*Thoughts on the new sim and OL

[platanocat]

ALRIGHT!
So the new sim is finally being adopted here and people have tons of questions. I'm one of the many. Information has begun to trickle out and seasoned veterans are already offering their input. I'm here to merely breakdown what my understanding is about what is new for our league's offensive linemen, as well as offer my opinion on these changes and the transition as a whole.

The two main posts I've used to glean my understanding of the changes to come are these.
This one by JPach, and this one by Troen. Both did a tremendous job trying to break it down for people like me who are like dumb with sim builds and overall general league related... stuff. Through these two articles as well as asking a lot of questions of my peers this is what I've learned for O-Line this upcoming year:

 - There are three archetypes now: Mauler, Athletic, and Balanced.
 - The sim has special abilities after a certain level, called 'traits'
 - There is supposedly only one 'trait' that OL can get: Tenacious Blocker
 - This Tenacious Blocker trait will cost a lump sum of 150 TPE to purchase

OPINION TIME
Mauler or Athletic seem to be the more appealing of the builds. I can see how in the uncharted territory of the new sim, some people might pick balanced until people figure out the new program a little more. I'm more about instant results and considerable differences to see how things work. Mauler is supposed to be the biggest and the strongest, while Athletic is supposed to be the lighter and faster player. We have yet to see exactly HOW impactful physical attributes like weight have on a player. Although, from my understanding all the positions will still rack up pancakes.

While some of the other positions have multiple traits that their player can work towards, OL only has one I guess, meaning the TPE you dump into your individual stats is what is going to really differentiate high earning players that are able to obtain it. It is also expensive af. Not only do you have to have all of the TPE up front in order to pay for it, you also have to meet certain base requirements to even have the opportunity to purchase it. According to Troen for example, the Mauler archetype needs first get STR 90, PASS BLOCK 90, RUN BLOCK 90 to even be able to be ELIGIBLE to buy the Tenacious Blocker trait. Then you ALSO need to have the 150 TPE to pay for the trait. This means you can't get the trait until you have earned 700 TPE in total. This also means that after meeting the minimum stat requirements, you will have to essentially wait an entire season with out updating to be able to afford the trait's price tag. This will not only make 700 TPE a REALLY defining benchmark for players, but also might encourage players to go IA if they have to actively be earning without seeing any of the effects for a whole season. 

In the end, I am really excited to be updating the sim and to be part of something new. Everyone will be in a similar boat. No one has had time to create any unfair advantage yet aside from just banking a ton of TPE already. With teams racing to spread what they've learned to their players and helping them to transition, this will already be a chaotic year for the league. On top of that, we also have a potentially large draft class joining our ranks. I expect this season to be absolute mayhem, and a hell of a lot of fun. 

Thanks for reading <3

[JPach]

Don't forget that pancakes actually mean something now. In 16 pancakes were jus a stat that each person had a %chance to get and it didnt actually do anything, in 21 pancakes knock down defenders and cause them to stop moving. Super exciting to see OL make even more impact.