*The Case for Bringing Back Weekly Predictions

[Jo3fish5]

How are predictions fun OR engaging tbh? dont get me wrong I would love to have them back bc i like them better than writing an actual PT, but they are afwul. my favorite part of being HO was getting the average of predcitions because they were so bothersome to keep up with. Heck i just realized if there was a week one prediction thread i didnt do it lol. its just a mess

I find them fun. I actually do my own predictions and make them based on my own thoughts. I guess if you just copy them from someone else then it isn't engaging but trivia is literally just waiting on discord for valor to post the answers.

[mithrandir]

Additionally, predictions are one of the few ways that players can separate from the field. Everyone gets the same amount of TPE for equipment, AC, Trivia, PT, so the only way to earn more TPE than your max earning peers is by predicting better than them. It's one of the few earning activities that takes a little skill.

[slothfacekilla]

I prefer making predictions compared to trivia. I actually put some thought (maybe not a ton) into them and talk a bit about them in some LR's. I don't think I've ever looked up trivia answers myself, I just copy/paste from discord.

When I first came into the league I obviously had no sense of history and I had no clue how to navigate the index to figure out trivia answers. But teams always pass them around, so I just grabbed them from discord no problem because who wants to bug someone on how they got answers when you can just get tpe! Ever since then, trivia for me has just been a copy/paste situation, so it doesn't do much for me. I could force myself to do it I guess, but that sounds like too much work....

[ADwyer87]

people clearly like them more. I just personally dont like them. and like i said this is seriously the first time in 23 seasons ive ever heard anyone say they like predictions so this isnt just me saying what I like, this is just not something ive ever experienced from others before.

I will say with objective engagement though, checking the site 3 times vs 1 time if its a very minor task i wouldnt count as engagement, and with people who are casual who dont check as much it can be a direct detriment to them. thats just my take. not all engagement is created equally, simply going on the site more isnt an automatic positive

[Highhaschdi]

I also definitely prefer predictions over trivia. Trivia is just copying the answers and not even looking at the questions. Predictions can be copied but much more people take their time to do their own and also do some research for them. When I had my first season in the DSFL I didn't know anything about the league and the sim at all, so the predictions were the thing that got me way more involve in the games. They were the main reason I stayed up late in Europe to watch the NSFL games and I'm not the only one in our friend group doing so.
So, especially for new players it might hurt the viewer numbers as there is not much reason for them to care about NSFL games or games in the other conference.

The only argument I see mentioned for trivia and against predicting all games is that casual earners don't need to check the site more often.
But we know the schedule so we can just post the predictions thread at the weekend and users will have to check just one time to do all predictions.
Preferrably we still have 3 different threads for each week, so you can edit your predictions for the games wednesday and friday if you want.

[tMuse]

I hate seeing predictions gone and I never understood why we couldn't predict the whole week at once. I have watched almost every game before this change and now I won't watch much games at all. My team plays last later today and as I am from germany the games start at 2am. I won't stay up to watch our game if we play last. Predictions made every game at least somewhat interesting. Now I don't need to give any shit about the other conference only for the playoff push and even then it's not 100%.

When I did trivia this week I copy pasted the answers put them in the pm and forgot about it, I have no idea what the questions or the answers are. The answers get shared in every team discord minutes after the thread is open there is no need to engage with this task in any way.

Predictions are what got me interested in the league as they somewhat forced me to look into the teams / standings to make my predictions as I couldn't be sure what I was copying compared to trivia.

The most fun part was watching the games with friends in teamspeak/discord and compare our predictions, super sad to see this part gone now as there is less need to care about the "other" games.

What baffled me was that bex said they wanted to keep trivia for more variety - Trivia brings absolutely 0 variety in Tasks the way it's done atm. I also don't know any way to fix them. It just doesn't matter if you copy paste answers for a question or copy paste predictions.

Especially for a sim that already has high earners maxing out numerous attributes, this isn't the end all be all.

This so much. Does it even matter if people get a bit more TPE when many players can get maxed anyway? There are so many capped players in the DSFL that it doesn't even matter down there. In the NSFL many players are on their way to max every important attribute.

I just don't see the point in removing tasks.

[TheWoZy]

clicking point tasks is fun

[scorycory]

I think the biggest thing with predictions as far as league engagement goes has nothing to do with logging onto the forum and copying or pasting/doing a glorified activity check. It gets people excited for the stream, it gives you a team to root for in the same way that fantasy gives you players to root for. I find it especially entertaining when I want my QB to play well but I want his team to lose, that conflict of interests is awesome!

[DarknessRising]

There is definitely people who fall on either side of the fence for this argument and that just comes down to what people prefer and the type of user/player they want to be.

Personally, Predictions is more fun because its current and can wait to see how you went compared to trivia which covers history, but there is so much history in the league that what it covers is only slivers.

I do think that there is room possibly to have both, with more predictions and less trivia to strike a balance between the league. If we do 8 weeks of predictions, every even week for instance, compared to the 5 for this season, it can be balanced out by doing trivia 3 times instead of 5 times, every second week (weeks 1, 3, 5). Alternatively, trivia could become an off season task for something fun and different and to give more to do, with a lot more questions but that has its own problems and doesn't really deal with much of the arguments either way but there is definitely room to positively change this and HO will take feedback on board as long as you don't be dicks to them about it.