Originally posted by bhall43
Oh no doubt about that. The network feel just kinda took over the game all together though as soon as WL hit the stage. I guess it was only a matter of time. It just kinda gives me an empty feeling of how the game used to be with recruiting (despite it being a pain in the ass it was still most of the offseason fun) and playing against lots of different agents in a number of different regions.
I think there are several issues leading to networks.
1.) There is a huge disparity between elite and mediocre builders. Before you could count on there being top builds, but even the top builds weren't far and away better than the lesser builds. Now they are, and if you want a good version of position X, the chances of finding a FA who fits those standards is very slim.
2.) There is a huge disparity between elite and mediocre coordinators. Even if you assemble a great team, if your coordinators are not top-notch, you won't win. This has a trickle down effect in discouraging FAs from going just anywhere. They would rather not spend money to build a player only to have him poorly used or to be on a bad team because the coordinating is bad, so they would rather sign up for a network.
3.) The season set up is very rigid and it is difficult to find a team as a FA. This is kind of a vicious cycle wherein the more networks we have the more difficult it is to find a spot for your non-network player, which in turn leads to more networks. The reason agents moved so freely in seasons 1-5 is because everyone only aged about 8 levels per season, so there was very little age stratification. Advanced player development helps that now but it was done about 20 seasons too late. I build all my players for friends or a network. If I wanted to build just a random player, depending on the position he might not even be able to find a job. The bottom levels tend to be a mix of network startups and people who have no clue, and even people who know what they are doing and are not in a startup are thinking long-term. They don't want to sign your QB for 3 seasons so you can find a better team later. This has always been a problem. Before we did it with farm teams. Now we have network farm teams. It's the same issue, we just have a more organized solution for it.
I am sure there are many other issues as well but I see these as the biggest. What I think would help is if GLB went to some plan where you could pay a monthly fee or something like that and build many more players but get less flex back or none. If building a team with a small number of people were more do-able, you would not have as many networks, but I guess that is just a way of building 3-5 person networks in a sense. We're humans, we're cooperative and we're gamers. If there is a more efficient way to do something we'll find it eventually. From this perspective networks seem inevitable in any MMO that requires you to be cooperative to any degree.
