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tree.hugger
Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
 type-b lost, ZerO lost (twice), and  Justin won. And watching those games was like pulling teeth. Tonight is a chance at redemption, and also the best night of starcraft we're going to see this round. CJ, Oz, SKT1, and KT all in the same pool this week is too good to be true. Hopefully, my luck reverses, and EffOrt wins out. | ||
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integral
United States3156 Posts
The ability to read a line-up and maximize cost-efficiency is very much a skill, so I would say the early weeks are much more indicative of skill in picking players. For later weeks we don't have lineup information -- which players get sent out, the map they play and their opponent are all beyond our control. Ace matches too, STX has been doing a pretty good job of jilting Calm owners. Doing well early is still an advantage here, as you get to trade to your advantage more, but sometimes many of your players will be playing at a disadvantage relative to their point cost. This brings to light the second main skill of fantasy proleague, identifying those players that will get played by their teams the most frequently and who will perform consistently across all matchups. There are several problems with this skill, however. One, there are not very many players you can count on to win consistently across all matchups and be sent out frequently. Two, we ALL know who these players are. And three, all of these players cost a LOT. So right now, every single participant in fantasy proleague has to pick players that are either unproven or consistently mediocre, and picking which consistently-mediocre player is going to win is a coinflip. A coinflip with very significant consequences, and one in which the coin has a memory. So the way I see it, the more often we get to pick who will do well and the more flexibility we have in doing so -- the less memory the coin has -- the more skill factors in. And, I conjecture, this would make it more fun, too. The coin having memory sucks not only for the people who do poorly and can't get rid of their teams, but also for the people who do well. It's not favorable for owners to trade away players that did well the previous week for players that did poorly the previous week, even if the owner truly believes the other player will outperform the one they currently own. All trade points are lost, and the risk outweighs the reward. All of this points to one really obvious systemic flaw, that, if it were changed, would resolve the above issues: Not being able to keep points when you trade down. With a banking system you could trade one elite player and one scrub for two middling players, or trade two middling players for one elite and one scrub. Note that with this system, the more players you get to trade each week, the more you can make the best of a bad situation. Here's an example: Your team plays like shit, and you lose a lot of trade value. Your team now adds up to 25 total points, not 30. Not only that, but the lineups for next week comes out and you got screwed. With a banking system and unlimited trades, you could still engineer a team that would be successful, rather than being stuck with a guaranteed-low-performing team the rest of the season. This rewards the same skill of picking players based on lineups that the initial picking did, gives players that got unlucky the chance to redeem themselves. A conjugate example: Your team does really well, and you gain a lot of trade value. Your team adds up to 33 points, not 30. But lineups come out for the next week, and you think you can do better. So you cash in all your points and rearrange your team. Yes, this is a "rich get richer" situation too, but it's not as drastic relative to the other players since the poor can get richer too. All wins count the same number of points, after all, and having 33 total team value doesn't at all guarantee you will outperform a lesser-pointed team, even though you might have more overall confidence in your players to perform well. If someone can read line-ups and players well enough to turn a team of scrubs into Bisu Calm Jaedong Flash Effort and Fantasy by the end of the season, more power to them. I think it would be awesome, and would make the whole thing a LOT more entertaining, both from a participant's point of view and a spectator's point of view. Obviously the ability of an owner to make his team's points compound is limited by a mathematical formula, so a team of that caliber might not be possible to accomplish, but as long as an owner's ability to make his team's points compound remains the same relative to his or her competitors it shouldn't matter. As far as balancing team costs and points and rearranging anti-team stuff, that's worthwhile to look at too, but I really feel like implementing a banking system is really where the leverage point is to make FPL a lot more fun to participate in. Anticipating arguments against it, the main ones I can see would be that it would make FPL more complex and that it might be technically difficult to implement. Just to briefly address the former, since this is pretty long already, when I made my first trade and my points didn't bank, I was surprised. It seems highly intuitive (not to mention fair) to me that if you gain or lose points based on your team's performance, you shouldn't lose those points in the endeavor of rearranging your team. Unless I'm missing something, I really don't think that people would complain if something like this were implemented. I'm curious though, so any feedback is appreciated. Lastly, this discussion might be better moved to its own thread, since it is getting pretty long. If there is interest in this idea, I will be more than happy to flesh out what I wrote here in another thread, even though no one knows who I am still.  | ||
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integral
United States3156 Posts
Argument #1 -- You don't have to guess who is going to get sent out more often when picking your team, since you can adjust based on line-ups each week. True. Being able to guess who will get sent out more often is a skill, but to me it's a skill that doesn't have very much weight, since we don't necessarily understand the coaches and other factors that go into lineup decisions. Yeah, we all have a rough feel for the hierarchy on each team and who will get sent out more often, and we all pick players based on that, but every week there are a number of surprises. Note that any form of trading mitigates those surprises, and unlimited trading completely circumvents it. Argument #2, corollary to the above -- People will just pick the players that have two lineup appearances and ignore the rest. This already happens, and the only reason to pick players who are not playing twice is because they're too expensive -- making this a math-tweaking issue, not systemic. Adjusted trade value does correct for lineup appearances, but not as much as the potential gain from playing another game. If trading were made unlimited, it naturally follows that additional lineup appearances could make players more costly, making it a less automatic decision. Argument #3 -- People will end up with the same exact teams each week since there will be an identifiable best team each week. The best argument against this is the first week of proleague. Yeah you can say that people factor in long-term results, not just the first week, because of the harsh trade sanctions, but this wouldn't make any sense since the trade sanctions are much much harsher for owners that do poorly early. Argument #4 -- Regression to the mean -- "I can't get lucky every week!" Some people find merit in winning through luck rather than skill. Getting rid of the coin-with-memory would cause a regression to the mean instead of enabling a lucky owner to ride their success to the end of the season. This is a paradigmatic difference in approach to playing the game, so there's nothing really to say to that except winning by luck is meaningless to me. For some people winning by luck might be a real thrill, but I don't think there are many people like that who play starcraft. The best players are exalted for their skill, not for getting build order wins. ---- That's all I have time to think of for right now. | ||
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R04R
United States1631 Posts
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Beamo
France1279 Posts
On October 25 2009 03:11 R04R wrote: Am I really the only one who traded KT for STX? 2 KT Rolster SK Telecom T1 7 0 Nope 6 other people did. Was planning to but when I saw the lineups rescheduled to next week  | ||
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R04R
United States1631 Posts
On October 25 2009 03:20 Beamo wrote: 2 KT Rolster SK Telecom T1 7 0 Nope 6 other people did. Was planning to but when I saw the lineups rescheduled to next week I said STX, not SKT | ||
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lazz
Australia3119 Posts
On October 25 2009 03:11 R04R wrote: Am I really the only one who traded KT for STX? stx's line up vs stars looks weak, probably why others didnt do it. | ||
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Blyf
Denmark408 Posts
He is # 70-ish with a 23 point antiteam (Jaedong, Light, Stork). THAT is hardcore!! | ||
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R04R
United States1631 Posts
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Kyuukyuu
Canada6263 Posts
edit: Aw shit, if I'd traded for SKT I'd be first by 3 points T_T | ||
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SonuvBob
Aiur21550 Posts
Starting anti-team: Bisu, Jaedong, Leta Rank: 313 | ||
Hot_Bid
Braavos36389 Posts
Well, we knew it was coming. KT Rolster falls 1-3, with losses by everyone but Flash, single handedly eradicating the stranglehold KT owners had on the Top 25. The gap is closing. To the dozen or so owners who traded KTR for SKT and Luxury for Leta (like our current #1 Lazz), congratulations, you jumped off the KT train at exactly the right time. Finally, Movie returns some results to his legion of owners. In the other match, Hyuk sent Jaedong's value plummeting even more, and we are entering the danger zone of "80% of all fantasy teams in R2 will have Jaedong." Do you want to see a fantasy success story? The manliest of men? Check out Etopen's team. That's right, he started with a 28 point anti-team and is currently ranked #313. My hat is off to you, ridiculously ballsy fantasy owner. edit: bob beat me to the last part haha | ||
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lazz
Australia3119 Posts
On October 25 2009 15:18 SonuvBob wrote: http://www.teamliquid.net/fantasy/proleague/Team.php?team=Etopen&r=4 Starting anti-team: Bisu, Jaedong, Leta Rank: 313 wow.it's almost like he thought anti team earned points like main team does my team is doing pretty shit this week so far. fantasy didnt play, hyvaa lost, zero lost twice, killer lost. hopefully leta/zero/hyvaa play some ace matches otherwise i know ill fall behind. edit yeah that was kind of arrogant. im glad skt went 3-0! | ||
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Hot_Bid
Braavos36389 Posts
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Hot_Bid
Braavos36389 Posts
On October 25 2009 15:22 lazz wrote: wow.it's almost like he thought anti team earned points like main team does my team is doing pretty shit this week so far. fantasy didnt play, hyvaa lost, zero lost twice, killer lost. hopefully leta/zero/hyvaa play some ace matches otherwise i know ill fall behind. dude you're in first | ||
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R04R
United States1631 Posts
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Hot_Bid
Braavos36389 Posts
On October 25 2009 15:25 R04R wrote: Hyuk hasn't been awarded his points yet. There might be others. Are you sure? edit: it looks right to me, was entered a while ago | ||
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R04R
United States1631 Posts
8 points there. http://www.teamliquid.net/fantasy/proleague/Stats.php?r=4 12 points here. Edit// My bad, Hyuk was traded for after week 1 on that team. | ||
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Beamo
France1279 Posts
On October 25 2009 03:20 Beamo wrote: 2 KT Rolster SK Telecom T1 7 0 Nope 6 other people did. Was planning to but when I saw the lineups rescheduled to next week Guess I should have | ||
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Jyvblamo
Canada13788 Posts
I'm predicting CJEntus and SKT owners headed for an upswing in the coming weeks. | ||
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