"Previous seasons were won by buying additional rehearsal energy & that did not seem to be looked down upon in general"

I disagree. Go back in the history of the forum and see those who "paid" their way to win and their feedback.

1. I pretty much agree with all of what Vinny said.

2. Here is at least one thread supporting the theory cire and I have regarding FMA's perception of buying championships.

http://www.fantasymarchingarts.com/forums/viewtopic/1817

TrumpetVinny, what you say about spreadsheets would be true if this were comparable to fantasy football. This game is almost purely mathematical and can be all but predicted and turned into a science while fantasy football is at random, depending on human performance, which is, well....less than usually predictable. But hey, not like it would be possible anyways to mandate what people do outside of this game to guide their efforts to play the game, which is completely separate from having multiple accounts, which can be tracked. Not trying to put you down, just thought I'd point that out. But in the end, this is just a game without a set of rules, so what happens happens, for now.

There are people that used spreadsheets early in the history of v2 and they were very successful

People seem to take this game too seriously, lol.

Right? lol. The person who uses the spreadsheets is past 30th so it definitely isn't making them win right now! I think the person in question is fine by using spreads. I would if I knew how to do it lol.

Well, assuming they have the time to max out rehearsal and know what they're doing in terms of a spreadsheet it will optimize their group's scores (which is something cire noted before, someone doing this is spending a heck of a lot more time on this game than those of us who just log on, click a few buttons, and then go elsewhere). I'd imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to note rehearsal gains for each action, average them all out, and then find out which ones are most beneficial.

I am too impatient to do that. I got other things to do lol. Like you said I'm among the ones that just log on and click a few buttons.

Yeah I don't even begin to understand how the spreadsheet would work let alone have even MORE time to devote then I already do lol I use them for DCPI when using historical scores but only in off seasons (when we use historical) and only to compare caption scores not run fancy formulas.

How does I spreadsheet.

First by learning English.

Second, it is all calculations and observing trends. FMA does it's scoring by calculations.. but only Alex knows it.. however if you chart points vs all of the other factors you can pretty much figure out the calculations and know what rehearsing and staff you should be doing next to optimize your score. People have done it in a lot of games.. a BD alum made one for drum corps shows and finals and predicted scores every night with it for about 4 years, and was probably 80-90% of the time within .2 of the actual score every time.

When the iPhone first came out those "war" games were very popular that was based on points.. and people created calculator websites for them and they were very accurate and helpful

That is really cool lol. I just feel like I wouldn't be able to figure it out within the time it takes for me to lose my patience hahaha

Much easier to just rehearse like a mad man

Pretty much lol

I'm sure everyone develops their own pattern when doing rehearsals so I figure a spreadsheet isn't much different.

Spreadsheets are just a tool for performance optimization ... It really only takes a few minutes each season in order to tighten down the tolerances ... Good luck to all groups !!!

Cire,
You mentioned the following statement in regards to prior season Energy purchases:

"I disagree. Go back in the history of the forum and see those who "paid" their way to win and their feedback"

However, it took over 20 FMA seasons before the option was eliminated from FMA by Alex (If it was so contentious from the start of FMA then it took a very long time to be remedied).

Regardless of the Forum comments by various players the reality was that only when moderate purchases of extra energy were abused by KMEA, Etc. did the winds of change cause the eleimination of this option in FMA. It was more than likely a situation that had gone out of control in a way not previously anticipated.

This is why I stated & still do state that "Previous seasons were won by buying additional rehearsal energy & that did not seem to be looked down upon in general". This would apply to when only a small boost was received vs. the end result of massive boosts being used by KMEA. Etc.

20 seasons? We didn't start with it as an option in version two. I'm pretty sure it was not until much later, but certainly not an option early on or in my first wins.

That whole process was only available for a few seasons. It wasn't an option in the beginning. For what it's worth I didn't even field a corps at anytime that was going on.

Fast, your history is skewed.