Warrior General Games

Originally posted by greengoose
His plans for his team are moot, on Day -8 once the new season starts either a team has a punchers chance in the league they are in or are horribly placed - they need a 2nd run after rollover to clean up this:
a) Teams that sell between Day 41 and 48 and are left CPU
b) Teams that simply don't belong where the game put them on Day 41 - the EL is a tool - they should use it when placing teams

The game promotes teams that make the playoffs, but it isn't smart enough to realize that the only reason that team made the playoffs anyway is 1/2 the conference was CPU anyway. They got promoted not on merit - but simply by default - their promotion should NOT be an indictment on the quality of their team - thats what the EL is there for.

Stop throwing darts for a second and look, that team won 7 games last year against CPU teams - it's the ONLY reason they got promoted. It wasn't a promotion they earned, it was by default.

Sure, in a perfect world every owner would be Jerry Jones, think they are God's gift to the game and be trying to win a championship every year - the reality is there are just as many William Clay Ford's out there who really could care less either way.

amen

Originally posted by vladykins
Let's take a few qualifications and see if we agree:

1) A team that makes playoffs is more qualified to promote than one that does not.
2) A team owner that does not deny promotion probably wants to promote.

Based on this, your argument is that a team with higher EL that did *not* make playoffs should be promoted over a team that has a lower EL but did make playoffs. So we should have an arbitrary measure of EL and basically tell the owner that earns the spot that he doesn't deserve it for making playoffs.


Note: The only reason this happened is the owner took no action to right this, so the assumption is he wanted to promote. So we should make assumptions that he sucks as an owner? What other decisions should we make arbitrarily for the owner? Should we also correct his AI or adjust his DC for him?



that was not what my argument was.....you are focusing on EL as something more than what I stated...

tell me why these teams are in Nat Pro

http://goallineblitz.com/game/team.pl?season=34&team_id=4884
http://goallineblitz.com/game/team.pl?team_id=233
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=1641
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=6387
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=2016
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=3150
http://goallineblitz.com/game/roster.pl?team_id=1961

Those teams shouldn't be there. Thats really my point. The system should work so that it doesn't happen. It wouldn't happen like that in WL. Heck they would even reload a roster from inactive players to try and make it more competitive. Why not care more about the nat pro leagues?

Originally posted by vladykins

Let me make this real simple to explain the scenario (because the real live situation involves more pro leagues and lots of teams gutting/dropping):

Imagine we have a very simple ladder- One WL, one PL, and one Regional Pro. Each has 16 teams. In each league, the top 8 make playoffs and the top four promote, bottom four demote. (Again, simplified for illustration).

WL promotions are run first to make sure WL is full. In our hypothetical case (similar to last season), WL has four openings when the teams demote. But two other teams in WL also gut, leaving WL with six openings. The expected top four PL teams promote, plus two more that didn't expect to promote. So WL is full, PL is missing teams 1-6 and teams 13-16 (who demoted). RegPL has teams 1-4 promote.

In the PL, five more remaining teams gut. In addition, the former PL teams that demoted also gut, because they just can't hack it in PL. So PL is now missing five teams, which are sucked up from RegPL. Teams 5-8 in RegPL decline promotion using the system, so the next five teams in line are 9-13. Note: in this scenario, the teams promoting to PL didn't even make playoffs in RegPL, but promote because there is an opening and the owners above declined promotion.





the size of the leagues are determined by the amount of teams. the assumption is that teams will be competitive, which rely on a combination of available players as well as coordinators. if there not enough players to field teams for all the leagues, then the teams should be limited and the leagues contracted. at some point the game has to find the point at which it balances at, and you have competitive groups playing in all top tier leagues. in your scenario I think this game is in larger trouble if it gets to that point, as that will probably indicate a pretty declined user base.

here is a team that is dominating in nat pro

http://goallineblitz.com/game/team.pl?team_id=1323

they won a nat pro league last season and are not in decline? dont you think they should be up in nat pro instead of the cpu player teams?

this team too
http://goallineblitz.com/game/team.pl?season=34&team_id=1162

if they are not good enough to cut it in Nat pro why do they get to beat up the level 72s in regional pro elite this season?

Originally posted by Moretti


Those teams shouldn't be there. Thats really my point. The system should work so that it doesn't happen. It wouldn't happen like that in WL. Heck they would even reload a roster from inactive players to try and make it more competitive. Why not care more about the nat pro leagues?



It does work like that in WL, to the point where there has been some bitching in the past. Ask about Catch's team a few seasons back.

because it isnt the top of the game anymore, it's basically a stepping stone to the WL

Bort and Catch have made it pretty clear in the past that all they want out of the promotion system is A.) for it to at least kinda-sorta mostly work, and B.) be as automated as possible, with an absolute minimum of human interpretation or involvement.

The current system fits both A and B, so they're stickin' with it.

I've offered in the past to help do some eyes-on screening of the teams in Natty Pro and in the Elite leagues in each tier to look for obvious mis-matches, but they declined my offer. It's just not a priority for them.

So, if you're a team owner with an un-competitive team, the onus is on you to get moved out of a league where you'll be destroyed. And if you're an agent, the onus is on you to pay more attention to the team you sign with. That's not changing.

Originally posted by Moretti
It wouldn't happen like that in WL. Heck they would even reload a roster from inactive players to try and make it more competitive. Why not care more about the nat pro leagues?



The only time Catch did that was because the team was sold and he bought it. None of the teams you listed are CPU owned teams.

I see this issue with an IT manager's eyes. If you were all my electric customers for example, and every bill was sent out with an erroneous $15 charge, but you could all get the $15 refunded if you called in and asked for it. How many of you would think that that is ok? This team should never have been promoted, so just because there is a human way to fix it, that does not make it acceptable.

Originally posted by SciFi not Syfy
I see this issue with an IT manager's eyes. If you were all my electric customers for example, and every bill was sent out with an erroneous $15 charge, but you could all get the $15 refunded if you called in and asked for it. How many of you would think that that is ok? This team should never have been promoted, so just because there is a human way to fix it, that does not make it acceptable.

Complain all ya want. It won't do anything, because...

Originally posted by Novus
Bort and Catch have made it pretty clear in the past that all they want out of the promotion system is A.) for it to at least kinda-sorta mostly work, and B.) be as automated as possible, with an absolute minimum of human interpretation or involvement.

The current system fits both A and B, so they're stickin' with it.

Originally posted by Novus

Bort and Catch have made it pretty clear in the past that all they want out of the promotion system is A.) for it to at least kinda-sorta mostly work, and B.) be as automated as possible, with an absolute minimum of human interpretation or involvement.

The current system fits both A and B, so they're stickin' with it.
If multiple teams use the manual way of getting reassigned, how does that fit #2? NOT putting them there in the first place would involve the lesser human intervention.

Originally posted by SciFi not Syfy

If multiple teams use the manual way of getting reassigned, how does that fit #2? NOT putting them there in the first place would involve the lesser human intervention.


Total up the number of teams they'd have to look at if there was a full eyes-on review of all teams in Natty Pro and Elite leagues. I guarantee, that's way more than the number of teams that manually request a league change right now.

I've taken the time to do this before. Even using scripts to speed things up, it still takes a decent amount of time to review every Natty Pro and Elite league, find the teams that clearly don't belong, and then find suitable replacements from Regional Pro or Competitive leagues.

The current system they use now requires much less time and much less human intervention. And that's exactly what they want. They don't care about getting it perfect, or even close to right. They're perfectly willing to settle for kinda-sorta mostly-right.

If they do not have programmers who can figure this out fairly quickly, they smarter programmers. Hell, the customers would probably figure out the best algorithm if asked.

Originally posted by SciFi not Syfy
If they do not have programmers who can figure this out fairly quickly, they smarter programmers. Hell, the customers would probably figure out the best algorithm if asked.

Come up with an algorithm and send Catch a PM. Maybe he'll hire you.

I seriously doubt you (or anyone, really) can come up with a fully automated system that never puts teams in the wrong place, though.

Originally posted by Novus
Come up with an algorithm and send Catch a PM. Maybe he'll hire you.

I seriously doubt you (or anyone, really) can come up with a fully automated system that never puts teams in the wrong place, though.

Agreed that it will never be perfect, but sure could cut down on the number of misplacements. TBH, I do not care enough about the game to spend time figuring it out, and he cannot afford the rate that my company bills me out at.. But I suspect that without a 2nd sort prior to the schedules coming out, people would just exploit any formula.

Originally posted by SciFi not Syfy
Agreed that it will never be perfect, but sure could cut down on the number of misplacements. TBH, I do not care enough about the game to spend time figuring it out, and he cannot afford the rate that my company bills me out at.. But I suspect that without a 2nd sort prior to the schedules coming out, people would just exploit any formula.

Well, they've made it pretty clear that "fixing" league sorting isn't a priority for them because they're perfectly happy with what they have now. So, unless you or someone else spends the time to come up with a better algorithm, they're not going to change it.

Believe me, I used to make even more noise about this every season than you're making now. If I couldn't spur them into action with my sustained multi-season campaign of multiple threads and PMs, this one thread sure ain't gonna do it.

*shrug*