Talk Fantasy Football

I'm not a fan of the Bank Rules going around at the moment. I know that they're an old rule coming back again, but something about it just grinds my gears... I spent the night thinking about it and I think I know why I hate it so much and have come up with a few solutions too.

Okay here we go.

Some time ago I suggested that we could start to implement a Cash based inducement. Something that you could purchase as an inducement that would benefit your team in later games, but would have no affect on the game you were playing. The idea was shouted down in part because the BBRC thought that they didn't want the inducements to affect future games.

That the inducement system should only affect the current game.

And that's the niggling doubt that 'the bank' leaves me. That by including the treasury in the Team Value, you are in affecting the current game's outcome, but the cash stored offers no in game benefits. For the Inducement system to work properly, you cannot artificially boat the team value. The value of the team taking the pitch can only be represented by the value of the team that can be used that game.

For example, I'm saving some money to buy a Beast of Nurgle (or whatever) or maybe I'm worried about my wood elves so I want to keep some treasury in the kitty for that rainy day. If I get to 150k (remembering that the first 100k is free), I give my opponent a free babe, or card. And that only just covers the cost of a wardancer. If I want to include a lineman in that insurance, well now we're talking about giving away free Re-rolls and apothecaries and lord knows what else. My opponent will receive an "in game" benefit, and I will not. Under a bank style system, I must sacrifice in game benefits for future game ones. On the other hand, I could be losing potential in game benefits to use against higher TV opponents...

If that's the case, why not let underdogs spend treasury to buy inducements? It would be the opposite effect as the bank. Sacrifice future game benefits for an in game one.

So because of Treasury affecting TV, I don't like the bank system.

~

Now, like I said... I offer potential solutions.

At it's core the Bank rule is an attempt to reign in resilient teams. If your team can resist injury, it can build a massive treasury, then you won't ever struggle to replace the injured players… On the other hand, teams with a high turn over can get into a nose dive as players die off and you struggle to get the winnings together to keep buying them back.

So with those benefits in mind...

1) Treasury Limit. - You could call it Salary Cap or Corrupt Accounts or whatever. Place an upper limit on the treasury and you limit a team's ability to plan ahead. On its own this means little. If I can stick pile 250k reliably then what's the penalty? So it must be combined with the proposed new spiralling expenses.

I can say first hand that the new spiral is great for reigning in high TV teams. It almost penalises teams for reaching high TV! As you get ever higher your winnings slowly disappear. Get higher still and your treasury goes with it. Combine this with a 1 on the winnings roll and you can see your treasury vanish right before your eyes. The best part is that resilient teams will eventually over reach the TV ceiling and then a lost player will do nothing to their treasury. Get a 4-5 skill CD killed and it drops your Spiral from -70 to -50… So at best you can get maybe 10k or 20k each game if you roll max winnings. Roll poorly and you're back to square 1. You never get to buy back that dwarf!

Which brings me to my second suggestion.

2) Scaled Spiral - If there was a slow/fast spiral, you wouldn't need to worry about the Treasury for big teams, it'd just get swallowed! Say Spiralling Expenses starts at 1800k TV and pinches you 10k, then each 100k TV beyond it increases by another 10k... (just as proposed) but then once you reach a set level (say 2200k) it increases by 20k.

So ..

1810k = -10
1910k = -20
2010k = -30
2110k = -40
2210k = -50
2310k = -70
2410k = -90
Etc...

Now low TV teams can keep money without any penalties. High TV teams can keep it too, and benefit accordingly from doing so, but the benefits are not long term... continued success only steepens the curve and destroys the treasury. Forcing a dip below the ceiling TV.

You won't punish teams for being scared of their low AV and wanting to keep money for the eventual implosion. You will punish High AV teams for building too many star players and overreaching the invisible salary cap.

Best of all, a commissioner can very easily change the values to cater to his league. If they want high TV, they can raise the lower and upper limit… if they want low TV teams, he can lower them… or any combination for whatever reason.


Say No to the Bank!

I really like the bank mechanics, but since some rerolls cost 140k and players go as high as 160, I would implement it at 150k so you never get penalized for saving for an upgrade.


Another possiblity is have treasury count for TV just for spiraling expenses.

You don't have to keep cash above the bank limit - you can choose to spend it on hiring/firing cheerleaders or on inducements for the current game. Anyone who lets their cash bloat their TV is deliberately doing so, possibly to save up for something expensive (most expensive player is 160k, so max you'd need to "bloat" by with a 100k bank is 50k, and with a 150k bank it's nothing!). In short, it's your decision and you aren't forced to bloat your TV at all with the bank set to 150k. Your "treasury limit" is just a hard-capped bank as far as I can tell.

Regarding SE, these are my thoughts.

Hi Bouf,
any cash left in the treasury (and counting towards TV) can be spent to affect the game in the inducement phase.
You don't have to, but you can.

Cheers
Martin

plasmoid wrote: any cash left in the treasury (and counting towards TV) can be spent to affect the game in the inducement phase.
You don't have to, but you can.

But if I'm saving cash for more than one expensive Player, if I get above the "bank" then the TV doesnt benefit me.

Or if I'm the under dog. Then spending does nothing...

I just don't like it the way it is... I understand that it worked well in the past, but so did a lot of pre LRB5 things.

I agree 100% to the intended benefits.
Jus not the way 'the bank' tries to achieve them.

plasmoid wrote:Hi Bouf,
any cash left in the treasury (and counting towards TV) can be spent to affect the game in the inducement phase.
You don't have to, but you can.

Cheers
Martin

This right here is why it is good imo. Teams will likely leave money in their treasury (counting towards TV) as well, what this does ultimately is lead to lots more inducements taken by both sides. So the TV underdog can get tehir free inducements while the TV leader can also get inducements without giving away even more. They can pick the inducements they want to suit the match. I haven't the experience of playing with it unlike some coaches but in my head it seems as though it would lead to more splurging of cash more often, which imo would be more fun that the current system where only the underdog takes inducements most of the time.

I'm noticing that 2.2m+ teams are screwed. Low armour still produces a high turn over and high armour can absorb this. When your winnings is d6+1 - 40 you have to be luckly to get 30k into the bank. After that it is -50 which IMO is now daft. So I am going to rule that -40 is the cap.

However I will allow this:

To the nearest 10K only.

Inducements. You do not have to take inducements, instead you can take 10% of the inducements as cash... if you win you can double this. The crowd loves the underdog.

It may help teams missing a few players to restock and teams who are prone to being pulverised.

Yep Smurf, the original intent was to cap teams around 2.2mil - with the bank rules as a component.
As it happens, the current limit is more like 2.5mil.
Venture above at your own peril.

Hi Bouf,
I'm not sure I understand.
But the intent of the Bank rule is to prevent teams from stockpiling cash. It seems to me that's exactly what your examples are about(...?)

But if I'm saving cash for more than one expensive Player, if I get above the "bank" then the TV doesnt benefit me.

If you're saving for 2 expensive players at once, my guess is you're trying to "abuse" the journeyman rule, and then buy 2 players at once.
Bank rule would encourage you to buy one of them before starting to save for the other.
All good - IMO.

Or if I'm the under dog. Then spending does nothing...

True... I think...
Say I'm a 125 team - 5 of those being 50K in the treasury (because my Bank is already full).
Seems a bit hypothetical, because a 125 team is likely to be spending cash rather than hoarding it.
But if you're up against a TV150 team, you could induce for 250K + potentially the 50K in your treasury.
If you had nothing in your treasury, you could induce for 300K.

So same thing, but one would cost you cash (if you want), because you've stockpiled too much of it.
I'm not sure I understand the problem.
Cheers
Martin

plasmoid wrote:Hi Bouf,
I'm not sure I understand.
But the intent of the Bank rule is to prevent teams from stockpiling cash. It seems to me that's exactly what your examples are about(...?)

I just don't see a problem with stockpiling cash at a low TV. None at all...
Then at mid TV, I don't see a problem with "trying" to hoard cash.
I have a problem with hoarding cash at High TV.

Thats why I suggested a spiral that escalates.
No penalty at Low TV.
Mild penalty at mid TV.
MEGA penalty at high TV!

plasmoid wrote:Yep Smurf, the original intent was to cap teams around 2.2mil - with the bank rules as a component.
As it happens, the current limit is more like 2.5mil.
Venture above at your own peril.

Well you can go above as long as your team is all nicely skilled up with buckets of defence skills, thus limiting the issue of injury. High Armour almost negates this as injuring them and them getting their skills up are 2 hard tasks.

The enjoyment of developing a team where all players have 3-4 skills would be great fun. OK full 16 would cost 640,000 on top of the players themselves.

Anyway I think over the next 10 games circa the 40th I should be at the 2.5mil mark.

bouf wrote:I just don't see a problem with stockpiling cash at a low TV. None at all...

I guess this is where we'll disagree. I don't see a reason to make the rule more difficult by putting tiers to it. At 150k ... you have enough money to buy what you need one at a time.

If you really think you need 300k to buy two of those at the same time ... then you give up the 150k in inducements to offset your extra insurance.

The bottom line is that since both teams can freely spend cash to effect the current game ... they had the option to spend it and be even. If they choose not to spend it ... then they make a decision to risk the inducements for the greater cash insurance. That's a coach's decision ... the thing I like about the bank is it makes the coach make coaching decisions on should they spend it or save it. More thinking like that is good for the game ... in my opinion.

So I disagree with you bouf that it needs made more complex. I've played in a league using the Bank and found it to be just fine to deal with at low TV.

Yeah agree with galak again here, the other thing to consider at a low Tv is you always have stuff to save up for. Like getting your apoth, 3rd or 4th re-roll, saving up for your big guy etc... there are not many rosters where you can have everything you want in a team from the word go. The only two teams I can think of is Chaos Dwarf and Dwarf actually. Apart from them there is always something to be paying for anyway so little to no need to stockpile early on.

Then after those inital 5 or 6 games you will probably be able to start saving up money, in comes the bank. once that reaches 150k, you have the team you want do you really need any more money?

The only reason you would is so you can survive for longer once you get to around 2500 which you shouldn't really be able to do. SE was brought in to stop teams spirraling out of control like happened in LRB4 and it is pretty good at doing this, but the lack of the bank rules makes it easier for the hyper bash teams to achieve this, especially Nurgle Rotters who don't lose players too often and also get a steady stream of rotters from Nurgles Rot. Though they still can't reach the dizzy hights that teams did in lrb4 which is a good thing really.

Okay, so obviously I'm out numbered here... it seems that people like the bank ( )

But I guess I'm not getting the point. What is the intended benefit? Hate to bring my professional life into my personal life, the benefit should justify the mechanism. Change for the sake is change is unproductive (if it ain't broke, KISS principal, etc...)

I thought that the intended benefit was to help reign in the Team Value of teams who can consistently resist injury by limiting the cash they have on hand to replace dead/injured players (when they eventually do die).

There is currently one mechanism for that in Spiralling Expenses... but it's a slow reward. (if a team can build up enough treasury, then they can surf the highest TVs for longer). So it was my assumption that the intention of the Bank Rule was to speed up that Reigning in of the Team Value.

So Either I was wrong about the intended benefits, In which case can you please explain what the intention of the change is?

Or I'm right, and then I'm back to hating the Bank Rule. In BABBL there have been a few teams who could reliably stay within the 1800-2200 range, and I don't believe in penalising teams for successfully doing so. But these same teams have had occasion to have more than 'one player's worth' of cash handy... So when a Norse team (for example) is sitting within that 1800-2200 TV bracket, I have no problem with him getting enough cash together to buy back multiple players.

So he loses a Blitzer and a Snow troll both in one game... No worries as long as he can keep the cash in the kitty. but under the current bank system, he is better served to spend anything over "X limit" so he can reduce the number of inducements against him, or maximise the number gained. Spend the cash, or suffer the consequences. Build as fast as you can, or take the risk. All this without exceeding the 2200 mark.

Now consider the "kill squad". When they get to the Mid-High TV mark, they don't ever really need more cash than "one player". It's pretty rare that they ever lose more than one.. So they can "Build as fast as they can" and then comfortably spend the excess treasury on things that will assist in their longevity. No real penalty at all (until their TV gets so high that Spiral starts to really punish)



So I guess what I'm saying is that the benefit of the bank is more in favour of AV/Regen teams, but actually kind of hurts low AV / high turn over teams. If a coach wants to manage his purchases to stay in an acceptable TV range, I'm okay with that. What your proposing is that a coach MUST build or spend, or suffer the in their next game for not doing so.


If the real issue is too much cash, then a exponential spiral will consume that better, without "punishing" teams.
If the real issue is High TV teams, then implement a salary cap. (and do away with FF affecting TV)

Are there better ways to achieve the intended benefits?

bouf wrote:Change for the sake is change is unproductive (if it ain't broke, KISS principal, etc...)

1. The Bank were the rules - they'd been in all the playtesting, and there wasn't a problem with them. JJ changed it to Petty Cash just before LRB5 went live (against the judgement of the other BBRC members), and it was never playtested.
2.It is broke -the games wasn't meant to allow teams to hoard 200K, 300K or the 500K we see sometimes now, especially on the high-AV teams.