Task 12:
This is my first and only sim league, so it has been quite the experience going through all this for the first time. I am no stranger to fake online sports leagues, as I play fake baseball in the MLR league (go Marlins). However, the differences between fake baseball and simulation football account for a completely different experience that I am still getting used to. In fake baseball, I am in control of my own performance (to a certain extent) which was hard to let go of once I created my fake sim football player. It was a cool concept to me in terms of earning points to assign to different stats and choosing from different player archetypes to model my playing style. But I think coming from fake baseball, I can’t help but feel helpless watching my player run around on the simulation and end the day with 2 tackles. It has taken some time to use those boring stats my player gets as motivation instead of discouragement. Honestly, I am still trying to use it to encourage myself even today. I am sure once I get to a certain level and begin to see results, everything will fall into place.
I have met some amazing people in my team clubhouse – the London Royals. Meeting people outside of my team mostly falls on me for not being active on the DSFL or ISFL discord channels. But sometimes I say to myself, “why arbitrarily talk to random guys in DSFL when I can grow my bond with my teammates even more?” The first person to really get me excited about DSFL and the sport was my GM Sylphreni. I was honored he used his waiver wire priority to swoop me up, even though I had less TPE than my fellow DSFL draft class (I joined during the last week of pre-season, so I went undrafted). I could easily just list the names of all my teammates, but that would just add unnecessary words. I will however give a shout out to the few that have gone above and beyond in embracing me into the team. So thanks to my guys Harrison Andrews, Gunner Thorbjornsson, Lesean Paris Crooks, and Juan Domine. I did send a lot of messages on the DSFL Rookie discord and Daria Guava-Fresca was extremely helpful and a great support for me when I published my first ISFL Media article. So although I was not drafted into DSFL and I have had some growing pains, I am excited to be here and I love the people I have met so far. Now it is time to win the Ultimini Trophy with them. (444 Words)
Task 16:
I am by no means a qualified GM, so all my suggestions are purely for entertainment purposes. With that said, I think one of the best ways to improve is to somehow sign enough actual human players to fill out an entire offensive line. It is an overlooked position that gets no stats for their stat sheet (aside from pancakes) so it is populated by many bots. As I was taking a look at my sack numbers, I took a deeper dive and discovered that all but 1 of my sacks came against offensive lineman that were bots. So, I thought to myself, “is this because the bots are trash or because there are just more bots than humans?”. As it turns out, the answer is a little bit of both. After seeing this discovery, I watched out next few games and watched as the bots on our offensive line let through some defensive ends who obliterated our quarterback. Nobody got through the absolute tank of a man Mac Elephant, but the bots did not do so well. If I were a GM, I would somehow try to convince more human players to be a lineman so that we can virtually erase all sacks, plus the added bonus of improving the run game and allowing the QB to have a cleaner pocket to make better passes. Now this is obviously easier said than done. But if it’s within the rules, a GM could theoretically convince a few current players on the team to position switch to OL for just one season, win the trophy, and then the players can go back to what they originally wanted to enjoy their usual stat sheet stuffing lives. Is that kind of dirty? Sure. I am not a rules expert by any means since I am new, but if someone can find a way to make that happen, it could be extremely beneficial. (319 words)
Task 24:
I can use this question to give out my appreciation for the men and women who volunteer to create, update, and run the website and system that we all use to play simulation football. I think it was only a matter of time until the name NSFL would be changed due to its unfortunate acronym. And as someone who has updated a website before for rebranding, I can sympathize with how much of a headache it is. I think this name change is a good sign because it shows that ISFL is committed to being dynamic and adaptive to the times, and the job can be accomplished no matter how much of a headache it is to change and rebrand.
An example of how this is a good sign is that (keep in mind this is an extreme example) if a better simulation engine is created and the league decides to move in that direction, the league may have the endurance to take on such a drastic change. Even something else such as an expansion, changing some of the rules, or how TPE points are allocated will cause a lot of headaches and reorganizing. There will obviously be growing pains with either scenario like there were in the name change, albeit much more painful, but the community will be able to improvise, adapt, and overcome. So, I tip my hat to the ones in charge of all these changes and their commitment to following through on their plans. I feel comfortable as a member of this community that leadership will do what they need to do when the times comes. (270 words)
This is my first and only sim league, so it has been quite the experience going through all this for the first time. I am no stranger to fake online sports leagues, as I play fake baseball in the MLR league (go Marlins). However, the differences between fake baseball and simulation football account for a completely different experience that I am still getting used to. In fake baseball, I am in control of my own performance (to a certain extent) which was hard to let go of once I created my fake sim football player. It was a cool concept to me in terms of earning points to assign to different stats and choosing from different player archetypes to model my playing style. But I think coming from fake baseball, I can’t help but feel helpless watching my player run around on the simulation and end the day with 2 tackles. It has taken some time to use those boring stats my player gets as motivation instead of discouragement. Honestly, I am still trying to use it to encourage myself even today. I am sure once I get to a certain level and begin to see results, everything will fall into place.
I have met some amazing people in my team clubhouse – the London Royals. Meeting people outside of my team mostly falls on me for not being active on the DSFL or ISFL discord channels. But sometimes I say to myself, “why arbitrarily talk to random guys in DSFL when I can grow my bond with my teammates even more?” The first person to really get me excited about DSFL and the sport was my GM Sylphreni. I was honored he used his waiver wire priority to swoop me up, even though I had less TPE than my fellow DSFL draft class (I joined during the last week of pre-season, so I went undrafted). I could easily just list the names of all my teammates, but that would just add unnecessary words. I will however give a shout out to the few that have gone above and beyond in embracing me into the team. So thanks to my guys Harrison Andrews, Gunner Thorbjornsson, Lesean Paris Crooks, and Juan Domine. I did send a lot of messages on the DSFL Rookie discord and Daria Guava-Fresca was extremely helpful and a great support for me when I published my first ISFL Media article. So although I was not drafted into DSFL and I have had some growing pains, I am excited to be here and I love the people I have met so far. Now it is time to win the Ultimini Trophy with them. (444 Words)
Task 16:
I am by no means a qualified GM, so all my suggestions are purely for entertainment purposes. With that said, I think one of the best ways to improve is to somehow sign enough actual human players to fill out an entire offensive line. It is an overlooked position that gets no stats for their stat sheet (aside from pancakes) so it is populated by many bots. As I was taking a look at my sack numbers, I took a deeper dive and discovered that all but 1 of my sacks came against offensive lineman that were bots. So, I thought to myself, “is this because the bots are trash or because there are just more bots than humans?”. As it turns out, the answer is a little bit of both. After seeing this discovery, I watched out next few games and watched as the bots on our offensive line let through some defensive ends who obliterated our quarterback. Nobody got through the absolute tank of a man Mac Elephant, but the bots did not do so well. If I were a GM, I would somehow try to convince more human players to be a lineman so that we can virtually erase all sacks, plus the added bonus of improving the run game and allowing the QB to have a cleaner pocket to make better passes. Now this is obviously easier said than done. But if it’s within the rules, a GM could theoretically convince a few current players on the team to position switch to OL for just one season, win the trophy, and then the players can go back to what they originally wanted to enjoy their usual stat sheet stuffing lives. Is that kind of dirty? Sure. I am not a rules expert by any means since I am new, but if someone can find a way to make that happen, it could be extremely beneficial. (319 words)
Task 24:
I can use this question to give out my appreciation for the men and women who volunteer to create, update, and run the website and system that we all use to play simulation football. I think it was only a matter of time until the name NSFL would be changed due to its unfortunate acronym. And as someone who has updated a website before for rebranding, I can sympathize with how much of a headache it is. I think this name change is a good sign because it shows that ISFL is committed to being dynamic and adaptive to the times, and the job can be accomplished no matter how much of a headache it is to change and rebrand.
An example of how this is a good sign is that (keep in mind this is an extreme example) if a better simulation engine is created and the league decides to move in that direction, the league may have the endurance to take on such a drastic change. Even something else such as an expansion, changing some of the rules, or how TPE points are allocated will cause a lot of headaches and reorganizing. There will obviously be growing pains with either scenario like there were in the name change, albeit much more painful, but the community will be able to improvise, adapt, and overcome. So, I tip my hat to the ones in charge of all these changes and their commitment to following through on their plans. I feel comfortable as a member of this community that leadership will do what they need to do when the times comes. (270 words)