I’ve long suspected that player ratings work one of two ways:

1, they are static, whole numbers that go up at set times. So if your guy got a bump three days ago to 55 contact, he’ll play like a player whose contact rating is exactly 55. Until he gets a bump to 56, when he’ll play like a 56 contact guy.

2. they are constantly increasing (for prospects at least), and the true rating is a fraction of a whole. So your 55 contact guy might be increasing by .02 or .03 points per game, and 20 games after his last ratings bump, his “true” contact might be like 55.43. His rating will show as 56 if the true number is 55.5 or greater when it’s time for the next update.

If number 1 is the way it really works, it makes sense to get your guys as many bumps as possible in a given season, which means things like promoting at the end, etc. And once the last possible is given, you should rest him to avoid injury.

if number 2 is correct, you want to keep playing him to maximize total fractional increases, even if another bump isn’t coming that year.

I hope this makes sense. It’s kinda hard to explain. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has evidence for which way it actually works.

#2 is generally accepted to be true

I recall this same discussion in the forums a while back, where daily, small increments was the consensus throughout the season, but you needed to do end-of-season promotions to "lock it in" for next season...something like that. It's why there's the thread about needing to do end-of-season during the World Series so as to maximize those incremental gains.

Posted by ScottInChica on 3/15/2025 11:20:00 AM (view original):
I recall this same discussion in the forums a while back, where daily, small increments was the consensus throughout the season, but you needed to do end-of-season promotions to "lock it in" for next season...something like that. It's why there's the thread about needing to do end-of-season during the World Series so as to maximize those incremental gains.

Cool, thanks for the answer. Do you happen to have a link to the previous discussion? Sometimes it’s hard to find these with a search.

I’ve been doing end of season promotions for years, but I’ve never truly known whether they matter. I’ve always wondered if the player would just get the ratings bump at the end of spring training the next year anyway. But if they’re making incremental gains constantly, and you still need to do the end of year promotion, I guess that means it’s possible for them to lose some of their gains if you don’t promote in time?

Posted by Mwett on 3/20/2025 1:51:00 PM (view original):
Why wouldn't they put a today only HBD 25% discount out here somewhere in the general community, maybe Critical News or some other general community thread, but instead limit it to just Discord ? I didn't find it there; someone somewhere else shared it. Discord is not a thing, and certainly not an elitist privileged thing #toolsinaction

Not sure you meant to post that in this thread?

But fwiw it was posted on the WIS home page.

My guess is there are two reasons they wouldn’t promote it heavily. First, they wanted to do something nice for veteran users, but they didn’t want to lose too much money. Heavily promoting it could’ve led to too many people taking advantage.

Second, it wasn’t a well-thought-out, pre planned promotion. It was a spur of the moment thing that the owner did when his favorite college basketball team won unexpectedly. I’m sure he just made the decision on an impulse and then went with it without taking a lot of time to plot out a communication strategy.