Season 35 General Discussion

yeah, the ratings inflation came at the beginning of the blackout creation. not sure how exactly, maybe lots of nz teams initially, or lots of points gathered via Monday friendly crossovers?

but well done on the number one ranking, it is an achievement of sorts. I imagine that JRC didn't really throw it away, but rather saw that their time was up and went out with dignity (i.e. too many aging players, not enough $ in the bank to remain super competitive), much like Hanoi whose ego couldn't take not being the best anymore so just left.

but I agree. the best way to determine which clubs are the best is to look at the WCC competition....which I fail badly at.

interesting fact. when the BR rankings were first introduced, the first club to be ranked number one in the world was ...... Hercufleas United! back in my hey day.

re: ranking points in NZ.

I think NZ gathered lots of points at the beginning because Monday friendlies were common with little negative effects from playing on Mondays and we had a large number of strong clubs. The noose then tightened when Monday games were less appealing (due to energy impact?), but by then NZ had gathered a plethora of points that we have kinda kept since...

I think maybe a solution is to let ranking points exchange with Thursday friendlies?

I think even I reached top 10 at one stage. Those were the days...

Edit: Just checked my history. Apparently I was number 1 at one stage!!! Legit have no idea when that was

robelix wrote:
I think maybe a solution is to let ranking points exchange with Thursday friendlies?  

Not normal friendlies - they would be great opportunities to deliberately lose matches to cool their rating points free from contentment hits so when they do win in League/Cup games they get more rating points and contentment rise.

Would be a cool feature of the prestigious friendly games though - CCs, WCC, BRNCC

Getting complicated but you could decouple the official rankings from contentment and run a secret second set of rankings that only factors in league/cup matches for use in contentment calculations. That removes the ability for people to manipulate their contentment by losing friendlies while also making for more accurate world rankings.

ah you are right there sparky....though Bren's solution could work.
though I think the rankings are just a novelty feature at the moment, cannot be taken seriously due to the current position that it is in (NZ heavily stacked, minnow nations possibly under-represented?)...unlikely to change.

in other news....im rather stoked that see that my player, Ben Galley, has hit over 1.2 mil, and still one day to go.

I now have a good cash kitty (12.5 mil) to start rebuilding my aging squad...problem is...there is bugger all on the TM until the next bot drop. Hopefully I can stay in the cup till then...

Bren wrote:Getting complicated but you could decouple the official rankings from contentment and run a secret second set of rankings that only factors in league/cup matches for use in contentment calculations. That removes the ability for people to manipulate their contentment by losing friendlies while also making for more accurate world rankings.

This is an excellent suggestion, and to a coding layman like myself, it sounds like it's doable. Has it been proposed?

donkeysaint wrote:

Bren wrote:Getting complicated but you could decouple the official rankings from contentment and run a secret second set of rankings that only factors in league/cup matches for use in contentment calculations. That removes the ability for people to manipulate their contentment by losing friendlies while also making for more accurate world rankings.

This is an excellent suggestion, and to a coding layman like myself, it sounds like it's doable. Has it been proposed?

I don't think anyone has made that suggestion. Not something I've seen. I haven't made the suggestion before, just came up with the idea when reading through this thread.

@Bren,
Propose it, I think it's a very good idea.

Today me an my partner packed our three kids and went off to our country house, together with our adventure buggy triple stroller, that we interestingly enough imported directly from NZ last year. We won't be back until August.


Great stroller, I recommend it!

We have summer here in Sweden, in fact it's almost midsummer. It's now half past ten in the evening, the sun has just set, but there is still plenty of light.

Today I also lost my cup game by one point. Huge loss. I played away against Auckland Eagles, a 287K CSR team residing in III.3, that usually cruises on WNWIM. Today they didn't. They hit me with an LTNT and sent me rollin' for the first half, 22-3. Then my 1st XV players on the bench came on, three at 40 and three more at 45. It wasn't that I hadn't expected something like that, I had. I had set up 15 different sub rules to allow for different scenarios, and the "losing by at least 1 point" ones kicked in then.

In the end, it wasn't enough, and I lost the game by one point, 29-28. Had I brought on all subs at 40, I might have prevented their 42nd minute try that cost me the game. I haven't been out of the Cup this early since S30. In retrospect, I could also have rested my low-on-energy pair of U20's for this game, it probably would have done it. But stubborn as a donkey, I didn't.

Eagles - Katipos 29-28

One point but a huge loss in terms of income, contentment (I fell from 80 to 55), ranking points and fun.
But now I might be able to do some extra damage in the league..

Congratulations to MrEagle27 and the Auckland Eagles! Well done!

aargh hard luck there donkeyman...and here I was thinking that I was having a tough time in the cup with some moderate competition post bot games. an early cup exit can be hardship on the finances, but it does set you up well for a great final position in the league ladder, nothing less than top 2 I expect now.

I saw the halftime score with the Catfish and they had just a 2 point lead....would have made sparky slightly nervous if he was watching it live....

I don't like the way mr eagle is playing. He is obviously one of the people benefitting from knowing the market is crazy and sells average players taken from his academy at astronmical prizes.

That has allowed the Auckland Eagles to become the most improved team CSR-wise in the last three seasons, but he is really playing a game I don't like. Finding a loophole or similar and exploiting it is just not funny.... or perhaps it is just that I can't get to reach his level of bargaining...

I recently put a S38 18 yo for sale as @Activist wanted to train him and despite starting at 1000$ and setting only 3 days, his 54K CSR was bought by Activist at a half million.

And I did welcome the money. So perhaps it is only jealousy of mr eagle and the fact that he defeated me the last time we played in the NZI.

Anyway, my point: donkeysaint... tough luck, it is very rare to see your team losing against a similar CSR team. I am facing Shapshifter next and I honestly don't know what to do... since my promotion to Div II I am absolutely needing to scout all my opponents, as I don't know anyone.

PS: thanks for demoting me from admin rights, guys. I could finally request a password reset and login again

Yesterday in the Cup game Gordy Booth popped to average, making me the happiest manager in BR. He has gone a long way from being considered potntial issue due to my YA not being ready

tryasta wrote:I don't like the way mr eagle is playing. He is obviously one of the people benefitting from knowing the market is crazy and sells average players taken from his academy at astronmical prizes.

That has allowed the Auckland Eagles to become the most improved team CSR-wise in the last three seasons, but he is really playing a game I don't like. Finding a loophole or similar and exploiting it is just not funny.... or perhaps it is just that I can't get to reach his level of bargaining...

I recently put a S38 18 yo for sale as @Activist wanted to train him and despite starting at 1000$ and setting only 3 days, his 54K CSR was bought by Activist at a half million.

And I did welcome the money. So perhaps it is only jealousy of mr eagle and the fact that he defeated me the last time we  played in the NZI.

I haven't looked at the transfer markets or at Auckland Eagles but I can't really fault him for this. He can't force people to pay his prices. Taking advantage of market inefficiencies that are induced by humans (by overpaying for youth or underpaying for experience) is part of the game.

Look what he has got in the TM:

This guy has been on the TM at least 5 or 6 times in the last two seasons. Always at about 900,000$. He will eventually find a buyer that will pay that amount of money and more than makes for the fees he's been paying (5% of 900,000$ times 6 = 270,000$ paid as fee).

I don't say I fault him but I don't like his effective yet unappealing to me way of playing this game.

S35 R4 Marty Littleboy Kalahari Leeus $1,455,671
S35 R4 Eliot Drake Kalahari Leeus $1,811,458
S34 R8 Derrick Offer DinamoGeorge $499,000
S34 R6 Emanuel Fleetwood Club Rugby Tarra $931,158
S34 R2 Palamo Faletau Prophets Of Splo $553,096
S33 R16 Oscar Bellanzon Cessenon-Sur-Orb $1,916,987
S33 R13 Anapa Rambuka Maungati Mainlan $991,000
S33 R13 Beniamino Neri Balkan Flakes $1,040,400
S33 R8 Moe Barratt Oily Stains $1,450,000

I wonder how can anyone pay 900,000$ for this player or 1,8M$ for that one.


PS: I recently paid a huge amount of money for Kirke. Should be ashamed to pay that much money for a player that is not even in the top 30 of his age group in NZ, but... actually Gordy Booth likes him as partner so how could I say no?

It's a bit out of whack how he can sell some 150k 20 year old for $1.8m while buying a 427k 31 year old for $2.2m. Seems to be to be a bit of a supply problem in the TM driving this. (But again, I haven't looked at the TM)

I understand how it leaves a bad taste in your mouth but I wouldn't say he's exploiting any loopholes or anything. Just selling high and buying low.

Well done, I'd say. Keep up the good work, MrEagle, and we might have some new competition in league one soon.

The way he played against me yesterday means he can handle a team well.

Bren wrote:I understand how it leaves a bad taste in your mouth but I wouldn't say he's exploiting any loopholes or anything. Just selling high and buying low.

He is clearly being a lot more successful than I am at improving his team.
But otherwise as a manager, I don't think he is the ultimate authority on how to win games

Patea Maori 34 - Auckland Eages 23
[https://www.blackoutrugby.com/game/tools.live.scoring.php#fixture=17492343]Auckland Eagles 44 - Patea Maori 27[/url]

I might be a bit naive here but how is what he's doing distasteful in any way? It's not exactly his fault that people are willing to pay ridiculous prices.

Also, just a minor thing but can we please correct the name of the Kember Shield in the NZI? I was just checking my trophy cabinet and saw that it's called the Kembler Shield. There shouldn't be an "L" in there

Assuming it's named after All Blacks legend Tad Kember that is.

@smellystuff Sometimes players get ridiculous prices. We know it. But for me living with it and living off it it is two different things. I really see how clever strategy that is. As I said I have been tracking his play for two seasons now and he has become very effective. To my knowledge he is the only one in BR playing like that. The fact that he has put a 290K CSR team out of nothing shows how good he has become at that...

I only aim to surpass him again with a different type of play (and less CSR)


Re: Kember Shield, I am happy to do the change. Was it a typo in the first place? Who knows for sure?

I can't understand your gripe tryasta. Is selling players out of their YA for high prices when the TM is hot any worse than money farming? Ouzo sold off his entire team when TM prices were high to money farm.

The TM is just stupid all around. Kruizey is selling off Simon Fono which looks to be a very nice young player until you see his horrible exp (only 2 league games) for 23yo.

With the Kember/Kembler typo, I don't think it can be edited but rather a new trophy uploaded and distributed with the correct name. It was probably my fault but feel free to blame Pantherus.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

If people don't want their bucks, mr eagle does very well to collect them for his team... But despite the fact that his way is far more efficient than my way, I can't play like that.

I dropped Fono from the u20. I believe it was in S32? He was good, but we had an excess of good backs and were a bit soft up front... Fono played center or fullback for the u20.

Is anyone following the football world cup? Football...bloody hell.

Im trying....so hard with no Netherlands

my work pre-tournament guess is a Belgium triumph!!
Also had Croatia as my other surprise semi-finalist....both are looking great so far (my other 2 are Germany and Argentina....who are both looking vulnerable....Argentina may not even make it out of the group stage)

I believe Spain is playing... might be wrong, though