(S7) - Special PT - Changes

[Dawegg]

What I want added: I really think we should look at the idea of having league minimums at some point based on years played in the NSFL. Rookie contracts could be a part of a unified structure so that players don't lose interest in the league simply because they can't afford anything. This comes with the assumption that the league office takes a look at the salary cap each year and adjusts it accordingly. Star quarterbacks who have been in the league for 5 years won't be able to take contracts that pay about the same as a NSFL rookie. There may be a more competitive free agency process that creates more intrigue in the league and keeps people engaged over the off season.

Word Count: 120

What I want removed: The current length of regression. From what I understand, it's primarily based upon an assumed average to make things fair across multiple positions. The time and attachment someone could form to their player might go pretty quickly when they have six NSFL seasons and at most three into regression. Simplify it and either loosen up the current stages of regression and start at 5%, or push regression back to 10 seasons. Maybe exclude the first DSFL season when considering the regression number so it's truly 7 seasons in the NSFL. The current scale seems a little harsh for the guys who can't earn as much or want to hang around with their team.

Word Count: 113

What I like: The TPE opportunities are fantastic. There are plenty of them to build your player weekly, from predictions to all kinds of point tasks. I'm especially fond of the prediction tasks; I've had to learn a lot about the teams in order to make reasonably informed picks. It's extremely easy to keep active and write a quick 150-200 words for some TPE. That number doesn't even include the eight TPE from each piece of equipment. Equipment is extremely affordable with a few media pieces that are on a decent grading scale. The weekly amounts of TPE that are available reward those who are active and bother to improve their player.

Word Count: 109

[Bwestfield]

100 words on what I would like to be added in the National Simulation Football League. The thing I would like added or to change is fantasy football. I know that I have mentioned this before but it is bulky and is difficult to track. This is not a knock on any of the staff that work on it because they do an amazing job. However it gets updated once a season. No one knows anything going into the final week. Imagine if you would being able to track all the players throughout the league and have live(ish) fantasy points for your team and assigned league. That would be awesome. I also like the thought of having one DSFL team per NSFL team. You get drafted and placed in the NSFL or sent down to the minors. There’s no send down budgets or anything, its just one budget. You dont have to worry about 2 drafts and all this other crazy nonsense. But thats just my two cents.

100 words on what I like about the National Simulation Football League. I really like how involved the head office is in making things better for everyone. They can’t always do everything they want but they will definitely listen to what you have to say (despite what some users will say or think) and they always think of the betterment of the league and how fun it will be. The point of the site is to have fun and I know they always try to pursue the avenue that will keep people playing and having fun. So kudos to you head office. Keep doing what you are doing.

100 words on something I want removed from the NSFL. The thought of Defensive Line bots is terrible. I think we should wait until we dont have any playable people at those positions. I think there is a ton of talent at the DT spot. It is only a matter of time and effort until the DE spot becomes just as great. Or perhaps they just need a balance like we did with the Cornerbacks. But I do know that our thought process should not be to jump to bots. I dont want a bunch of bot teams. This isnt the DSFL.

[PDXBaller]

1 thing that you would like added to the league
I'd like to see new provisions for contracts added to the league so that they scale appropriately. Based on how it's structured, the contracts benefit teams way more and given the unique cap space situation I think players are currently putting their team's interest ahead of their own. There needs to be more importance on money in the league and top earners simply have no incentive to take more than minimum. Added new contract scaling can prevent that from happening.

1 thing that you would like removed
I'd like to see Defensive Line positions removed. Remove might be a strong word, but given our activity levels and distribution of players among 8 teams I don't see us filling roster spaces as much as we use to. With S1 and S2 players regressing soon, we'll need a method to address these big gaps and allowing teams the option to have defensive line filler bots. We don't need to remove the position entirely. Another thing I'd like to see removed is some of the offseason projects that have been going on. They are fun to have, but really detract from the league for newer players and should be small projects if they were to be implemented. We don't need Pro-Bow, NCT, and all the other things going on to confuse rookies.

1 thing that you currently like
I've always loved the people here in the NSFL. This was my first sim league and it's one of the best communities I've ever been apart of. Even though we're getting together to watch dot football, there's a sense of excitement and fun when you can get together with teammates and friends to watch games together. I don't get out much these days so you guys are the biggest community I've been apart of. I always have great discussions and fun times chatting with everyone in Discord and I love the immersive media that some folks have put out. It's a great way for me to enjoy another world within a sports context and I believe that's really unique.

[keanex]

Added

I would love the addition of a second player but with restrictions. As a WR I often think that it would be really cool to also make someone on defense, and I feel that by having the ability to make a second player would provide a fun "side-hobby" in a way.

How would it work? Well only active members would be allowed and they would have to go though an application process. Once approved the secondary player could be created. There are restrictions though:

1: They earn half TPE as their main character, with 1/2 points rounded up. This would ensure that the primary player would be the focus. TPE is earned the same way as the primary character and the creator would have to make separate posts for each to earn TPE.

2: They would be designed to help fill out the DSFL as many players are currently bots. This would enhance the quality of the DSFL and make it more interactive for newcomers while potentially filling out the Solar Bears.

3: Their TPE would max out at 200 with regression kicking in much sooner than current TPE. This would ensure that they aren't going to completely dominate newcomers.

4: They can not declare for the NSFL, they are solely to help make the DSFL more interactive.

5: If a player makes a new primary character that will play in the DSFL then he must retire his secondary player to avoid conflict of interest.

I don't know if it'd work, but it's something to consider.

Remove
Remove stupid penalties or at least lower the potential for a penalty if possible. I feel like I see a ridiculous amount of penalties in some games and some that don't even make sense. I have definitely seen "too many men on the field" on a team when they didn't even change packages. That's crazy if you ask me.

If possible maybe reduce penalty percentage chance by 10%? I feel that this would make the outcome of the games more realistic and the games less up to luck. Plus we all want to see more stats right?! Remove stupid penalties!

Happy With
I'm currently happy with how the media payouts are graded and the flexibility of what is allowed. I have enjoyed trying to figure out creative ways to write articles to gain money and I love that I haven't been told "nope" as of now. It's cool that I could write a goofy article, a serious article talking about prospects, or an interview.

I also think that the payout is pretty fair as a whole, though one nitpick thing is that the way that the payout works is slightly confusing. When it was explained it clicked immediately, just a small change of wording is all.

[JKortesi81]

1 thing I’d like added to the league, and Ive said this before, is some sort of rookie bonus for draftees with TPE. I mean, I just watched 2 more rounds of the NFL draft and franchises are getting impact players that can change a franchise. We don’t get that in the NSFL because every single player is tethered to the TPE scale. First year players should be able to earn a boost in TPE so they can come in and compete right away and actually help change a franchise. The worst part of the league is how a franchise can just be so terrible for so long. (108)
1 thing I don’t like about the league is how players are drafted and then just keep flipping positions all willy nilly. Like, there should be no reason a Safety can just become a starting quarterback for a franchise. Or how a QB can just become some hard-hitting linebacker. It gives players and teams an easy way out on how to fill holes, and doesn’t force some free agents to maybe flip teams and make others better. I’m not saying take it away completely. Position switches should make sense though. TEs to WRs? Sure. CBs to S? okay! DT to QB? Not realistic at all. (105)
My favorite part of the game is still watching games on twitch. Its still pretty fun to watch my little circle run around and ‘make plays’. The only other league that does something like that now is the PBE, and that’s even more fun to watch. I can’t wait for the day that we move to a better sim and perhaps get to watch more of a madden game or something like that. I know OOTP is working on a football sim, and if that’s as good as the baseball one, I think we’ll be switching over that way pretty quickly. (101)

[PigSnout]

Added:
I'd like to see a buff to add more separation between running backs. The improved rushing sliders were a good step towards improving the running back position as they're able to put up better and more realistic stats. But I think there's still a big issue with the position as there's still not much statsistical separation by talent level. Right now Owen Taylor is averaging 4.1 yards per carry with 971 TPE, Darren Smallwood is doing the same with 766 TPE, and Erlich Burnsman is doing the same with 210 TPE. Damien Kroetch is at 4.2 yards per carry with 429 TPE. Running backs with very different amounts of TPE are getting pretty much the same production, Taylor and Burnsman have the same YPC despite a 761 TPE gap between them. I feel like this creates multiple issues. One is that teams aren't going to want to carry high TPE running backs. If they can make a significant drop in cap space without seeing much drop off in production, teams are going to prioritize cheaper running backs. Also, it reduces the reward of being a high TPE running back when you see your player get outperformed by someone with significantly less TPE and makes the position less enjoyable. Both of these were reasons why I changed away from running back as I felt like my TPE wasn't being put to much use when lower TPE guys were outperforming me and there weren't really any contenders who wanted to trade for a 1000 TPE running back when they were already getting similar production from a cheaper player. My proposed solution would be to look into doing something similar to the buffs to conerbacks and kickers, which were both positions where TPE was not making much difference in production so experience was used to let the higher TPE players shine more. I haven't tested this at all so I don't know if it would work the same for running backs or how it would work from a balance perspective, but I think the posibility of using experience to create more separation between running backs based on TPE would cause teams to value good running backs more and would make running back a more rewarding position to play. It also could add some more parity because if top running backs were able to really dominate, it might actually be viable to build a run heavy offense around an elite running back so that teams without quarterbacks could still have a chance to be competitive.

421 Words

Removed:
I'd like to see the lengthy offseasons removed. I'm not sure how possible this is as I don't know what needs to happen behind the scenes over the offseason, but I think this is an important thing to strive for. The offseason is a key point when users won't be as interested and could go inactive, so ideally, we want it to be as short as possible because that will improve user retention. In the SBA and the EFL, the offseasons are condensed to just one week, which would be great if we could have something similar here. This is the schedule from the last offseason:

Sunday 25th March @ 11:59 PM EST - FA opens
Friday 30th March - NSFL & DSFL Pro Bowl & NSFL & DSFL Awards voting closes.
Tuesday- 3rd April - NSFL Draft. (depends on gm vote)
Day Before DSFL draft - NSFL send downs deadline closes.
Thursday-Friday 5th/6th April - DSFL Draft. (depends on gm vote)
Sunday 8th April- Official S7 NSFL start (can buy equipment)
Wednesday 11th April - Preseason finished (all 4 weeks)
Monday 16th April - S7 WEEK 1 BEGINS

This was a three week break between meaningful games and technically four weeks for non-playoff teams. There is a lot of dead space as there are 9 days between free agency and the draft with no major events other than voting and the pro bowl and a full week for preseason which only takes one day. Here is a possible condensed schedule:

Sunday 25th March @ 11:59 PM EST - FA opens
Tuesday- 27th March - NSFL Draft. (depends on gm vote)
Day Before DSFL draft - NSFL send downs deadline closes.
Thursday-March 29th - DSFL Draft. (depends on gm vote)
Friday 30th March - NSFL & DSFL Pro Bowl & NSFL & DSFL Awards voting closes.
Sunday 1st April- Official S7 NSFL start (can buy equipment)
Monday 2nd April - Preseason finished (all 4 weeks)
Wednesday 4th April - S7 WEEK 1 and WEEK 2
Friday 6th April - S7 WEEK 3 and WEEK 4

This would condense the offseason down to just 1 week and turning Week 1 and Week 2 into a doubleheader would allow them to take place in the same week as the pro bowl. Now I don't know about everything that happens behind the scenes during the offseason so its possible this schedule would be too rushed and not plausible, but even if its not cut down this much, I think every day we can take off the offseason is a good thing as people will get to see games more often which will keep people active and engaged and improve user retention.

448 Words

Like:
I'm going to go against the grain a bit on this one and defend a feature that a lot of people have mentioned as their item for removal. I'm personally a fan of position switches and don't think they should be removed or restricted. The potential to change positions can be a great thing for player enjoyment. If you don't enjoy your position, you either have to stick it out with a player that you are not having fun with or retire and feel like you're screwing over your team. But with a position switch you have the ability to go to a position that you will enjoy and have fun with while still getting to keep your TPE and stay with your team. I think it's a good thing to give people freedom over their players because ultimately the goal of this league is for everybody to have fun so giving people the chance to switch to a position that will improve their enjoyment is a good thing and I worry that if we take away this possibility or restrict the types of changes, it could result in people not enjoying their player and going inactive, causing us to lose a productive user when they could have switched to a position they would enjoy more and stay active. There are also situations like with Austin Roenick where a player had to choose between waiting a few years before they would get playing time or switching to a position where they could make an immediate impact, and being able to switch positions gives players the freedom to choose what they want to do and take their preferred path rather than being forced to take one of the paths.

I know the main argument against position switches is that they aren't realistic. But I would argue that with this being a sim league, it doesn't have to be perfectly realistic so we have the luxury of being able to add options to enhance the player experience. For example, if we wanted to be truly realistic, we'd have injuries. But injuries would greatly reduce player enjoyment, so we took them out of the game even though it isn't completely realistic to never have injuries. I would argue a similar logic here that it's ok to have position changes that are not completely realistic because they can enhance a user's experience here and reduce the risk of losing a user to inactivity whereas I don't really think that removing or restricting position changes will provide much of a benefit to the league. Another argument against position switches is that it makes it too easy for teams to fill holes, but I'd also argue that this can be a good thing. I think the ideal situation for the league would be to have all teams capable of competing each year as its a lot more exciting to be on a contending team and will help keep more users active. So I think its a good thing that a team can position switch a player when a hole opens up rather than having to rely on a young rookie and become a bottom feeder unable to contend until that player has developed for a few seasons. I experienced this on the Yeti when we lost Noble and weren't able to compete with anybody because of the large gap in quarterback talent. On the other hand, when the Liberty lost their quarterback, they did a position switch instead and were able to keep contending. I think giving teams the option to stay competitive rather than rebuilding keeps the league more exciting by increasing the level of competition and can help with user retention by reducing the chance of a team becoming too weak and being unable to contend for multiple years.

Overall, as somebody who has taken advantage of position switch opportunities in both the NSFL and the SBA and has enjoyed my player more after the switch, I've personally seen the benefits of having the option to switch positions and thing it is good that the league provides this option and hope they will continue to do so.

693 Words

[Leafer]

One thing added to the NSFL is a better salary structure. I mean like a player can have less than 400 tpe and get a contract that is fully not reliable for the player because of this issue. There should be minimums for TPE wise and growth. Also we should add more recruitment because we need more players. There are people going inactive and that means less players in the league and that is a problem. And since I need to reach 100 words, I don't know like change that MAX thing into strengths and weaknesses? I do not know, its stupid but SHL has it.

Remove: The NCT was added and it was a disaster. There were less interest and a lot of delays. People were excited about it and thought it would go successful because it is an offseason event but really when it happened, it was not good. All the effort put into the NCT was a waste of time and really could have used their better on something else. So I would suggest remove the NCT and think of something better. Also, remove Raven. He is making things worse and acting extremely inappropriately. He is a disgrace to this league and should immediately be removed.

Like. I like it. I like this league. There were some events that were clearly cringy but still, I like this league better than EFL and SFL combined because yeah. I like the TPE opportunities and I like the sims. The Live sims are the best part out of all sim leagues I have been in because I do not have to wait constantly and wonder how the fuck did my team do. So that should definitely stay the same and pretty should what everyone likes. I also like the locker room, because it is fun and lots of joy because hawks are best.

[speculadora]

Added: Some amount of tweaking to position switch rules. I don't think we should limit where players can switch based on where they start, but I think some of them need to be approached differently. For example, having a class of "easy transition" switches for each position (ex: RB can move to WR, TE, DB with no penalty), as well as "difficult transition" switches (ex: RB moving to QB, DL, K/P) that incur some kind of penalty in the form of cost, or TPE, or maybe even "easy transitions" can move all TPE while "difficult" can move 50%. I think this accomplishes a couple of things that (unfortunately) most here don't see as problems. First, it incentivizes players to stay at a position (like QB creates staying at QB) because they know it's more likely someone else won't position switch into their opportunity. Second, it eliminates "plug and play" drafting, or at least hinders it. In real life you couldn't draft Saquon Barkley and say OK he's the best player in this class but we need a WR not RB and move him there. You have to balance need and best player available. This makes dynasty building marginally more difficult.

Removed: Graphics graders that aren't named tlk. Maybe I'm spoiled by the media graders, but it is a painfully slow process to get a graphics payout. There was a period where I had several submissions that went ungraded for weeks. I had to ask several times if someone could grade the open graphics before someone finally knocked them all out. Maybe I'm being unfair to the other guys, but tlk is the only one who seems to be on top of things in that forum and I think I would find a little more incentive in doing graphics if I knew the turnaround would be quicker.

Like: I love the live streams. That has been one of my favorite parts of this league since joining and I think it's really what keeps me interested. They are quick enough that you aren't sitting at your computer for an hour and entertaining enough to keep things suspenseful/interesting. I would also appreciate any efforts to build on them. I realize I'm getting a little into the "added" category here, but screw it. I think some kind of live commentary would be interesting, but there is a balance to it. I don't think play-by-play is the best route, though if it were blended in I think it would enhance things. What I'd actually like is GMs of the two teams playing discussing what they did from a strategy standpoint to prepare for that week, how did their tests go, etc. This is probably info most wouldn't want to divulge and it might be something that others wouldn't find interesting. But as a DSFL GM I would be interested in absorbing some of that for my own game planning purposes.

[AzhekAhriman]

Add: I think that we should continue to make our ruleset a better one for the players and the league. That means basically re-writing the whole thing to make it more readable, clearer, and less likely to be misinterpreted. When people accidentally break the rules due to ignorance or strange wording it hurts our retention and makes those players less likely to remain active in the long haul. Plus, its comical that our rulebook posts are still up with Logan Noble, a twice caught cheater’s name plastered all over them. So that’s what I want for the offseason, a full rules re-write that gets us where we should be administratively.
WC:110

Remove: I think that the current way that contracts works needs to be removed/changed. As many have pointed out the current system can be gamed pretty hard, and while I think that we obviously need to make changes slowly in such a fundamental area as contract structure we need to start or we’ll never finish. There have been some good ideas proposed in this PT as to how to deal with the problem, I’m leaning more towards something that makes contract money more valuable without nuking the media scale or anything. The general economy of the league works fine, we need to tweak around the edges with contracts and I think between us we should be able to make it happen.
WC:121

Like: I legit love this whole league. Y’all are goobers sometimes but the overall sense of camaraderie between everyone is excellent. Whether its DSFL GMs working together to make sure our rookies have the best introductions to the league as they can or NSFL GMs and locker rooms banding together to work on strats and DCs in order to make that title push. We have an incredible thing going here folks, just the right mix of football, good people, and a sim that is batshit crazy on the best of days. I like it so much I’m helping run it next year, so that’s all you can say I guess
WC:111

[Zoone16]

ADD
A better salary structure would be a good point that I would want to see added to the league. Taking from the SHL, there is a minimum salary that should be given out depending on TPE when the contract is signed. I am not a fan of 800 TPE players taking very little money (see 1M per season) in order to free up cap space. It deviates from the whole simulation part of the league which is what attracts me in the first place. There could also be a “hometown discount” aspect should the player have been with the team for a certain number of seasons before signing his next contract.

REMOVE
Remove the collegiate tournament stuff. No one follows that thing anymore and the simmer hasn’t even gone past Week 9. Furthermore, it’s cause a lot of chaos during the off-season with people moving collegiate divisions for something that was meant to copy the IIHF tournament in the SHL. I think removing it would allow us to better streamline the off-season in order to get the following season going faster. Off-Season is where we get most of our new members and players. Long off-seasons make it hard for people to keep themselves interested and is why we get a lot more inactives.

LIKE
I really enjoy the way the sim is streamed on twitch. It is a lot more engaging for the users of the site and future members to be able to see what is happening. This is one of the biggest strengths that the NSFL has and the fact that VoDs haven’t yet been put up on YouTube is a damn shame. It doesn’t even take very long to put up videos from twitch to youtube and since not everyone can be on to see the games, it would be fun to be able to go back and see them. This is the great uniqueness of the NSFL and capitalizing on the strength should be a priority.