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+---- Thread: *The difference between PBE and ISFL (/showthread.php?tid=31759)
*The difference between PBE and ISFL - JuOSu - 04-30-2021
As many of you know, there is a very similar league out there, the PBE, which is essentially the ISFL but with a baseball twist, rather than football. There are many overlaps between these two leagues, from the structure, the TPE earning, similar tasks (and task sharing) as well as many of the same players in both leagues. I am far from the only person who is very active in both leagues, even very max earning players or people in power are in both leagues at this point. Though still, many people are also only in one of the two leagues. So I wanted to think about what the core differences between the PBE and the ISFL are, as well as the similarities too.
At first glance, there is a lot in common. Both are sim leagues that exist in the same sort of universe and work with the same rules. You create a player and earn points over time to make your player better.
One of the first major differences I want to highlight is the update scale. In the ISFL, pushing your ratings up to 70 is super easy. Up until 50 you only need 1 TPE and to get it from 50-70 you need 2 TPE. That makes it very simple to push all your meaningful ratings to a very reasonable amount at 70 already. For example going from 30 to 70 really only needs 60 TPE. That is super cheap! In contrast, the PBE only costs 1 TPE until you hit 40 and 2 TPE until 50. To get to 70, you already have to spend 3 and 4 TPE. So to go from 30 to 70 in the PBE would cost 100 TPE. So if you do this for three or four ratings, you are already spending a huge amount.
On top of that, there are more ratings for players in the PBE, so realistically you have to spend even more TPE to get more ratings up to that number. In the ISFL you have 14 possible places to put TPE in terms of ratings (traits are another story), though most positions do not need all of those, or rather it is not even possible to get all of them. I would say even positions that need many ratings only really use around 8 different ratings here in the ISFL. Contrary to that in the PBE, you have a lot more possible categories, as a hitter especially. As a hitter, you are looking at 18 categories (most players would need up to 14 of those realistically at least a little). As a pitcher it's a few less, with 12 different categories and up to 10 being regularly used.
What this creates is an atmosphere that is already quite different but I will describe what this realistically results in in a bit more detail. This to me is one of the most crucial differences between the two leagues and I will likely highlight it again later too. But essentially, in the ISFL you are able to create a player and be somewhat decent with him fairly quickly, or at least have somewhat decent ratings. When you max earn, you will often find yourself banking your TPE towards the end since your player is already maxed at all the ratings that matter. I will say that this used to be even more dramatic of a difference and that traits have lead to some help with that, but even with traits, you do end up that way a little, especially at some positions. In the PBE on the contrary it feels like you are never really getting close to maxing your player (with some exceptions) but it is certainly designed with the thought that you constantly do improve your player, even still in your prime season.
This has some very very big side effects too. In the ISFL, I would say it is very easy and common to be called up after one more season in the minor league for most positions, something that only really works as a pitcher in the PBE. And you can even contribute fairly well here in the ISFL. You can provide some value to the team and be really good in some cases, very early on. In the PBE, this can sometimes come across as a pretty big grind, something that can also lead to frustration. Even max earning, especially as a hitter, it takes until you reach 1200 TPE or even more to be even really decent. And if you get unlucky you could feel like you wasted a lot of time getting good and it never really happens. I also see the other side though, where in the ISFL you could feel that even as a max earner there isn't much you can do to get better. It feels more lucky how your player does, since most builds end up very similar towards the top and some just perform better than others.
I guess one more thing I should point out as a difference is the difference in career lengths. In the ISFL you start regression after 7 seasons, whereas in the PBE it is after 9 seasons. Additionally, PBE regression starts very slowly at 12 and then 15%, while the ISFL regression starts with 20% right away. 20% is not happening in the PBE until 3 seasons into regression, while that already happens right away here. So essentially in ISFL after 7 seasons and in PBE after 12 seasons. That is a crazy difference and I would say the average career length of players in the PBE and ISFL is definitely crazy, maybe a difference of 5 seasons or so? It would be interesting to see more data on this actually. Again, I can see both sides here. Baseball does tend to have longer careers in real life so it makes sense in a way. While it is also fun to have a new player here more often and being able to go through careers more quickly here.
Longer careers and less regression also means that higher TPE counts can be reached in the PBE than here. The top person here tends to max out at around 1500 TPE, in the PBE it is more like 1900 TPE. This is not necessarily a huge difference per season when you think about it. Both leagues tend to be around 170-200 TPE per season it seems, but the regression being later has a bigger impact there in the PBE.
Another big difference to me is the impact that positions make. In the ISFL, you have a vast difference between positions. Choosing offense has very different positions still. On defense positions at least tend to use similar ratings and share the same kind of statistics as well, though obviously some with more and less focus. In the PBE, there is a huge divide between Offense and Pitching that is basically like playing like two completely different versions of the game. I feel like the difference in the PBE between Offense and Pitching is even bigger than between Offense and Defense here (different ratings entirely for example and for example not playing every game as pitcher vs hitter). There are more examples of this but I think I highlight that already here. I also think the experience between the different positions here and there are both fascinating. I think you get a completely different experience here if you play a Quarterback vs for example a linebacker. The same is true for the PBE between a pitcher and a hitter. Even some of the other points I have made above change a bit. A pitcher for example can be useful at lower TPE levels than a hitter in the PBE. In some ways that is true here too but mainly that feels more relevant at quarterback, maybe less so for other positions.
And what about statistics, since I have mentioned them a bit. Well, I think that Baseball is ultimately the perfect sport for a sim league. Everything you do is a statistic and everything you do shows up on the box score. You can go into insane detail with how well your player does. You can compare yourself to other players far more than here. I think in some ways this has pros and cons as well. I love the amount of detail with statistics there vs here, but at the same time it does highlight the issues with players struggling for a long time more. In the PBE it is very very easy to compare players to each other and know who played better. And sure, you can compare statistics here, you can look at which linebacker has more tackles and sacks, but even if that is the case, you can still feel like you help the team, you know you have an impact. It doesn't feel like it has the same significance here that it does there. I think here is in some ways easier to deal with statistics. At the same time, statistics here can at times be very lacking. Like I said, you can't really know who does better. Is a cornerback with more tackles better or worse because he allowed more catches and then tackled? There are also some statistics that are just lacking here.
Statistics also leads me to the next topic: While the ISFL has a decent enough index, the PBE one is THE index of sim leagues. You cannot compare it to anything else. It is by far the most extensive index and is used by thousands of online leagues as well. It is fantastic and you can find and endless amount of information on it. Additionally, we can also talk about the sim. Even with the improved newer version, you cannot tell me that looking at dots is necessarily always an exciting thing. We all know that there are endless issues with the game. It is flawed in so many ways and it does screw teams in many ways. It is a spot of frustration, something that ultimately holds this league back in my eyes. On the other hand you have OOTP, which is arguably THE simulation sports game in the world (possibly 2nd place behind football manager?) but in terms of complexity and enjoyment it is just on another level entirely. It is fun enough playing it as a single player game but using it this way is just entirely fun. Plus watching games is actually super fun and exciting. That being said, it also means that sims take so much longer. Even with more teams now, the ISFL sims usually are done in an hour or so I think. PBE streams are usually like 2-3 hours and even that is after we cut down on a lot of stuff and added another sim day. Games just take much longer and there are more of them. That being said, sims are also more fun because PBE also has commentary, something the ISFL lacks tremendously.
Oh speaking of! More games. In the ISFL you have 16 games whereas in the PBE you have 108 now. Ultimately, there is more randomness here than over there, as is the nature of the sports I would say. That being said, I think that playoffs here tend to maybe be less random than in the PBE. A baseball series that is only 5 or 7 games will just never really be that telling I guess. Though I guess you also have randomness here.
There are many other smaller differences as well. Some that you will only really notice as a GM, I think. For example minimum contracts. One of my absolute favorite things about the PBE is that minimum contracts are far higher than here and actually make a huge difference in budgeting. We also add 150 TPE for every season you sign. So for example if you sign a player for 3 seasons here, only the TPE matters when he is signed, whereas the minimum goes up every season in the PBE. This leads to teams having to be much more strategic with contracts and budgets. I think it is far more fun in the PBE to be a GM. Testing is also far more easy and fun in the PBE I think.
I will just name a few more differences that come to mind as I think of them: PBE does not have an appeals committee. Nothing huge, but I thought I would mention it.
Equipment costs more in the PBE but you also have an easier time making money there. There are more opportunities to earn money I think and like I said, contracts are also higher in general there.
While home field advantage here in this league tends to be huge, it is not something you can really change. In the PBE, every team can personalize their stadium with different factors, which means that as a GM you can strategize of what your team is good at and actually build your team around it a little, making your home field advantage even more impactful.
This league uses the wiki for history, which I will say, makes it a bit more difficult in my eyes. It's not super easy to find things at times. There is not really a good way to check career stats either. I guess part of that is the bad index, but in general I think the league history team here is not necessarily on the same level as PBE, which admittedly is a selfish claim, given that I run the league history in the PBE. But ultimately, it is very very easy to find information in the PBE and we have lots of fun all time lists that make it easy to find stuff like all time champions, all stars, awards, etc.
Both leagues have had their fair share of drama and their enemies. ISFL has had Er, PBE had Benton. Noble vs Kolbe. Lots of interesting similarities and comparisons really.
Speaking of awards, I think the way awards are handled here is not great. The voting on it is just a very odd system and in my eyes it can just lead to a lot of issues, it is just not a great system. While the PBE can also at times have bad votes, overall I think we tend to do it well and get the right result and by doing it with multiple options for each award, there is a bigger ability to get other positions right too (i.e. we can say who got 2nd place, 3rd place, 4th place, 5th place for awards much more easily).
To summarize towards the end, I will say that I love both leagues and I think both leagues have pros and cons. Ultimately I find it funny, because I think that in many cases, the ideal would lay somewhere in the middle between the two leagues. Some sort of middle ground that neither league has found yet (I think especially with update scales, career lengths, usefulness of TPE, etc). I think both leagues lean too far on one end and the ideal is somewhere in the middle. Ultimately though, both leagues are awesome and I enjoy that there is such a difference between the two leagues, despite all the similarities too. It truly gives each league its own feeling and experience. It makes it unique and awesome to be a part of both leagues. I love both of the leagues. Sim leagues are just always a great experience. Except the SHL. Fuck the SHL. (just kidding... mostly)