(S23) - PT 5 - A New Leaf

[Tylus]

First of all I would like to say that I appreciate the hard work done by the people behind the scenes to make the site better. It is fantastic to see the effort and passion put into the league by so many people, and I wanted to let anyone reading this know that you are appreciated! If I could change anything, I believe that a revamped player creation and updates tool would make a great addition, and would increase player retention. I honestly couldn't tell you how feasible it is, but having a single page to put in any pts that can be approved and auto-adds the TPE to where you only have to distribute it would be a welcome change. Also having a page that has a list of all the creation information in an easy to type in form would be great. I know that most of us are able to do both of these things easily enough, but for new players it can definitely be intimidating and seem over complicated. If there was a way to streamline both of these into an easy to use and easy to approve system I firmly believe it would make for a better experience for new users of the league. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Code:

216 words

[GotDatWeeFee]

Honestly, I’m new to the league so when It comes to changes its coming from the perspective of someone who has only been doing this for a few months so keep that in mind.
This first one would be a large project so I totally understand why it hasn’t been done and why possibly it may never be done, but an overhaul on the system. As a new player coming in, I didn’t know even where to begin or how to do things. Luckily the community here is very strong and helpful, they were able to put me on the right path. Without them though, I don’t know if I would even still be here or at least progressed as far as I have. I feel like rehauling the site with a new web application and a more user-friendly UI would be a very welcomed change and most likely be more inviting to newcomers. With that said I totally understand that would be a massive project.
The other thing I would recommend would be more transparency behind the scenes of the sim. Once again as a new player I feel it would be more inviting if there was more information about how the sim runs, makes decisions…etc.
I’m not sure if this exists but possibly even implementing a coaching aspect to the sim. Maybe something where a coach and a GM or more sit down and implement a general strategy for each team, like an offensive, defensive, and special teams’ scheme and strategy. Now this could already exist and I’m just 100 percent blind to it, but if it doesn’t, I think that would be a pretty cool idea.

All in all though the system that currently exists is awesome and required/requires alot of hardwork and dedication from an awesome group of people. So thank you for offering this platform for people like me to use.

[thevoicelesscreator]

First off, I love the name change. ISFL feels more :clean: (shout out to my homies who understood that). But there was something comedic that I will miss about the Not-Safe-For-Life league. Regardless, time moves forward as so must we as an organization. This is a great step for change that was introduced a few season ago, and I understand change of this magnitude does take time.

I think something big that should always be looked at changing in the sim. DDSPF16 has been great for what it is. However, it has a slew of issues from silly coding to game breaking bugs. I know the search for a better sim is constantly on-going, but I really feel like we can do better with it. With Madden holding the license for the NFL, it’s really difficult to find a completed football game that isn’t Madden. And I know that Madden is by no means a perfect game either. But in terms of match engines, I think that Madden has a ton of appeal. It’s also pretty to look at. The customization options are huge, but perhaps it’s too big.

If that is the case, I know that we’ve looking at future editions to DDSPF. Unfortunately, the biggest feedback is that the viewing match engine is terrible for our league. One sim could potentially take 3-4 hours. Which just isn’t okay. But I wonder if there is some sort of way around that and we just aren’t seeing it. There has been communication with the developers to speed up the sim, but they say it isn’t possible. I bet they also say 79 speed coding isn’t a problem either… My point is, with all the big brains in the community, I’m surprised someone hasn’t found a way around it. Legal or otherwise.

[Yeenoghu]

I'm sure there will be other submissions which bring up some commonly discussed topics such as forum migration or the new user experience, so I'd like to focus on the technical side of things. There are too many moving parts which rely on each other that require manual intervention, and each one of these introduces an unnecessary point of failure. If you follow the life of a point task, the steps look something like this--thread is created, users make post before deadline, graders award TPE, user adds TPE to player update page, and finally updater makes changes to sim file with new player attributes. I'd like to see the league move towards a more automated database where TPE is assigned to an external site immediately upon a task deadline passing (obviously this is problematic for subjective tasks but could be achievable for trivia, predictions, etc.). From here, the player could assign their TPE, and a single updater could export the entire league's updates at a given point in time. Of course, this is a huge amount of work, but I believe it is repeatable throughout many facets of the league (using Twitter API to award money for tweets, logging contract deposits, logging training and equipment purchases), and it would reduce the league's job overhead (no more need for multiple updaters, bankers, or an audit team).

Code:

Word Count = 225

[The_Kidd]

Well, let me start with some items on the backburner that have not been the hot topics of late. First, I think the league should provide more incentive to be a less flashy position, i.e. OL, TE, DT. I believe O-Line and Interior Defensive Lineman should have a higher TPE floor to start with to get more people, or more re-creates to actually enjoy choosing the position. I believe it could be a placeholder position for less active users who would not need to work as hard to be a coveted asset. To further increase the lore, perhaps the TPE costs could be lowered or the attribute caps be raised.

Speaking of raising attribute caps, I believe less favorable player archetypes, such as blocking back, should have slightly higher caps to make the position worth anything when maxed out. A few archetypes cannot be utilized properly simply because their respective max build models are not as powerful as other archetypes in the same position.

As far as the flavor of the month --- free agency, or lack thereof --- I believe that increase the need to spend money is the only way free agency activity will ramp up. I floated some ideas such as regression and position switch passes that would allow players to temporarily avoid TPE deductions in those situations at the cost of having to pay a nominal fee. Let's say a team drafts a surplus of active players at one position and they have to play players out of position, or a player moved out of position to accommodate the team but things did not work out. The player can buy a pass, position switch without TPE deduction, and then leave for a team that can use player at desired position.

[Lime]

Since my background is from the Simulation Hockey League, that is what my perspectives are from. There are definitely some reasons that the SHL is my primary league and not the ISFL, besides the fact that it was my first league. I think first of all is the image of the league. The branding in SHL is very on point, with maybe one or two logos or names I do not like. In the ISFL I think some of the branding is wonky or low quality. This is obviously up to the GMs but maybe they should be held to a higher standard. Another thing is that the banking UX is much better in the SHL. Having it in each player's profile instead of dealing with spreadsheets and thread posts is definitely worth copying. This is a huge quality of life improvement and eliminates a lot the hassle with updating. Ultimately. despite sim leagues being a forum based system, the move away from forums for a lot of functions is an ideal future as they can be done much simpler and smoother. There are many people turned away instantly because of how clunky the system currently is. Lastly there are a lot of complaints about the sim that ISFL uses. Switching sims is a difficult thing to work on, but the SHL has managed it and the ISFL can too.

[WildfireMicro]

I have a couple of things that the league could change or streamline. One of those is the Wiki creation process. It was extremely frustrating for me to create and update my Wiki, and i am sure there are a lot of users who feel the same way. I keep on making a lot of mistakes and having to ask others to help me. Now I am most definitely not an expert on Wikipedia editing (in fact creating Eric's page was the first one I ever made), but I think there must be a way to make it easier. I would certainly appreciate that, and I am sure there are plenty of other users that would too.

Another thing is that you could make instructional videos on player creation and updating to make it easier for new users to join and get involved with the league. While i eventually got used to updating, I am sure thier are plenty of players who were have frustrating times with it. Though I am hearing we are getting a new streamlined player builder and updater with the new website so maybe this problem will go away soon, but still its a problem that needs fixing. Fixing these two problems would help with the future of the league in my opinion.

[iseedoug]

As a pretty old member of this league, I am happy to see the league grow and make changes to keep the community stable. I have been very impressed with Bex and the HO team as of late. They have made lots of changes, rules, and had many discussions to ensure the community is a safe place for everyone and the diversity of our user base is represented. (it's really crazy to think about the huge range of people in this league, old, young, etc. all getting along to play a game of simulated dots! It’s also crazy how much the league has grown since i joined in early 2018) So, I am very happy with the changes and the direction we are heading.

As far as changes I want to see, I always am harping on keeping the history of players, teams, etc. as well documented and celebrated as possible because that is why I love sports and character building games as the ISFL is (and I know there are lots of guys working hard in this stuff, so thank you!) The wiki and its associated point task has been a great part of this. I think it would be nice to have some documentation of changes over years, like eras if you will. For example, in the NFL, we know that the league numbers in terms of running and passing are hugely different between pre-merger players and post-merger due to style of play changes. We sort of have changes like this ourselves, changes in number of games per season, changes in blitz and playbook rules, etc. I think if we could have some division of what those eras are and how they may impact stats, that would be super helpful in future players and HOF voters comparing players across time. Easier said than done, but I think it would be useful and cool to see.

[Starboy]

As the league moves away from the NSFL and into the great beyond that is the ISFL, there have been plenty of new exciting changes that are on the horizon. There is just so much to look and at wait for now that there might be somethings that get missed out on when the eventual big update that will happen. One of the things that I think should be implemented on the eventual big update should be a more streamlined way to earn TPE through the new website. One thing that I have seen being phased out is the trivia and while I will definitely miss the fun tidbits of information, I think in its place an easier to function predictions with a higher payout could take its place. A predictions page on the new site that operates similar to the ESPN Fantasy app where you have the matchups in small boxes, you select the teams you want to win, they highlight or the box turns green, and then you send your predictions in would eliminate the need for any copying and pasting and could have more much more streamlined and modern look to things. Plus that could be used for the casino side of things where you can select bets on an easier template rather than having to type in your bets every new game/week. A small change to keep things in a modern style rather than an old forum fashion.

[IHateBobNutting]

PBE PT Affiliate