A New-ish Members Thoughts on the League

[nurx 914]

With the stir of conversation about the VHLM I thought I would give my opinions on the VHLM. I would like to tell everyone that these are my opinions and I will be giving what I believe would fix these issues. I want to make it clear that I thoroughly enjoy my time in the VHL and I want to help improve the league in any way possible. I will be listing both issues and positives of the league and will be listing them in order of importance.

 

 

Issues

VHLM Player Spread

The most important issue is that there are teams in the league that have very little talent while the top teams have nearly all the talent. This problem is further exaggerated by the fact that teams will trade away many draft picks and some teams will not claim on waivers which further causes those teams to be worse than their counterparts. I believe this is a problem because of how new players want to be a part of a team that has a chance of winning the cup and many new players may not even know who are the strong players when they choose what team to play on when they go on waivers if they want to win the cup. I know this was the situation for me, but I am not complaining because I did want to be on a team that was a long pick for the cup.

Correction

I believe the best way to fix this is to either change how waivers work (making players be automatically assigned) or make it so every team has an automatic message sent when a new player is created. I understand that this may be a difficult thing to do, but I believe that an automatic message from every team would help spread players out further. As for draft picks, I believe that teams should be heavily limited in trading draft picks.

Learning Curve

It is possible that many new members will have a difficult time learning how the league works because if we are honest the wall of text that exists can be quite intimidating. I know that I often find myself asking questions constantly even though I know that the answers could likely be found, but the answers are often hidden under a wall of text. I also think that it could be solved if every team really pushed their discord servers more and each team had a designated “Trainer” “Coach” or really any title that is an experienced player who is there specifically to help the new members of the team because if teams have help internally players may feel more comfortable talking in their locker room because they have already talked to their “Trainer” quite a bit and are already comfortable talking to them.

Correction

I think the best correction for this issue would just be to simplify the introduction for new players. I do not know how you would be able to do this, but I fully believe that the staff could find a way to correct this issue and the videos are a great step to helping.

Hard to Introduce Yourself

In the forums, I have had trouble introducing who I am and having fun just with people in the community. I did not have this problem in locker rooms and discord, so it is possible that it may just be me. I know that the discussions exist, but I didn’t really know how to get started in that when I first started.

Correction

I think the best way to correct this is to really push the Introduce Yourself thread because that is the entry point into learning everyone in the community.

Weird Sim

I know this is a weird complaint, but I think it is a bit weird how simming works. I do not know if there even is any way to change this or even make it slightly more interesting. I just don’t really like how you are looking at box scores. I wish there was a PBE style way to sim like OOTP, but I don’t know if FHM is good at simming because I have never used it.
 

Events

The events when they do happen are a bunch of fun. I very much enjoyed the Halloween event that just concluded. I wish that there was a sort of scavenger hunt that could be done for capped TPE every week.

Correction

I think the best correction for this is just to bring back trivia because from what I have heard is that trivia is fairly similar to the events and could be a ton of fun if it were to be brought back.

 

 

Positives

 

Friendly Community

It is so important that the community is friendly and you guys have really nailed this and this is one of the more welcoming communities I have been a part of. I really appreciate everyone who helped me figure out what I was doing and I am really happy that you guys were as helpful as you were.

 

Easy Navigation

Another important fact is that the forum and the portal are easy to navigate as a new member. Compared to other simulation leagues this league does a very good job of making it incredibly easy to figure out where everything is located.

Helpful Reviews

The people who write reviews are often really helpful for helping us improve our writing/graphics and I am really happy to have you guys here and it is great that the league pushes members to do this. I do wish that those who take reviewing seriously would be given more praise so here is the praise you guys deserve you, unsung heroes!

Conclusion

I think you guys are doing a great job and I want to start a conversation. I really want to hear if people agree or disagree and hope people just come and critize what I am saying because I want to know what everyone thinks. I hope everyone who is new to the league sticks out their time and learns some of the community members because you guys truly are awesome.



Words: 1026 Claiming 11/7, 11/14

Edited November 2, 2021 by FireballSalad

[Beketov 8,946]

11 minutes ago, FireballSalad said:

I just don’t really like how you are looking at box scores. I wish there was a PBE style way to sim like OOTP, but I don’t know if FHM is good at simming because I have never used it.

There’s no way to make STHS more visual as that straight up doesn’t exist and using any other engine would introduce a myriad of other problems that are all worse than slightly boring looking sims.

 

FWIW I also find this is very personal. Some people prefer more flash, some people just want the data. Personally I find that I wouldn’t want to sit through a lengthy sim just because it’s more “visually appealing”, I just want to know who won and what the stats were. That’s just me though, I recognize everyone is different.

[BOOM 8,659]

13 minutes ago, Beketov said:

That’s just me though, I recognize everyone is different.

 

Especially you 

[Beaviss 4,956]

Review: I love reading new peoples perspectives on the league since its one of the most useful things to help more people get into the league. The "new player" perspective is very short and to get that knowledge asap is huge for recruitment or making the website more attractive to new users. I think your ideas are pretty good and hopefully some little tweaks could be made for the new player experience. All in all decent writing and formatting 8/10 Would read again. 

[Red 499]

17 hours ago, FireballSalad said:

but I don’t know if FHM is good at simming because I have never used it

its not

[nurx 914]

20 hours ago, Beketov said:

WIW I also find this is very personal. Some people prefer more flash, some people just want the data. Personally I find that I wouldn’t want to sit through a lengthy sim just because it’s more “visually appealing”, I just want to know who won and what the stats were. That’s just me though, I recognize everyone is different.

Yea this is a bit upsetting, but I also wouldn't want to watch every game maybe just for the "important" games like the playoffs and all that. Also wouldn't want to watch the whole game every single time just maybe like an hour after the sims are dropped. STHS gives all the information of the game, but I do not think there is anyway to turn the actions into actual visual games. 



I also thought following up another point would be interesting where in order to improve user retention maybe rewards use of discord with a capped 1 TPE or something similar that way people are incentivized to actually get into the locker rooms and do it. This TPE would be pretty easy, but the improved activity would help the league. 

[Beketov 8,946]

13 minutes ago, FireballSalad said:

I do not think there is anyway to turn the actions into actual visual games. 

There is not.

 

14 minutes ago, FireballSalad said:

I also thought following up another point would be interesting where in order to improve user retention maybe rewards use of discord with a capped 1 TPE or something similar that way people are incentivized to actually get into the locker rooms and do it. This TPE would be pretty easy, but the improved activity would help the league. 

The issue there is that while obviously discord is important it’s not essential and we have many members who actively choose not to use it, that is completely okay. We can’t disadvantage them for not using a platform they do not enjoy.

[nurx 914]

17 minutes ago, Beketov said:

We can’t disadvantage them for not using a platform they do not enjoy.

But there are already other forms of TPE that exist it would just be replacing other forms of TPE gaining for members who are active in discord. That is why I said it should count as the capped 12 TPE and should be capped at 1 or 2. I don't know how it would mess with balance but it could be a good thing for player retention.

[Beketov 8,946]

1 minute ago, FireballSalad said:

But there are already other forms of TPE that exist it would just be replacing other forms of TPE gaining for members who are active in discord. That is why I said it should count as the capped 12 TPE and should be capped at 1 or 2. I don't know how it would mess with balance but it could be a good thing for player retention.

I’ll flip to the other counter-argument then:

 

1. Practice Facility already acts as our kinda “activity check in”, we really don’t need multiple.

 

2. If it’s locker room based that’s basically impossible for updaters to actually keep track of.

 

Im not wholeheartedly against the attempt, I just don’t think TPE for discord posting is really the way to go. In general whenever we have tried to promote posting by paying TPE for it we have found that it just results in mostly spam.

[nurx 914]

Claiming week ending 11/14