(S43) PT #1 - New Season, New Suggestions?

[BWIII]

Yeah I'm not really sure what else could be done to make the league more exciting at this point, although the inverse might be true in that a lot could be done because right now I'm finding it to be really boring.  I'm not sure what could be the solution though.  The sim sucks, we all know that, but there's really no changing that, however, there's just no excitement to those little dots. I don't know it's a losing battle that can't really be solved.  I'm not sure that live play by play would work because from what I've seen no one is capable of keeping up with the plays, knowing the players etc, well enough to do a live play by play and also make it interesting.  I'm not sure an unlimited cap really does anything and I'm not sure that theres anything there that can be done.  Maybe do away with the DSFL, it's extremely boring and  I feel like you're just wasting your time down there.

[MobiausGrander]

Another year, another season of the ISFL. Now that a week has been under way, it's about time that I introduce a little spin to make spruce up the league. Currently, there are only three teams in both conferences that can make the playoffs. However, let's introduce a little twist: 4 teams in both conferences should make the playoffs. It seems gimmicky, but here's my projection for it. Much like the play-in in the NBA, this should help incentivize teams from full on tanking and help to increase the competitive nature of the league as it won't be just relegated to a couple of teams each season. This should spill out into free agency as players will feel that they won't have to stay on their same team for a chance to win and it incentivizes teams to spend in free agency for a chance at a championship which is great for the league!

[UberBJ]

I would instate a league wide re-draft. Similar to when you start a new Madden franchise mode and you basically allow every team to pick top down from the entire list of users. I really think it would be interesting to see how teams approached this from a user management standpoint, since there are obviously many team loyalties within the community.

I'd like to think you'd see teams do more than just draft highest TPE available for an instant run on the championship. Especially since many GMs are very forward thinking, I think the value would actuall be on 2 seasons away from cap type players that have a healthy bank and activity ratio. I definitely think some teams would navigate the draft differently than others, especially those franchises who have been stuck in mediocrity lately. Would they go all in? Would they draft to create a better culture? I don't know, but it sure as hell would be fun to find out!

162 words

[JKortesi81]

PBE CW

[Rufio_NZ]

One potential new key feature that would make the league a little simpler to keep up to date with is weekly updates on team performances. Potentially adding a quick 10-minute run down for the week, highlighting big plays, perhaps a quick rundown of each game as well. Highlights for each game would be awesome as well, perhaps nominating each home team to create and release a presser for each of the games. I also don't even think this needs to be a massive task, just a quick write down blog post, heck even run it through chatgpt because the goal is for casuals who miss games to get a quick rundown on how things are going. I also think end of season wrap-ups would be great which didn't just pertain to the results but more the gossip and drama of the season too. Quite often you could have users coming in and out of seasons and this would be a great way to ensure they stay up to date.

[allbetsonjames]

So actually I think that a good one which was actually recommended inside the beginning of the PT and I don't want it to sound like I'm bashing the league or anything but I really think it's tough to begin, because this is probably the best Sim engine there is but the visuals are kind of lacking in my opinion and it makes it kind of boring to watch but I do think that having live play by play could be a really good one to have as it adds a little bit more livability to the Stream and it's not just music like I get that it's chill sometimes but I feel having more interaction might make people actually watch more cuz I feel the streams usually don't have too much activity but maybe that's just me and I think that live commentary could be a solid fix or it could be out of our reach of them potentially having actual visuals of things versus just circles on a board with numbers on them that move I don't know it just lacks a little bit compared to some other leagues but there's only so much we can control ourselves

[iStegosauruz]

I think a reduction in cap is probably needed at this point for the league - without crunching any of the actual data of course. The last few seasons we've seen more and more teams max the amount of cap they're trading (at the full $10 million sent out or retained in player trades). I don't think we're seeing more teams try to tank or jostle for draft position that we regularly do, but it does feel like we're seeing more of an arms race at the top of the league and that is fueled by teams being able to manipulate the cap so aggressively. If you reduce the amount of cap a team can trade or retain on their books you'll only see teams hand out more bonuses. I think there is an argument that decreasing the cap overall would force talent to move around the league more aggressively to the teams that still have remaining cap space.

[bowl0]

This is a fun one, something that would make the ISFL more interesting. I do believe that having a play by play (while probably not the easiest) would make the streams overall more interesting since PBE has been able to do this type of commentary during their livestreams, even if it's not the most realistic for the ISFL to be able to execute. The play by play might be more do-able if it was done for just the playoffs, since those are the much higher stakes and should all be quality games at that point in the year. The other thing that would make the league more interesting in my view is to bring back the WFC. Even if it's not happening every offseason, it would be beneficial to have a consistent timeframe for the event, whether it's every offseason or every 3 seasons, it would definitely add some spice into the offseason to help keep people more interested in the league during that timeframe

[toivo]

SHL PT

[Frostbite]

I believe something that could make the league maybe not better, however much more interesting, is to decrease the salary cap by 5-7 million. This would allow for more player movement, as the elite contending teams would now be unable to afford to keep together their elite roster, similar to the NFL, and teams would have to choose between maintaining their strong core of players and having potentially "bad" human OL to save cap, or allow for a player or two to walk that otherwise wouldn't in order to maintain an OL that can block for a contending team. While their are some downsides to this idea, for example retention rate could be lowered due to GMs essentially having to choose to keep their homegrown and amazing players, or be a competitive team and get good OL bots. This would dramatically increase the positional value of OL similar to the NFL, where a few OL are selected in the first each draft and many go top 10. In the current ISFL, without factoring user in, no OL would go that high in the draft. This suggestion would also increase parity in the league, as with the current salary cap competing teams are able to retain literally every single player and keep super teams... super.

Tbh I'm not even sure if I would fully support a change like this, however I think the potential that lowering the salary cap has is immense and deserves to at least be looked at.