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Sorry I didn't mean to post it twice.

I think it brings a tactical side to being a manager. Does the team try and place 6th or 7th and simply get a good draft pick and play well enough to avoid relegation, or do you try and make top 4 and make the playoffs and have a chance at being league champion and promote, I think that as a manager you need to decide which one to do. If you try to make the playoffs and fail and come 5th then you shouldn't get anything for failing to make playoffs. If you try to come 6th or 7th and fail to do that then you come 5th as well. So the only way to come 5th is either to intentionally come 5th, in which case you shouldn't mind coming 5th, or you fail to do what you wanted and so you come 5th.

Teams throw games all the time, teams playing TIE against opponents they know they won't beat for example. Does this screw the rest of the competition in the league? Throwing games is part of the game and is a tactic that most teams use in some circumstances.

if i eman screwing games, i mean playing the third lineup with false positions against teams they easily beat - taking advantages of hopeless situtions in tieing isn't screwing up a games or competion because the outcome is the same.

PS: but they are also games screwed, who could be won but i think this shouldn't be the target of the game, if 5 teams in each division try to get the rigth amount of looses where the other 3 try to make the championship, and get sabotage from team who notice i neet a win because else i got 8th.

Last edited by CrazyEye at 3/10/2010 3:51:56 PM

Then its their own fault for coming 5th. Teams know before hand that coming 5th yields nothing, so if there is no chance of relegating, don't come 5th!

Well, it seems that this is part of the issue that some of the purists have with the whole 5th place issue. It shouldn’t be that teams really would want to lose games under any circumstances. The suggestion to allow an extra game for training so that, essentially, finishing in 5th place as compared to the relegation playoff teams, only means losing income for 2 or 3 games (and training for what could potentially be a tie-breaker game in the relegation playoff). That still isn’t the same as taking in the income for the series, but maybe that could made back the following season if the fans think you had a better season for finishing in 5th instead of 6th. And I think it’s a perfectly reasonable solution. It seems that for some folks, it’s now religion that 5th place must somehow lose out on something as a reward for not facing a relegation playoff. I’d rather see if there could be an improvement in this area where there are constantly threads being made to discuss it, which should be an indication that many folks aren’t 100% happy with the current way of dealing with 5th place.

And I wasn’t complaining above, I knew exactly what I was getting when I lost out on the fight for 6th place and finished 5th (I thought I mentioned that I was happy with 5th, but I guess that part wasn’t understood). I was just responding to what I thought was an excellent suggestion for what many see as a problem.

And I wasn’t complaining above, I knew exactly what I was getting when I lost out on the fight for 6th place and finished 5th (I thought I mentioned that I was happy with 5th, but I guess that part wasn’t understood). I was just responding to what I thought was an excellent suggestion for what many see as a problem.

I know you weren't complaining, my post wasn't directed at you, it was just directed in general to people that are unhappy with coming 5th.

Would simply receiving 1 extra game for training purposes make 5th place so much more desirable? Having a 2 game week isn't that bad, you can still train 2 players in 1 position, or 4 players in 2 position, or just do one of the team trainings. I guess I don't consider coming 5th that much of a disadvantage except in terms of income. 6th place gets more income at the expense of potentially relegating. 5th place gets slightly less money and slightly less training for not having any chance of relegating.

Like I mentioned, I don't think there's much of an advantage with the income since the lost playoff revenue probably comes back in the course of the following season. That's why adding one extra scrimmage for training would essentially make the difference between 5th and 6th place a near wash. The only remaining differences would come if a relegation playoff went to a tie breaker game, the slightly better draft pick, and the anxiety of possibly relegating if home court advantage isn't enough to help your team win the playoff. If that's all the difference there was, I'd probably never intentionally try to lose games just to fall into 6th place.

So, would receiving one extra game for training make 5th place so much more desirable? Asked like that, then no, it's not really all that much. But it may be a big enough thing that tips the decision for a lot of teams to actually not lose games and try to avoid a relegation playoff. So I'd rather ask the question... Would scheduling one extra game for training purposes be such a big deal if it may significantly add to the integrity of the game?

If it adds to the integrity of the game, then fair enough. But personally I don't think that 1 extra game makes much difference. I like to train FT and stamina during this time anyway so I guess for me it doesn't make a difference whether there is 2 games or 3, except for Game Shape. But personally, I would still much rather be in 6th place, you would get extra training (if it went to a tie breaker), you would get extra income, you get a better draft pick, and as long as you have a better team than the 7th place, you are virtually gauranteed to not relegate. In which case coming 6th is still a much bigger advantage than coming 5th in my opinion.

Different managers will draw that line differently according to their own thoughts on how important it is to avoid a relegation playoff. As I mentioned, the money issue isn't really an advantage since the final place int he standing has a small influence on attendance the following season that makes the playoff income advantage really a wash. We all know the draft advantage isn't so valuable given what the prevailing opinion on the draft is these days (read other threads for those complaints...). For me personally, that extra training game is probably the tipping point since I know from my experience this season, the first time I was truly on the cusp between 5th and 6th place, that I really was undecided on whether or not to throw games so I could finish in 6th, and wanting to get that little bit of extra training would have pushed me to just go for 5th. (In the end, I halfheartedly decided to go for 6th even though I hate losing, but failed and finished 5th.)

Like I mentioned, I don't think there's much of an advantage with the income since the lost playoff revenue probably comes back in the course of the following season. That's why adding one extra scrimmage for training would essentially make the difference between 5th and 6th place a near wash

and for my team, i would say the difference betwen a season where i earn something or not, flying out of the first round of the PO amke me loose -900k the next to week, with a weekly income of 50-130 this is a lot ;) Playing a three game relegation series, give me and extra income of 1 Mio which gets me through the offseason.

if you're playing in a relegation series, you need to play your top guys in order to stay in the division, which would be no guarantee...if you finish 5th and get 3 scrimmages for training, you can rest your stars/veterans and play your trainees, backups and scrubs...you won't need to care about winning

Excellent point, though I don't see how a team would get 3 scrimmages in a week. The last game of the season is on a Saturday, and there's a scrimmage on the following Thursday, so an extra scrimmage would only make it two. And anyway, don't we have this same situation already to a greater degree during the regular season? Some teams are alive in the Cup tournament and taking in a modest income (typically less than for a relegation playoff) while teams that are eliminated get to scrimmage, getting no cash but also playing scrubs for training without worry of winning. The proposed scrimmage for 5th place teams would be in lieu of greater payout of a relegation playoff (compared to a Cup). I wouldn't propose a scrimmage for the Tuesday in the following week, only for just that first Tuesday when the first relegation playoff games are played, and that's the only addition.