Warrior General Games

Originally posted by HayRow
Should probably lower the prices for kickers or very few players are going to spend any money on it. Having a kicker cost the same as Barry is lolworthy

There is a reason this season is setup the way it is. I have actually been thinking of 2 concepts.

1. Adding caps to players such as the 2 damn QBs having over 100 points per game isn't quite good so having a ceiling per position and or all positions.
2. Adjusting salary across the board so instead of 10k for best at position but rather all positions combined so that a 10pt kicker will be priced similar to a 10pt WR which basically does what your thinking. The lesser scoring positions will be salaried at a smaller amount while the 'premium' will remain that way.

With the option of #2 there might be a justification to lower the salary cap as well. But we will have to see. I am playing as well to find ways to exploit the season but my results don't count towards the end goal.

So I started tweaking this for possible changes to next weeks setup.

I will implement #2 where salary formula is not based within a position but rather against all players. Taking this week as a test where I was left with 142 for the week, the exact same players gives me 7,851 left which would actually allow me to improve my lower scoring positions such as K and DEF. With that being said I am also going to adjust the cap for players, because looking across the board it seems all players tend to be scoring in line except a handful of QB/HB for which I think I will cap a players point total to 40 per game. By doing this my remaining value is now at 498 for the week. Now that was taking the best QB, best 2 HB's and settling for middle WR's and lower TE and worst K and worst DEF. This will allow people to pick more middle of the pack because there isn't an overwhelming reason to pick best players.

Not when a 40 point player costs 10,000 but a 30 point player costs 8,125 a 20 point player costs 6,250 and so on. Where previously that 10k guy was netting 121 points and the 8,125 was around 85 and the 6,250 was around 60. Given those numbers no QB/WR/TE/K/DEF would ever qualify for the above 6000 salary costs.

I will make these changes for Day 18 and see how it goes and tweak accordingly. Just thought I would let you guys know.

Don't cap point totals. One of the fun things about fantasy is the Michael Vick game where a player just blows everyone away.

You can control it with salary equalization imo. At least do one thing at a time so you can control your variables.

Also, instead of making all position equal, you need to consider opportunity cost too.

You can take 3 WR and only 1 QB. That makes the values of QBs different to the value of WRs, even if they are putting up the same point total.

Originally posted by Cuivienen
Don't cap point totals. One of the fun things about fantasy is the Michael Vick game where a player just blows everyone away.

You can control it with salary equalization imo. At least do one thing at a time so you can control your variables.

Also, instead of making all position equal, you need to consider opportunity cost too.

You can take 3 WR and only 1 QB. That makes the values of QBs different to the value of WRs, even if they are putting up the same point total.

Its not the issue between positions but rather within positions... Lets take QB for instance here are the top 10.

QB Top 10 : 46,46,39,30,29,28,28,26,26,23
HB Top 10 : 121,113,82,69,66,63,62,58,57,55
WR Top 10 : 29,27,24,22,20,20,17,17,17,17
TE Top 10 : 25,23,23,20,19,15,13,11,11,11
K Top 10 : 17,15,15,13,13,12,12,11,11,11
DEF Top 10 : 28,28,21,20,17,12,11,10,10,10

This would be the point totals after cap.

QB Top 10 : 35,33,30,29,29,28,28,25,25,23
HB Top 10 : 40,40,39,38,37,36,34,34,34,33
WR Top 10 : 28,27,24,22,20,20,17,17,17,17
TE Top 10 : 25,23,23,20,19,15,13,11,11,11
K Top 10 : 17,15,15,13,13,12,12,11,11,11
DEF Top 10 : 23,20,19,17,15,11,11,10,10,10

As you can tell most other positions are mildly affected so I am not concerned there but look at the HB. Uncapped you have all 10 over the best of every other position. But with a cap you bring them back down to earth. In an uncapped system you would be retarded not to pick up #1 and #2 HB and just sacrifice your other positions. It becomes a cookie cutter roster and defeats the whole purpose imo. With a capped system it provides some choice to the decision. Now it could be quite possible HB scoring is just too high, but lets take the average score for all players: uncapped = 25.85 vs capped = 17.03 giving a difference of about 8 points which isn't huge, but HB's tend to be extremely top heavy with point. In the uncapped there are 12 HB's above the capped amount. So if I make adjustments to the actual scoring formula I am only going to devalue all the other HB which is the majority of them. Big thing I see is that capping the points only brings the top heavy's down and also will help prevent gaming the system with people trying to score rape the system.

seems to me that caps introduce a dramatically different dynamic. It changes the game an awful lot.

I would say you hold off on point caps -- for at least the season --- and then you'll have the data to determine if people are running cookie cutter rosters -- and if caps are needed to push people toward more diversified roster selections.

Caps make it very complicated. Now you are intentionally searching for the 7th best quarterback -- who will be within 2 points of the 3rd best QB - and it sort of makes it a different game imo

Originally posted by TxSteve
seems to me that caps introduce a dramatically different dynamic. It changes the game an awful lot.

I would say you hold off on point caps -- for at least the season --- and then you'll have the data to determine if people are running cookie cutter rosters -- and if caps are needed to push people toward more diversified roster selections.

Caps make it very complicated. Now you are intentionally searching for the 7th best quarterback -- who will be within 2 points of the 3rd best QB - and it sort of makes it a different game imo

I don't think we need a full season to see it, as I ran it all of last season in Sandbox with some players and it was always the MO to take the #1 HB and sacrifice the cost because he was scoring +40 more than any other position. Every chance you got, you took him, no brainer. You didn't win without it.

So there were 21 submissions this round.

14 people took the #1 HB
10 people took the #2 HB

Based on those numbers alone, I would speculate only those who took #1 and #2 will win this week. Which would be 7 people out of the 21. The rest of their selections will dictate who will win. So... with this said my prediction are that the top 7 place finishers will be the ones that took 1/2 combo.

Also isn't that the point of the whole concept of Fantasy Football? 'Which QB will do better considering matchup?'

There's a bigger difference between all of those positions 10th ranked player versus the top few players except for the RB spot. If you cap the points at 50 for RB's instead of 40, would that create a slightly wider gap among the Top 10 comparable to the other positions?

I see what you're saying

But isn't the answer instead - make the #1 and #2 HB's cost a LOT more of your salary cap dollars?

Originally posted by Absolut Zero
There's a bigger difference between all of those positions 10th ranked player versus the top few players except for the RB spot. If you cap the points at 50 for RB's instead of 40, would that create a slightly wider gap among the Top 10 comparable to the other positions?

So if I raise the cap to 50. Here is how the top 10 would shake up.

HB > 50,48,46,43,41,41,40,40,38,37 diff of 13 points from #1 to #10 which seems to be about on part as all the others.
QB diff 16 points
WR dif 12 points
TE dif 14 points
K dif 6 points
DEF dif 15 points

I do see what you're saying now - and have become convinced that HB is a problem.

Why not cap only HB? (or at worst - only HB and QB) - and they there is still the fun (like someone said above) of a TE/WR/Defense going OFF and propelling the team to a surprising but fun victory

Originally posted by TxSteve
I do see what you're saying now - and have become convinced that HB is a problem.

Why not cap only HB? (or at worst - only HB and QB) - and they there is still the fun (like someone said above) of a TE/WR/Defense going OFF and propelling the team to a surprising but fun victory

That is easily done and really are the only 2 positions that would become a problem child... If we want the 'go off' factor that would make sense as it is a targeted approach. I do really like the dynamic of the cap at 50 rather than 40 because once I did that I actually opened up some cap room with the roster I did this last go round which allowed me to pick something other than the worst defense and worst kicker.

What I am going to do is essentially run the numbers of 'what if' uncapped scores versus capped scores across the results to see what would have shaken up. <<< Tonight after posting scores I will provide the screenshots from Sandbox showing the differences. Nothing in production as of right now.

Originally posted by Stobie
I don't think we need a full season to see it, as I ran it all of last season in Sandbox with some players and it was always the MO to take the #1 HB and sacrifice the cost because he was scoring +40 more than any other position. Every chance you got, you took him, no brainer. You didn't win without it.

So, the obvious solution isn't some arbitrary cap. That is the easy way out.

The solution is to adjust the salaries, which you are already planning to do, and to change the scoring mechanism, which you should do next. Adjusting salaries is going to do a lot to move people away from the same rosters.

Start with that and go from there. Only do one thing at a time.

If HBs are scoring too many points, don't just cap them. Instead, adjust how many fantasy points you get for rushing yards and TDs to bring them into line. Also, consider increasing the fantasy points other positions are likely to get, such as passing, receiving, defense and kicking. That still allows differentiation within the position group that a cap would kill.

Originally posted by Stobie
So there were 21 submissions this round.

14 people took the #1 HB
10 people took the #2 HB

Based on those numbers alone, I would speculate only those who took #1 and #2 will win this week. Which would be 7 people out of the 21. The rest of their selections will dictate who will win.

That is actually quite a lot of differentiation for a daily fantasy style game.

And your last sentence is still a game. Just because there a couple obvious choices out of a dozen you have to make does not mean that you don't still need to make 10 choices that will dictate who will win. How is that not a game?

Originally posted by Stobie
which allowed me to pick something other than the worst defense and worst kicker.

Being 'allowed' to pick not the worst K and D is a function of the salary you assigned to those positions (Ks are particularly egregious), not capping other positions.

Also, picking the worst D is not a great strategy imo. The fact that I have a different opinion than you, an opinion I arrived at analytically, already demonstrates that you have a functioning game on your hands.

BTW, I don't know how often you scrape GLB2, but it would be fun to see scores update during the day.