Tier 2 - Task 10 - 300+ Words - 5 TPE
Okay under normal circumstances I would make some joke about being given divine providence over the league by being made commissioner, but I do have a few changes I would make if given the highest power position in the league for such a short duration that any of the fallout from these changes would not fall on me.
First that I can think of actually relates to this point task as I would steal the system from the PBE that makes all written tasks eligible to be written as any given tier. If I write 150+ words about Task One it counts for 2.5 TPE, but I could write 450+ words about Task One to earn 7.5 TPE. I love that system way more because if something sparks my interest I can just ramble about it for all 600+ words to complete the whole thing, or if two things spark my interest a moderate amount I can do two at 300+ or one 450+ and one 150+ to get it done. That added flexibility is something I would love to see.
Second and one that I know has come up off and on is a rule zero which states that Head Office reserves the right to do whatever the bleep they want as long as it is for the good of the league with the caveat that a majority vote by GMs or a unanimous vote by Appeals can overrule it along with the note that Head Office cannot use this power to get rid of more than one GM or Appeals team member at a time or to do away with those positions in totality. Reason being is a relatively recent case where we felt the need to put a rule into place to justify a decision that should been a simple slam dunk based on how our affiliate leagues handled it. I do appreciate the rule change of being able to take into account actions over in affiliate leagues, but as someone who views the league as a big D&D game where Head Office and other job holders are basically Dungeon Master I feel like they should be far more comfortable using their power to make sure things run smoothly while protecting the user base at large from evil.
Third I would change media to a flat rate 2000 per word with the guideline for graders that they are to feel free to hand out bonuses up to double that if they feel the piece is deserving it and more with approval. Yes this means I would say an especially high quality article should get the equivalent of 4x pay during double media weeks. Graphics pay in this league has skyrocketed which is not a bad thing per se as much as it has caused a disparity relative to media. Just as the minimum wage should rise so too should media pay.
Okay I am well over word count now, but one last idea is to genuinely work with our affiliate leagues in an attempt to make that a more meaningful connection. Joint league banking. Is that solely something I want so that I can use my vast fortune to max earn in PBE and SHL more easily? Yes. Don't I worry about how it would impact media and graphics creation? Mildly at best as I do not think people creating for finance sake alone is a good motivator. Do I genuinely think this is a good idea? Least a little bit I think it would help in recruiting regards from other leagues if they knew they did not have to struggle to earn if they have already earned. I hesitated to join SHL for a long time because I don't get hockey to be completely honest, and I imagine a lot of SHL members hesitate in the same regard jumping over here due to lack of football knowledge. If people could earn their money by doing media about their preferred sport I imagine they might be more inclined to add their name to a new league.
Tier 3 - Task 23 - 150+ Words - 2.5 TPE
That is a whole gigantic can of worms that I don't really want to crawl around in at this point in time. There are quirks and oddities that could be ironed out, and honestly someone who tinkers with it would be better suited to pointing them all out. This point in my career I read the index occasionally at best so would not be well suited to the first question. The second question however is one where I have a few legitimate answers.
If I could make improvements to the sim engine the thing I would want to do is actually work to optimize it for the sim league experience. Which would mean talking to our sim team, updaters, et cetera to try to make the interfaces more fitting for how we use it. I think that would go a huge way towards making it better overall as I know we have file hassle on a routine basis so getting genuine user input into how to make that side of things easier would work wonders for them.
Next I would want to balance attribute importance. Should speed be king in a sport where everyone drools at forty times? Yes and no. Yes in the sense that the average player who can run really fast tends to be able to make at least a few flashy plays in their career even if the rest of their tool belt is empty. No in the sense that the player I consider the greatest in the league was not the fastest guy on the field as much as he was the most enduring. Thus I would make endurance more important by making it so that it sort of acts as a cap on other attributes in the form of something like if you have 100 speed, but only 70 endurance you might get a few snaps at that 100 speed but it would continue to fall as you take more snaps down to 70 as it is limited by your endurance. Whereas at this point the sim savvy tell me the improvement of endurance from 72 and up is minimal at best by comparison.
Beyond that I would personally want to work to make sure that each position would be fun to play if someone were to play it in a sim league. Give offensive line the full stat details of sacks allowed, pancakes, penalties, and also rush yards generated by virtue of their blocking. Do the same for fullbacks and ideally study tape of guys like Lorenzo Neal to see how they could be used to make things more interesting. Pump defensive line up so that they can be involved in all facets of the defensive side of the ball without being overpowered. Show how the equivalent of a high TPE corner shut down their opponent by having passer rating allowed correlate more with better attributes and have it be a standard part of the index. Improve kickers by giving them a differing accuracy stat for field goals and kickoffs to account for people like Gostkowski who adjusted for one throwing off the other, and to give them a way of becoming specifically better at onside kicks, and I would make it so FG accuracy in this regard helps a punter make coffin kicks while kickoff accuracy helps keep them from outkicking their coverage unit. On that note I would also love to see more involvement in special teams, but that is a whole thing to dive into and I am already well past word count.
Also just cause I will never not bring this up in these kinds of things I would love to see a sim team up with Pro Football Focus and Pro Football Reference in an attempt to make the most realistic gridiron football simulation possible, but that is sadly going to remain a distant dream for the time being.
Tier 3 - Task 27 - 150+ Words - 2.5 TPE
This is a pretty easy one for me to answer as my initial create of Magnus Rikiya was a defensive tackle due more to the stated need of teams rather than due to strong personal interest in the position. Although it is a position I am fond of as I enjoy all the defensive positions, and it is one I think deserves more love as a fan of players like Bryant Young and Kevin Williams. That said having had a career there that ultimately ended up disappointing despite TPE earning I knew I wanted a change which is part of why I went with safety the second time around. If safety was not an option than I would have gone with my second choice at the time which would have been linebacker specifically the coverage linebacker archetype as if memory serves they have the highest intelligence cap of the defensive archetypes guaranteeing them the radio spot if capped, and that really appealed to me for some reason. Also of all the other positions I feel like coverage linebacker is the closest in nature to a safety given the gap between a box safety and linebacker has become heavily blurred in recent years, but of course to throw it back Seth Joyner is a superstar who would probably have done a lot to inspire my concept in that instance.
Okay under normal circumstances I would make some joke about being given divine providence over the league by being made commissioner, but I do have a few changes I would make if given the highest power position in the league for such a short duration that any of the fallout from these changes would not fall on me.
First that I can think of actually relates to this point task as I would steal the system from the PBE that makes all written tasks eligible to be written as any given tier. If I write 150+ words about Task One it counts for 2.5 TPE, but I could write 450+ words about Task One to earn 7.5 TPE. I love that system way more because if something sparks my interest I can just ramble about it for all 600+ words to complete the whole thing, or if two things spark my interest a moderate amount I can do two at 300+ or one 450+ and one 150+ to get it done. That added flexibility is something I would love to see.
Second and one that I know has come up off and on is a rule zero which states that Head Office reserves the right to do whatever the bleep they want as long as it is for the good of the league with the caveat that a majority vote by GMs or a unanimous vote by Appeals can overrule it along with the note that Head Office cannot use this power to get rid of more than one GM or Appeals team member at a time or to do away with those positions in totality. Reason being is a relatively recent case where we felt the need to put a rule into place to justify a decision that should been a simple slam dunk based on how our affiliate leagues handled it. I do appreciate the rule change of being able to take into account actions over in affiliate leagues, but as someone who views the league as a big D&D game where Head Office and other job holders are basically Dungeon Master I feel like they should be far more comfortable using their power to make sure things run smoothly while protecting the user base at large from evil.
Third I would change media to a flat rate 2000 per word with the guideline for graders that they are to feel free to hand out bonuses up to double that if they feel the piece is deserving it and more with approval. Yes this means I would say an especially high quality article should get the equivalent of 4x pay during double media weeks. Graphics pay in this league has skyrocketed which is not a bad thing per se as much as it has caused a disparity relative to media. Just as the minimum wage should rise so too should media pay.
Okay I am well over word count now, but one last idea is to genuinely work with our affiliate leagues in an attempt to make that a more meaningful connection. Joint league banking. Is that solely something I want so that I can use my vast fortune to max earn in PBE and SHL more easily? Yes. Don't I worry about how it would impact media and graphics creation? Mildly at best as I do not think people creating for finance sake alone is a good motivator. Do I genuinely think this is a good idea? Least a little bit I think it would help in recruiting regards from other leagues if they knew they did not have to struggle to earn if they have already earned. I hesitated to join SHL for a long time because I don't get hockey to be completely honest, and I imagine a lot of SHL members hesitate in the same regard jumping over here due to lack of football knowledge. If people could earn their money by doing media about their preferred sport I imagine they might be more inclined to add their name to a new league.
Code:
Word Count: 679
Tier 3 - Task 23 - 150+ Words - 2.5 TPE
That is a whole gigantic can of worms that I don't really want to crawl around in at this point in time. There are quirks and oddities that could be ironed out, and honestly someone who tinkers with it would be better suited to pointing them all out. This point in my career I read the index occasionally at best so would not be well suited to the first question. The second question however is one where I have a few legitimate answers.
If I could make improvements to the sim engine the thing I would want to do is actually work to optimize it for the sim league experience. Which would mean talking to our sim team, updaters, et cetera to try to make the interfaces more fitting for how we use it. I think that would go a huge way towards making it better overall as I know we have file hassle on a routine basis so getting genuine user input into how to make that side of things easier would work wonders for them.
Next I would want to balance attribute importance. Should speed be king in a sport where everyone drools at forty times? Yes and no. Yes in the sense that the average player who can run really fast tends to be able to make at least a few flashy plays in their career even if the rest of their tool belt is empty. No in the sense that the player I consider the greatest in the league was not the fastest guy on the field as much as he was the most enduring. Thus I would make endurance more important by making it so that it sort of acts as a cap on other attributes in the form of something like if you have 100 speed, but only 70 endurance you might get a few snaps at that 100 speed but it would continue to fall as you take more snaps down to 70 as it is limited by your endurance. Whereas at this point the sim savvy tell me the improvement of endurance from 72 and up is minimal at best by comparison.
Beyond that I would personally want to work to make sure that each position would be fun to play if someone were to play it in a sim league. Give offensive line the full stat details of sacks allowed, pancakes, penalties, and also rush yards generated by virtue of their blocking. Do the same for fullbacks and ideally study tape of guys like Lorenzo Neal to see how they could be used to make things more interesting. Pump defensive line up so that they can be involved in all facets of the defensive side of the ball without being overpowered. Show how the equivalent of a high TPE corner shut down their opponent by having passer rating allowed correlate more with better attributes and have it be a standard part of the index. Improve kickers by giving them a differing accuracy stat for field goals and kickoffs to account for people like Gostkowski who adjusted for one throwing off the other, and to give them a way of becoming specifically better at onside kicks, and I would make it so FG accuracy in this regard helps a punter make coffin kicks while kickoff accuracy helps keep them from outkicking their coverage unit. On that note I would also love to see more involvement in special teams, but that is a whole thing to dive into and I am already well past word count.
Also just cause I will never not bring this up in these kinds of things I would love to see a sim team up with Pro Football Focus and Pro Football Reference in an attempt to make the most realistic gridiron football simulation possible, but that is sadly going to remain a distant dream for the time being.
Code:
Word Count: 651
Tier 3 - Task 27 - 150+ Words - 2.5 TPE
This is a pretty easy one for me to answer as my initial create of Magnus Rikiya was a defensive tackle due more to the stated need of teams rather than due to strong personal interest in the position. Although it is a position I am fond of as I enjoy all the defensive positions, and it is one I think deserves more love as a fan of players like Bryant Young and Kevin Williams. That said having had a career there that ultimately ended up disappointing despite TPE earning I knew I wanted a change which is part of why I went with safety the second time around. If safety was not an option than I would have gone with my second choice at the time which would have been linebacker specifically the coverage linebacker archetype as if memory serves they have the highest intelligence cap of the defensive archetypes guaranteeing them the radio spot if capped, and that really appealed to me for some reason. Also of all the other positions I feel like coverage linebacker is the closest in nature to a safety given the gap between a box safety and linebacker has become heavily blurred in recent years, but of course to throw it back Seth Joyner is a superstar who would probably have done a lot to inspire my concept in that instance.
Code:
Word Count: 228