Warrior General Games

I put in about 100 hours for recruiting last season. It was not fun at all. And I only got human starters with CPU backups. If I had to go through anything like that again, no freakin' way.

This season, to have a full human roster, I've probably already put in about 20 hours recruiting. We're about there... I can actually spend time scouting/game planning, which is WAY more fun.

And I'm going to build A LOT of players just to fill in backup spots a few seasons down the road.

I think the long term appeal is the biggest thing. Leveling up, getting better, watching your player grow, thats the fun part.

I have half a mind to, after its all said and done, have all our boys retire their players at like level 40 (3-4 more seasons) and just use the points to start over with a slow built level one, all of us playing different positions.

In fact, i am going to broach that suggestion on my team forum right now.

I hear what you guys are saying, last season I didn't plan on winning, I planned on building a core to my team. This season, we found out where our flaws were and have spent heavy hours trying to address them. Granted we still have a couple, how many teams don't. But we are a much better team this season because we logged so many hours and I find it fulfilling to watch that hard work pay off with wins in the season. But yeah, I hate having to spend so much time in just one phase of the game only to get a handful of players.

Originally posted by Shardaddy
I think only BigC had to do any REAL recruiting

I'll co-sign that.

But, you know. As much as I loathe recruiting and hate doing it because you never know if you are going to have success or not. In recent times, I think I had some decent success especially this past off season and made some great upgrades.

It is an integral part of the game. I wouldn't trade the current recruiting for a draft or anything else of the sort.

No one wants to play a gutted team. It's just not fun beating them by over 100 pts. I'd much rather play competitive games all season long. My initial thought was to throw all the gutted teams into a division of their own. Pro Farmland?

Before I got Krakow, I was very worried I'd get a team that is so far behind the rest of the teams in the league. I can't imagine luring in great players to play for a horrible team. Like Shardaddy said, theres no way a smart owner would send their good players to a gutted team over a championship contender. (I actually would because I feel so bad for those owners). I think we all got lucky to start on an even level =).

My thoughts then shifted to a salary cap with a Draft. This would be fun (who doesn't love drafting??) but it would cause new problems. What about friends/coworkers? What if they play this game together, but then don't get drafted together. Would they lose interest, or have just as much fun competing with each other?

As far as recruiting, I don't know anyone has put in as many hours as me. I had help with a couple people I know, but almost everyone on my roster has 1 player on the team. It's such a pain, but it's very rewarding when you finally do sign someone. It's an aspect of the game I enjoy.

So what do I feel is best?
Send all the gutted teams to a special division, or just delete them.
Collapse a few leagues (for example, EEA8 +EEA9 get collapsed and dispersed throughout EEA so that all other EEA leagues have equal amount of active teams.
Do this every season, it's more work, but it'll keep the game exciting. I just hope EEA5 doesn't get dispersed if this were to happen...

I don't have the time to read all these, but from what I read, there are a lot of good ideas and compelling arguments out there.

The biggest thing I see is there needs to be a "draft" and actual salary caps, like the real NFL. I mean, if you are an owner AND have high level players, you can draft them at a low salary. But instead of a salary cap, you have a total level cap. Meaning if you want 3 level 30's on your team, thats 90 points...and you might have to have some level 5's to make up the difference. Then you have to make it so that you cant put all your 5's in like kicker or something.

Anyway, there are a lot of issues to deal with, but the biggest problem I see in this game is the level disparity among teams. Maybe they should get rid of the "level" number and just have your player a certain rate depending on his acual skill level. A lot of choices and possible solutions, the big thing is that I don't EVER see it getting perfected.

I see a lot of stuff on the draft and such that GLB supposedly needs.

Look down at the bottom on the 'Not Going to Happen'

http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=281091

That's retarded...wonder what made his mind up so early to make a decision lkie that. And I wonder if he retains the right to "delete that line" if he decides later he f-ed up. Either way, I think it would help the game some.

I saw a post from Bort not too long ago where he seemed to be considering a draft more.

Personally, I hope he doesn't do it.

Also, we've spent a good bit of this thread talking about gutted teams.

What about the relocation aspect?

Originally posted by Barnsie
I saw a post from Bort not too long ago where he seemed to be considering a draft more.

Personally, I hope he doesn't do it.

I'm curious why not? IT could make it interesting...and if done right, could make it more competitive...I mean if you go to high, you have to trade players or something, just like the real Salary cap...But interested to know why you don't like it.

Originally posted by mwoods07
Originally posted by Barnsie

I saw a post from Bort not too long ago where he seemed to be considering a draft more.

Personally, I hope he doesn't do it.

I'm curious why not? IT could make it interesting...and if done right, could make it more competitive...I mean if you go to high, you have to trade players or something, just like the real Salary cap...But interested to know why you don't like it.

Well, I think that gutting is always going to be a problem. I wouldn't really try to fix it, I'd just find a good way to deal with it when it happens.

I think that players that join GLB are able to get a team too quickly. I'm not saying they should have to wait X amount of time to be eligible, but the time that you spend as a player allows you to meet "GLB friends" (for lack of a better word) and build relationships. These agents and their friends will be the core of your future team.

If you try to recruit an entire team from scratch, good luck. You're almost doomed, unless you want horrible builds and players, which will end up dooming you anyways. You need a mix of "GLB friends" and real life friends to build a solid core, then you can fill in the extra pieces.

With respect to the draft, I just find that it forces things that shouldn't be forced. I want to decide where I play. I've been on teams that have been so poorly run that I wanted to quit GLB at times. A draft would probably cause more of this because you're basically helping the owner that didn't take the time to build his team properly to start with and knows very little about the game. The MMO part of this RPG sort of means that you're free to roam / explore, and that means selecting your own region / team to play on.

I just think that this supply / demand stuff with regards to players and owners will work itself out naturally. Gutting is a natural part of this, but again, these teams just need to be identified before the season starts and moved to the appropriate place.

Thanks Barnsie, it's good to see other perspectives on things. I definitely don't disagree with you, just don't know what the answer is.

I will stick to my feelings that a draft would be a good thing however. I know this game is about building relationships and just having a good time. This league was a pretty good example of that though. None of us knew each other coming in, but for the most part, everyone has a great time and the banter truly appears "friendly"!!! In my eyes, the biggest issue I see is not just gutted teams, but the fact that some teams are so overly stacked, no one has a chance to beat them and its frustrating to teams. I just think drafting and having total team level caps would make for a extremely competitive leagues. Especially since good builds trump levels any day, so it will still require good player scouting and recruiting.

I also don't like to see a team that has 10 players by one owner. It takes away from the roots of the game, as well as makes it nearly impossible if the person knows what to do to make good players. I agree that there are too many owners as well. I say raise the price of buying a team so that only people who really want to do it and will work to do it right will buy a whole team.

Anyway, thanks for the info Barnsie and unfortunately, I don't see any perfect answer, but I am having fun playing the game.

IMO the key to the draft is more than builds or stats, it's knowing all the info that you can know about the player that you're drafting such as:

Equipment - where he/she has put their equipment points
Times when inactive - an owner must know how often a player goes inactive
Position - ie. would an OT prefer to be a LT or RT? would a lB want to be a TE-covering LOLB, run-stuffing MLB, or a blitzing ROLB?
Money management - does the player blow his money on shopping tokens or re-speccing his equipment

Sure the builds are extremely important but these other issues are just as important

Can't argue there Dryzzt! Guess the biggest question to ask is, how complicated should we get? Some people just wont be interested if it gets too indepth and complicated. I can tell you I would like to GM, but don't have the time to put into that role.

Again, I don't have a good solution, just try not to be the problem