The release of Dotts sparked some interesting discussion around the league about the state of its economy and what players are willing to spend their money on. There is a collection of users that are quite rich and won't have to worry about their annual purchases of training and equipment as much as less active or newer players. Some ideas have been floated around about possible ways that users can spend their excess cash in order at least attempt to somewhat balance the league's economy. I've been thinking hard, and I've come up with my own ideas about how this difficult feat could be achieved. Problem is though, they're not good ideas.
An Expensive Discord Server Only for the Rich
I'd see this being something that would require a giant membership fee every season. Can you imagine the absolute molten anger if something like this was created? It would surely attract the most elitist and condescending members of the league. I could imagine it would be so cherished by those involved in it that they'd save up all season just to afford being a part of their secretive club. I also imagine some members of the league would soon come up with conspiracy theories about how this server was secretly influencing the events of the league, and how HO was actually just a puppet. Unrest would surely grow among the lower class, and they'd create their own server, and with their great numbers, they'd plan the revolution. The richest members of the league would be guillotined and their money redistributed. That, or a lot of people would get frustrated by the state of the league and go inactive, but I'm leaning towards the guillotine thing. Any idea for spending money that makes others feel seriously alienated is a bad idea.
Commissioner for the Week
Bex might not be completely against this one. She could probably use the break. Commissioner for the day might not be bad if a person is assisted by other members of HO and it is done with the goal of getting someone to learn the ropes of HO and that perspective on the league, but imagine if a radically opinionated member of the league decided to impose their will and make sweeping changes to the league for a week. I assume their might be some checks and balances on the commissioner's power, but imagine the headache and chaos that could come if certain people were given that power. Not to mention if you could buy this opportunity over and over again, then essentially a super-rich person could run the league just because of money alone. Imagine how ridiculously important the casino would be if this was possible. One gigantic all-in bet won, then you're commissioner for the next 3 months. The amount of long-term team analysis done in order to make picks for the stock market would be astounding. I'm kind of starting to convince myself that this would be kind of cool, except for the fact that the commissioner position becomes a revolving door and new league members would certainly think they could never possibly be commissioner unless they worked day and night to amass exorbitant amounts of money.
One Time Attribute Boosts
I've never been a Madden guy, but I did used to play EA's NCAA Football games, and the in the Heisman mode of NCAA Football 14 (which had Denard "Shoelaces" Robinson on the cover, reply below if you remember watching him), you could spend points for both permanent and temporary stat boosts for players. Imagine if for one game, you could temporarily increase your player's stats in 5 point increments if you had enough money. I imagine the price would be quite expensive, and you might be thinking that this would be useless for capped players, not to mention by that time they might finally have enough to afford them, so the whole thing would be a bit counterintuitive. That might be true, but here's the kicker: these boosts could break the player archetype stat caps. This would make these boosts even more expensive, and I could foresee players waiting to buy these boosts for playoff and championship games. This idea seems fun, but it's definitely flawed. First of all, we shouldn't link money to stat increases too much in the league. The league aims to be open to different levels of activity, and it walks a fine line of accessibility already with training and equipment purchases. Temporary boosts would tip that scale pretty unfairly. Teams would begin prioritizing money earning much more than they already do in the draft. Also, it would make archetypes pointless later in players' career, and I personally find archetypes an interesting way to differentiate capped players. Finally, it would seriously affect the earning process in general, and it could be easily abused.
One Time Attribute Deductions of Opponents
Ok now we’re getting real spicy. This one and the last one would both be implemented simultaneously. Can you imagine the bidding wars as players consistently spend exorbitant amounts of money both boosting and lowering players? The transaction threads for the Ultimus would be pure chaos. I imagine there would have to be a certain cutoff time before the game so that sim team could appropriately adjust stats, and in that 5 minutes before the thread closes, tons of transactions would be made. There would be some strategy to it though, such as the question of targeting one really important player (like the quarterback) or lowering stats of a team across many positions. Of course this is a horrible idea, especially combined with the stat boost idea, because it means the richer team is always more likely to win, and the hard work that players put in to raise their attributes with TPE could potentially be all for naught if one super rich person decides to ruin their day.
Someone Else to Earn for You
I actually don't think this is THAT bad of an idea. Some people already have prediction passes or other earning passes for holding certain league jobs. I would assume part of the rational for that is they are contributing a lot of work to keep the league running smoothly anyway. They are spending time that they would have spent earning on helping the league, so their passes are a thank you for doing the dirty work. When you think about it, a person that has lots of money could have earned that money through contributions to the league as well. That, or they got really lucky at the casino. Either way, it's sort of against the spirit of the league to simply be absent from the process of developing your player just because you're rich.
Buying DSFL Capped Accounts of Inactive Players
In League of Legends, if you create a new account, you are forced to grind to experience level 30 in order to be allowed to play games that actually determine you rank. For the majority of players, ranked matches are the most important aspect of the game, so it can be frustrating for players making new accounts to go through the process of leveling up to 30 before they can really play the game. To circumvent this, players will buy accounts that other people have levelled up to 30 in order to circumvent the process. This could get a person banned, but many still do it anyway. The way I understand, a good portion of recreates would love to skip the DSFL process if they could, but they need that time to earn for their player. So how about we let recreates buy accounts leveled up to 250 TPE that have become inactive. It will let veterans jump back into the enjoyment of the ISFL without feeling like they have to waste a whole season (at least) in the DSFL. It would probably encourage some players to recreate instead of quit with retirement, and it could reduce burnout overall. Of course though, this wouldn’t be very fair, would it? It would greatly discourage the experience of newer players who would begin to wonder why the league is so unfair to rookies. Rookies also may view the DSFL with less value if they see a ton of other players skipping over it, and I think I can speak for my draft class in saying that we highly valued our DSFL experience and had copious amounts of fun at that level of competition. I’d hate to see that change for other players. Not to mention there’s no telling that player’s from those inactive accounts wouldn’t decide to come back to their player at a later time
Please reply if you have any other bad (or good) ideas for ways to spend money in the league!
Thanks for reading!
An Expensive Discord Server Only for the Rich
I'd see this being something that would require a giant membership fee every season. Can you imagine the absolute molten anger if something like this was created? It would surely attract the most elitist and condescending members of the league. I could imagine it would be so cherished by those involved in it that they'd save up all season just to afford being a part of their secretive club. I also imagine some members of the league would soon come up with conspiracy theories about how this server was secretly influencing the events of the league, and how HO was actually just a puppet. Unrest would surely grow among the lower class, and they'd create their own server, and with their great numbers, they'd plan the revolution. The richest members of the league would be guillotined and their money redistributed. That, or a lot of people would get frustrated by the state of the league and go inactive, but I'm leaning towards the guillotine thing. Any idea for spending money that makes others feel seriously alienated is a bad idea.
Commissioner for the Week
Bex might not be completely against this one. She could probably use the break. Commissioner for the day might not be bad if a person is assisted by other members of HO and it is done with the goal of getting someone to learn the ropes of HO and that perspective on the league, but imagine if a radically opinionated member of the league decided to impose their will and make sweeping changes to the league for a week. I assume their might be some checks and balances on the commissioner's power, but imagine the headache and chaos that could come if certain people were given that power. Not to mention if you could buy this opportunity over and over again, then essentially a super-rich person could run the league just because of money alone. Imagine how ridiculously important the casino would be if this was possible. One gigantic all-in bet won, then you're commissioner for the next 3 months. The amount of long-term team analysis done in order to make picks for the stock market would be astounding. I'm kind of starting to convince myself that this would be kind of cool, except for the fact that the commissioner position becomes a revolving door and new league members would certainly think they could never possibly be commissioner unless they worked day and night to amass exorbitant amounts of money.
One Time Attribute Boosts
I've never been a Madden guy, but I did used to play EA's NCAA Football games, and the in the Heisman mode of NCAA Football 14 (which had Denard "Shoelaces" Robinson on the cover, reply below if you remember watching him), you could spend points for both permanent and temporary stat boosts for players. Imagine if for one game, you could temporarily increase your player's stats in 5 point increments if you had enough money. I imagine the price would be quite expensive, and you might be thinking that this would be useless for capped players, not to mention by that time they might finally have enough to afford them, so the whole thing would be a bit counterintuitive. That might be true, but here's the kicker: these boosts could break the player archetype stat caps. This would make these boosts even more expensive, and I could foresee players waiting to buy these boosts for playoff and championship games. This idea seems fun, but it's definitely flawed. First of all, we shouldn't link money to stat increases too much in the league. The league aims to be open to different levels of activity, and it walks a fine line of accessibility already with training and equipment purchases. Temporary boosts would tip that scale pretty unfairly. Teams would begin prioritizing money earning much more than they already do in the draft. Also, it would make archetypes pointless later in players' career, and I personally find archetypes an interesting way to differentiate capped players. Finally, it would seriously affect the earning process in general, and it could be easily abused.
One Time Attribute Deductions of Opponents
Ok now we’re getting real spicy. This one and the last one would both be implemented simultaneously. Can you imagine the bidding wars as players consistently spend exorbitant amounts of money both boosting and lowering players? The transaction threads for the Ultimus would be pure chaos. I imagine there would have to be a certain cutoff time before the game so that sim team could appropriately adjust stats, and in that 5 minutes before the thread closes, tons of transactions would be made. There would be some strategy to it though, such as the question of targeting one really important player (like the quarterback) or lowering stats of a team across many positions. Of course this is a horrible idea, especially combined with the stat boost idea, because it means the richer team is always more likely to win, and the hard work that players put in to raise their attributes with TPE could potentially be all for naught if one super rich person decides to ruin their day.
Someone Else to Earn for You
I actually don't think this is THAT bad of an idea. Some people already have prediction passes or other earning passes for holding certain league jobs. I would assume part of the rational for that is they are contributing a lot of work to keep the league running smoothly anyway. They are spending time that they would have spent earning on helping the league, so their passes are a thank you for doing the dirty work. When you think about it, a person that has lots of money could have earned that money through contributions to the league as well. That, or they got really lucky at the casino. Either way, it's sort of against the spirit of the league to simply be absent from the process of developing your player just because you're rich.
Buying DSFL Capped Accounts of Inactive Players
In League of Legends, if you create a new account, you are forced to grind to experience level 30 in order to be allowed to play games that actually determine you rank. For the majority of players, ranked matches are the most important aspect of the game, so it can be frustrating for players making new accounts to go through the process of leveling up to 30 before they can really play the game. To circumvent this, players will buy accounts that other people have levelled up to 30 in order to circumvent the process. This could get a person banned, but many still do it anyway. The way I understand, a good portion of recreates would love to skip the DSFL process if they could, but they need that time to earn for their player. So how about we let recreates buy accounts leveled up to 250 TPE that have become inactive. It will let veterans jump back into the enjoyment of the ISFL without feeling like they have to waste a whole season (at least) in the DSFL. It would probably encourage some players to recreate instead of quit with retirement, and it could reduce burnout overall. Of course though, this wouldn’t be very fair, would it? It would greatly discourage the experience of newer players who would begin to wonder why the league is so unfair to rookies. Rookies also may view the DSFL with less value if they see a ton of other players skipping over it, and I think I can speak for my draft class in saying that we highly valued our DSFL experience and had copious amounts of fun at that level of competition. I’d hate to see that change for other players. Not to mention there’s no telling that player’s from those inactive accounts wouldn’t decide to come back to their player at a later time
Please reply if you have any other bad (or good) ideas for ways to spend money in the league!
Thanks for reading!