Gustav

For the week ending 10/18: 1. Gorlab keeps reading our press conferences for some reason. Give him a shout-out or a personal message here. 2. Things are looking a little bit more stable sims-wise, as we've managed to win a few here and there after a bit of a change in the lines. Is this something we should be excited about now, or are we at the point where we should just hope for some good playoff luck? 3. What did you think about the VHL when you first joined? Is your outlook on the league any different now? 4. This past week saw a huge wave of new recruits. Is the league now full enough that we'll have to think about expanding again, or is it best to wait a while and see how these players affect the VHL when they move up? 5. Last week was theme week, where we talked about dream teams! If you could play with any one other player in the league, current or former, who would it be? 6. Do you have any particular style? What sort of clothes do you usually wear? @BlueMaple @Jer_Lefebvre @Sonnet @McWolf @Velevra @turkey2349 @David O'Quinn @Ahma @Josh @PadStack @Rayzor_7@studentized

Claiming week 2

I thought Houston already had two goalers.

Also stop voting for yourself as soon as a couple people vote for you, people. It doesn't count and it's never in your team's best interest for you to die just so you can prove some stupid point.

This is an interesting idea and not one I'm necessarily against. The EFL and SBA (other sim leagues for different sports) use something similar to this for their development-league system and it definitely has its benefits. Without writing an essay on the specifics, we haven't adopted that system for our own reasons--but that isn't one of them. Every player needing to sign with a team rather than be drafted would solve a lot of tanking/stacking issues (though it's worth noting that it can also turn VHLM GMing into a "who's most active and online staring at the forum the most" contest). Overall this isn't something I'd hate seeing tested. There are multiple guides to earning around the forum. This one is the one I like to link people to because I feel that it does a good job explaining the system to people who aren't familiar with it. I do agree that the placement of these things needs to be more obvious, though. I never would have found that article myself as a new member. I'm glad to see you're getting a good start in the league, and I hope you keep it up!

@Dil has been banned for creating a multi.

An offensive battle right here folks

Immediately my first thought smh

I guess so, I'd still like to see some level of management strategy present. Basically, I feel like VHLM GMs should still be allowed to do what they'd like with their team, but the policies in place at the moment are too loose and allow for a lot of abuse of the system. I kind of see this as a hyper-egalitarian policy where, while it's going to be hard to stack up a team (which is good), it's also kind of pointless as a GM to do much of anything other than be good for retention. The league should be retention-first, while this seems a bit too retention-only. Of course, if it ideally did turn into "the GMs who are best at retention end up having the best teams," then that would be great. I see the effects of this as fairly marginal, though, and I question whether something like this--which would bore the GMs--would go farther down the ladder and end up boring the players when every team is just about the same.

I could still see a meta emerging from this. Think "I'll give you a lower-TPE player who will stay under cap for you next season for your capped guy this season"

It could just be as simple as making the "welcome" post more informative. This explains the technical details of player creation, but that's it. There's nothing in there about earning and people being clueless might not be as much of an issue if they had info directly presented (or at least directly linked) in the very first post they're pinged in.

What about a sort of one-time trivia thing where new people can take a quiz on how things work with easy questions ("What's the most uncapped TPE you can earn in a week," "How many teams are there in the VHLM," stuff like that) and get a small amount of TPE based on correct answers? You'd have to complete it while still in the VHLM with your first player, and someone would have to monitor it every week and make a payout post, but it could definitely work and serve some informational purpose. If this were on Google Forms, too, they'd be able to see correct answers upon completion.

I hate how I saw this on the front page of the forum and my very first thought was "nope this is just Bana bumping the thread again".

I'm not sure either of these sounds like the best idea. On one hand, you've got a situation that, while it incentivizes a team to go out and get players, also directly leads to active players being benched in favor of bot players. On the other hand, you've got something that's far too authoritarian for the tastes of most (including myself, the guy who just wrote the "VHLM needs more restrictions" article). Ideally, whatever policies are put into place will make teams want to take on new players in the sense that they make waiver signings more valuable and more part of a team's actual strategy to succeed and less in the sense that "if I don't make an offer here, I might get punished, so now I have to even though I don't care about the player".

And this is fine. I don't think it's as much of a problem for bad teams as it is for good ones. I've seen many good teams (not necessarily S69 SSK) just stop offering on new players when they did have roster space, presumably because they didn't want to take someone on who was lower-TPE. Of course that makes sense for the GMs from a winning perspective, and I'd even argue that that isn't an issue so much as the fact that that's currently tolerated (not officially but in the sense that punishment is much more rare than the transgression). At the moment I feel that it's impossible to run even a moderately successful VHLM team without abusing the system in some way that it should never be meant to be used. Just about everyone who has been a VHLM GM in recent memory (myself included) is guilty of something mentioned here to some extent. Whether or not there's any sort of malicious intent is a different question entirely--it's just the way the league happens to work right now and the rules have to change before management strategies ever will.

...the VHLM has a problem. I'm not applying to be VHLM commish for some real-life reasons (running drafts isn't something I could ever guarantee I'd be there for with my current schedule, and I'm in the busiest semester I've had yet with probably at least a couple more at this level to come), but that doesn't mean I don't have my ideas. And they're strongly-held enough that I figured I'd get them out there before news of the next hire broke so I don't look like I'm saying "hey, [REDACTED], here's what you should be doing with your job now that you've got it." These are just my own opinions on how things should be run. I don't even have a reason to write this up this week (well, I do--hello EFL affiliate check!) but it's probably the best time to do it and it's something I feel I need to get out there as there is, and always has been, a lot happening that ideally should never happen in a league that claims to be retention-first. The VHLM is only a very loose draft pick limit away from going full ancap. Debate all you want about real-life politics, but in this specific situation that is positively not a good thing. Let's get on with the Ninety-Five Theses airing of grievances personal vendetta explanation. There's a problem with inactive players. All too often, a team will end up with a player at a high TPE level who isn't earning and/or just isn't even active. These players will, again, all too often end up sucking in huge amounts of ice time and putting up big numbers, season after season, until eventually their contract expires, or they come back around in the offseason to sign a contract and then just straight-up disappear for the next two months, taking time away from the new guys so the GM can feel better about themselves. This happens way too often to be ignored, and it's clear that a loose "if you're found to be using inactives over actives, you'll be punished" rule isn't cutting it (Minnesota got in trouble for this just this season--it was the first time I've ever seen that happen, and they're hardly the only guilty party). So, what I'm suggesting is this: Any player with 150 TPE or greater, who has not updated in the past four weeks, will be removed from their team at the start of a season. But, Gustav, this can be circumvented! GMs can have someone slow their earning and only claim practice facility every week once they hit 200, or get them on to claim it once three weeks before the cutoff every season! Too bad! There's a reasonable response to that. Any GM found to be circumventing this rule should be punished accordingly. Player audits should be done every offseason to ensure that "active" players are earning consistently. AND No player may spend more than four seasons in the VHLM. Have you been down for four seasons? Are you active? Cool, you get moved up to the VHL. You should have a respectable amount of TPE by that point--and, in fact, no consistent earner will be down for any longer than this (no consistent earner will be down for any longer than three, but I'm willing to give the player the benefit of the doubt). There's a serious boom-and-bust cycle that's directly hurting recruitment and retention. Do you have picks? Cool, you compete. Do you not have picks? You sell everything you've got and hope for the best return. On top of this leading to some seriously messed-up standings every season, there's also a direct incentive to NOT offer to new players. Teams at the top of the standings don't want to bring in newer, lower-TPE players who they're theoretically obligated to put on the ice, and teams at the bottom don't want to accidentally get better and tank their draft position. I've got a bit of a two-pronged solution to this one. Reduce the pick limit. Right now, VHLM teams are limited to three first-round and three second-round picks in each draft. Take this down to two each. This makes it more difficult to stack up a team by buying, and it also makes it more difficult to stack up picks by tanking. Sure, there can be some parity every season, and there will be a meta if this is the only change, but it won't be as extreme. Change the waiver system. Every season, there are players who create and then proceed to see not even a single offer. There are always one or two teams who fill up their waiver spots right away--and that's great. There are also a few teams who don't offer to anyone, whether they're at the top and claiming they're "full" (while usually playing high-TPE inactives) or at the bottom and quietly hoping for some luck in the draft lottery. This leads to a few situations where, often later on in the season, players will create and go unsigned. One player going unsigned is too many. So, here's what I'd like to suggest. Make the waiver limit larger, or even eliminate it entirely. There is no reason why a GM who has done a great job bringing in players should effectively be told that they can't continue to do a great job bringing in players. This can even make the standings more interesting as this might make it possible for a lower-level or mid-level team to climb above where they were at the start of the season. OR If, after 24 hours, a player has received no signing offers, they will be automatically assigned to the team with the lowest number of waiver signings, assuming said team has room on their roster. If there are multiple teams with the same number of signings, the team who gets said player will be picked from those teams at random. This, surprisingly, hasn't been much of an issue this season, even with the latest recruitment drive, but I can see teams, post-deadline, saying "no, I don't want to offer to this player because they're 30 TPE" and watching them get bored after receiving zero offers and quit. Oh, and also, if the team in question has no room on their roster by virtue of making use of inactive players, inactives will be removed to make room by commissioner discretion. Are you high up in the standings and getting assigned 30-TPE players and having your 200-TPE inactives cut after the deadline because you failed to sign anyone before then? Too bad, maybe you should have been less selfish early on in the season. Commissioners should also run random checks on ice time for low-TPE active players, to ensure that they're getting a reasonable amount of it. Again, the VHLM is meant to be retention-first. The VHLM claims to be retention-first. The problem with that is that the VHLM is not retention-first. It's time to make it that way. prepares for thread to blow up

The jury is still very much out on that one; to the best of my knowledge it's like leadership. It might have some slight effect, but in all likelihood it's not a significant one. It's tricky to measure because in general more experience means you've been in the league longer, which also means you've had more time to upgrade your player and you've got more TPE overall.

I don't need the TPE from this because Davos press conference, but feel free to ask me whatever you'd like and I'll answer!

Go right ahead! I haven't started that one so you can take it.

For the week ending 10/11: 1. You catch former player Jet Jaguar burning incense and performing some sort of ritual to try to make the team better. The locker room now has an overwhelming essential-oil smell. What's your go-to scent to make things more tolerable? 2. All jokes aside, what's the root of our problems in the sims lately? Things haven't been going so hot. 3. @Beketov has a stroke one day and wakes up saying we need to bring back Project Player Two. Do you make a second player? If so, what would your plans be for them? 4. What's your favorite logo in either league, VHL or VHLM? 5. If you could have any real-life job (or field of study) in the world other than your current one, what would it be? If you're not yet at career-finding age, what job would you like to have in the future? 6. Which player on our team is most likely to win in a fight? Who's most likely to lose? @BlueMaple @Jer_Lefebvre @Sonnet @McWolf @Velevra @turkey2349 @David O'Quinn @Ahma @Josh @PadStack @Rayzor_7@studentized

Let's get it Team Asia

Hey teams INCLUDING Halifax and Chicago. I don't know why I remembered HFX and not Ottawa though.

Using this post to claim my theme week bonus.