Warrior General Games

Originally posted by haole
Originally posted by Skoll Wolfrun

life is a matter of compromise and this is one that many seem willing to accept.

if it's the only way to get an Iron Man League -- like because there is almost no chance the coding will be changed to allow for 15-man roster limits at any point in the near future of the game -- then yes, 20 is an acceptable compromise

So let's do it

EDIT: But I am willing to wait a season or two for 15-man rosters if there's a high probability that the coding will be changed to allow for it. To me, that's the ideal roster size. So now it's just a matter of figuring out the likelihood for the change

if you figured a starter and backup at each position thats 22, imo, 20 is solid

I wouldnt complain and roll with that, these new league ideas could be just what bort and co need to re energize the older vets in the game.

Originally posted by haleykrl DTD
if you figured a starter and backup at each position thats 22, imo, 20 is solid

I wouldnt complain and roll with that, these new league ideas could be just what bort and co need to re energize the older vets in the game.

A star and backup at each position isn't really Iron Man football. At 20, you can have 8 offense-only players, 8 defense-only players, a QB, a K, a P and a return man.

Now, granted, this still takes some creative building and strategy, and it's still a big drain on energy. But that's still too much specialization for an ideal Iron Man League, in which the idea is that most of the players will have to play both ways.

There are 68 pages in this thread where the roster number has been debated many times over -- including various roster slots and building strategies -- and it always comes back to 15 being the ideal number to create the league.

Like I said, I can live with 20, and seemingly most of the other people here agree with that. But if we can get to 15, or even 18, by waiting another season or two to get there, I'd rather do that.

Originally posted by haole
Originally posted by haleykrl DTD

if you figured a starter and backup at each position thats 22, imo, 20 is solid

I wouldnt complain and roll with that, these new league ideas could be just what bort and co need to re energize the older vets in the game.

A star and backup at each position isn't really Iron Man football. At 20, you can have 8 offense-only players, 8 defense-only players, a QB, a K, a P and a return man.

Now, granted, this still takes some creative building and strategy, and it's still a big drain on energy. But that's still too much specialization for an ideal Iron Man League, in which the idea is that most of the players will have to play both ways.

There are 68 pages in this thread where the roster number has been debated many times over -- including various roster slots and building strategies -- and it always comes back to 15 being the ideal number to create the league.

Like I said, I can live with 20, and seemingly most of the other people here agree with that. But if we can get to 15, or even 18, by waiting another season or two to get there, I'd rather do that.

you would rotate them evenly

for example,

for offense you have your two centers alternating snaps, when they play d they alternate at NT, both still play both sides of the ball

Originally posted by haleykrl DTD
you would rotate them evenly

for example,

for offense you have your two centers alternating snaps, when they play d they alternate at NT, both still play both sides of the ball

Or you could just play one at center and one at NT and not rotate them, and not have to worry about building them to play both sides of the ball, and not be playing Iron Man at all

Originally posted by haole
Or you could just play one at center and one at NT and not rotate them, and not have to worry about building them to play both sides of the ball, and not be playing Iron Man at all

I guess the question is whether that's an edge or not though. OOP penalties versus low energy... which is more severe?

Could be another part of the strategy.

I'm with you on 15 being ideal... just worry that will get lost if it's going to be implemented "sometime" in the future.

Originally posted by notthegint
I guess the question is whether that's an edge or not though. OOP penalties versus low energy... which is more severe?

Could be another part of the strategy.

I'm with you on 15 being ideal... just worry that will get lost if it's going to be implemented "sometime" in the future.

Low energy can be dealt with easier than OOP ... just build up stamina to insane levels. I think it's a definite edge to build one-way players and leave them out there -- and that shouldn't be part of the strategy in Iron Man.

But I know where you're coming from on the roster numbers. I don't want the idea to be lost, either, but I really think GLB is dropping the ball not trying to find a way to make this work sooner. This idea hasn't lost any interest since I first introduced it, and I agree that a lot of the old-timers here might gravitate toward it to keep their interest level up.

Originally posted by haole
At 20, you can have 8 offense-only players, 8 defense-only players, a QB, a K, a P and a return man.
No you can't.

If you have the players you named, there are no other slots. Which means you'd have 9 guys on offense and 8 on defense, which would get you some illegal formation calls.

You could have a K, a P, a QB, 6 (other) offense-only players, 7 defense-only players, and and 4 guys that go both ways. Or you could mix it up some other way.

Either way, fatigue is going to be a major factor, because if you set it up to maximize the offense-only or defense-only guys, those other 4 dudes would be playing in every single snap of the game. And let's not forget special teams.

I think we should take the 20 roster limit and go with it. If it doesn't give us the iron man football we want, we can always request that Bort close the league and create a 15-limit later when he can get the code in place.

+1

I knew something was wrong with my math there

Regardless, that part of the idea has already been debated to death with the proper math

Originally posted by Gongadan

I think we should take the 20 roster limit and go with it. If it doesn't give us the iron man football we want, we can always request that Bort close the league and create a 15-limit later when he can get the code in place.

But this is the problem. Bort is not going to create a league knowing he might have to kill it and restart it in a couple of seasons. People are not going to create players for a league that is only a test-run and be happy with getting only 70% flex back.

If we take 20 as the roster limit, that's the roster limit.

If we can't get 15 before the next couple of seasons, but we can get 20, I'm willing to take that deal.

I think both arguments (accepting the 20 man roster limit now versus waiting on a 15 man limit later) have merit. The biggest thing is to make sure that Bort sees how widespread the support the idea has--we're at over 1000 posts without serious opposition to it (probably due to the fact that nobody would HAVE to join this type of league as well as the limited-to-none drain upon Bort's valuable coding time).

Originally posted by Larry Roadgrader
I think both arguments (accepting the 20 man roster limit now versus waiting on a 15 man limit later) have merit. The biggest thing is to make sure that Bort sees how widespread the support the idea has--we're at over 1000 posts without serious opposition to it (probably due to the fact that nobody would HAVE to join this type of league as well as the limited-to-none drain upon Bort's valuable coding time).

Locked Leagues suggestion just went Epic and its steam is a dribble compared to this...

That being said:

Let it be 20 man roster max.

Let it be a team purchase cost equal to a Casual team purchase.

Let tactics be based on Casual team gameplanning tactics. (maybe a possibility of custom playbook being the only difference)

Let "anything and everying" GLB about this league be the same as any other player creation, player cost, regular OOP, regular stamina, etc, etc!

Let it start from a Level 1 as is the Peewee building rule.

Let it be what over 950 posters have been asking for......NEW AND FUN FOOTBALL!

I'm looking at 20 man rosters and honestly I think you still are going to have what can be considered Ironman.

First off, lets go with a combination K/P. Made one of these a couple seasons ago and she did do ok, just with the glut of Ks and Ps was never able to find her good work. Figure most if not all will be base K's.

Even with 5 extra spots available I don't think its a good use to spend a spot on a dedicated returner. For the sake of argument, however, lets just assume you've got one "Grease" guy who's focused on running in space and avoiding open field tackles. They'd also be a back up WR/CB/whatever you needed, just he wouldn't be focused on one set position

That leaves 18 spots left.

For offense, a basic set is going to have:

QB, HB, FB, TE, 2 WR, 2 OT, 2 G, and a C.

If we're splitting spots evenly then you're looking at 9 of those being primaries. I don't say dedicated because even if they're made for offense at some point they'll have to either help fill in on D or at the very least special teams. You might even have to move folks around within the offense to bolster worn out players. At the very least two of those guys are going to get extremely tired very quickly, and with no one to fill in for them you could have a serious exploitable hole. Jacking up stamina would help a bit, but remember those points won't be going into the positions primary skills, so you've got a serious trade off. Also, what happens if one gets tired? Who do you bring in?

Now remember, that's just for a standard I. What if you wanted to go 5 Wide? Yes you could send out the HB, FB and TE, but what if they're not designed for running routes or catching passes?

Same goes for Defense, though the positions change if you run a 4-3 or a 3-4. Hell, how do you run an effective nickle or dime if you've only got two dedicated CBs? If you don't have players available to give your starting D-Line a break, you can forget about getting any pressure on the QB, even if you're packing monster Stamina.

Here's my idea or a sample 20 man roster
K/P
Grease Guy (depending on whether focus is on offense or defense can be WR or CB.)
QB/ Secondary CB
Power HB/Secondary SS
Agility HB/Secondary QB or CB(Could also be Grease Guy, meaning you'd place in another WR or CB where you wanted.)
FB/Secondary MLB
Speed WR/Secondary CB
Possession WR/ Secondary FS
Catching TE/ Secondary OLB
Blocking TE/ Secondary OC, MLB or DE
OT/ Secondary DE
G/ Secondary DT
C/ Secondary MLB
DT/ Secondary C or G
DE/ Secondary OT
OLB/ Secondary TE (either)
MLB/ Secondary FB or OT
CB/ Secondary WR
SS/ Secondary Power HB
FS/ Secondary WR


In this set up, every player is built to be capable of the job listed as their secondary, and you have enough compatible builds to work out almost any formation currently in the game. You've got at least one player who will be correct in their position at all times for each position, and you can always drop the focused builds for HB, TE and WR to make more hybrid players and free up roster space for other primaries.

I think a 20 player cap will still give the feeling of Ironman football, but might be a bit better as you wont have players being SO tired at the end the game just moves at a crawl.

You make some good points, points that have been made before. And players who stay true to the spirit of Iron Man will do well with 20-man teams.

The reason the debate settled on a 15-man roster was because it was a number the opened up the fewest exploitable loopholes by teams who AREN'T so interested in upholding the spirit of the league as much as they are winning said league.

I understand one-way players will get used a lot, and they will get tired. But this is where the argument always gets de-railed:

Originally posted by Jaegerwolf

I think a 20 player cap will still give the feeling of Ironman football, but might be a bit better as you wont have players being SO tired at the end the game just moves at a crawl.

Unless you're playing with Level 1 PeeWees, the game does NOT move at a crawl when players are tired. Tired players don't perform as well as fully rested players -- they aren't as fast or agile or theoretically as good at performing tasks like winning catch rolls and breaking blocks -- but they do not EVER move at a crawl.

The lowest energy a player can play at is 20, and it happens quite a bit that players fall down to that energy level, and they don't simply run around in circles or creep along the field. Will there be more fumbles, pancakes, etc? Yes. But it's not like watching paint dry or snails fornicate or whatever cute little colloquialism someone comes up with next to describe players with low energy. A 100-speed player is still faster than an 80 speed player and a 100-strength guy is still stronger than an 80-strength guy.

At a roster size of 20, you can make 5 more specialized (one-way only) players than you can at a roster size of 15. It's simple math. You sacrifice depth to do that, but you can make up for some of that with stamina, which means building out only one attribute instead of the three or four you would have to build out to make the player effective on both sides of the ball.

I'm not against a 20-man roster, but I still feel that 15 (or even 18) is better in line with the spirit of the league.

Originally posted by Jaegerwolf

Here's my idea or a sample 20 man roster
K/P
Grease Guy (depending on whether focus is on offense or defense can be WR or CB.)
QB/ Secondary CB
Power HB/Secondary SS
Agility HB/Secondary QB or CB(Could also be Grease Guy, meaning you'd place in another WR or CB where you wanted.)
FB/Secondary MLB
Speed WR/Secondary CB
Possession WR/ Secondary FS
Catching TE/ Secondary OLB
Blocking TE/ Secondary OC, MLB or DE
OT/ Secondary DE
G/ Secondary DT
C/ Secondary MLB
DT/ Secondary C or G
DE/ Secondary OT
OLB/ Secondary TE (either)
MLB/ Secondary FB or OT
CB/ Secondary WR
SS/ Secondary Power HB
FS/ Secondary WR

Looks like a solid roster in the spirit of Iron Man. However, as haole points out even this could easily be tweaked away from that spirit just to have an edge in the league.

What I bolded is two players sharing roles, where neither will be on the field at the same time. So essentially they're just backups for each other, and as such they're not specialized for either role. Thus they've got SP spread out over more attributes. Creating two players that will only go one-way for each of these roles would be "smarter," since they won't have to worry about the backup role they can save the SP needed from that and improve the essential attributes and more stamina for whichever side of the ball sees more time.

Originally posted by haole
Unless you're playing with Level 1 PeeWees, the game does NOT move at a crawl when players are tired. Tired players don't perform as well as fully rested players -- they aren't as fast or agile or theoretically as good at performing tasks like winning catch rolls and breaking blocks -- but they do not EVER move at a crawl.

The lowest energy a player can play at is 20, and it happens quite a bit that players fall down to that energy level, and they don't simply run around in circles or creep along the field. Will there be more fumbles, pancakes, etc? Yes. But it's not like watching paint dry or snails fornicate or whatever cute little colloquialism someone comes up with next to describe players with low energy. A 100-speed player is still faster than an 80 speed player and a 100-strength guy is still stronger than an 80-strength guy.


So crawl was a bad choice of words, fair enough, though I thought the lowest energy could go was 10, not 20. Either way there's still a question that needs an answer:

Who's faster: A Power HB with say 80 speed and 10/20 energy or a SS playing HB with 70-75 speed, 50/60 energy and the OOP penalty. Now to me it makes sense that OOP would not affect physical stats (speed, agility, jumping, strength), just the mental and football skills that get used at that position. However since it's never been qualified its hard to say unless we try it.

Now I listed those positions and secondaries because they most closely matched each other in terms of major and minor attributes as well as similar build strategies. For example lets look at the two Linkzmax highlighted, Power HB and SS. Both share Strength, Speed and Vision as majors and everything else save for throwing and tackling as a major/minor trade off.

Now both a Power HB and SS are going to have high strength, good speed and good vision. Agility and Stamina will also be worked up, and both can get solid numbers in those two stats. The only attributes the positions won't share at similar positions normally would be blocking, tackling and carrying. SS gets blocking and carrying as minors so these could be trained to useful levels without too large a loss to other attributes. HB lack tackling as an auto increase, but training in Power Tackling can assist here while still boosting an important attribute. Overall all, you won't actually have to give up too much from either build to make them useful as backups to each other as they're both going in the same general direction.

Even with the ability to specialize more, there's still a good amount of strategy involved which could lead to more diversity in team construction. Consider the fact that when you specialize one position you're really specializing two, since you now need to focus the player the first man would have been a backup to at just his position as he wont have the energy to help out elsewhere. So then you've got a decision to make: What positions do you focus on? QB is the mos obvious choice, but what then? Where the strong and weak points are can become a very interesting decision owners will have to make.

Originally posted by Jaegerwolf
Now I listed those positions and secondaries because they most closely matched each other in terms of major and minor attributes as well as similar build strategies. For example lets look at the two Linkzmax highlighted, Power HB and SS. Both share Strength, Speed and Vision as majors and everything else save for throwing and tackling as a major/minor trade off.

Now both a Power HB and SS are going to have high strength, good speed and good vision. Agility and Stamina will also be worked up, and both can get solid numbers in those two stats. The only attributes the positions won't share at similar positions normally would be blocking, tackling and carrying. SS gets blocking and carrying as minors so these could be trained to useful levels without too large a loss to other attributes. HB lack tackling as an auto increase, but training in Power Tackling can assist here while still boosting an important attribute. Overall all, you won't actually have to give up too much from either build to make them useful as backups to each other as they're both going in the same general direction.

Oh I agree completely with what you're saying. The drawback of playing one in the other's spot should be as minimal as can be crossing from offense to defense and vice-versa. However, I just pointed out that instead of two players splitting time at two positions, you could easily just have each player only play one position. Energy would be about the same unless offense/defense is on the field more, but the savings of not having to actually train/put SPs into blocking/carrying or tackling could be further put towards the main attributes or stamina.