(S7) - Special PT - Changes

[Oles]

The Special PT is back again, same thing as when it first appeared in season 5. Simply follow the parameters and be on topic for credit. There isn't a graphics option for this unfortunately. It will replace this week's (April 23rd - April 29th) week and weekend PTs. This PT will run until the end of the season to allow as much feedback as possible.

Written: Write 1 thing that you would like added to the league, 1 thing that you would like removed, and 1 thing that you currently like. Each part requires 100 words to be written to receive credit for it.

Please write as much depth as possible for your reasoning for each, as HO will be reading and using these suggestions. Please do not half-ass a response just to get 5 TPE.

This PT is worth 5 TPE, and does not require a claim thread, just link your response in your update thread and as long as you meet the requirements

Full Payout = 5 TPE

Deadline: End of Season

[ItsJustBarry]

1 thing that you would like added to the league: I have been a strong advocate for several seasons now but I would still like the contract situation that allows a player to sign a minimum contract for 4 seasons out to be addressed. I still believe that a contract structure that allows 1000-1200 TPE players to make $1-2M a season is ridiculous. There have been lots of conversations on this and many positive suggestions but still there has not been any changes. This biggest hurdle is the method of rule implementation in this league. Unfortunately, when the head office member are also players, they always appear to look out for their team first and the health of the league second.



1 thing that you would like removed: This is a hard one to answer. There are so many things about this league that are just dreadful. From the contracts to the cheating to the fucked up sim engine being utilized, it is awful. But if I had to narrow it down to a single flaw in the entire league that should be addressed and removed immediately, I would have to say the Colorado Yeti. They are just bad. Many people don’t realize but they started off 16-12 through 2 seasons and won their conference in S1. Since the S2 season, they have fallen off a cliff. In the last 4.36 seasons, they have combined for 6 wins and haven’t won a game since S5W12. That makes them 0-21 at the time of writing this.



1 thing that you currently like: This would have to be Hendrix. The amount of effort that he puts into this league, his team, his players, and their users is likely unmatched. He is one of the most tenured GMs in the league and his commitment to endure this SIM is also superhuman-esque. With one of the most active rosters in the league, it all derives from the man at the top. If you were ever curious why the Baltimore Hawks have never had a single player in 6 seasons even test free agency, he would be that reason. As long as Hendrix is the GM, I will likely be a hawk forever.

[Oles]

Write 1 thing that you would like added to the league
I’m not sure what I would like added. Since the last time we did this PT we’ve had a tracker implemented on the front page, which is one thing that has been a great addition. On similar lines a way to see updated standings in a scoreboard type system would be great if it was able to happen. I know the index has this and that it might not be able to be added but it would be nice to see the standings on the front page. It would allow new people to see how the league is playing out, who the best and worst teams are, and it would allow everyone else to stay up to date when they might not check the index. This might not be doable however due to jcink limitations but if it can be done it would be a great way to stay up to date on the standings. (155 words)

1 thing that you would like removed
I’m not sure honestly. There are talks of removing DL, much like the OL issue it doesn’t seem like a fun position to play, and much like OL people aren’t staying active at the position. I don’t know if full on DL bots are the way to go however, as we do have some dedicated DL players, and if we do go DL bots they should still allow for players to be better, so the bots should be considerably weaker than what the current OL bots are. DL should be changed in some way, as not enough players are staying active at those spots, but we also shouldn’t make people who want to play it feel like they’ll never be worth it over the bots themselves. (126 words)

1 thing that you currently like
The Tracker has been a great addition. If it were updated more often and kept up to date on scores and standings it would be one of the best things about the league, as we’d have an easy way to see all scores and standings without going through the index. The tracker adds a great way to see stuff for everyone, without needing the index for more in-depth statistics. Sometimes people just want to check their scores, or just see who’s doing what, and if updated always, the tracker would be a great way to see it for everyone. The Tracker was great in its first implementation as it was updated often, but updating it tailed off as of late (NSFC doesn’t have 3 undefeated teams anymore) (127 words)

[bovovovo]

Written: Write 1 thing that you would like added to the league, 1 thing that you would like removed, and 1 thing that you currently like. Each part requires 100 words to be written to receive credit for it.

WHAT I WANT ADDED:
I like tons of things about this league. I think the big thing that keeps me coming back is the sense of community, a non-ridiculous HO, and the streams. I think those are our three biggest strengths and things that we should be capitalizing on. For the sense of community I think we should be doing more community events... I try to do things for the NOLA LR but league-wide things would go a long way as well. We should get the forums back to being more of a focal point for the league as well, rather than discord. I like the "new" HO a lot and while obviously there are some hiccups and maybe a few things I don't necessarily agree with them on, I think they do a fantastic job at being transparent (generally) and easily accessible. After seeing in other leagues what a bad, inaccessible, holier-than-thou, overly strict HOs look like, I have come to be very grateful for the one here. Finally, our streams are our biggest strength, and we should be doing all that we can to make them front and center. I think that means making them easily accessible on the forum and UPLOADING TO YOUTUBE. Why hasn't that happened yet? We should make that happen. Shoot, once I'm done with school I'll make it happen.

WHAT I WANT REMOVED:
Alright so here's something spicey: I think we should do DL bots. Someone (I think it was hendrix) did an article about it and the league has a DL problem. There aren't a lot of current DLs and there aren't a lot of creating DLs. DLs don't get a lot of stats and (even though I loved playing as a DL) lots of people don't enjoy playing DL because of the lack of stats and because they max out pretty early and get bored.

This also helps with what I think is a much bigger problem, and that's having enough active users that teams can fill out their rosters. We as a league are about to hit a very critical moment: When the S1 and S2 inactives start regressing and being auto-retired. I think many teams will start having lots of trouble fielding a full team. If we let teams do DL bots, that's 4 less positions that need to be filled. People can obviously still play DL if they want, it's a fun position. But this would help immensely with the approaching problem of teams having a hard time filling their rosters. I'll probably do a longer article about this at some point breaking it down.

WHAT I LIKE:
Surprise, all of my answers kinda blend together. Sorry not sorry. I can talk a lot about this league. What I like and what our opportunities for improvement are. Because there's lots of them. I honestly love this league a lot. It was my first sim league and I have a very very hard time imagining any other leagues holding a candle to it. I want to see it succeed, and to do that there has to be some growth. Nothing huge, but some tweaks here and there. Our biggest hurdle is going to be what happens when all those inactives start regressing and auto-retiring, and how many of the S1 and S2 people will recreate. We may have some trouble on our hands, but I have lots of faith in this league and think it'll be fine as long as we prepare adequately for it.

[Scootalicious]

Placeholder? I dunno

[kckolbe]

Man, added and removed is a weird way to say it. What’s weird is I had already started writing up like/dislike of things noticed since I came back…really wishing I’d posted that last night now.

Added: A “TPE to Max” list for all archetypes, as some positions took a lot more than others. Someone, I *think* 7Hawk77, had done an article that included this information back in S2 (along with other things), and I used it heavily as a reference when giving advice to players considering position switches, because some players are going to be more active than others, and you don’t want a very active player hitting max in 4 seasons or a semi-active stuck with a build he’ll never be able to really shine in. The differences in max are okay…just recommending letting folks know what they are.

Removed: 1 Team. It’s really tough to say WHICH team should be removed, because all of them have some kind of history, but I don’t think we have nearly the active players for 8 “manned” teams. Even offense, which used to be packed, only has 24 RB/TE/WR over 400 TPE. That’s HALF a league’s worth of offensive skill positions. On defense, it’s even worse, with only 50 of 88 spots filled. Wouldn’t a pro level bot team be fun? We have them in DSFL, why not 1 at the pro level as well? One issue with this is the argument that the conferences wouldn’t be balanced, but have they ever been? I think the same argument made in DSFL applies very well here. LR activity matters, and there just aren’t enough NSFL users to fill 8 locker rooms.

Liked: The re-balance. Obviously this is no secret, as the change to CB is a large part of why I came back, but CB wasn’t the only position addressed. I also noticed that DTs had their weight lowered, but were compensated for it with higher TPE caps. I worry this means they will struggle hard as young players, but I like that there is now room to grow. I wish LB had been addressed, as Balanced still seems THE archetype to play (with Coverage as a fun change of pace), but I could be wrong. In general, it was just good to see these things being looked at. It shows HO is actually serious about improving the league, which is a big deal for me.

[infinitempg]

Added: A good league history section. I know a wiki is in the works so this is kind of cheating, but having a place for new rookies to come in and learn about this history of the league would be great and give the site some "culture" to learn about. There's lots of inside jokes such as the Outlaw asterisks and the Noble scandal that I simply didn't get because I entered after it all happened - having a history book to look at would be helpful to understanding those references. It would also give rookies a thing to read when trying to understand why some teams are rebuilding while others are dominant, and whether that type of locker room is something they would want to be in.

Removed: The max kicking stats being 95. Of course I'm biased and all but at the moment I'm in my 3rd season and I only need about 1 season's more worth of TPE to max out both kick accuracy and kick power. Of course we don't want perfect kickers and of course I could pump more TPE into intelligence, but that doesn't seem quite as satisfying as getting my kicking attributes up to 99. Perhaps we could change the update scale to make it 20 or 30 TPE to move up one point between 95-99 to make it more challenging and force someone like me to stay super active between maxing out my kicking stats and regression hitting.
EDIT so I'm looking at other kickers and it looks like the max at 95 is just for balanced kickers. on one hand I get it (since the other archetypes have 100/90) but it would be cool if we could all hit 100

Liked: Also somewhat biased, but the new kicking balances. They seemingly are working out for me (I obviously can't speak for the other kickers) but so far I have been perfect on extra points and field goals (although now that I mention it I'm going to miss 60% of my kicks from here on out). I know last season I moved from about 75/75 on my stats to 85/85 (and now I'm approaching 90/90) and the large improvement in percentage is largely coming from that, but it is nice to see the league care about kickers and our concerns.

[iamslm22]

One thing that I want added to league is better salary structuring. There are players that are an absurd contracts (me being one of the better examples) and it needs to change. Right now a player at 399 TPE can sign an extension for three extra seasons (four seasons away), for 1M a season. That means that in the final year of the deal, a player like me can be over 1000 TPE and have a contract that is work 1M. This is obviously not great for parity, and it's not great in terms of making contracts fair. This is something that will change. 104

One thing that I would like to remove is tough obviously. I wanted something removed I could do it (as I am in the head office), but I think I would want to consider removing penalties. I haven't done that much research into it, and I believe it is possible to do, but right now it does not appear that penalties are correlated with any rating. It seems like it is pretty random. Plus when you're watching the streams a penalty is easy to spot right away at the start of the play so it makes watching the games less exciting for sure. 103

There is obviously a lot I like about the league right now. I think it's in healthy shape - with each team having a good amount of actives. That's one of the things I like best about this league - and it's ability to grow. Right now we have a pretty committed user base, and a user base that's willing to do jobs. We have always needed updaters, but the guys who do the job are great and we always get applications from new guys who are willing to help. The level of commitment and buy in from the community is invaluable for this league to work - so thank you all for making this league as fun as it is. 121

[timeconsumer]

Add: More players. I am seriously worried about recruitment for the long term health of this league more than anything else. We are currently looking at most of our S1 players retiring in the next 2-3 seasons, this unfortunately also includes a lot of inactives. Even great teams like the Otters are still starting a couple of S1 inactives. When we lose those, and we possibly have some active guys who decide not to recreate after retirement we are looking at a serious contraction in the amount of players in the league. 6 months ago it was common to see 100 users log on each day, that is down closer to 75 now. If we do not recruit hard and fast (and right around the NFL draft is the best time to do it) the league is not going to last much longer.

Remove: All the offseason excess. We had a long offseason in part because of all the side projects we had going on. Don't get me wrong those are fun and all but we can't put the cart before the horse. Especially when we are concerned about getting new players in the door it's just too confusing to have the NCT, the redraft project, the pro-bowl, and all this extra shit going on when these guys just want to get drafted and start their careers. Side projects need to be just that, side projects. The league needs to be the primary focus and we need to ensure that all decisions we make are made with the "how will this help keep rookies active?" mindset.

Keep the same: All the fun and ridiculous things we love about the league. It's no secret that I really love this game and I have a lot of fun here. I feel like I've met some awesome people and we've had a ton of laughs and watched some crazy dot football games. At the same time those of us who are responsible for keeping this going (simmer, department heads, HO, GMs, rookie mentors) let's keep in perspective that around 100 people's entertainment relies on us to be active and engaged in what we do. And if we cannot provide that, we should either rethink our current role in the organization or take a step back and let someone with a fresh outlook come in and give it a go for a while.

[caltroit_red_flames]

Add:
Some sort of recruiting incentive. NSFL is a lot of fun, but being a football sim it needs a lot more members than some other simulation sites. Right now it seems like the only incentive to recruit people is to help grow the site, which might be enough for some people, but I assume it isn't enough for everyone to actively recruit. There a lot of football fans out there, there's no reason that we shouldn't be able to fill up teams or at least the first strings with real active players. People would be more likely to ask others to join in real life if there was some sort of TPE reward for getting others to join the site. Also how the hell could you guys take :belly: from me????

Remove:
I don't know if this is possible (because I don't know anything about the simulator), but I think that having home field advantage is kind of stupid. The sim is probably already wonky enough as it is (I always hear people talking about trying to figure out the sim), we don't need teams being home or away messing with the sim results too. I've never heard anything in real like that suggests that a team playing an away game will take more penalties, so having it in the sim is kind of nonsensical. But again, I don't know anything about the simulator that we use so I don't even know if it's possible to move the sliders in it so that penalties aren't effected by where the game is taking place.

Currently Like:
I really like how the TPE system works. With the weekend PTs, regular PTs, training, activity checks, equipment, ultimus week, etc. it seems like there are a lot of opportunities for users to gain TPE throughout the season. Of course I am always for adding more ways of getting TPE, but of the different sim sites I've tried (which is only two so lol) it seems like NSFL is the one that has struck the best balance in the amount of TPE that players can gain in a season. Right now getting 1 million each work to train is kind of tough, but I guess I'm not using twitter so the opportunity for that is there, I'm just being lazy.