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And this is relevant to this thread because it cancels one of the supposed many ways to play the game.

I'm sorry, "makes a little harder" is not equal to "cancel".

You're right, I spoke carelessly. I should have said it cancels one of the ways to compete. It is still possible to screw around.

BTW

And I still think that the focus on free agency as any sort of solution to this is still missing the point.

How would you correct the current rampant inflation? Ignore it? Deny it exists?

And this is relevant to this thread because it cancels one of the supposed many ways to play the game.

I'm sorry, "makes a little harder" is not equal to "cancel".

You're right, I spoke carelessly. I should have said it cancels one of the ways to compete. It is still possible to screw around.

You know as well as anyone that nothing has been removed from your toolset as a manager; you can still buy players, sell players, train players, draft players, and for the most part all of those options remain fundamentally unchanged.

BTW

And I still think that the focus on free agency as any sort of solution to this is still missing the point.

How would you correct the current rampant inflation? Ignore it? Deny it exists?

You purchased four older players with salaries of 13k, 31k, 12k and 20k just last month, with an average price of roughly 206k. I would have purchased a younger player (maybe 26-30 years old) for around that amount or less, so I wouldn't have to replace them so quickly. Someone else might decide that they'd go with a pile of younger players and train their core, and bank the difference (or just tank and bank even more). Yet another person might have decided to try to ride out their current roster as far into the season as they could, look for players who got injured at a discount and try to add players in time to make a run at whatever their goal for that season is.

You see, that is what they call different ways to play the game. You can compete, I can compete, anyone can compete (unless they choose not to, of course). If that's the goal of your latest campaign, congratulations! You've always been able to play the game however you want - and you'll succeed or fail based on how good of a manager you are.

Firstly I appreciate your "brief" reply. At least you've read what you're replying to.

Teams in I and II are presumably there because they've got the acumen to adjust to the game and its changes, and expecting the game to be catered to them is simply not what I would expect

I'm in a country where D1 and D2 are the only full divisions. So perhaps I'm blinkered there. However, I don't really feel I was asking for the game to be catered to them since I don't think what I said would cause problems for D3/4 teams. If those free agents were released, it would reduce the demand for the players D3 teams want, and so on down the chain. As I believe I said earlier.

I think that the focus on trying to keep the players that most of the III and IV teams in the game would require is definitely a better direction

Again, not if we're all chasing them. And presumably considering BB-Ryan's remarks about it continuing and getting worse this whole problem will escalate at every level.

all the saved 125k PGs and 140k PFs in the world are no solace whatsoever to the team in IV that can't afford to pay the weekly wages on that player.

I referred in my post to those players above 60k. I've seen those kinds of players on D3 teams but that's beside the point. If I, a D1 manager can't buy a 135k PG, I'll have to accept a lower salary player. Whereas before I was competing mostly with other D1 managers now I'm competing with D2 managers. I'm not crying about having to do that, I don't really care about having to compete. However the situation is also hurting all those bidding against me now who wouldn't have had to do so before.

I won't go on ad nauseum down the leagues, but this will repeat for every level of player. Every manager will find it harder to find players, even those in D4 who can't afford 140k PF's wages or probably now the transfer fee for a 15k forward who would help them. I admit there's competition already for those players as higher level teams can use D4 starters as backups but I think that's not at the same level as we are seeing, and will see get worse in the market now.

And I still think that the focus on free agency as any sort of solution to this is still missing the point. If the best solution to a problem in the game necessarily depends on people leaving the game, it's time to fold up shop.

That's rather melodramatic. People have always left, are leaving now, and will always leave. People also sign up. Its balancing at the moment, but even though user numbers are almost static, there are still people leaving. I'm not asking for people to quit nor do I want people to quit.

I hate to bring up realism but I find it a complete nonsense than usable players under 33 are retiring and older players who are deteriorating are on the market.

You know as well as anyone that nothing has been removed from your toolset as a manager; you can still buy players, sell players, train players, draft players, and for the most part all of those options remain fundamentally unchanged.

... You see, that is what they call different ways to play the game.

You are missing the point, probably deliberately, eh? Compete is what I said. "Play the game" is not the same. Neither is a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Trying to compete without training is being made increasingly difficult to the point where it is becoming no longer viable, i.e. cancelled. We all know that, so no need for you to blow smoke.

What this free agency change has done, has in one stroke removed a chunk of players who are valuable to D1 and D2 teams, probably the most important part of the market.

The part I disagree with strongly is in bold. Teams in I and II are presumably there because they've got the acumen to adjust to the game and its changes, and expecting the game to be catered to them is simply not what I would expect.

Of course you are correct that I and II teams can adjust more easily to changes and they don't need to be pampered, but ---

But I think you're actually missing the point here. The inflation, as I see it, is a direct result of smaller supply of high quality players; there are not so many high profile players available (normally, most users prefer to keep them for themselves - at least for the time they want to compete - and sell them only when their salary get out of hand or they decide to rebuild or they get eliminated from the cup/play off and will get a good price etc.). And that's how I and II teams adapt: by spending more money on the players they need (and trying to sell those players who are not needed for more than before, because they need more cash now). Unfortunately, this also has certain effects on III and IV teams which are also forced to spend more on the lesser players (not 140k PF) - the spiral goes from top to bottom.

Of course the problem is supply and demand. The problem is supply and demand when tons of players got dumped on the TL years ago, and the problem is supply and demand now when there are fewer players of a high end stature. If there's a proposal to try to have BB push down on the supply and demand balance, I'd rather see it be on the side of those who are more in need of assistance because they have fewer resources available to make changes.

Firstly I appreciate your "brief" reply. At least you've read what you're replying to.

It was intended to be brief, honestly! I didn't go back and edit nearly as much as I might have otherwise, or put as much thought into what I'm saying, but I appreciate the fact that you're discussing this constructively.

Teams in I and II are presumably there because they've got the acumen to adjust to the game and its changes, and expecting the game to be catered to them is simply not what I would expect

I'm in a country where D1 and D2 are the only full divisions. So perhaps I'm blinkered there. However, I don't really feel I was asking for the game to be catered to them since I don't think what I said would cause problems for D3/4 teams. If those free agents were released, it would reduce the demand for the players D3 teams want, and so on down the chain. As I believe I said earlier.

One of the things I probably would have said differently - I don't mean to imply that you wanted the game catered for you or your division (and I didn't realize there wasn't really III in England any more, but I don't keep up with user counts much). There's a whole separate issue with small countries and while a populated II isn't suffering from it quite so strongly as other nations, it's still far from ideal (but it seems like some change might be upcoming). I do think that even if every single player hit FA, though, it wouldn't saturate the demand for those high level players enough to have the knock on effect you're suggesting. High level teams tend to go inactive far less frequently and often when they do, they've already sold off their players with the thought of demoting and stockpiling cash.

I edited out most of the middle of your comments for character limit purposes, not because it wasn't interesting - I'll address it more in the comments below.

I hate to bring up realism but I find it a complete nonsense than usable players under 33 are retiring and older players who are deteriorating are on the market.

It's the same thing with people shooting 0.0% from the FT line, or my draftee who three seasons in has zero real assists (one I think in a Cup game). It is, in the end, a game, and one of the fundamental covenants of any game is that players' decisions should have expected and fair results. If I choose to spend three seasons training Jump Range on a draftee with absolute minimum passing, no matter how unrealistic it is, I expect that the consequence is an abysmal A:TO ratio. I'm not sure I'd have made the same decision in designing the game, but fortunately for everyone I was not consulted then. ;)

I'm also not sure I disagree that the release of more FAs on the higher end would be good. I don't think it would make a significant effect, because I'm not convinced enough of those players are lost to be significant in any way, but I don't necessarily think that retiring them is a better choice. But this is where the idea of choice and consequence cuts the other direction. For RL years, more and more people chose to eschew training because there was always some cheap talent available on the TL. The consequence, of course, is that fewer and fewer players of that age group are now available, and while a percentage of them were further lost in the whole free agency changes, I doubt that the amount of players trained would have been sufficient for the market demand now anyway (especially with Utopia added).

So the question then becomes whether BB should be in the business of overruling the consequences of the behaviour by somehow coming up with enough players to saturate the market, and then trying to come up with something similar if oversupply occurs, or simply let the choices made in game affect the in game world. I think things like boosting training (giving players tools to affect their own change) would work; I think increasing the player pool directly would just be a bailout

You know as well as anyone that nothing has been removed from your toolset as a manager; you can still buy players, sell players, train players, draft players, and for the most part all of those options remain fundamentally unchanged.

... You see, that is what they call different ways to play the game.

You are missing the point, probably deliberately, eh? Compete is what I said. "Play the game" is not the same. Neither is a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Trying to compete without training is being made increasingly difficult to the point where it is becoming no longer viable, i.e. cancelled. We all know that, so no need for you to blow smoke.

I am wholly and entirely unconvinced that it is not possible to compete in multiple different ways, not limited to the ones I explicitly stated. Whether you personally can compete effectively or easily or not is beyond my knowledge.

I don't really think we're a million miles apart here as it might seem at first glance. I even agree that the free agents I'm talking about might not be enough.

I'd actually ignored the possibility of boosting training, because I just don't see the likelihood of an improvement to training. I was under the impression that the BBs were happy with training as is. Were there to be a significant change to training I'd be ecstatic. Both for my own team and the NT.

I don't really think we're a million miles apart here as it might seem at first glance. I even agree that the free agents I'm talking about might not be enough.

I'd actually ignored the possibility of boosting training, because I just don't see the likelihood of an improvement to training. I was under the impression that the BBs were happy with training as is. Were there to be a significant change to training I'd be ecstatic. Both for my own team and the NT.

I would have liked it say three seasons ago, when I was getting ready to embark on my next challenge. It would help now too, of course.

I don't think boosting training would fix everything, either, unfortunately. I think that replacing a reasonable chunk of each draft pool with players along the lines of 15-20k salary, decently rounded 22 year olds would make the draft useful for teams *not* in the chase for the top prospect, when one worth a darn exists, and allows teams to still build somewhat internally without having to rely solely on training. There may be some balance issues with that specific salary range at the IV level - a manager in a mostly bot league who already has trainees could well pick up three players better than anyone else in the league in a single draft - but that's all implementation details.

I just like the training speed improvement as a major component because as things stand, it takes way too long for someone to notice a lack of supply and decide that they're going to capitalize on that opportunity. In the end, I suppose I'll always be one of those "if I want a specific player I have to plan on creating him myself" managers, but something that would allow the quality of available players to increase that still rewards managerial choice rather than just a straight player dump seems like the best avenue.