Mid NFL Season Point

[Dan Sez 0]

I think there are some good ideas behind the concept but have hammered a few of the problems already. I have a couple of more issues with the game but this isn't a thread just for me to rant.

 

What do you other guys, who are trying to remain active, think about the current design, the possible fixes and how it would impact any teams trying to retain rosters and salary structure.

[Blitzen 0]

They can certainly improve it but I like it. I think RB fatigue has to go or at the very least be assigned to the player, not the position.

[rexnervous 0]

For me, a few things...

 

1) The Free Agent Blitz was fun...and will be even better next time when I know what I'm doing.

 

2) That being said, GM rating either counts for too much, or should be harder to move up

 

3) The regular season has been not so much fun. Maybe it's just me, but I don't want to spend every day of the week thinking about fantasy football. I'm so used to dropping it after Monday, and picking it up Thu/Fri/Sat, but with the 48 hour bid period during the year I really have to pay more attention than I think I like to. Means by Friday at noon I have to know what players I'm going to go after to cover byes etc.

 

4) Dead teams = bad. Not sure how many dead teams we have (seems like we have at least 3), but I hope if the league continues next year we don't have any. Not like I play a lot of leagues, but every other league has active owners. Not sure what can be done about this.

 

5) Scoring seems way out of whack - in fact, I've given up analyzing it. I mean, Trent Green scored 46 points against me last week. He threw for 347 yards and 2 TDs. How the hell does that equal 46 points?????

 

6) Agree totally about RB Fatigue. Stupid to have it assigned to the position.

 

Overall, for those that are TOTALLY into fantasy football AND have a league that will continue for years, this is a potentially great product. So it's somewhat hard to judge during the first year. I mean, if I knew that I was going to stay for a few years AND everyone else was, then trading might be interesting, in that so many players are keepers and you have to manage salary. But for this year, it's been a bit disappointing.

 

I keep playing and setting up rosters and changing my alignments and strategy regardless of my standing right now, partially because I'm interested, partially because I paid for the damn thing, and partially because I don't want to let everyone else down (unlike the dead owners). But I'm borderline for continuing next year.

 

Looking forward to see how/if things will change for next year.

 

Wow. That was long.

[SmoovJello 0]

Someone has started a similiar thread over at GDR too.

 

Mid-Season Observations

 

 

I agree with much that Rex has said.

• The FAB was a lot of fun even though I screwed myself out of a decent offense.
  
• The GM Rating needs some changes to it. I've made my thoughts known over in GDR under "The New Forum for Ideas?" topic in "Gameplay FAQ". You shouldn't be able to reach a perfect rating in a single season and the modifiers to the rating should be applied after the player is signed, not when you first make the offer.
  
• The regular season has actually still been fun for me. I don't mind checking in on waivers during the week. I have to try and pick the correct defensive schemes if I hope to win games because my offense BLOWS on a regular basis.
  
• The Dead Teams are a bit of a drag to the overall league. Not only do they take players completely out of circulation but they also hurt the overall attendance of the league.
  
• QB scoring is more important than I had originally anticpated. I understand how they are doing the scoring and generally like the fact that points can be awarded for passing accuracy but it is a major downfall of my own team that I have a subpar QB.
  
• RB Fatigue is a known issue. GDR has agreed that it needs to be looked at. One staff member even seemed to be interested in not only placing the fatigue on the player but also allowing for the ability to recoup lost effectiveness.
  
• The FB position needs to be reevaluated a little. Very few true FBs earn points on a weekly basis and even when they do it is usually a point or two. I've made a few suggestions in GDR on how they might want to address FBs that are actually playing as HB (Anderson, Droughs, etc) and I think they are planning on addressing this.
  
• I believe they should add in a mechanism on player signing to take "starting potential" into account. They already put age in as a factor to contract acceptance why not this. One team shouldn't really have three or four #1 QBs on their roster unless two of them wre backups when you originally sign them.
  
• Scheduling should have a few more options to it. Since this league has such a small number of playoff positions available going to the division winners, more games should be played against division rivals.
  

I think that's long enough for the moment.

 

Overall, I'm enjoying this. I feel that I'm gonna be pretty screwed (my own fault) if we end up continuing next year with the rosters that we started this year. Taking this into account though, I'd be willing to continue next year. The Dead Teams will make continuing with current rosters a challenge though.

 

Dan, I apologize for my ealier comments about ranting...go for it. It just got a little old to see a fresh/rehashed rant every other day.

[Guest TheCheat]

Schedule improvements (e.g. doubling up on inter-div. games) have been brought up before, but another thing I'm realizing as the season goes on is that I'd like to see the playoffs expanded too.

 

Right now, w/ 16 teams, 4 divisions, and only one team going from each it feels like old school Major League Baseball. 1/4 of the teams isn't a good ratio and using our league as an example, some very good teams won't make it.

 

I think this only encourages teams who start the season poorly to jump ship (not cool, but plainly it happens) as getting back into some sort of contention is that much harder. At a minimum, I'd like to see some wildcards.

[Dan Sez 0]

I get tired of ranting too.

 

I see a lot of potential and wish them well.

I also see some subtrifuge and outright misrepresentation going on.

 

Game Tester is a valuable service that with professional game design companies, gets paid something - maybe not a lot, but something.

 

It is a principal thing, not the amount of money, that burns my cheeks.

 

Other problem areas:

 

Defensive Coverage?

My opponent last week crammed all their playbook in one formation that didn't cover any of the offensive formations I am running.

 

I spread my defensive formations out to at least "block" the opponents playbook in all formations. I also have enough defensive players to actually man the different defensive formations (another flaw). Still if I look at "coverage", my oppenent has about the same coverage I do.

 

No deduction on defensive coverage for teams without enough players to man their formations? In the real world, try running a goal-line D with 2 D-Linemen and see how many you stop at the one yard line.

 

Oh, and the GM assistant we waited for:

When I opened it up to see if it was useful, there was a tag to give advice on what players I could pick up to help my team. At the top of the list was Taiko Spikes - isn't he out for the year? Great advice.

 

Actially just the curtain being pulled back again showing that the game design is still a work in progress and they have recruited what they must consider a bunch of "willing partners" to pay them while they patch the holes.

 

 

I won't be recommending this site to anyone.

I'm not playing next year, either.

Sorry. I feel cheated in the exchange and will not continue. If just one of the rulings or questions came even close to what I considered fair or reasonable, if they just had the balls to admit they didn't have a finished product an offered a refund, if monkeys flew around shiating on Karl Rove's head all day....

 

right, the world would be a beautiful place.

 

I agree the initial drafting was interesting but again, flawed by the overwhelming "show me the booty of the GM I love" bidding process.

[Mike MacGregor 20]

Dan, I just want to say that I appreciate you sticking with the league this year, and being active, given your distaste for the setup. Not everyone would do that. In fact, probably most would bail. It shows good character on your part.

 

A lot of what you guys are saying I agree with. Some of my immediate thoughts...

 

- The 48 hour window to get stuff done is a drag.

 

- I really haven't gotten my head around the defensive coverage aspect, or learned how to improve on it. I may in fact have taken more negative points in defensive coverage than my opponent every week. I think this is factor of being in too many fantasy leagues I really haven't been able to give GDR the time it requires to excel.

 

- I wish the reporting and navigation was a little easier to follow. I can't seem to find how my backups would have done if I had them in place of my starting lineup.

 

- The stadium and attendance thing... this is like the EA Sports games for me. I never got wowed by that feature in those games' dynasty mode, and same here, I don't really pay attention to it. I think I've checked my attendance once just surfing around, and found it was poor. The game - wins and losses - are what matter to me, not the bells and whistles.

[SteveMy 0]

My biggest issue with the concept is the scoring system is more influential then the on-field performances.

 

The scoring is incredibly weighted towards QBs. The RB position is almost worthless in comparison.

 

I'd be happy if some tweaks were made to the FAB and then the scoring elements were set by each individual league.

 

Dan is very right about the product not being truly ready for release. I would find it really hard to believe that long term this is going to be a successful online game. I'd be back in for next year if some major changes were implemented and the changes were clearly laid out.

[Tankslap 0]

The scoring is incredibly weighted towards QBs. The RB position is almost worthless in comparison.

This was the one key piece of information that I'd picked up on before we did our FAB. Starved for football to start, I actually copied the GDR scoring data from top X players last year at each position (with X being different for each position, depending on how many you needed to field a standard team) into a local SQL database and ran queries against it to see what positions got the most bang for the buck. I balanced that with the fact that you needed two HBs to fill one HB scoring spot for the year and the priorities became apparent.

 

My regret is that I didn't entirely trust my findings, and should have "overpaid" a bit more for LBs and DBs, since you can start so many of them and they offer better coverage against the pass-oriented formations that I knew people would gravitate towards once they figured things out.

 

I can't believe I admitted to this. :ph34r:

[Mike MacGregor 20]

Realizes the importance of QBs, yet still started Ken Dorsey last week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tankslap 0]

Realizes the importance of QBs, yet still started Ken Dorsey last week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOL...apparently you didn't notice me scrambling before Manning's BYE. Volek blew up in my face, nobody came forward with a trade offer (requested here), and bids for guys like Garcia failed. So after some trauma, it came down to Dorsey or nothing, and I admitted to that error already

[Dan Sez 0]

My biggest issue with the concept is the scoring system is more influential then the on-field performances.

 

...

It has a bias towards West Coast and Fun and Gun, expecially in the fatigue of Running Backs and the bonuses given the QB.

 

Under this game design, the 49ers would have won 6 or 7 Super Bowls and the Houston Oilers would have beaten out the Pitsburgh Steelers during their run (ground/balanced attack vs the Fun and Gun)

[Dan Sez 0]

Dan, I just want to say that I appreciate you sticking with the league this year, and being active ....

Thanks,

 

I would rather be singing the praises than snipping at heels but I am trying to get the most I can out of it. This is giving me some "research value" in any IDP leauges I design in the future.

 

One concept I read (forgot who the poster was) mentioned using Defensive points to subtract from the opponents Offenseive points to reach Final Score.

 

I like that idea. I am always looking for good ideas. Watching any experiment, even failed ones, can teach me something if I keep my head in the game.

[Wildman 0]

1. Loved the FAB, although I learned the hard way.

 

2. I enjoy the blitz/aggression points.

 

3. I dislike that you can't pick up a player from the waiver wire and sign him to a multi-year deal.

 

4. Like many, I don't understand the QB scoring. This is probably an ignorant

conclusion, but for entertainment value I'll state it: I believe the QBs with the most efficient games get the higher scores. In essence, productivity + low mistake rate = big points? At least that's what I've seen.If that's the case, it's good. If it's not, then they need to fix it. QBs should be that valuable based on the way the game really works.

 

5. RB fatigue is flawed (coming from the LT owner that is watching his guy score 4 TDs in a game and showing no signs of slowing down--why should I have to split carries with the guy and lose a percentage of points each week). If they do it, they should count touches rather than games as the starter. Even then, I think that's just a better answer as opposed to a good solution.

 

6. Don't understand the coverage points either. I haven't taken the time, so I'm sure the tutorial probably shows it--although reading through it a couple of times demonstrates either it's very complicated or I have a learning disability. Probably somewhere in between...

 

Very intricate version of FF compared to other products. LIke everyone said, it needs some refinements. I'll play next year, though--problems and all.

[SmoovJello 0]

4. Like many, I don't understand the QB scoring. This is probably an ignorant

conclusion, but for entertainment value I'll state it: I believe the QBs with the most efficient games get the higher scores. In essence, productivity + low mistake rate = big points? At least that's what I've seen.If that's the case, it's good. If it's not, then they need to fix it. QBs should be that valuable based on the way the game really works.

I understand the QB scoring, I'm just unable to change my situation.

 

QB Points = ((Completions * 2) - Attempts) + (yds/30) + TDs - Fumbles - INTs

 

QBs on teams that run a West Coast style offense are at a premium in this league, especially if you can get one and a few decent WRs to run a West Coast/Fun'n'Gun scheme.