Quality of Breeding
Quality of Breeding in the game has seen a significant increase since last year’s 2yo crop. If you frequent Slack chat or Twitch streams, I am sure you’ve heard both Mike and I reiterate that the level of competition in the game has gone up significantly. While we still have roughly 3 months left in the year, I do not expect the quality of breeding to take a dive from this year to get back in line with the normal levels, if anything with Open Mares coming up, I’d expect this number to potentially tick higher.
ALERT, BORING DATA PART
The numbers I am pulling are from 1999 and beyond in the game. It looks at the breeding quality based on sire/ds/dds ratings in the game at the time they were bred. Overall, the average increase increase/decrease between breeding value from one year to the next is .16 points. The jump from 2022 to 2023 saw an all-time high of .23 points increase. While I understand that this number seems small, the game typically works in fractional numbers. The closest the game has ever come to producing talent levels like this was in the early years of 2001 & 2002 when the game wasn’t as polished as it is today. If we want to drive it down even further, since the rewrite in 2012, the highest increase from year to year that we had ever seen was from 2019 to 2020 where the levels increased .10. The increase from 2022-2023 blows that out of the water.
Stats:
Against the overall average (Since 1999) we are seeing a 31% increase this year.
Against the last high of .10 (Since 2012 rewrite) we are seeing an increase of 67% this year.
Against the overall average 2012 rewrite we are seeing an increase of 87% this year.
Average Breeding Value (since 1999) 3.75.
Average Breeding Value (since 2012 rewrite) 3.81.
Average Breeding Value for this year’s 2yo Crop (4.07).
Highest Breeding Value for 2024 (5.8)
Lowest Breeding Value for 2024 (1.2)
WHAT DOES ALL THAT BORING STUFF MEAN?
In a nutshell people are utilizing better rated mares and scratch bred DS/DDS with the more popular sires. I am not going to go into detail on the elite breds as it should go without saying players use the best with the best. However, there are some talented sires that don’t get the same level of mares and/or DS/DDS combos and there are some lesser rated sires who do.
COMPARING SPECIFIC SIRES
Recently on the forum there were a couple of sires brought up that folks believe were not rated properly or seem to get the short end of the stick. The argument here is that some sires who perform well in real life are not rated high enough in the game to compete. Now we are not perfect when it comes to rating the sires, but what I can tell you is that if they are winning graded races regularly in real life, chances are we have them rated to do so in-game. What we can’t control is the player’s behavior with certain sires. A lot of the time when a player purchases a cheaper sire, they tend to play loose with it. For example, they are more likely to run a cheaper purchased horse in claimers or send it to the auction when the eye-popping numbers do not show up right away. (I am guilty of this as well.) The two examples from the forum were STARSPANGLEDBANNER & SAVABEEL. I have several examples from these sires where players either didn’t figure out the distance, didn’t give time to mature, or just flat out gave up on the horse too early. Whereas with the elite breds folks will usually hold on to them as long as they can because of the amount of BPs/Creds invested.
DISCLAIMER: I drew a fake line in the sand based on talent rating. Good trainers can certainly get more out of lesser talented horses by finding the right spots for them.
STARSPANGLED BANNER – Progeny could have potentially produced 70 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 4.2 for perspective. Allowing for full maturity, if you look at this sire’s top 5 runners (all of which are rated just as good as the best horses that come out of any elite breeding) only 1 out of 5 earned graded honors.
SAVABEEL (AUS) – Progeny could have potentially produced 148 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 4.6 for perspective. Allowing for full maturity, if you look at this sire’s top 5 runners (all of which are rated just as good as the best horses that come out of any elite breeding) only 1 out of 5 earned graded honors.
TWIRLING CANDY – Progeny could have potentially produced 138 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 4.5. Allowing for full maturity, if you look at this sire’s top 5 runners (all of which are rated just as good as the best horses that come out of any elite breeding) only 3 out of 5 earned graded honors. One of the horses only earned one win which baffles me along with the other who is only a 50K Allowance winner to this point.
STANFORD – Progeny could have potentially produced 38 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 3.6. Allowing for full maturity, if you look at this sire’s top 5 runners (all of which are rated just as good as the best horses that come out of any elite breeding) 0 out of 5 earned graded honors. In all cases these horses were never run in optimal conditions and in some cases were given up on very early and retired.
A MORE PRACTICAL EXAMPLE
The four sires above are rated much differently from one another, so to put this further in perspective these next few will be the same rating from the same year. The sire ratings used for this were the retro ratings from 2018 and it only looks at horses who were bred in that year. I chose this year as most horses would have found their full maturity already or mostly been retired. Please keep in mind this is from 2018 so the ratings mindset would have been drastically different than it is today. (DISCLAIMER: Fractional Points are significant; I am doing a large amount of rounding to simplify the visual representation.)
Significantly Higher Rated
NOT A SINGLE DOUBT (AUS) – Progeny could have potentially produced 18 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 4.9.
Slightly Higher Rated
ALL TOO HARD (AUS) – Progeny could have potentially produced 3 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 4.4.
Same Rated
OASIS DREAM (GB) – Progeny could have potentially produced 62 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 5.5.
EXCEED AND EXCEL – Progeny could have potentially produced 38 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 5.2.
DUKE OF MARMALADE – Progeny could have potentially produced 5 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 4.6.
Slightly Lower Rated
GOLDEN HORN (GB) – Progeny could have potentially produced 30 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 5.
Significantly Lower Rated
DAWN APPROACH (IRE) – Progeny could have potentially produced 26 graded winners. Overall Average Breeding is 5.
The purpose of this is to show that even sires rated less than their counterparts if paired up with better quality stock frequently produce just as good if not better runners. Now I didn’t look up which of these sires for the 2018 year actually won the graded races, but the concept of having talented enough horses was there.
CONCLUSION
I want to point out I am not criticizing the player base in any manner, hell I am guilty of some of this behavior myself. However, the point that I am making is graded winners come in all shapes and sizes. Just because something costs cheaper doesn’t mean the output will always be less talented. Now I am not saying that these horses have as good a chance at breeding the best horses like the elites, but what I am saying is that they do have their fair share of really good horses, however most players are looking for that instant gratification and when they don’t find it, its off to the auction, claimers, or retirement.
I am confused on how the potential graded progeny was determined. Also where can the average player can find where these Sires are related to one another ranking wise
From my understanding the game has an overall ability metric bred into each horse. It is then up to the trainer to utilize that ability metric as best as possible.
The prime example is the horse Spiced Turtle… has super high ability, and the trainer ran the horse to perfection, the result was the most impressive sim career, and few even come close.
So since frank is helping Mike with the game, he has the rare ability to peel back and look at actual abilities of our horses. It sounds like an ability of 4.5 means graded quality… so he is looking at the sires offspring that has a raw ability number of 4.5 or greater.
TBH, the best thin the average player can use to find sire ratings… look at equibase. Everything is based on IRL, so the best sires IRL will be the best sires in SIM. The link on the site is also going to be more right than it is wrong http://derbyfever.com/sireratings.asp?sel=breeding
This was determined using the backend data. This data is not visible to the player, it is a developer tool that Mike & I use. As far as rankings are concerned, what the player has available is the Sire Stats page.
Sire stats is a reflection of performance rankings not ratings of the sire. Waters are kinda getting muddy
Great post… and if I’m understanding your post correctly… wouldn’t that also mean that 3 years ago I could use mid level sires to really good mares and get great outcomes
But since the breeding is getting so much better, I now am almost forced into using the best sires in the game, or my really good outcomes just won’t be able to compete? (I guess the other wrinkle is we still have a player base that doesn’t run horses optimally for the most part)
Exciting stuff!
Thanks! To answer your question, the answer is yes. Additionally, what I am alluding to is that you don’t actually need the elites to be competitive. You can get very good output from the sires who may not be rated as high.
You’re absolutely correct though, the player is the wild card. What they do with the breeding is what’s really important. Another thing you mentioned was using Equibase to make determinations about your horses; which is a good way to approach things. We try to mimic what actual sires have done throughout their careers and what they typically produce on the track. ie Tapit is known for his routers, it’s not to say that they won’t do well sprinting, but he may be leaning heavier in the route direction. Those little nuances are taken into account.
Why not just make all the data public.
It’s not to say that it won’t be one day, but that’s not currently the direction we are interested in taking the game.
Which direction would that be
Remember Seabiscuit raced 35 times as a two-year old.
It took Seabiscuit 18 tries to break his maiden!
During his two-year old season, Seabiscuit changed trainers three times.
I think one reason the numbers have went up is the quality of the trainers are better not so many one stable buying nothing but cheap sires as there was in the earlier days, their seems to be a lot more of giant stables which means a lot more horses and the cream always raises to the top
great write up and as always learned a lot
Thanks Frank I like it. Very interesting.
Still rest my case and does not get touched on, the breeding CANNOT look like a 6 year old kid’s coloring book with the inbreeding determined by an AI with the so called “breeding best with the best” as there is NO real life proof. It’s all about bloodlines not breeding top sires with Group and Stakes winning mares. I dare a challenge to the the AI and SIM. Send 250 mares that were Group and Stake winners and breed them with a 10 or rather the now ridiculous 25 BP standing in Kentucky, Australia or even South Africa. Use Elusive Fort or Gimmethegreenlight for that matter then send the same mares to any appropriate 1000BP sire and post the results after a year and I guarantee the 25 BP sire will have better success. Same goes for jockey instructions. Not the player/trainer/owner bit the jockeys. I changed all my riding instructions from manual to auto and my success dropped by over 56%. Obviously the jockeys had no schooling and can’t read previous form. The game is flawed and I will stick to my guns.
Also, what is the use in scratch breeding? Divide races in dam bred and scratch bred. Elite players use the same recipe over and over, inly thing that change is the Sire. If a certain recipe with the same “line” worked before they just breed the exact same DS and DSS with the new stallion so where is the challenge? It comes down to who spends the most $$$. Yes, the game must make money but it can make much more if tweaked. The write up is good but show us historical changes in how the game has changed for the better and attracted MORE players that stuck it out? I don’t see many new names and in fact I believe the residencies are dwindling. The concept is brilliant but the AI should get a do-over.
First, thanks for your comments. There’s a lot to unpack in both your comments, but I’ll try hit all points made.
I think you’re misconstruing my “best with the best” comment. Can a severely inbred horse generate a great baby, yes. Does it happen all the time? No. Additionally, the AI (as you put it) is set up in such a way to widen talent curves with significant amounts of inbreeding.
As for the rest of your first comment, there are so many variables that go into the racing engine that no two horses are going to generate the same career. Is it possible a ridiculous 25BP horse outruns a 1000 BP horse, yes, it is. Would I put my money on all of them doing that? The answer is not a chance in hell. Is there randomness built into the game? Yes, otherwise it wouldn’t be a game.
As far as your jockey comment, it’s possible that you as the player/trainer are better at figuring out instructions then the Jockey’s you’re selecting are. Jockey’s do have talent levels, and some are noticeably better than others just like in real life.
Scratch breeding provides quite a bit of use to every player type. Nobody really starts with a mare pool of sorts. Scratching allows folks to take enjoyment in breeding without mares and then potentially build up mare pools. Thats how 99% of folks get started in this game. Your comment about players using the same DS/DDS as rinse and repeat and getting the same result over and over again couldn’t be further from the truth. I am sure we can all agree that a baby with GIANT’S CAUSEWAY x SEATTLE SLEW x MR. PROSPECTOR lines would be expected to be great. Well, using those exact lines I am staring at one of the worst horses ever bred in the game. The kicker is it has the highest breed value the has to offer scoring a 6.3. So yes, you have a better chance at getting something good by breeding to quality, but it’s not guaranteed.
Contrary to your belief the game is not about who spends the most money or who spam breeds the most horses to generate in-game currency. It’s about the talent of the horse, and the job the players do in finding the horse’s optimal conditions. Some folks are better at this than others. The new players comment is an interesting one to me. Mainly because we don’t do any advertising. These days, most online free to play games operate on an instant gratification model that requires folks to make purchases to get into the next level. We are a very niche game that doesn’t provide that instant gratification most folks are looking for, nor do we provide a pay to play model. You make mention that the game can make much more if tweaked. You can PM me on forums or on Slack. Additionally, we can be reached via email. Always interested to hear player suggestions for the betterment of the game.
What does it mean when you say progeny could have produced 5 graded winners? Are sires “capped” to the graded winners they can produce each year? Is this why I find (as I’m sure many others do) very random (or unrealisitc) results in graded racing where a horse should naturally progress up and win the race then runs 10 points lower? Does this define the “glass ceiling” that doesn’t allow many open stakes winners to win graded races because the graded allotment is filled for that particular sire?
Taken in a broader context, I don’t know how anyone can possibly breed and race horses still if you know exactly how all the sires are rated. If you know X sire will produce 30 graded winners and Z sire will produce 40 graded winners but X sire is going for 1/5 the price of Z sire, that’s a huge advantage. This information should become public. I want to know what 400 credits gets me. I want to know what 200 credits me. And is 1000 credits in July a waste of money if Tapit has already reached his allocated quoted of preprogrammed graded winners?
The whole reason people were pushed into breeding 400 Tapits is many of the old pillars of (dirt) stallion breeding died and we could not get results with the many 20K-75K stallions going to stud. Twirling Candy is a great example. Bred a bunch. No graded winners.
I think what they’re saying is that the sire had produced X number of progeny that had the potential to be graded winners not that the sire is limited to X number of graded winners
I agree 1000%.
Example:
There is a website that informs players what jackpots and what prizes have already been won on scratch off tickets
Now let’s say Todd and I are each given $100 to play scratch offs but Todd has the website info and I do not.
Who has a better chance of allocating that $100 to hit a jackpot? Todd who can put all of his money into tickets that still have jackpot potential or me who has to guess and may spend $98 on tickets who don’t even have the potential to win jackpots
@oakridge, it wouldn’t let me directly reply to your other question for some reason. But the direction of the game is to continue the path of having fog of war with the ratings system. Releasing full rating information is not the direction we currently wish to take the game. There may be some sort of veiled ratings release in the future, but we are essentially taking baby steps to get there.
@waremblem5 – As I stated in the story, I drew a fake line in the sand grabbing the most talented horses from the sire. In this case they would have been in my opinion the easiest babies from the sire to earn graded honors with. It’s still reliant on what the player does with the horses on the track. Nothing is granted solely on the talent of the horse but more so the player’s ability to find optimal conditions for their horse. Its why I also mentioned in the story that less talented horses win graded as well if the players find the right spots for them. Some players are significantly better at this than others. Again, I drew a fake line in the sand grabbing the most talented horses for the purpose of the story. It was not to say only these horses would win graded.
There is no glass ceiling on the number of talented horses a sire can produce. The point being made is that players (me included) miss quite a bit with the dirt horses in that 20-75K range for a number of reasons. This was meant to show that talented horses are being bred by these sires, but player behavior is dictating what their end results are. There is not a preprogrammed cap or an allocation of graded capable horses per sire. Additionally, the timing of when you breed a horse whether its early, middle, or late in the year has no bearing on the ratings.
@oakridge & @waremblem – As far as your concern with me knowing the sire ratings and still playing the game. It is sort of my job to know that information as I code and build things on the back end to help the game move along, remain calibrated, and evolve. This report used 2018 information which was done intentional as the rating information is no longer relevant compared to today’s ratings. The purpose was to show the game engine is perfectly capable of producing quality horses from lesser used sires. I chose to do a story showing quality exists with the lesser used sires based on Twitch and forum conversations.
I am not sure if you’re calling my integrity into question, but for complete transparency, I play by the same rules as everyone else. I spend ungodly amounts of time in this game because I thoroughly enjoy playing and interacting with the community. I am not granted any special perks for my horses, nor do I want them. Just like any other player the success of my horses is based on the decisions I make for them on the track.
I think you are in the world of if you hold a door open for someone older than you they assume you are discriminating due to their age. If you don’t you do not respect you elders.
Sometimes people do not want to take well meant advice. I sometimes feel you are being to helpful.
The information that determines a sires ability is in the public domain in anyone cares to look.
It is not like you have not encouraged people to update wikipedigree.
Knowing the best sires does not guarantee that any one random breeding will produce a superstar. Given percentages and probability the opposite is true.
It isn’t a matter of integrity because I don’t know you personally to judge your integrity either way. It is a matter of the level of access to proprietary information a current and active player has to the game and that puts you in an unenviable position because I believe it is only natural for those questions to be posed.
The fog of war approach is more realistic, especially in horse racing and forces the player to rely on past performances of the mare and perceived ability of the sire but a published data/ratings approach would make the game more digestible/playable to the average player ae madden, 2k or any other sports sim engine that I assume is how the game is constructed unless Mike has remade the wheel. I’m sure there are parameters like speed, stamina, surface preference, distance etc and an overall rating just like there is a throw strength, throw accuracy rating etc in madden and an overall. This is a guide for the player. It doesn’t guarantee success and still relies on player management and intent. In simulation sometimes the 81 overall player outproduces the 99 but that information is valuable and I believe it would be for the masses in this game.
As far as how much of that or what part of that or any of that you chose or are allowed to see we just have to take your word for it and I appreciate you being upfront as possible about it.
Fair enough. The ratings approach is much different than the games you mentioned, so in a sense Mike has kind of reinvented the wheel when it comes to sports games (at least when comparing to the ones I have been a part of). There is not your standard ratings that you’re used to seeing in games like Madden or MLB The Show. Some of what you mention is there but not in the traditional sense of how games are usually built. I provided some general context on a bunch that contribute to the makeup of a horse found here: http://derbyfever.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=19269 .
Best description I can give for how the game operates in all aspects is that it uses an actuarial science model which is quite a bit different then how most games are usually developed.
Thank you for the clarification. From your comments, you seem to indicate that the SIM places a great of emphasis on how a player enters a horse. The primary things under a trainers control are race placement, and frequency on when a horse races. I agree, placement is a large line of demarcation among trainers, but frequency is more complicated. Are there bloodlines in the game that allow, and perhaps even encourage more or less frequent racing? I hear some people refer to such and such horse as how ‘brilliantly’ trained it was but the trainer was doing nothing other than running the horse every 2 months and the horse kept winning. Are horses born with a preset racing curve? For example, is a horse coded to be better as a 2yo than a 5yo? Much of the gameplay, as you define it, seems to be in managing how, where, when, and at what surface/distance a horse and unlocking that on a given horse is the winning formula.
In terms of stallion ability, if broad tiers are not going to be published, and I believe they should, then the game might want to consider a way to relay some information to players. If a stallion that has 50 graded potential is never being used isn’t that a waste? Part of my frustration with the game is the lack of advances in player experience. I have no greater a degree of immersion with the game now than I did two decades ago and at least two decades ago I could spend credits/bps and win graded races. Now, through sire inflation which you state is at its highest ever, i get neither grades wins on a basis I want nor a player immersion experience because the interface and choice options are the same as they’ve always been. So what is the SIM providing? Less meaningful wins, worse records on horses, and nothing deeper to compensate gameplay. For me, that is the fundamental reason whether I keep playing the SIM. I don’t question your integrity and I never particularly care what another trainer does or is doing. If they are winning races, great for them. I care about MY experience, and my SIM experience has gotten progressively worse and simply isn’t as fun. Oakridge talked about Madden or 2K and I think about those or online multi-player MMOs; they provide rewards and progression and achievements. I’m just not sure what the SIM is providing the vast majority of the player base these days. I see it within our residency, its really hard to get people excited about the game because it has grown stagnant, is dominated by high-dollar breeding stables (you claim this game isn’t pay to win, but it absolutely feels like it, and I’ve advocated for a subscription based model so at least everyone is on the same field instead of where we are now) and it feels like none of our concerns are ever addressed because this and that database has to be worked on. And look, I get it, the game has to work, but your customers and players are telling you something is wrong and the game isn’t as fun. I really wish someone would listen.
I get your concerns, but the changes and features you mention take quite a bit of time. Are we working towards adding more information and making things more available to players? Yes.
Are we in the process of trying to create more immersion? Yes. (Mare Leasing is coming very soon)
A rewards system has been talked about internally amongst Mike and me, but nothing set in stone. If you have specific ideas, please send them my way. I was initially thinking of potentially coming up with badges/ BP bonuses for different sire level Graded victories. Progression is an interesting concept and to be honest one I never really put much thought into because I didn’t feel like it fit here, but if you have ideas, we are all ears.
Subscription-based model is not really the pay model we are looking to move to at the moment. We have discussed it privately at length, but do not feel its where we want to go right now. I will not rule it out as a possibility for the future.
I stand by my comments that the game is not pay to win. Graded horses come in all shapes and sizes and there is a number of folks who have success using cheaply bred cred/bp horses or horses they bred with cards. Folks can absolutely pay for higher end sires, but it does not guarantee them anything in terms how their horse’s level of talent.
Moving the architecture of the game is a must as we were made aware recently that the systems we are on will no longer be supported. If the systems are not supported, that will mean the game is down for an extended period of time.
Moving to the new architecture will 100% allow us to easily add more features and immersion than the way things are constructed today. The best I can tell you is we are trying, and we hope you decide to stick around to see the progress we plan to make.
Franc and Mike presumably are the only people who have access to see the back end sire ratings
Mike barely plays the game, and Franc has as much honor as anyone around here and just look at his record he’s clearly not using that info to his advantage
The reason that Ryan and myself, and a few others, probably have a better idea of the sire ratings than other people is for a few reasons
1) We are more creative than a lot of the people that play this game and have come up with ways of trying to determine, without any back end info at all, how sires might be rated
2) I have spent thousands of dollars doing research to try and flesh out my theories, and some of you all want it for free lol
The smart people who are trying to use the best rated sires would likely just be looking at the sires guys like Ryan and I (and some others) use and trying to duplicate, and I think quite honestly a lot of people do
But for people to whine and complain that they think they should just be given the back end ratings is absolutely laughable
The Franc comment is obviously in jest, he’s a smart guy and plays the game well, but spend time talking to him and you know he would never use any back end info to his advantage
Kind of you to say and I am sure Francua appreciates the endorsement but like I said to him ,my comments were not a judgement of his character or integrity. I too have spent thousands in total over the course of playing the game so this has nothing to do with anything monetarily either. There also was no whining or complaining. To use a previous analogy l, I don’t think it takes any creativity or genius to say Patrick Mahomes is the top rated Madden player and Tapit is the top rated dirt route sire. Yes, there are many ways to determine what you believe a Sires rating is
1. Look at what the top players breed
2. Look at in game sire stats/rankings
3. Look at real life sire stats
4. Look at stud fees
5. Follow yearling sales
That isn’t what this is about. It’s about not guessing but having raw data and just as you think it’s ridiculous for me to ask that we all see that information,it’s equally ridiculous to me that just one, active and current player is able to see it. As open, honest, and transparent as Francua has been, and that has been appreciated, it will never sit comfortably with me.
“I have spent thousands of dollars”…but the game isn’t pay to win? Now THAT is ridiculous. The fact is, some players have spent obscene amounts of money on this game. Gluttonous amounts. That has, as Franc has pointed out, altered the entire paradigm of the SIM. A subscription based model would put everyone on the same playing field. Then we can see how ‘creative’ these trainers are. But, they will fight tooth and nail against any sort of equitable solution, because they want a 50,000:1 advantage over players.
I
Seems like nothing I say regarding this topic will change your mind, but for good measure I will reiterate the game is not pay to win. Folks who contribute to the game are the reason it’s still up and running and the reason a lot of folks are allowed to play for free in the first place. They are not granted any advantages over anyone else just because they contribute financially. For context I have contributed my fair share of money over the years, and I am nowhere near as good at this game as the Dan’s, Lenny’s Stockswami’s among many others of the sim.
I also think you’re missing the point on what shifted the paradigm. BPs and cards shifted the paradigm not credits. I never once said credit purchases were the reason for any paradigm shift, in fact if you’ve watched the Twitch or read through the forums, both Mike and I have repeatedly said it’s been a BP and card issue. Credit purchases for the uber popular sires are limited and controlled whereas BPs never were. Over the last 6 months we have tried to combat the BP & card overuse, and we are seeing improvement with the changes made but as with most things, they take time to really see the effects at a macro level.
I have already addressed your concern regarding the subscription model. If you didn’t like my answer, then that’s fine but we are not moving off of our stance for the time being.
Fran – the above comment was not directed to you it was directed to Dan. But no, nothing you will say regarding pay to win will change my mind on that point. I have never seen a game more pay to win than the SIM. Can you win graded races without paying? Yes. But players that spend thousands of dollars have a massive advantage over those that don’t. It is a major flaw in the game that there is no cap on the amount a player can spend. That’s the entire reason major sports leagues have salary caps, so things remain fair and equitable. There are ways to get money from people without so dramatically effecting gameplay.
Am I the only one who has no freakin idea what those numbers mean?
No!!!