Pre Season Stuff + Retentions

Okay just thought I'd get everything out of the way

1) Trade window will close 24 hrs before I start the season. You'll have 2-3 days at a minimum but from thereon don't expect it to be open, if it is, it's a bonus. I'll let you know when it shuts

2) We're going to run with a 7 round season + finals to decide each position from 1-16. There'll be two (seeded, but once the pools are made the seeds become irrelevant) pools of 8 based on pre-season results. We'll then do a top 8 finals and a bottom 8 finals with cup/plate/shield/bowl from there.

3) Post season we're going to do a small (7 rounds) draft that will include all delistees, unselected players and players from the 2013 AFL draft and rookie draft. I'm not going to reveal how the order of picks will go just yet as I don't want it exploited, but let me just state that it won't reward tanking and if I suspect tanking you're fucked <_<

4) Post draft we'll get straight back into another season. You'll only have two practice games this time around

5) Hopefully the two seasons are finished by September, whereupon we'll do a bigger draft - where the retained number is smaller than the delisted number on each list. Included in this draft will be prospective draftees for the 2014 ND. We'll discuss retentions later though


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That's the plan. Now some other stuff

1) the sim is rather strange in a lot of ways. It's incredibly sensistive; of the like 30 ratings categories which are /100 a change of +5 in just one category can make massive differences. When Swan and Hodge were OP I only changed 2-3 categories and downed them by 5 and it fixed them. Likewise underpowered players, a small increase sometimes makes them OP. I believe I've worked out well enough how to get things reasonably balanced (more than anyone else, anyway. Seems as if I managed to fix a few longstanding bugs in my ratings that nobody else has been able to) but given how volatile and sensitive they are, there's bound to be OP/UP players as when rating 700 players it gets awfully tedious so my mind did slip a little bit so for some i didn't take as much care to balance them, I'd say.

Now is the time to comment on the following

- OP players
- UP players
- Players performing alright but seemingly deficient in one skill
- Positions which seem to be performing strangely
- Players who have 'broken out' or 'decided to become shit' since about late July/August last year. I'm happy to increase players on the back of pre-season/round 1/round 2 form but it wouldn't be a heavy increase until they sustain it.

I'd really like to hear them so I can fix them before the season starts, as I won't be fixing anyone during the season.

2) There are some things I just cannot make 'normal'

- The 'away' team will nearly always dominate the ruck by 10-15 hitouts. Subtract 10-15 from the away team to get a true representation of how well you've rucked

- Bookends still accumulate a lot of the ball (without scoring bags). It's a lot better than it was but it won't be uncommon to see a fb/chb/ff/chf having 25-30 touches every so often

- Sometimes players have days where they're just untaggable. Pendlebury might get 35 touches on Raines one day but the next he'll only get 15. I try and work out when it's a good or a bad day and adjust but sometimes midfielders will run wild and nobody can stop them. Sometimes players are just untaggable

- Midfielders will have shitty days more commonly in this due to the volatility of the ratings. I've noticed blokes like Luke Ball/Dion Prestia/David Mundy off the top of my head are prone to this (which I'm fixing) but fringe mids are especially susceptible. I try and avoid it though

- In general we get a far more realistic sim than anything else out there, so problems aside it's pretty good

3) I do have an advantage

- We're all just going to have to get used to it. I'd prefer nobody accuses me of cheating as I certainly won't be but I've double and triple checked my side for at all biased ratings and I can't find any. I've had the database vetted for stupid ratings and it's now all good it seems. I drafted before I made the database though, and since I've drafted my team 15 people have looked over it and not picked up on any overratings of my own players. Hope that puts any doubts anyone had if any at rest.

- I've made 2014 fffx rosters available publicly. I'd hope nobody tries to obtain them to use them for advantage in this but I can't stop anyone. Let it be known though that the rosters we use here are my working copy; so every error/overration/underration i address in these, not in those so by now they're not very reflective

- I do control the tactics and when it comes to my own games I'm aware it puts me in a conflict of interest. I normally go into a game with a plan of exactly what I want to do with my team and I rarely change it. I do the simming on a qtr by qtr basis anyway so i make changes to both sides (interchanges, switch opponents if not working/rotate through forward line/apply taggers if needed then fast forward through a quarter and repeat) and I make sure I only stick to the basic changes I'd make to a neutral team when managing mine. Just hope y'all can trust me on that

4) I'm happy for you all to use me for help

- Overall rating of a player in fffx means fuck all. I don't remember them and i rarely see them. If i give you help it's no reflection of what the sim rates them, it's how I see them

- As I've maintained, don't try and predict the sim, base selection off past performance and real life ability, favouring the latter

- afl sims are far harder and more complex to read than things like cricket sims. Things aren't measured as simply as batting and bowling averages and as such I know it's harder for you guys to interpret the output as it still misses a lot of what happens in the game. If you want to know how a certain player defended or who played on who when or any of that, just ask.

- following on from the above, as a result of the sim's intricacies and so on I'm happy to answer any questions regarding balance/selection/anything. If you want to ask a question post it in your team thread, I check them regularly and I'll reply. I'd prefer it that way as then everyone can see the information I'm handing out. I'm not going to bother with questions regarding who's better though - unless it's Heath or Jabba asking me (for obvious reasons)

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Regarding selection/commitment

We've all seen how my motivation to sim goes up and down like a yo-yo. When I'm in a mood to sim there's no worse thing than having no lineups to sim with. I certainly get it if someone hasn't been online since their last game/injury update I won't care but if you keep on coming online and not submitting lineups I will care. And I will cry. And I will most likely get so frustrated I'll cbf with simming. And I don't want that. So I do ask that people submit lineups ASAP. I'll start simming rounds at the latest 24 hrs after the injury update and the latest I'll bother with a lineup is 48 hrs after the injury update. If you're going to be away let me know and I/someone else will submit on your behalf.

Injuries will be regular and they'll be brutal - hence each lineup will require a little bit of time and consideration as you'll likely be forced into a change each week. 'unchanged' won't cop it anymore. I'll be lenient on naming injured players at the start of the season (but I won't wait for you to correct it, if I go to sim and it's not corrected I'll make a judgement call on your behalf, sorry not sorry) but the whole thing requires a bit of care. If people start naming shitty lineups without much care and just seem to be submitting for the sake of it and not caring about how their team goes I'm not going to persist; I'll try and find someone else.

I intend to sim regularly and as such it'd be great if everyone tried to ensure they submitted their next lineup when they come online after the injury update if there's time. I don't like waiting on people. If you miss a deadline I'll be nice at first, then I'll deduct points, then I'll deduct picks, then I'll replace you if you still cbf. And I won't wait on you, I'll submit on your behalf.

Sorry that's just a nerve for me. Thought I'd be upfront with it. I'm putting a lot of time and effort into this and what makes it worthwhile is when others enjoy it even a little.


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Retentions
- See above poll

We've each got 34 players on our squads. Just curious as to how we wanted retentions to work when it comes to the time.

Specifically

- How many retentions do we get?
- Do we set any limits to retention?
- How do we allocate drafted kids/blokes from our pre season into the retention draft pool?
- Do traded blokes keep their 'drafted' round for the purposes of retention?

For those not aware, essentially if you retain a bloke it means you keep them on your list without having to put them back in the draft pool. The cost of the retention is the 'round' pick you drafted them with in the last draft they were taken in. I.E. if I wanted to retain Tom Mitchell I'd have to use my 27th round pick on him next time. Likewise Naitanui my 1st.

I don't want it to be a case where 80% of picks in the early rounds are retentions so those who don't retain their early picks have a limited pool to pick from either, so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for that? I was thinking perhaps, say we allow 12 retentions, we make a rule that in any, say, 7 round space, you can't make more than 4 retentions (and you've got to leave 1 of your first three rounds free, or something)

As for PSD kids, we can either allocate them to directly replace the retirees they were picked to replace, i.e. Neale becomes a 19th rounder for me or we can just allocate them as our last picks and bump everyone up in the retention order

As for traded blokes, we'll see situations where blokes have 2, maybe even three blokes in a round. Now, obviously they can only retain one of them and that kind of sucks and disadvantages those who trade; something I don't want as I like the idea of trading. Perhaps we could give each team a 'retention order' where we list their 34 in the order they were drafted in, and then allocate each to a round. That way everyone is a retention prospect while it shouldn't change rounds that much.

I'll make the poll multiple choice, would be great if you can answer the questions about retention

Would also like everyone participating to post something in reply just so I know you've read it (so nobody complains when I'm a grumpy cunt or claim they didn't know x or y was happening)

And yep, I just typed 2000 words on CPL AFL administrative stuff. And it only took me half an hour. If only my uni assignments had that good a typing rate.

xoxo

 

Haha don't worry mate, I don't think you're tanking.

When you're guaranteed to finish last it doesn't matter what side you put out as you'll get the same result :troll:

 

Yeah he should be a handy 18-20 touch a game player or 10-15 touch player who tags his opponent out of it. I'll have a look at it.

 

Yep. I picked up on it earlier and tried to fix it but he was still underdone. Still working on it.

Given youre not a participant I don't know why you'd need one.

 

Probably because Minson isn't that good.

 

Yeah I'm looking into Beams. Can't find the cause of it yet but I'll get there.

 

I'm really hesistant with having so few retentions purely as it allows those who fucked up a fresher slate while those who drafted well get less of an advantage but more because it really de-incentivises going down the youth path and I think it's important for the balance of the comp that we do have teams going that way. CPL cricket are doing 6/18 iirc so 1/3 for us is about 11. I reckon 8-11 is fair personally.