7. Hello. In this essay, I am going to write about the two biggest frustrations with the league, neither of which are particularly large as I think this league is amazing and fun and awesome.
The first frustration that I have is I think the playbooks are not particularly interesting or balanced, and they have remained the same for too long. I’m obviously only a rookie in the ISFL, but I have looked back at the past and seen that the playbooks have remained largely unchanged for multiple seasons. I think this is boring.
If the playbooks continue to be exactly the same for multiple seasons, it means that every GM worth their salt will sim until they figure out the optimal combinations for most of the settings. In a perfect world with perfect playbooks, there would be no “best” combinations as every setting could be countered by another playbook/setting the other team could use. I do not think that is currently the case, and I think there are some settings/playbooks that are simply better than others. Obviously I could be proven wrong, and there might be some combination of players/settings on some teams that might lead to better results, but I haven’t found them.
Setting balance aside, the same playbooks year in and year out give the league a stale feeling, both for the games and for the GM’s planning. When we compare it to something like Magic: the Gathering where people can talk about “Eldrazi Winter” in the Pro Tour or the “Companion Catastrophe” etc, each year has a clearly distinct feeling from one another. In our current system, the S40 playbooks will be virtually identical to the S41, and S42 shows no signs of changing. Ideally we wouldn’t have so many *huge* balance mistakes (ultimately it ends up being fair as all teams will have access to the same resources), but I think it is *critical* we have some changes every year.
My dream solution would be one where every team can create their own playbook for every single game, just like the NFL. GM’s could package their own plays together, and use every tool the game/sim has to create their own gameplan. I think this is unfeasible because it would require too much time from the simming team to implement. They have too much work on their hands already, and needing to create a new playbook for potentially every single game in the season for every team is absolutely insane. This won’t happen, so I’ve thought of an alternative: voting.
My proposed solution would be to have the league change their playbook at the start of every season. I think the offseason should include a “playbook submission”, where users are allowed to create and submit their own playbooks. Then, the rest of the league (or perhaps the GM’s or HO) would vote on which playbooks to actually include in the upcoming season. Every season would potentially be different, but obviously players could submit the same playbook two seasons in a row.
This solution gives us flexibility every season. If someone is submitting the same playbook every time, people are welcome to :
Vote against it, preventing it from being an option again.
Create their own playbook that is specifically targeted against the other playbook they don’t like.
I know I would love to be able to submit my own playbook, and I’d love even more to have it selected and played. I think everyone should have an opportunity to do that, and live the high of seeing people vote for their playbook! Just imagine how much fun it would be for you to create the “actual vertical” playbook where literally every pass play was a 20 yard bomb. It would be the ideal troll fiesta if you got it through. Obviously no team would actually *need* to use it if your playbook was shit.
The first frustration that I have is I think the playbooks are not particularly interesting or balanced, and they have remained the same for too long. I’m obviously only a rookie in the ISFL, but I have looked back at the past and seen that the playbooks have remained largely unchanged for multiple seasons. I think this is boring.
If the playbooks continue to be exactly the same for multiple seasons, it means that every GM worth their salt will sim until they figure out the optimal combinations for most of the settings. In a perfect world with perfect playbooks, there would be no “best” combinations as every setting could be countered by another playbook/setting the other team could use. I do not think that is currently the case, and I think there are some settings/playbooks that are simply better than others. Obviously I could be proven wrong, and there might be some combination of players/settings on some teams that might lead to better results, but I haven’t found them.
Setting balance aside, the same playbooks year in and year out give the league a stale feeling, both for the games and for the GM’s planning. When we compare it to something like Magic: the Gathering where people can talk about “Eldrazi Winter” in the Pro Tour or the “Companion Catastrophe” etc, each year has a clearly distinct feeling from one another. In our current system, the S40 playbooks will be virtually identical to the S41, and S42 shows no signs of changing. Ideally we wouldn’t have so many *huge* balance mistakes (ultimately it ends up being fair as all teams will have access to the same resources), but I think it is *critical* we have some changes every year.
My dream solution would be one where every team can create their own playbook for every single game, just like the NFL. GM’s could package their own plays together, and use every tool the game/sim has to create their own gameplan. I think this is unfeasible because it would require too much time from the simming team to implement. They have too much work on their hands already, and needing to create a new playbook for potentially every single game in the season for every team is absolutely insane. This won’t happen, so I’ve thought of an alternative: voting.
My proposed solution would be to have the league change their playbook at the start of every season. I think the offseason should include a “playbook submission”, where users are allowed to create and submit their own playbooks. Then, the rest of the league (or perhaps the GM’s or HO) would vote on which playbooks to actually include in the upcoming season. Every season would potentially be different, but obviously players could submit the same playbook two seasons in a row.
This solution gives us flexibility every season. If someone is submitting the same playbook every time, people are welcome to :
Vote against it, preventing it from being an option again.
Create their own playbook that is specifically targeted against the other playbook they don’t like.
I know I would love to be able to submit my own playbook, and I’d love even more to have it selected and played. I think everyone should have an opportunity to do that, and live the high of seeing people vote for their playbook! Just imagine how much fun it would be for you to create the “actual vertical” playbook where literally every pass play was a 20 yard bomb. It would be the ideal troll fiesta if you got it through. Obviously no team would actually *need* to use it if your playbook was shit.