenses by about 10 FF point price difference amount, so in 10k->20k change this would be an increase of 100k.

My gut feeling is that in future, the increment could be even wider, perhaps to rise the price of FF to even 50k per point.

How do you feel about such a change? What things should our league prepare to take account for?

[GalakStarscraper]

If you are having issues in the league with major differences in player ability .... I think this is a great house rule to help level the playing field.

Inducements are not going to totally make up for player skill for sure but they can make sure the stronger player in terms of abillity has a more Halfling vs Dwarf type experience in order to win.

I saw go for it ... I like it. I completely agree though that you need to move the Spiraling Expenses to adjust for it.

Tom

[cbbakke]

I have mixed feeling about it. One if feels a little bit like punishing a player because of their ability. In truth, I have always thought Fan Factor should not have a cost period. A team should start with 1 and have to build it up by showing it on the field. If you play well the fans will come, if you don't they won't.

As it is two coaches with the exact same team could give a 50k inducement difference due to one winning more then the other.


On the other hand, I can see the logic in trying to keep things balanced.

If you raise it the coach is going to give up a bribe or free apoth.

Overall it seems like raising the cost of it would leave to more people wanting to find ways to exploit it to their advantage for a little edge.

[mattgslater]

I quite like the idea.

[Smurf]

I think FF no longer has the value it used to have. I've reduced it to 0.

Now and then you get a FF+2 but these rolls on the kickoff table often mean your opponent has an army of coaches and cheer leaders to offset any big benefit.

In the old rules FF was awesome but now not so.

[Pagan]

The problem with this is once I was in a playoff spot I would do everything I could to lose each game by 1 touchdown to lower the unwanted TV.

I personally hate when my team's FF goes up as it adds bloat and little actual value to the team. Sure 10FF vs 2FF will get you the FAME and likely +2, but FAME isn't even that important. You have to roll one of the results on the kickoff table, and at your proposed end value there is no way +2 FAME is worth 1mil in Inducements I may give to another player in this case.

[Chris]

I like it. Should be in the CRP's suggested league rules. For managed leagues I think it introduces some interesting dynamics.

[voyagers_uk]

it is an interesting idea, it should definitely be a suggested house rule.

[Smurf]

Rise, rise my pretty and Liiiiive!

Threadnomancy at work again.

[cbbakke]

I think actually the opposite on fan factor. I liked the proposal that Galak (I think it was Galak) had for all teams starting with 5 Fan factor at no cost and fan factor not costing towards your overall team cost.

Reasons why:
1. I think it punishes coaches for winning.
2. I think it can effect teams differently. For example a Norse or dwarf team is good at low TV so their FF is likely to go up, but once they have a high TV they are generally a weaker team but have a bloated fan factor. teams like Chaos are the opposite, they struggle early and have a low FF when they get to higher TV where they are more powerful.
3. It doesn't take into account player loss. Sometimes you get a few freak players on your team and can go on a big roll of wins and rack up a high fan factor. The freak player dies and your team becomes a lot more average but you still have a bloated TV.
4. FF is not as powerful as it was in the old edition (which is a good thing), but having 10 more FF then a person is a 100k rating which is going to give 1 or 2 fame at most.

[dode74]

1. I think it punishes coaches for winning.

I think that's the idea. It prevents the "winning spiral" and "losing spiral" you often see in games such as chess, except it does so in an overall (I hesitate to use the word "meta") fashion.
Agree with your point 2, but I think that's an attempt to balance the game at around the 1800-2000TV mark.
Agree with 3 and 4 as well.

I think the difference is in what we think the point of FF is - I think it's a deliberate brake on teams which are doing very well.

[neverworking]

Given your purpose in your league, I think it will be good to help newer coaches have fun and stay interested, which is pretty critical to the long term success of the league. However it really does punish you hard for winning which seems a bit counter intuitive. I'd suggest you use this rule for the regular season, but then either revert back or even ignore FF all together once you enter the playoffs. Success in the regular season shouldn't be an excessive punishment in the playoffs.

[cbbakke]

Given your purpose in your league, I think it will be good to help newer coaches have fun and stay interested, which is pretty critical to the long term success of the league. However it really does punish you hard for winning which seems a bit counter intuitive. I'd suggest you use this rule for the regular season, but then either revert back or even ignore FF all together once you enter the playoffs. Success in the regular season shouldn't be an excessive punishment in the playoffs.

I really like the idea of not using it in the playoffs. I am ok with having some kind of handicap system but in a very competitive league I think that can create issues. The examples I provided I think are examples of that. You lose your 4 str 5 agility wardancer that let you rack up 20 wins in a row. Your FF is going to be huge but your team with the rookie warDancer is not the same team.

[plasmoid]

I like it.
If you want to put the brakes on a winning team, then this is a neat way to do it.

One thing though:
It'll absolutely guarantee that nobody starts with any FF.
I'm not sure I like that.
Cheers
Martin