(S23) - PT 5 - A New Leaf

[Jangorhino]

PT5 in game power ups

[Colabear]

I think the change of name to the International Sim Football League was a rather short sighted change of branding.

For sure it welcomes in the Canadian players and fans in Yellowknife, and the prospect of future international expansion. We've seen the success of international franchises at the DSFL level in London and Mexico. There's no reason why such expansion would not work for the ISFL too and bring in more fans and more revenue from new markets.

But why stop there, we are born explorers, born collonisers. Our resources are finite. Eventually we will need to move beyond our planet, why should we think we will not want to bring the greatest game on Earth with us when we move beyond its atmosphere. It may not happen in the next few seasons but eventually it will be a question to answer.

Even before then with the forthcoming fall of nation states into a world without borders. The words national and international will be rendered meaningless. The anarchy of that societal change will mirror the anarchy of the sport on the field and the operation of the league.

So while the International Sim Football League is a perfectly fine name which fits the demands and needs of the league today. It is woefully underprepared for the future.

Hopefully we'll have a better sim by then too.

[Kyamprac]

Very few things in life are perfect, so there’s always room for improvement. This league is no exception – everyday, people with some really good ideas point out new ways we could be doing things that could make the game more enjoyable, and I think that’s great. As a gaggle of hobbyists we can’t make all the changes people want (certainly not overnight) but I think as long as HO is listening to peoples’ suggestions, weighing the pros and cons, and actually acting on some of those things, we’re on the right track.

As someone who is not living in the United States, I appreciate the name change to International Simulation Football League -although truthfully I think the logo could still use some work if the intent truly is to give this place a more “international” feel. In any case, I am glad to know that we hopefully won’t be attracting neo-Nazis to our community with the new name.

I'm still getting a feel for what might be improved around here, but I guess one thing I might suggest has to do with automating some things around the site and reducing the amount of manual work people have to do to keep the place running. I recently joined the SHL and they have a really awesome setup for banking and so on that not only reduces user error and speeds up the whole process, but also makes it way easier to track how much money I have, where it came from, and where I’ve spent it. I’m sure it has its own imperfections, but it’s pretty handy. In any case, it seems possible something is already in the works with that nifty new non-jcink site... so I look forward to seeing what that all looks like!

[CLG Rampage]

Absolutely, 100%, what needs a change in the league is Free Agency. As someone who's went through the FA process and has read many discussions on why it's a flawed system in the ISFL, I agree, it needs a major overhaul. Part of the problem with Free Agency is that it's rather boring for anyone whose not a FA at the end of the season. All of the talking goes on behind the scenes, most people who do test Free Agency aren't looking for a big deal (like myself), so overall it's both boring and short.

I get why it's a short period, though. People want to get to stuff like the draft, the Awards show, preseason, etc. You don't want it to last for weeks and weeks with nothing else happening. So, my proposal is a simple one. If a player is in either an option year (mutual option or player option) OR they are at the end of their contract, teams should be allowed to talk to them after the trade deadline passes. That gives teams some time to formulate strategies and actually get some negotiations going with the players in question, while also not making the offseason any longer. Either teams have a sweet enough deal to convince the player in question to use their option or they can actually have some time to talk to the Free Agent and make a convincing offer. Win-win, as far as I'm concerned.

(242 Words)

[HalfEatenOnionBagel]

One thing that I'm stealing from other leagues but I've seen be a huge improvement is automation of a lot of the regular tasks around the league. SBAO in SBA is a prime example of this but also shows why it's not something you can just tack onto the league so easily. There has to be some with the ability and motivation to see it through. But it could help to eliminate having to use a clunky claim thread system, would absolutely improve purchases and banking including the casino and could make updaters' lives a lot easier. Especially now that we're trying to run everything through our own site it would be awesome if even a few things could be streamlined in this way.

Another thing that I think could use some work is the implementation of the wiki. Despite having a nice form to help people make their pages and the potential of the wiki site, I still hear a lot of people get frustrated either with making updates to their page every season or just using the Wiki in a useful way. I personally have used it quite a bit for writing articles, doing trivia, etc. but I think that there's more to be done in making it accessible to people and maybe the new league update will help to bring it more to the forefront.

Now that I've actually provided some feedback and have reached the word requirement for the PT I also wanted to bring up the idea of using a different sim. I know we've looked at other ones and ddspf and the specific year we use is really the only one that works for the league but as soon as we could move to something else whether it's ddspf 20/21 or the new one that ootp and FOF are supposedly cooking up it would be huge. The archetype system that we have while tweaked to maintain balance is just kind of stale too and maybe in a new sim we could find a way to make it more flexible.

[DatSmolBoi]

I am loving this major change. Sure I will miss the NSFL but hey, trading cards and a new website branding? Im loving it. There is still many problems happening around the ISFL of course but one of my biggest problems is Draft day sports Pro football. Our sim engine. Don't get me wrong, using this is way better then a madden game or something because the madden games are pretty shit. Im just saying, is this the best you got? There has to be another sim engine that can function better then pro football 2016. There is many things wrong with our sim engine right now such as bad playmaking, how the fuck is that not a first down, excessive penalties and getting no receptions because your QB keeps passing to the tight end...I might be referencing something on that one but my point still stands. We need to find a different sim engine. Now onto the next problem I have, updating. Its pretty boring just opening up different tabs getting your TPE and putting it in your update thread just to wait a whole week for the updaters to update it. For this one, I have a solution. Its called automatically updating your player. All you would have to do is collect your TPE, put it in the updates page, and it would instantly update your player and do the updating for you. If this does happen in the future I would like to say..RIP Updaters Job.

[Ace]

The name change is a fantastic first step in much needed changes for the NSF- I mean ISFL. I got so tired of saying, yeah, the football league that the SHL is affiliated with is the NSFL! No, not Not Safe For Life, National Simulation Football League! It sort of became this joke that would never end circling and would inevitably emerge in discussion at some point.

The biggest thing would be that I think that the sims are way too fast. You have to have the reading ability of Flash in order to accurately analyze the comings and goings on a single possession, or just read the first few letters of each word like what I did when I was 13 reading the Harry Potter books on the day of release just to humblebrag that I finished it first, despite not comprehending approximately 1/3 of the content. If you could slow down the sim speed even by 25%, it would allow both defenses and offenses their time in the spotlight rather than a mad-dash to 4th down and a punt.

I understand this is asking a lot of the simmers, however, and I know their time is valuable and I certainly appreciate what they do. I just believe that something like this could significantly improve the production quality of the stream and I’d be much more inclined to tune in for live simulations rather than having my fingers crossed to see “He’s sacked by A. Eller.” for 1/10 of a second across the ticker that operates at Mach 3.

Other than that, I think the ISFL is onto something here. Both the Chicago and Dallas locker rooms have been fantastic, have quite the culture within them, and are probably the only reason this casual football fan keeps coming back to do these PTs that for some reason have a higher word count requirement than the SHL.

Cheers, ISFL, I am having a good time.

[Slothman07]

As a first-season member, I am hesitant to get too crazy with suggestions. However, starting out in the ISFL was tricky because the site is difficult to navigate. It is challenging to understand all the different posts and topics you need to navigate to in order to maximize your TPE earnings, though I have to note that the beginner’s guide and friendly, more experienced members willing to lend a hand really help a lot.

Now for something completely different; I know Trivia is a hot-button issue in the league. In a past post this season, Ddrector laid out his arguments as to why he felt Trivia, as it stands, is little more than an activity check with wheels, and I’m inclined to agree with him. I was surprised to see how many league members felt so strongly that Trivia is perfect and shouldn’t be changed. I’m not entirely sure how to navigate this polarity, but I think we have to take both opinions into account: some folks love Trivia, others hate it. Perhaps the answer is to keep Trivia, to satisfy those who enjoy the pursuit, and add another weekly TPE opportunity that falls more along the lines that the anti-Trivs would like. Alternatively, maybe trivia could be a binary task, similar to the way each PT has a graphic option and a written option, but you can’t do both.

I leave it in hands more capable than mine (only 35), but hopefully these two cents are helpful.

Stay Golden.

[Mavfatha]

PBE CW

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PBE Affiliate