Branching off from the main proposal, and after a fairly unrelated discussion with my Yukon Rush peeps ( @Tixe @Dangles13 @Digg ), I came to this realisation:
Second players addresses a key issue in not having enough to do during the week but the people most affected by that issue (new members) won't actually feel the benefits until it may be too late.
Because of the 3-season restriction, which I do believe is necessary, if we implemented this right now (which we won't, don't worry), S50 and even S49 draftees would have to wait until S51/52 at the earliest to create another player. Which isn't that long but still altogether adds up to approaching half a year IRL.
So, my suggestion to address this: give new members the option of creating a second player soon after joining. The caveat: this player would start with lower attributes (I'm thinking as low as 20), maybe even with some sort of update scale from 30 to 40, and maybe a limit on how much TPE can be spent on that player. In the end, that player will still join the S53 draft class (for an S50 draftee), but will have been in existence for a bit longer.
A few resulting issues:
1. Where will these players play before they become equivalents of normal players? - I say still the VHLM.
2. What about carryover? - Yeah so obviously this will give these players extra TPE due to the earlier start but I don't really care - if they break some TPE record, good for them, it's still be a challenge, and well I feel it's a minor hand-out really for new members who start at a disadvantaged position anyway.
3. Should there be an attribute cap? - I think it'd be silly to allow someone to just put all TPE in scoring and then become draft-eligible with 99 scoring in the VHLM. One solution is instituting an update scale between 20 and 40, while I'd also say these players should be encouraged to get to 40 in all attributes before starting to max out the others. *
* - speaking of 40, any attributes still below 40 at the day of actual draft eligibility (in this hypothetical scenario it would be S52 trade deadline), would be bumped up to 40 anyway to regain equal footing.
Not the best worded idea possibly with some work to do, but IMHO it has legs.
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