Bidding wars for big companies

[Capelli King]

I read in the latest patch that the AI has been made less aggressive when going for top stars. I get that, especially when they have so many workers and many are barely being used, HOWEVER in the case of USPW, they are having a massive surplus of cash every month. I actually think they should be more aggressive when trying to sign the best talent. Especially when we are talking about the most popular stars in the area.

 

I think the AI should be willing to seriously over pay if:

 

#1 They are running a big surplus.

#2 If the talent is in their prime (Not more than 35y).

#3 In particular if the talent is their own member of the roster.

#4 If you have a bad relation or are direct rivals.

#5 Depending on the roster size, especially top level talent (Major + Stars).

 

The current system works in a way, where the AI bases their offer on the wage demands. This makes perfect sense at the lower levels, but makes little sense for the best stars. I am thinking that around 5% of their surplus should be a realistic option. In the case of USPW, that is way more than 500k per worker. So basically this means that top stars are paid based upon inflation, NOT based upon worker demands.

 

So if you have PPV + TV ratings at Much higher (in the Era's), it means that wages will also be higher, because the whole universe has more cash. I am not sure if the AI will increase their offers later, but at the moment, if you offer 2.5 times more than the wage demand, you essentially sign everyone. That makes zero sense when USPW is making 30m profit per month (they already have over 100m) and they are unwilling to make an offer of 250k for one of their main eventers.

[smartman]

The problem is that everyone is going to be swimming in cash, even with the overly-nerfed PPV buyrates in the 1.02, so you'd end up right back to before the patch with everyone gobbling the entire world up.

[Blackman]

<p>They don't need to gobble the whole world up (that's roster size, completely different thing), but in the past I just laughed in the face of the big companies when I outbid them for one of their top stars while they have 500 million $ in the bank.</p><p> </p><p>

If they're making a buttload of profit, letting go of a top worker or promising talent is just dumb on so many levels.</p>

[D-Lyrium]

<p>Agreed with the intent of the suggestion here.</p><p> </p><p>

There's two types of hiring issue at work here. The first is huge companies signing up tonnes of insignificant (to them) indy darlings and bloating their roster massively. That's a separate issue and has been addressed in the latest patch as OP mentioned.</p><p> </p><p>

The other issue, the one relevant to this suggestion, is at the other end of the scale. Workers who CAN help the big companies, the big stars of their rivals (and their own stars) aren't being valued highly enough.</p><p> </p><p>

Blackman's hit the actual issue on the head IMO. Basically, the AI isn't trying hard enough to keep the stars it has (or to acquire a rival's bigger stars), which means that if you're playing as a company like TCW, it's too easy to keep hold of the likes of Aaron Andrews and Wolf Hawkins even against USPW's vast fortunes. USPW shouldn't be hoovering up a ridiculous amount of workers from the rosters of tiny companies who would be "Unimportant" on their own roster. But they SHOULD be seriously throwing money at their own Major Stars, Stars and Well Knowns, and trying a lot harder to out-bid TCW and SWF for their top stars.</p><p> </p><p>

As TCW, I should be scared when the likes of Andrews, Bach, Hawkins or Chord's contracts come up for negotiation. They're all perfect fits for USPW's product, none of them have any relationships or Attributes that would make them likely to turn USPW down to stay with me, but at the moment it's more like "this might cost me a bit more than before but it's all good". It feels like USPW don't really want them. And while I'm supposedly a smaller company with limited financial resources, in reality I can easily afford to match what USPW - a much bigger company with a huge cash reserve and turnover - are prepared to offer because frankly I'm making too much money as it is.</p><p> </p><p>

They shouldn't keep increasing their bid exponentially until I drop out, and end up paying Andrews $30,000,000 per show just because they can probably afford that. But they should have a bit of extra room in their negotiating budget to account for the cash reserves they have, and the fact that outbidding me will hurt me a lot more than giving Aaron a bit of extra money will hurt them.</p><p> </p><p>

I think at the moment the calculation basically says "his value to us is $x based on his popularity and skills. Therefore our maximum bid will be x + y. If they outbid that, they can have him.".</p><p>

It should be more like "his value is $x to us as a worker. We normally go up to y% more than that if we get into a bidding war with someone. However, we've got tonnes of money, so we'd have no problem going to z% if we have to to poach him away from our rival, but not beyond that as it sets a dodgy precedent for the rest of our talent. Our maximum bid is x + y + z".</p><p> </p><p>

For some workers in some companies, z might take him beyond what they can physically pay. That's fine, it happens. </p><p>

For some, it might make him really obscenely expensive, but do-able financially. Then it becomes the player's decision; is he worth that much to me? Can I replace him? Right now, that decision is being made much lower down the pay scale, so it's a lot easier of a decision to make. Yes, I can pay him that, it's fine.</p><p> </p><p>

I'm not saying USPW should be overpaying like this for EVERY worker. If I'm TCW, and I've made a star out of a technician with low entertainment skills, USPW are much less likely to be interested, obviously. They shouldn't do it "just because they can". But guys like Wolf and Aaron are exactly the type of worker they <strong>should </strong>be chasing. That would provide an incentive for me to make a star out of a guy they won't be interested in, since I'm supposed to be the alternative product.</p><p> </p><p>

One final thing: This might all be unnecessary if companies didn't make quite so much money by default. If TCW made less profit each month, it would be much more difficult to throw so much at Aaron.</p>