S79 Deadline Suggestion Drive

[Berocka 2,263]

1. Improve the VHFL to include a non-draft based version 

2. Include an initiative for creation of jobs. I.E. if someone starts something cool like the Store that Sonnett did then that can be turned into a TPE job if people like it. It could hopefully spur on creativity and people trying to change the league themselves and stop asking someone to do it for them.

3. Add 2+ ideas to each theme week that way it adds more variety

[Beketov 9,095]

58 minutes ago, Berocka said:

Include an initiative for creation of jobs. I.E. if someone starts something cool like the Store that Sonnett did then that can be turned into a TPE job if people like it. It could hopefully spur on creativity and people trying to change the league themselves and stop asking someone to do it for them.

I don’t think we really need initiative for it, people are more than welcome to do something and if it blows up and deserves pay we’ll gladly pay them. Look at how VSN started. I think it’s mostly making it clear that the expectation shouldn’t be someone else has to do everything for you or that every single thing needs to be paid from day 1. If you want to do something, do it. We’ll let you know if it’s a problem.

 

1 hour ago, Berocka said:

Add 2+ ideas to each theme week that way it adds more variety

Jesus we have a hard enough time coming up with 1 haha 

[BarzalGoat 728]

1 hour ago, Berocka said:

1. Improve the VHFL to include a non-draft based version 

2. Include an initiative for creation of jobs. I.E. if someone starts something cool like the Store that Sonnett did then that can be turned into a TPE job if people like it. It could hopefully spur on creativity and people trying to change the league themselves and stop asking someone to do it for them.

3. Add 2+ ideas to each theme week that way it adds more variety

Re: 1 a salary cap based “armchair gm” for VHFL would be awesome. Could give like X points to spend and each TPE bracket is worth Y points used …..

[samx 1,175]

1. More friendly competitions. like the banner contest after every season. Have some other ones in different areas as well. They are fun to have but not everyone can make graphics well. so some more diverse competitions would be cool.

 

2. Possibly use a different sim engine? sths can be very unrealistic and it gets frustrating when you should be doing really well and you are not.

 

3. During offseason when new players create I notice that most don't stick because they are having to wait to join a team and be taught how to properly play etc and then they just never get active. So some sort of way to be able help them get aquainted with the leauge during off season to hopefully keep those players active and around 

[Trunkxolotl 180]

So I'm not sure if I've seen it here, but the two idea's I've been stewing on are.

 

1. More ways to obtain TPE. Having to rely on coming up with a new writing topic or graphic every week is causing me some serious creativity burnout. Some other option to fill that 6 TPE void I think would help with the site interations

 

2. An official VHL App. People spend a ridiculous amount of time on their phones. This could help improve engagement, even open up new ways to to earn TPE, and expand on our players!

 

3. One small change I would like to see is honestly just to the site. Having the portal essentially separate from the base site seems just like extra steps to navigate between the two. If someone could navigate the forums from the same place they update their player, I think it could help improve user interactions.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Trunkxolotl
Forgot to add the third one.

[Beketov 9,095]

49 minutes ago, Trunkxolotl said:

2. An official VHL App. People spend a ridiculous amount of time on their phones. This could help improve engagement, even open up new ways to to earn TPE, and expand on our players!

This exists on Android and has for awhile. We're currently in the development stage for a re-design that will bring it to iOS as well. @Dil would have more details.

 

50 minutes ago, Trunkxolotl said:

3. One small change I would like to see is honestly just to the site. Having the portal essentially separate from the base site seems just like extra steps to navigate between the two. If someone could navigate the forums from the same place they update their player, I think it could help improve user interactions.

This has long been a want but the devs have told me it's a hell of a lot harder than it sounds like. Essentially the portal's language and the forum's language don't like each other so combining them would basically involve creating our own forum setup from the ground up or figuring out a way to make the portal function within IPB. Neither is particularly easy.

[leafsman 207]

1). Make salaries matter somehow.  I'm now on my third player and have always taken minimum salary as rather have a better team as I could still have enough cash for depreciation fighter. I have no idea how to do this other than more options in the player store.

 

2) Player builds are very similar but that seems like a sim issue.  All players have very similar builds due to how the sim works.  Seems stupid that passing makes a forward less successful.  I don't know what other sims are like for this type of league but would be great if there were more attributes to make diverse players.

 

3) A mock draft like event like PBE does where you make predictions on over under things such as and number of players at certain position drafted in top round.  Get a certain number of TPE per correct answer.  Might make draft more interesting for those not involved in it.

[mattyIceman 1,229]

1. It feels like theres alot of deadpace when looking at stats on the player page and more categories for the leaderboards.  You can easily add average ice time and faceoff % for players, shootout stats for goalies or something.

 

2. Bounties.  There could be a paid position to find and group the top weekly articles and graphics or a  combination of the two.  The people could work for vsn for a bit of job pay or something.  The selected content could get a 1 uncapped tpe twice per season limit or whatever.  Post that up every week on the portal as top weekly news.

 

3.  Maybe some color on the portal and forum.  Very plain and not too appealing.  Add colors or templates.

Edited August 21, 2021 by MattyIce

[Spartan 4,530]

I'm replying very late to this so I doubt that anything I say will be novel.

 

1. More recognition for content created on site. Say 1 uncapped TPE for a PT that was considered the "best" that week. Updaters get eyes on all PT's, so some sort of voting system by them might work, and it'd get general members more intrigued to complete PT's and potentially get the recognition.

 

2. Get rid of trivia. It's not a thought provoking mPT for 99% of the league. There are like 3-4 people who actually do it every week and then the rest of the league passes those answers around. People can still do reviews for the other 2 tpe, but then we could add a Twitter option, where 3 tweets in a week equate to 2 TPE if they mention the VHL. Get more engaged on social media as other leagues do, and we could potentially expand our growth in a new area.

 

3. Add one or two more games/fantasy options, like a weekly fantasy lineup. Users can draft a weekly lineup of 3 F, 2 D, 1 G *on the forums, no google forms*, and the top 3 could get some uncapped TPE. 

 

Overall, I've probably suggested too much uncapped TPE. But, if we can slightly lower the amount given out by our existing games, maybe we can avoid inflating beyond what we deem necessary.

[Dil 1,760]

2 hours ago, Spartan said:

et rid of trivia. It's not a thought provoking mPT for 99% of the league. There are like 3-4 people who actually do it every week and then the rest of the league passes those answers around

Trivia should be added the portal, with the Trivia Head adding new questions to a pool of questions weekly (or whenever they have time/want to). If someone wants to do trivia, they can go to it on the portal, get two random questions from the pool that week, submit, and get automatically graded + given the TPE

[Beketov 9,095]

The people in charge need TPE too so I might as well make some of these myself, even if I'm one of the ones in charge of making it happen.

 

1. Other people have talked about it and @bigAL touched on it but: More community driven projects. I'm getting a sense from reading through these that people want events and more content on the site and such and that's all great and admirable. What I want to see done with it is the community take charge on things. By all means us blues can help where it's needed but on the whole you don't need us to set something up and you don't need TPE payment for everything that adds enjoyment to the league. So many things over the years have become paid positions later based on sheer amount of involvement from the community, the most recent of which I think is the VSN which did not start as a sanctioned position at all, people just started doing it and then the league gave it the "stamp of approval" later. So if you want to see something done, go do it! If we take issue with it we'll let you know but in all likelihood it'll be totally fine.

 

2. Something @Dil touched on above: I'd like to see Trivia moved to the portal. It will come as no surprise to anyone that I hate the idea of answer sharing and the fact that it's basically 2 TPE to copy answers from one of a few people. Moving it to the portal would not only make the job easier for the Trivia head but would also mean that questions could be randomized, making it much harder for people to just share answers. I don't mind people helping each other find the answers but the point of trivia is to engage newer members in the history of the league that they weren't here to experience. You aren't doing that if you're just copying from someone else.

 

3. More character building, I've got no idea how we'd do this or actually encourage it but it would be cool. Like I'll admit I never went with a "weird" name until Papa and that also meant that I never really embraced a character but I have been enjoying it immensely, especially last season in Yukon where the team really embraced being my nameless ghouls and we all got to have fun with it as a unit. That was more fun than I've had in the VHLM for a long time and really made taking on a new player seem more interesting.

[Seabass 593]

1. I think the league should moderate the league's announcement comments more strictly. One of the things new members first see when they first join the league is the league's most recent announcements. Childish quarrels and drama paints the league in a bad light and can turn away first joiners. 

 

2.  I would to see less of people ganging up on certain members to poke fun of. Kinda why Beavis left the league no? Nobody should be bullied no matter the stupid comments/decisions they've made in the past and I see a lot of that here. Everyone should feel comfortable here, not bullied. I get there's no easy solution to this though. 

 

3. I don't like certain aspects of the portal. Ex: when your looking at team's scoring chart and click on a specific player and go back, you have to reselect the team as it resetted. Or player searches, when you go back it resets and you gotta put in your search parameters all over again)

[Baby Boomer 753]

I really don't know if these ideas were already said by other players, but i think that these would be fun

 

1. Make all-star teams and an all-star game

 

2. Find some new supplemental point task to make each week less repetitive

 

3. Make the attribute mean more, like if your player as a better shot then make him score more goals and so on

[Frank 5,245]

1. I'd like to see a harsher update scale. Way too many players with 99 scoring and similar builds. A harsher update scale might make a player less useful with only 99 scoring. 

 

2. More opportunities for people who make quality GFX. Maybe posters for hall of fame pages or graphics for people to include in their media spots. It would be cool to see members collaborate on point tasks.

 

3. Allow VHL teams to retain salaries up to 50%. Would make for more intriguing off-seasons and deadlines. Also allows rebuilding teams a better chance to get more assets for retiring or expiring players.

[dasboot 521]

I'll preface this with saying I haven't read anything in this thread

 

1. Number one that this league needs is switching up the simming. Whether that's changing sims completely or trying STHS with a different version or with different settings etc. Now on my second player it's already boring as with everyone making the same build and hoping that luck gives them good stats. There's absolutely no incentive to try different builds because GMs know what this version likes and don't want you if your build doesn't match it

 

2. I think that recruiting is down obviously with Beav leaving, so new ways to recruit are always important. The most successful drive has been that YouTube video drive in S75 and now with NHL 22 coming out soon I think we should throw some money at the you tubers that will be first to play the demo of those games. Another big recruitment drive and new blood can bring driven new guys into the league. 

 

3. VHFL needs a complete revamp, whether that be changing the scoring system which has had many articles written about it. But also could use an upgrade, maybe add/drop players during the season, continuous updates to scoring, maybe automatically and a discord bot that can tell you fantasy scores at any given time like SHL does. Also maybe moving the draft so it's automatically done on the portal and could put the scores there as well. It's pretty stale right now doing the draft at the start of the season and then just waiting until the final scores to see if you won TPE. 

[animal74 1,855]

On 8/16/2021 at 7:47 AM, Alex_J32 said:

1. I don't know if has been done in the past but, I do think at least naming all-star teams in all the leagues with at least one player from each team could be a cool way to shine a light on some players who typically won't get the same recognition that the players who are leading the league will.

I really like this!

 

On 8/16/2021 at 7:47 AM, Alex_J32 said:

 

2. I don't know how feasible this is, but set up the portal so that in addition to stats it tracks how many times a player has been 1st, 2nd, or 3rd star in a game over the course of the season.

I like this too! The index does have this information once you show the columns.

[animal74 1,855]

I've been on vacation so I don't know if these have been previously mentioned but here goes:

 

1. Social Media - It's free, it's out there, yes it takes some work to get it to where it may be useful but I think we should be utilizing it way more for advertising, recruitment, etc. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (as mentioned above), whatever.

 

2. Awards - I think some more creativity/more voters/better options for the Slobodzian list is necessary for the league awards to not get stale. When it's possible to get over half your predictions correct it becomes... predictable. Perhaps some tweaking in the award definitions (Boulet, Wylde, etc) and maybe bring back an award like Leadership or Most Gentlemanly. Also, how will awards look like for the VHLE?

 

3. Summer - In the opening post, waning participation in the summer was cited. I just came back from three weeks vacation with little time for Point Tasks and while I had some done ahead, I knew I would lose valuable TPE and it seems to happen every summer (and there's usually a Theme Week then too!) If you don't want to hand out more free TPE, what about allowing one or two banked 6 TPE tasks to be banked sometime during the year for the summer when people are on vacation.  Or allow one increased welfare to be used in July or August. Then people won't get so bummed out about it (like me!). Just a thought.

[ROOKIE745 607]

1. Well I know this is a hockey sim league and all and it should be hockey focused but sometime I can't but wish there was a week where I could talk about something that wasn't hockey but still claim for it. It could be once a season or once every second season where you can make a media spot or just a post and claim for it. I would love to talk about games and movies a bit but writing about hockey always comes first since I can claim for it. Just an idea.

 

2. skimming through the first page on here I did see someone talk about something like this, so to give my own take on it, I wish every team had some sort of system for jersey numbers, where one can claim a number for there player and there can be retired numbers that are kept track of. You could expand this to maybe more silly things like the name on the back having a unique font, or pad/helmet design for those with a more artistic touch.

 

3. I don't know how well this would go over but seeing as everyone gets to claim experience at the end of the season, with playoff teams and finalist getting the most, it's made me thing about the team that don't make it at all. I think none playoff teams should get a small TPE claim called "well rested" that's somewhere between 5-10 TPE, to help the team catch up a little bit faster and get back in the fight.

[Beketov 9,095]

2 hours ago, ROOKIE745 said:

2. skimming through the first page on here I did see someone talk about something like this, so to give my own take on it, I wish every team had some sort of system for jersey numbers, where one can claim a number for there player and there can be retired numbers that are kept track of. You could expand this to maybe more silly things like the name on the back having a unique font, or pad/helmet design for those with a more artistic touch.

I would definitely like them to be more present and more formalized (how we coming on that @Dil) but design wise they are done up somewhat uniquely already, I made sure each team fit a theme but had its own twists as well with the font and design. You can see all the retired numbers Here if you never have.

[bigAL 2,176]

PING - how would you like an update on this?

 

S79 Discussion Drive Discussion

- Some notes on how we're dealing with the information overload, the next steps, and hopeful outcomes from this

 

&

 

VHL SUGGESTS! We're taking the big ideas, focusing them down, and taking them to the next stage.

[Renomitsu 934]

1.  As others have said, I think a tweak to the update scale could make the league a little more interesting. Everyone rushes 99 defense and 99 scoring, then usually hits 90+ puck handling before branching out to checking, passing, etc. This may be difficult to implement, but some build diversity would be nice. Heck, you could even make scoring twice as expensive as the other attributes and still have plenty of people rush it to 99.

 

2. I wrote an article about an idea (that still needs plenty of refining) to help bring a spotlight to different point tasks. There's probably a better way to implement it, but I'd love to see more eyes on the hard work that users put in, be it graphics, podcasts, or media spots.

 

3. I'd love to see some kind of change to the salary cap and/or store options to make free agency as a money-making endeavor worthwhile. Players currently only tend to change teams if they hate their GM or have a horrible timeline mismatch (and even then, you can still win awards collecting garbage-time stats on bad teams). Make it harder to fight regression at the highest level and have a (small) separate salary cap dedicated to attracting free agents, I dunno. I just hate to see maybe one big free agent, if that, per season and a bunch of 500 TPE inactives taking up the FA pool.

[diacope 1,696]

Little late to the party but I know I can think of suggestions.. Just not sure if any of them were said yet. Oh well here they are!

 

1. When I first joined I liked the idea of having shorter seasons and I know when the VHLE arrives we should have one more but I think raising it to at least 10, maybe 12 if it's not crazy, that would make a little more sense.. specially if the age was utilized because it's just there. Also to go along with that less depreciation percentage or a cheaper option for the players who cant save money and/or store options like equipment.

 

2. Jerseys and numbers should be present on every team and roster. It's super easy and one of my favorite parts about sports. That being said I also want to see player pictures (could be the jersey if not filled).

 

3. Whenever new members sign up you could give them notifications (different than a message or tag to a post) or a pop up guide that directs them to create a player before getting to navigate around. Could also add a quick explanation of the basics before signing to a team, kind of like a tutorial. I know a lot of information is in the welcome message but I think a newer way to help the newer guys at first will go a long way down the road and I'm sure it would be exciting and fresh.. Kind of like the portal. 

 

[Greg Ernest 39]

1. Hire more updaters: It doesnt hurt to have more updaters , this community has so many great members and with kind people that we can trust with this responsibility allowing for updates and TPE to TPA happening faster 

2.Shrink the VHLM : Every season i notice there has been atleast 1 or 2 teams in the the M that are literally not even a team , some without a goalie even ! how can you call them a team when they have 5 UA players 4 F 1 D and no goalies ? this issue needs to fix and balance out the VHLM 

3. More Career PTs : In my experience the most enjoyable content that ive created has always been my Career PTs , the uncapped TPE is also a nice incentive  but for real if there was a Career PT each season i think that would work if we found a way like that !  

[Telkster 550]

1. Bring in a doubles week for vhl.com articles/podcasts/graphics. I would stagger it so it’s not the same as media spot doubles weeks. I think it would encourage use of filling in capped tpe more.

2. Mention at least 3 prospects/young players in a media spot that have no more then half a year of time in the vhl for 3 uncapped tpe? I was thinking this could be a once per season thing too, where it would help newer players feel excited and engaged, and it may get a few people writing more media spots!

3. Some type of official vhl guide for new players. I know there’s guides for tpe, how to spend it. But something that covers everything about the vhl. Small things they could start doing, tips, just something they can read, and then go out after feeling like they know more generally about the community. I would want this guide pushed out to all new players, so there would have to be some sort of agreement to how the guide would look.

[scoop 3,447]

On 8/17/2021 at 1:57 PM, bigAL said:

Groovy Dood still needs to work, so I still need to toss in my ideas. This is AL THE GUY not AL THE BLUE talking, so don't take it as gospel.

 

1. More collaboration: The VHL is work, man. You have homework every single week. But yknow what this class is missing? GROUP WORK. 
- So far, "collaboration" means someone asking me a question and me writing a media spot for them in an "answer". That's not the intent, but 500 words just plop out of me. 

- Working on a project with someone else can be nice. It's lonely doing stuff on your own. Pooling two brains together to come up with ideas, do research, and pump out content makes the process and the result stronger.

- I don't know how claiming would work: maybe 1000 words for a Media Spot for two people to claim? It doesn't have to be "you write 500 and I write 500", if one person does all the stat grabbing and one person does all the writing, *and both agree to share the teeps*, then I say pay em both!

 

2. Committees: I'm sensing a theme.... I think VHL has stagnated because we're more disconnected from each other. Anywhere we can do *actual* VHL stuff together (vs chillin in genchat), the better.

- We have cool suggestions in here like All-Star Games, Social Nights, and other big-scale projects that the Blues just can't pull off alone.

- Why don't you and three friends do it together? 

- I had a convo with someone who said "me and him want to bring back the All-Star Game". Fuck yeah! Team up. Put together a little committee. Meet on voicechat. Get shit done. Make a plan. Use the leadership team as a resource to help you make things happen. Games Night is a huge undertaking to schedule, coordinate, host - don't do it alone!

On your first suggestion: let's get some team point tasks back in here.

 

I love the committees idea. There are so many idea in this thread to try to improve engagement that I don't really think just a single person could accomplish. There are certainly things that I would be willing to help out with, but don't really want to be entirely responsible for.

 

A lot has been said, and I've read through a lot of this thread, so I absolutely know I'm repeating ideas.

 

1) Community Game Nights

Absolutely. There are so many online party games out there we can just play together. When I was active in the PBE, that is really how I integrated myself within the community. That got me to be more active just in general more so than just earning TPE and updating. Let's see some people work on this together to get this going, huh?

 

2) Weekly Recaps/Three Stars

The idea of having weekly stars is what prompted me to start my Weekly Scoop podcast series. I don't know if a podcast is really the best format for it. Maybe just like a weekly newsletter with brief highlights from the week. Three stars, any big trades or announcements that went down, a big rise in the standings from a team. Just the big stuff, maybe some interesting facts. Keep it concise. Not everyone has the time to read every media spot to find the interesting stuff. Make some quick and visually pleasing. I swear we used to have a VHLM Newsletter (maybe we still do), though I think that might have been more of a highlight on earning TPE. I think we should have something for each level, VHL/VHLE/VHLM. Seems like an awful lot for just one or two people to get done. Hmm...

 

3) Trading Cards

I think this is a neat idea. People "buy" packs by posting in a thread. I'd like to see multiple different historical and current sets, so maybe some people want to complete their "New York Legends" collection while others are after the current season's cards. Each week, maybe everyone gets one pack of the current set and one random legacy collection pack. That way I can't just go for a "New York Legends" pack every week. That'll make me have to interact with the people who are getting those packs but aren't necessarily working on that collection. Make set checklists, and a form for people to show off their collections. I love this idea please someone lets make it happen.

 

4) TAG PEOPLE IN THE ARTICLES YOU WRITE ABOUT THEM. Seriously, everyone, TAG PEOPLE. I don't do it enough. People like to read or hear about themselves, that's just the way it is. Obviously that's something that is really on the members of the league to do. Here's a good idea for a theme week: players on teams that are not your own. I engage with my team in my locker room already. And make sure we are telling people to TAG those members who they are writing about. And hell, just so we don't get 10 people writing about how this one player is doing really well or five guys making a graphic for the same prominent member, have the theme week set up like this: you have to claim the subject of your article/graphic/podcast in a thread. Once someone is claimed, no one else can claim that player/member.

 

5) I do like the idea of changing up trivia to where it is portal integrated and people get random questions. It's pointless the way we have it, honestly. Like people have said, it's just a few people giving the answers out to everyone else. You know what would be cool? If we had trivia integrated into the portal, and then also whoever is working on a weekly newsletter include a "Did You Know?" section with a bit of trivia that is directly taken from one of the questions in the trivia question bank.

Edited August 22, 2021 by scoop