7) This task is exclusive to non-recreate rookies of the S28 class and later. In 400 words or more, how has your experience been in the league? Who have you met that has made your time here more fun, friendly, and exciting? Have you been satisfied with your player’s early start? What was it like being drafted for the first time? Do you have any comments or suggestions for the entire league that you think should be implemented?
It's been great. I did not expect to get picked so high. I guess if I had paid more attention to how my interviews went, I could've predicted going to Tijuana, but due to my unfamiliarity with everyone else in the league, it was basically a complete surprise. I think a lot of it had to do with Tijuana's closed locker room, as I was in basically every other team's locker room pre-draft, so I was like, OK, I guess Tijuana doesn't care for me. I don't have a wide perspective of the league or anything, but Tijuana's locker room is one of the best, maybe even the best in the DSFL, and it feels like I'm giving up trade secrets just by saying that. Tonzy was the guy who ultimately vouched for me and got me on the team, and gave me a huge welcome when I got drafted. Everyone else here has been fun. It's great to see how active the locker room is, even from people that are no longer on Tijuana's active roster. Juno's quite the boisterous, loud character, and they've all leaned into poking fun at/with me, which adds a lot of enjoyment.
Only thing I regret was not being able to create my character right at the start of S28. That's like 10-20 TPE lost from creating later. I think this is one of the biggest things that should be fixed. Perhaps there should be a "recruitment" period where players sign up but are unable to earn TPE, then once the offseason hits or something, that class gets locked in and starts earning TPE so everyone has a fair shot at being a top earner. Feels like there's a difference of 30+ TPE from those who create at the very beginning and those who create at the very end of a class, but I haven't done the math. Sure, 30 TPE might not be that big a difference in the big picture, but it still feels a bit bad to play out a full career feeling like you're 30TPE short of what you could've been. That's the first change I'd like to see.
The other big thing I'd love to see changed is the DSFL/ISFL relationship. I think for football, it'd work a lot better if players get sent up the year they are drafted, and can no longer play in the DSFL. It'd be quite a drastic change, and I haven't fully thought through how it'd work. For one, successful teams in the DSFL might be the ones that get lucky and draft players with a fairly low amount of activity. Ones that earn about 250TPE over the first 1-2 seasons and then go inactive, leading to them never being drafted. You'd probably still keep the 4 season cap on DSFL players, so once a player spends 4 years in the DSFL and doesn't get drafted, they just become a Free Agent in the ISFL, or the user recreates. Wonder if some people would just create a 250TPE player every 4 seasons and have fun in the DSFL, then. Might be appealing for lower activity players, who knows?
But at the end of the day, the people here seem to put in a ton of work for this league to even exist in the first place, so I'm grateful for all their hard work. Shoutout to all the staff and people turning gears!
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8) Write about a potential new recruitment strategy for the league. How can we attract more new players, and what can we do to retain them better?
I think the biggest obstacle for long-term retainment is how long it takes to become an impactful player. Forget the recruitment strategy, just try to reset and look at the league with fresh eyes again. Coming into the league, I thought I'd be able to have a fairly good player with just a few hours of work every week, but now I can see that it isn't gonna be until about my 4th or 5th season that I'll be contributing "starter-level" impact in the ISFL, and that's as a max earner, which is pretty disappointing tbh.
Most people want instant gratification, or at the very least quick gratification, even those that are predisposed towards staying here long term. Think of video game design, and how unengaging it is to sit through a long tutorial or a slow start. I don't mind the DSFL's existence serving as a new player's guide environment, but I think players should start at a much higher TPE floor, like 500-600, and adjust stat gain TPE costs accordingly. It is very unfun to watch your player be ineffective for your first 3-4 seasons. Games at the DSFL level are borderline unwatchable at times, with constant incompletes and drops on wide open receivers, and, can't speak for others, but it's really not fun to get drafted by an ISFL team just to be sent down for another season or two. You might be losing quite a few potentially fairly active users simply because it takes too long to get an effective player, and you certainly couldn't sell this kind of progression to any casual earner.
Getting players "into the action" sooner would go a very long way toward retention. Think about it. This league is like Create-A-Player mode in Madden, but right now we're being forced to play through 3-4 seasons of college football before we're able to start playing in the NFL. I know there are people who'd love that, but I'd imagine most people want the NFL experience as soon as possible. I have football fan friends that I'll never be able to sell this league to because they aren't gonna put in the work for 4+ seasons just to become viable, and that's at a max earning rate. Max earning is stressful, and even I cannot see myself max earning for more than a few careers. I'm almost definitely taking a break after Juno retires, and I don't even have a league job. If you want more users, and to be able to sell this league to your casual friends, you need to lower the barrier to entry as it is way too high right now.
I also think you should get called up immediately once you're drafted. The DSFL will still serve as a filter to catch users that just create and go inactive, as evident by their TPE gains in the first season. Perhaps we can replace all non-OL GM bots with inactive, since their TPE floor is so much higher, but we'll probably still need OL bots no matter what, as I doubt we'll ever have 70+ creates at OL at any given time.
It'd be cool if there was a way to mimic real life a bit more. Don't we want the scale to be something like this? (using OVR as a very very general rating for the sake of discussion):
OVR 96+: Max earners
OVR 91-95: Top earners with some slip-ups here and there
OVR 81-90: The span of semi-casual users
OVR 71-80: Super casuals/inactives
OVR <=70: Recreate and forget
We want fresh creates to start at OVR ~70. Max earners should be able to hit OVR ~80 by the end of their first season in the DSFL. Within 3-4 seasons of creating, players should be able to hit OVR 90+, as this is when real football players start hitting their prime (age 25 or so in the NFL), and many peaks seem to last ~3 years before you start seeing them lose a step (TPE regression). If you're a casual earner, you'd probably have an OVR 75-85 player in the ISFL, which is still good enough to contribute, things like RB2, CB3, WR3, DT3, TE2, etc. and that's very important. It'd certainly be much more viable to expand the league, as well, with most rosters having 70s, 80s, and a few 90s, the stars of the teams. And again, it'd mimic real life much more closely.
And on the tail end of things, I'd ponder the idea of unlocking higher tiers of training, but only for players that have entered TPE regression, giving them an opportunity to earn much higher amounts of TPE from equipment purchases if they have the money. Think 50, 75, 100 TPE equipment. This rewards the super active and highest earners by giving them the longest possible career. The Frank Gores, the Tom Bradys, the Jerry Rices. The ageless wonders in general. The scale would scale exponentially rather than linearly of course, so the user will have to be smart about how much they wanna pour into an aging player, or whether to save that money for a recreate, but it'd certainly be a more interesting endgame. An extreme user who earns $50mil+ per season through media, jobs, and however else you earn money, should have the opportunity to enjoy a 20 season career.
It's been great. I did not expect to get picked so high. I guess if I had paid more attention to how my interviews went, I could've predicted going to Tijuana, but due to my unfamiliarity with everyone else in the league, it was basically a complete surprise. I think a lot of it had to do with Tijuana's closed locker room, as I was in basically every other team's locker room pre-draft, so I was like, OK, I guess Tijuana doesn't care for me. I don't have a wide perspective of the league or anything, but Tijuana's locker room is one of the best, maybe even the best in the DSFL, and it feels like I'm giving up trade secrets just by saying that. Tonzy was the guy who ultimately vouched for me and got me on the team, and gave me a huge welcome when I got drafted. Everyone else here has been fun. It's great to see how active the locker room is, even from people that are no longer on Tijuana's active roster. Juno's quite the boisterous, loud character, and they've all leaned into poking fun at/with me, which adds a lot of enjoyment.
Only thing I regret was not being able to create my character right at the start of S28. That's like 10-20 TPE lost from creating later. I think this is one of the biggest things that should be fixed. Perhaps there should be a "recruitment" period where players sign up but are unable to earn TPE, then once the offseason hits or something, that class gets locked in and starts earning TPE so everyone has a fair shot at being a top earner. Feels like there's a difference of 30+ TPE from those who create at the very beginning and those who create at the very end of a class, but I haven't done the math. Sure, 30 TPE might not be that big a difference in the big picture, but it still feels a bit bad to play out a full career feeling like you're 30TPE short of what you could've been. That's the first change I'd like to see.
The other big thing I'd love to see changed is the DSFL/ISFL relationship. I think for football, it'd work a lot better if players get sent up the year they are drafted, and can no longer play in the DSFL. It'd be quite a drastic change, and I haven't fully thought through how it'd work. For one, successful teams in the DSFL might be the ones that get lucky and draft players with a fairly low amount of activity. Ones that earn about 250TPE over the first 1-2 seasons and then go inactive, leading to them never being drafted. You'd probably still keep the 4 season cap on DSFL players, so once a player spends 4 years in the DSFL and doesn't get drafted, they just become a Free Agent in the ISFL, or the user recreates. Wonder if some people would just create a 250TPE player every 4 seasons and have fun in the DSFL, then. Might be appealing for lower activity players, who knows?
But at the end of the day, the people here seem to put in a ton of work for this league to even exist in the first place, so I'm grateful for all their hard work. Shoutout to all the staff and people turning gears!
=========================================
8) Write about a potential new recruitment strategy for the league. How can we attract more new players, and what can we do to retain them better?
I think the biggest obstacle for long-term retainment is how long it takes to become an impactful player. Forget the recruitment strategy, just try to reset and look at the league with fresh eyes again. Coming into the league, I thought I'd be able to have a fairly good player with just a few hours of work every week, but now I can see that it isn't gonna be until about my 4th or 5th season that I'll be contributing "starter-level" impact in the ISFL, and that's as a max earner, which is pretty disappointing tbh.
Most people want instant gratification, or at the very least quick gratification, even those that are predisposed towards staying here long term. Think of video game design, and how unengaging it is to sit through a long tutorial or a slow start. I don't mind the DSFL's existence serving as a new player's guide environment, but I think players should start at a much higher TPE floor, like 500-600, and adjust stat gain TPE costs accordingly. It is very unfun to watch your player be ineffective for your first 3-4 seasons. Games at the DSFL level are borderline unwatchable at times, with constant incompletes and drops on wide open receivers, and, can't speak for others, but it's really not fun to get drafted by an ISFL team just to be sent down for another season or two. You might be losing quite a few potentially fairly active users simply because it takes too long to get an effective player, and you certainly couldn't sell this kind of progression to any casual earner.
Getting players "into the action" sooner would go a very long way toward retention. Think about it. This league is like Create-A-Player mode in Madden, but right now we're being forced to play through 3-4 seasons of college football before we're able to start playing in the NFL. I know there are people who'd love that, but I'd imagine most people want the NFL experience as soon as possible. I have football fan friends that I'll never be able to sell this league to because they aren't gonna put in the work for 4+ seasons just to become viable, and that's at a max earning rate. Max earning is stressful, and even I cannot see myself max earning for more than a few careers. I'm almost definitely taking a break after Juno retires, and I don't even have a league job. If you want more users, and to be able to sell this league to your casual friends, you need to lower the barrier to entry as it is way too high right now.
I also think you should get called up immediately once you're drafted. The DSFL will still serve as a filter to catch users that just create and go inactive, as evident by their TPE gains in the first season. Perhaps we can replace all non-OL GM bots with inactive, since their TPE floor is so much higher, but we'll probably still need OL bots no matter what, as I doubt we'll ever have 70+ creates at OL at any given time.
It'd be cool if there was a way to mimic real life a bit more. Don't we want the scale to be something like this? (using OVR as a very very general rating for the sake of discussion):
OVR 96+: Max earners
OVR 91-95: Top earners with some slip-ups here and there
OVR 81-90: The span of semi-casual users
OVR 71-80: Super casuals/inactives
OVR <=70: Recreate and forget
We want fresh creates to start at OVR ~70. Max earners should be able to hit OVR ~80 by the end of their first season in the DSFL. Within 3-4 seasons of creating, players should be able to hit OVR 90+, as this is when real football players start hitting their prime (age 25 or so in the NFL), and many peaks seem to last ~3 years before you start seeing them lose a step (TPE regression). If you're a casual earner, you'd probably have an OVR 75-85 player in the ISFL, which is still good enough to contribute, things like RB2, CB3, WR3, DT3, TE2, etc. and that's very important. It'd certainly be much more viable to expand the league, as well, with most rosters having 70s, 80s, and a few 90s, the stars of the teams. And again, it'd mimic real life much more closely.
And on the tail end of things, I'd ponder the idea of unlocking higher tiers of training, but only for players that have entered TPE regression, giving them an opportunity to earn much higher amounts of TPE from equipment purchases if they have the money. Think 50, 75, 100 TPE equipment. This rewards the super active and highest earners by giving them the longest possible career. The Frank Gores, the Tom Bradys, the Jerry Rices. The ageless wonders in general. The scale would scale exponentially rather than linearly of course, so the user will have to be smart about how much they wanna pour into an aging player, or whether to save that money for a recreate, but it'd certainly be a more interesting endgame. An extreme user who earns $50mil+ per season through media, jobs, and however else you earn money, should have the opportunity to enjoy a 20 season career.
![[Image: 63840_s.gif]](https://signavatar.com/63840_s.gif)
