Warrior General Games

I would be all for 35 man rosters and reducing the effects of stamina. That would mean most players see most the snaps at their position. That would bring back the excitement for most players since they don't have to share snaps with other players all game long.

The smaller rosters would also make recruiting a lot easier and increase the total number of teams. More teams means more flex for teams. Of course it reduces flex because less players will be created but things like 55 man rosters and coaches do not work for the masses.

We see how only the elite can fill a team of 55 elite players. The next step down is for a team is a team with 25 solid builds and 20 good builds. Then we have the teams with an average to good starting core but the remaining players are filled with anybody who will sign. At the bottom we have the teams that have 40 players. We wonder why we see blowouts in the pros. The roster is the first indication of how well a team will do in their league. Salary caps can't save this.

So lets sum this up. No coaches. They will only make the rich richer. Reduce the roster size to 35. That is 11 offense + 11 defense + 1 kicker + 1 punter and 11 special teamers and/or backups. Reduce stamina so that a player can play all game long with 55 stamina and end the game with 60 to 70 energy. That will leave enough wiggle room for GMs to use strategy when it comes to using backups.

The point is that the league structure can change one hundred times and we will never get it right until we address the foundation of the game which is the teams.

Originally posted by jprietman
Okay, my idea isn't complete, but I think the premise of it should be heavily considered:

My idea is to get rid of team promotion/demotion, and force player promotion when they hit certain levels. Let the teams be locked into their level ranges.

You would still have Pee Wee, Minor, Pro leagues as normal, but a Pee Wee team will always be a Pee Wee team and a Pro League team will always be a Pro League team.

Players starting out at level 1 will play for a Pee Wee team until they are at a level that makes them ineligible to play for that team anymore. Then they would be forced to sign a contract with a team at the next level, or otherwise, not play.

But what does this accomplish?

I think it accomplishes a few things:

1. It brings in the idea of having a player draft. Minor Leagues would draft Pee Wee players every season to replace the players that have moved on to Pro. Pro Leagues would draft players that are ready to move up from the Minor Leagues. A lot of GLB users have demanded a draft, because they believe it would be FUN, and this is a way to get it done.

2. It strengthens team rivalries. Because teams cannot move up or down, they will be competing against the same teams indefinitely, thus fortifying any rivalries that may have developed.

3. It brings in a new element of player scouting, recruiting, etc. Teams would now be able to hire scouts to evaluate talent in the lower level leagues, and create draft boards that fit their team's needs.

4. It adds a new dimension to the player community. Many teams currently do not find success because they aren't part of the "in-crowd", and meanwhile, some teams find constant success because they get to field the same team every season, and have the best coordinators, agents, etc. With the new concept, teams and agents would expand their social community as players move up and meet new people, and teams are introduced to new agents as they draft them. Last place teams will have the chance to have good players the following season (however, in order to keep those players past their rookie deal, they would have to improve their own internal structure, otherwise those highly touted players will play out their first contract and sign with another team as a free agent for the rest of their league eligibility)

5. It gives purpose to long term player deals. Pretty self-explanatory I think, but in essence, there is currently no incentive for a player to seek out a long-term deal. With the new concept, a player would seek out a new deal because the threat of getting replaced is always there. Because teams would only see their players for a finite amount of time, they may opt to make "business decisions" and let go of players early to make room for new talent. Those players may be "too young" to advance, and "too old" to get immediately picked up by another team. To protect themselves from that happening, players would seek out long term deals with their teams. In general, I think contract negotiations, as a whole, would take on an entirely new meaning. It would also give purpose to trades within the same league.

6. If you keep the number of league ranges down, to say, just Pee Wee, Minor, and Pro, and split the 75 levels of a player's total career among them, the diversity of players within a single team will be much greater. Teams would consist of starting players with realized talent, and lower level bench players with potential to succeed when the starters advance. This would further counter the negative effects of slow building, because players may not see so much playing time if they continue to be "potentials" rather than "effective players". Sure, players would still slow build, and they may still be highly touted in the later stages of their careers, but since teams do not advance or promote, they will have no interest in fielding a team that doesn't perform. Slow builders will have a more difficult time getting playing time early in their careers. Sorry guys, but it's for the good of competition.

7. It adds realism. In real life, college teams or minor teams don't move up to Pro, and high school teams don't move up to college. The PLAYERS do.

8. But what if I get tired of owning a Pee Wee team and want to move up to a higher league?

Because team owners do frequently fold, there will be plenty of opportunities for someone to purchase a team in a higher league. The new owner would then take over the team's previous roster, bank account, stadium, etc., and the team would continue on as it did, under new ownership.

The former team owner would first have the option to sell the team directly to one of his GMs. If he chooses not to sell the team to one of his own, the top priority of potential new owners would be ranked as follows:

1. A successful team owner of a higher league looking to move down
2. A successful team owner of a lower league looking to move up
3. A less-successful team owner of a higher league looking to move down
4. A less-successful team owner of a lower league looking to move up
5. An agent who has never owned a team before

Potential candidates would also be ranked based on how many seasons they've owned a team. Those with more ownership experience would be more likely to make their team purchase than those with no ownership experience. They would also be ranked by how MUCH success they've had. And no, you obviously wouldn't be able to own two teams within the same league level. Obviously that would cause all kinds of problems.

Also, interleague team trades would also be an option if two team owners want to switch leagues with each other.

By the way, I believe this idea eliminates GUTTING, as players on failed teams will have the extra incentive to stay on their teams because they are likely to get a fantastic new team owner. Also, the addition of a player draft would obviously eliminate farming.

Once again, this is obviously not a complete suggestion. But please consider the concept.

GOLD!!! Draft+Recruiting>>>>>>>>>>Recruiting alone

Originally posted by jprietman
1. I think "draft boards" would be biased anyway to help friends get on the same team. But at least the draft prevents all the ELITE friends from constantly being on the same team and leaving other teams miserable.

2. If you were drafted on a team that isn't with your friends, you could still play out your rookie contract and then sign with your friends team as a free agent, just like it's done in the NBA (yes, I said NBA).

3. If you weren't drafted by your friends team, and were instead drafted by a team competing against them, would you still play? I sure as hell would love to beat the snot out of my friends during my rookie contract It would be a great way to earn a starting position with them later on when I sign with them as a free agent.

4. You can still acquire your friends' players via trades.

5. Your rookie contract is probably going to consist of a lot of time sitting on the bench anyway. If you ABSOLUTELY need to sit on the bench with your friends, see #4.

1. What levels do you use to divide players up? How do you choose the draft order of 160+ teams at a level that are in 5 different leagues?

2. Will the team your friends have players on have a spot for you? They aren't going to have a choice of who drafts them. If you have free agency after 1 season, what prevents all the good players from leaving bad teams after 1 season?

3. What if you don't even end up in the same league as your friends? There will probably be 5 to 6 leagues drafting. You probably would only have a 10% chance of being on a team that played against a team your friend was on.

4. Only if the owner who drafted them is willing to trade them.

5. This part sucks. What levels are we talking about? I have to spend 1 out of every 2 or 3 seasons with my players on the bench and playing special teams only?

Now here are other problems

Players are playing around the world and in different time zones.

When do you conduct the draft?
How do you seed a draft when teams drafting won't all be from the same league?
How long will the draft take and how long do teams have to pick?
How do you compensate an owner who drafts a player, then that player is retired because agent is mad he isn't going to team he wanted to go to?
What happens when your #1 pick decides he is going to take off all his equipment and demand a trade?

jprietman-

While having 3 tiers with drafts sounds very nice, in reality it won't work. If you are talking about anything bigger than a 10-15 level advantage in GLB, you are basically talking about a 150-0 game at least. GLB players are not build in such a way that large level discrepancies can exist on the same teams in competitive leagues. The cap system (which is doing a great job as is tbh) is evidence that parity exists as a result of more caps, not less.

Now if the entended plateau was implimented, I could see a L62+ draft working, but getting official mandatory peewee and minor league drafts going is simply a pipedream. And even in the high leagues, you'd basically have to auto-assign rookie eligible players to one of the 8 (or 4 or however many) pro leagues, and have each league draft be separate, with players allowed to go wherever after their rookie season.

Still drafts in general would need an entire new interface, and would be a pain in the ass for players and owners alike. I know it sounds cool, but no owner wants to look through 300 builds and make a draft board out of them, and no player wants to be suck on some random team for a season.

Not a viable solution imho.
-----
1 WL
4 Pro
8 or 16 AAA
and caps up to maybe L52 or L56

Would be a better solution to league structure than some zany draft idea I think.

Draft idea just won't work for the masses. However, a League structuring has been needed for a long time now. I see it as such:

WL: Top players (I would assume LVL 68 & up)
PRO: LVL 60 - 68
AAA: LVL 51 - 59
AA: LVL 42 -50

caps to LVL 36 or maybe 40

All levels should be capped with the above levels. All teams should have the option of falling into place within their given cap if preferred, but have the option of playing at a higher LVL if they choose to do so. All players must fall in this cap unless they chose to play at a higher LVL or the team will be moved up to the LVL their highest player is or any players above the LVL they asked to play in will be removed from the team on rollover. Whatever works the best for Bort I guess. Will this restructuring mean their still won't be blowouts, obviously not. However, let's make game planning, scouting, AI work, player builds, etc. come more in to play so moreso than how far you are out leveled by the teams you play. I understand this doesn't happen in the WL & not as much in Pro, but it is very apparent in AAA & AA & there are way to many games with the difference being 60+ points which I consider ridiculous if you want to simulate real football. I think this is where the game lacks the most & has been overlooked for to long now for things that really don't have much to do with real football!

I also agree with the posts above regarding no Coaches. I would limit roster size to 40.....period. The stamina issue I could go either way on.

The ONLY way to maintain a consistant parity amongst leagues up to the Pro level is to reduce the amount of teams in each league from 32!!!

Its the most UNIVERSAL solution to all the things that depress team owners in leagues when theres just a few real games per season.

Some immediate positive impacts from this would be:

1. Less garbage, watered down, gutted, CPU rosters at the bottom to play every season.
2. More teams have a greater chance at playoffs, playoff excitement and over-all player agent excitement from that too.
3. Less shuffling/revamping leagues creating longer, more important lasting rivalries
4. Bort and Co. can filter promotions and demotions with a more fine toothed comb much easier when these smaller league winners actually earned and deserved it thus keeping competition/parity optimal throughout a player and his teams career.

Originally posted by AngryDragon

Make region choices be like archetypes for teams.

Originally posted by DigitalDaggers

yeah, you would have to choose one if we keep them in. some people do like to represent their home region.

Originally posted by BP
Cool, so the people now who have teams in Western Europe want to rep WE. Then in 4-5 seasons when all of the teams coming up were never in a region...they are all going to choose USA, cuz 90% of your userbase in from the US.

I dunno, just doesn't seem like a solution to anything...

You are correct BP and I even consider the idea off topic as fixing League structures should have nothing to do with I am from the USA so I want to be in the US region as that is just plain ignorant. From what I am reading people want to get rid of the outrageous scores and play more competitive games. Let's stay on topic!

Originally posted by tuba_samurai
Saying that bort is hesitant to make drastic changes after what has happened the last few seasons is lol-worthy at best.

This may be off topic, but since you brought it up please name these drastic changes that Bort made to fix the problems with League structuring which I have always considered the major problem. People want competition, not blow outs. People want a sim that is more like RL football & works accordingly, not a bobblehead day for player morale. Any idea that has made sense to the general populous is totally ignored so I agree with Cubshater2008 100%. If you don't think that is true have a vote on implementing Coaches & see which way people vote. I didn't think so.......point proven!

i am now on page 9 of my read through here.

narrowing ideas down.

Originally posted by Mauler
This may be off topic, but since you brought it up please name these drastic changes that Bort made to fix the problems with League structuring which I have always considered the major problem. People want competition, not blow outs. People want a sim that is more like RL football & works accordingly, not a bobblehead day for player morale. Any idea that has made sense to the general populous is totally ignored so I agree with Cubshater2008 100%. If you don't think that is true have a vote on implementing Coaches & see which way people vote. I didn't think so.......point proven!

Well, for one thing you are taking what i said out of context. Cubs said that bort was hesitant to make any drastic changes, at which point i literally laughed out loud in real life.

Now you are whining about how bort and co. have no plans to change league structure and aren't interested in listening to the idea's of the userbase in a thread created by the co-creator of the game that is filled with ideas from the userbase that DD is currently reading and narrowing down ideas from.

Now, by all means, continue whining.

Originally posted by DigitalDaggers
i am now on page 9 of my read through here.

narrowing ideas down.

Anxious to hear what you like and dislike... glad you are taking this seriously!!

Originally posted by Mauler
Draft idea just won't work for the masses. However, a League structuring has been needed for a long time now. I see it as such:

WL: Top players (I would assume LVL 68 & up)
PRO: LVL 60 - 68
AAA: LVL 51 - 59
AA: LVL 42 -50

Pro and WL REALLY need to have the same min/max caps....

Also, L56 (59) 9th season players can be competitive in the current pro, so not giving pro teams even the option of recruiting them sounds harsh.

Adding a 54 caps on top of the cap pyramid, and eliminating AA (Pyramid sucks btw, and if kept, AA should = AAA imo) would solve a good bit of problems. Depending on the number of leagues to have, some viable options imo for after the 54 cap... (ie all of AA+ is L54-100). The line of thinking is that L55(58)+ players can be competitive in these higher leagues (maybe not WL, but definitinely AA/AAA/Pro) competing against L60-72 players.

1 WL
4 Pro
16 AAA
(=21 leagues)
-----or------
1 WL
8 Pro
8 AAA
8 AA
(=25 leagues)
-----or------

1 WL
4 Pro
8 AAA
16 AA
(=29 leagues)
-----or------

1 WL
8 Pro
16 AAA
16 AA
(=41 leagues)

--------------

Tbh either the 21 league or 29 league options are my favorites. Tbh the fact that currently every level has 2 leagues into 1 league, but at the top level you have 8 into 1 is retarded and hurts rivalries at the top of the game. Instead going 4 into 1, you can have the bottom 8 demote and the top 24 stick around.

Also in the WL it'd be a good idea to keep conferences together instead of the dumb reshuffle every season. Just make some rule that alpha=west=elephant=sachmo or something, then when teams demote back to their own conference, a team will take their place in the same conference they originally came from (obviously some current WL teams might get shoehorned in the wrong conference track, but thats no big deal since currently they are just randomly thrown back to pro anyhow).

Imo the 29 team suggestion with a 53 or 54 cap added on would be both the best and easiest solution. Also if you want further competitiveness, trimming rosters to 48 or 45 and making STs not drain a life ruining amount of stamina would be best (charging a low flat rate fo STs would be much better, though how energy drain is calculated, ie largely by distane traveled, in this game is by no means realistic and should be examined).

Smaller rosters and more caps would do wonders for competitive balance, though tbh so would an extended plateau, so you guys need to be on the same page as for whats being done (since if player progression is changed, you really need to change the cap/league system).

I mean what the hell are we waiting for? This is AAA so far in season 16 for my team...

Date [GS] Opponent (Overall)(Spread) Score
06/04/2010 New York Mohawks(66) (+3) W 255-0
06/06/2010 at Masters of the Brazilian Wax(69) (0) W 199-3
06/08/2010 Gyllebo Badgers(57) (+12) W 255-0
06/10/2010 at ANDERSON BOYZ(63) (+6) W 138-0
06/12/2010 Honolulu Sharks(66) (+3) W 255-0
06/14/2010 at Boondock Skullcaps(63) (+6) W 255-0
06/16/2010 Ditka's Army(69) (0) W 189-0

When is it going to get competitive? WTF.

Originally posted by AngryDragon
I would be all for 35 man rosters and reducing the effects of stamina. That would mean most players see most the snaps at their position. That would bring back the excitement for most players since they don't have to share snaps with other players all game long.

The smaller rosters would also make recruiting a lot easier and increase the total number of teams. More teams means more flex for teams. Of course it reduces flex because less players will be created but things like 55 man rosters and coaches do not work for the masses.

We see how only the elite can fill a team of 55 elite players. The next step down is for a team is a team with 25 solid builds and 20 good builds. Then we have the teams with an average to good starting core but the remaining players are filled with anybody who will sign. At the bottom we have the teams that have 40 players. We wonder why we see blowouts in the pros. The roster is the first indication of how well a team will do in their league. Salary caps can't save this.

So lets sum this up. No coaches. They will only make the rich richer. Reduce the roster size to 35. That is 11 offense + 11 defense + 1 kicker + 1 punter and 11 special teamers and/or backups. Reduce stamina so that a player can play all game long with 55 stamina and end the game with 60 to 70 energy. That will leave enough wiggle room for GMs to use strategy when it comes to using backups.

The point is that the league structure can change one hundred times and we will never get it right until we address the foundation of the game which is the teams.

++++++1
This is the best idea i've heard around here for a long time.

Something similiar to this seriously needs to be looked into.