Bort, I want to start by saying I appreciate the response and feedback! I will answer the concerns below:
Originally posted by Bort
There is a bit of a problem in just removing the unfilled teams when the season changes in that some of them might still fill up during preseason, and then they are stuck in the "empty teams" league (or certain people might do that just to get a free trophy).
This is only a realistic "problem" for rookie leagues where they may fill-out in the pre-season. Any non-rookie league always fills by d44 or doesn't get filled. Further if you communicate the expectations to the userbase, such a scenario is on them if they don't sign their players in time. Modern GLB is very much a "build full team together cradle to the grave" besides network team movement (and networks are on top of their stuff), so this is a <1% concern at plateau honestly. In my 100 seasons playing GLB I've never seen a plateau team fill their roster in the pre-season, even when recruiting/free agency was at it's peak, since recruiting/free agency actually starts around d20 or so, and d42 was always just signing day.
This isn't a good reason not to do a d44 re-sort though, since historically (only plateau structure) 90% of the userbase is in bad/shitty leagues with CPU's, and this concern is that 1% of teams will end up in that scenario. Perfection shouldn't get in the way of progress.
As far trophy hunters, I can't emphasize enough how much regional pro trophies don't matter to anyone. If someone wants to make it their prerogative to be in a league with CPU teams and crush them, I say let them have at it. If you go with my 1-wide ladder idea, tiers (T7 for example) should be somewhere in the league name, so the trophy will show it was from a low level league.
I'd be fine making a rule that trophies are only awarded to player/agent/league pages if the league on d40 has >50% full human teams (defined as >40 human players) if we care about eliminating those low level trophies vs CPU's (which VERY few people actually care about regardless, either way).
Originally posted by Bort
Also, by necessity there will have to be some CPU teams to fill out leagues to be an even 12, and people go inactive randomly, so playing CPUs is kinda unavoidable. So the real question is what is the solution with the least problematic outcome?
The CPU cross-over being unavoidable is fine. Keep in mind if you do a re-sort on d44 (and 1-wide ladder like in the OP), there will only at most be 1 plateau league that has a combination of CPU/Incomplete teams, and actual human teams. 50% of the time it'll be half-human, and sometimes it'll be more or less. Only 1 team every 12 seasons (on average) will have to deal with playing in an all-11 CPU/Inc team opponents, and that will be a team that by all accounts demoted into that hell.
Having only 1 human included league be in CPU hell is a HUGE improvement compared to pre-snap GLB that left every non-WL plateau league in CPU hell.
Originally posted by Bort
Once we reach the point where there's relegation/promotion tiers (plateau) it's a lot less of an issue, but for this first season I really just want to keep it as simple as possible if we can.
To be clear, my OP suggestion was based around plateau leagues only. Though I do think it could still be implemented for s2, s3, s4 dots with better results then the current scenario of many leagues having CPU's. As you stated this really isn't meant for rookie dots, as they actively WILL fill in the preseason especially with the new changes of preseason rookie dots getting the same TP/boosts.
And just noting, I am talking about fixing league structure in GLB long term, these aren't really suggestions specific to s101.