VHL Community: How Do We Keep People Interested in the League?

[fromtheinside 1,290]

Hello VHL community, today I am here to try and gather some thoughts and opinions from as many people as possible. Lately there's been a fair amount of discussion about retention in the VHL as a whole. Over the weekend I was going through all the rosters in the VHL main league, and I was alarmed at how thin the rosters look compared to recent seasons. Not only the lack of depth in pure numbers of players, but also the lack of high-end talent that you would expect to see at the top level. VHL management has been scraping to find whatever low-end inactive players they can find just to get second lines done for their rosters. This was a cause for concern to me. My reaction to this was to take to Discord and ask some VHL management about what the problems may be and how we can go about fixing them. 

 

I was on record for saying I thought a lot of new players had been slipping through the cracks and going inactive/only claiming welfare and practice facility and it seems like so many of these first gens aren't even making it to the VHL now. Whether it be in the M or eventually in the E, we just aren't keeping people around long enough to get their player to the end game (not even "end game" per se,  but to the final level of competition). So why is this happening? That's the million dollar question. Is it a problem with management at the lower levels? Are GMs and AGMs in the M and E not doing enough to keep their players interested in their teams? Additionally, what are the locker rooms like in most of these places? While an active LR isn't everything, it certainly does help keep people involved when you have comrades to chat with every day. 

 

I recently had reached out to a new first gen that had signed up just before the VHLM Dispersal Draft. I've spend multiple hours with them trying to guide them through the basics of getting started with your first player. He has gotten off to a great start and definitely has gotten the hang of what to do now. I reached out to him the other day and he said that as a new user, the starting experience is awfully confusing. I completely agree with them. There is SO MUCH to learn for someone who hasn't done this before. It's A LOT. How much of the issue overlaying issue is related to this. How many new users come into the league and aren't getting the help they need, then give up since they are lost? Yes we have written guides, and yes there's links to find the information you need, but it's still a big hassle, and one that a lot of teenagers (which is a big part of our demographic these days)  won't go through. I think something we have already discussed in the BoG is a beginner's video to simplify the experience for a new user.

 

So I've covered that maybe the management could do more, the league needs to do more and help new users, but this is where I will pose my question to the community. While talking on the weekend, @Acydburn (VHLE Commissioner) stated we need new ideas to solve this problem, and I agree with him. I ask you VHL community, what are some new ideas that we could implement to keep users engaged and interested. I personally feel like there just isn't enough content to keep a lot of these new-age users interested in the league. Sure when you come in and get to pick your team in the M it's fun. And getting drafted is a cool process. But when you down to the grind of just checking your personal results and your team's results, it can get monotonous. The current system works for me, and many others, but I feel like we need something more, something new. I'd love to hear ideas from the community and see what we can come up with!

[DrunkMonkey23 51]

As a new player (s82 was my 1st season), it was a bit of a challenge to get started in here at first but i ended up investing quite some times in my player development. Altough, i had a lot of help from the past Philly management (@Alex @Masu Chan up until the draft where i had to do more stuff on my own. Being currently close to 240 tpe i have not since been told where i would play the upcoming season and i was drafted 24th in the E and 18th in the VHL. This is kind of a pickle so i endend up not being that active on any dicord server since the draft in comparison to when i was playing with the Reapers.

 

With all being said its a nice article and i hope my comment will help in a way. Hit me up in private if you have specific questions @fromtheinside i will be happy to bring some help to keep more players or to bring some new. 8/10

[Alex 3,207]

15 minutes ago, DrunkMonkey23 said:

As a new player (s82 was my 1st season), it was a bit of a challenge to get started in here at first but i ended up investing quite some times in my player development. Altough, i had a lot of help from the past Philly management (@Alex @Masu Chan up until the draft where i had to do more stuff on my own. Being currently close to 240 tpe i have not since been told where i would play the upcoming season and i was drafted 24th in the E and 18th in the VHL. This is kind of a pickle so i endend up not being that active on any dicord server since the draft in comparison to when i was playing with the Reapers.

 

With all being said its a nice article and i hope my comment will help in a way. Hit me up in private if you have specific questions @fromtheinside i will be happy to bring some help to keep more players or to bring some new. 8/10

Because of your TPA, you'll be playing in the VHLE this season. With the rate you typically earn at you'll be in the VHL the season after this one.

[der meister 3,197]

Get rid of discord. The site looks like a ghost town. #agendaz

[fromtheinside 1,290]

24 minutes ago, DrunkMonkey23 said:

As a new player (s82 was my 1st season), it was a bit of a challenge to get started in here at first but i ended up investing quite some times in my player development. Altough, i had a lot of help from the past Philly management (@Alex @Masu Chan up until the draft where i had to do more stuff on my own. Being currently close to 240 tpe i have not since been told where i would play the upcoming season and i was drafted 24th in the E and 18th in the VHL. This is kind of a pickle so i endend up not being that active on any dicord server since the draft in comparison to when i was playing with the Reapers.

 

With all being said its a nice article and i hope my comment will help in a way. Hit me up in private if you have specific questions @fromtheinside i will be happy to bring some help to keep more players or to bring some new. 8/10

 

This is exactly the type of thing that worries me. The E has made for a lot of extra confusion/ figuring out for both users and management alike. 

 

But to elaborate on what Alex told you, this is what the breakdown is for TPE:

 

VHLM 0-200

VHLE 201-400

VHL: 401+

 

But also the "TPE Cap Floor" for players to get into the VHL is set at 350. So if you are on an E roster and at 350 or higher, your VHL GM is allowed to call you up if they so choose.

[BOOM 8,759]

2 hours ago, fromtheinside said:

recently had reached out to a new first gen that had signed up just before the VHLM Dispersal Draft. I've spend multiple hours with them trying to guide them through the basics of getting started with your first player. He has gotten off to a great start and definitely has gotten the hang of what to do now.

 

Yes. Thank you so much for helping me. I think I will be OK now. 

[BOOM 8,759]

Did we used to have dedicated mentoring for new users? I think I have early onset dementia so can't quite remember. 

[MubbleFubbles 1,290]

2 hours ago, fromtheinside said:

I think something we have already discussed in the BoG is a beginner's video to simplify the experience for a new user.

I've actually been in the process of making something similar to that for our VHLM players atm. It'd have way more editing than my original tutorial as well, so it'll look cooler!

 

I'll have a think about ideas for the other stuff, but it seems to be a recurring thing that newer members are confused by the E, particularly ones who are drafted to the E despite not playing there. I don't know if the solution to that is just having players enter the E draft in the off-season they enter with over 200 TPE rather than the same time as their VHL Draft or something else.

[der meister 3,197]

2 hours ago, fromtheinside said:

 

This is exactly the type of thing that worries me. The E has made for a lot of extra confusion/ figuring out for both users and management alike. 

 

But to elaborate on what Alex told you, this is what the breakdown is for TPE:

 

VHLM 0-200

VHLE 201-400

VHL: 401+

 

But also the "TPE Cap Floor" for players to get into the VHL is set at 350. So if you are on an E roster and at 350 or higher, your VHL GM is allowed to call you up if they so choose.

 

I was unaware of the VHLE thresholds. I guess I'm ready for the VHLE already

 

[atw2592 286]

Reviewing: I think it takes a special person to succeed in sim leagues. Being a 29-year-old and a father, I don't have as much of the free time as I used to, but I know how to carve it out of my day in order to improve my player. A new person joining is less likely to take that time when they understand they have to take that time to improve their player. I don't know what the solution is, but your article brought up a lot of good points, but I think it boils down to the fact that a lot of people don't want to waste time doing this. Which can't be solved. 10/10

[v.2 1,406]

VHLM "Battle Pass" formula is the answer.

 

Oh and please get rid of the E.  Its beginning to prove its implementation has been a mess, and VHL rosters are starting to feel it.  Not to mention it makes things extra confusing for new members.

Edited February 1, 2022 by v.2

[Gustav 6,430]

I hate the VHLE with a burning passion and agree that it's awful for retention (as well as being a big contributor to recent number inflation...that's not entirely meta) but whenever I say so someone tells me I'm "uninformed" or "just want to complain" or something even though I helped create the damn thing and I like to think I'm pretty informed about it

 

What? Did someone hear something?

 

VHLE complaints aside, I think we spend WAY too much time trying to figure out the millionth different way to get in a new member's face right out of the gate--and then as soon as that new member leaves the VHLM, we forget about them because they no longer matter. We have pretty darn good VHLM retention already--sure, it can be worked on, and there's nothing wrong with coming up with more ideas for it, but when someone says "retention" we all immediately assume we're talking about VHLM retention, when people on all levels should focus on keeping their players interested and involved.

 

Part of the reason why the E sucks so much is that players move up from the VHLM, enter a mostly-inactive team, find no one to talk to, and become inactive themselves. And since, well, forever, VHL locker rooms have generally been less active than VHLM ones (there's nothing that can be done to completely eliminate this because a steady stream of new creates will speak more often and ask more questions than a handful of people who have been on the team forever). But there also aren't retention efforts in the higher leagues. No one ever cared how well I was retaining my players in the VHL, because if someone went inactive it was just seen as my problem. But I also saw so many people being called out in VHLM GM chat in my time there over the most minor things--supposedly not being active enough, running lines in a way another GM didn't like, signing players before another GM got a chance to offer (like you're supposed to just hand the player over?)--that I'd say the VHLM is practically overloaded with the "you must retain players and do literally nothing else" mindset.

 

I think it's a mistake to try to mandate retention. And I believe that to enough of an extent that I've been against some VHLM efforts to do so. The single greatest contributor to retention, on any level, is just having people who care. No, VHLE GMs shouldn't be screamed at for having inactive locker rooms. But it would be nice if a VHLE GM did all they could to check in daily, even if it's only with one or two people, and make an effort to be there for their players (if you're doing this already, thank you). VHL GMs should be doing the same.

 

My VHLM locker room was seen as one of the best servers in the league when I was there, but I'm nothing special. I'm in my fourth year of college and I only have a few people I'm friends with, who I've hung out with only a few times. I'm hardly Mr. Social, and I'd bet most people in this league have a better understanding of how to make conversation than I do. But (though I don't take full credit for it) I tried to be there and I tried to talk to everyone every day, even when I didn't feel like it. I stopped doing this as much in my last few Davos seasons, and the server got less active with me. I don't think I was singlehandedly driving Discord activity for entire teams at any point, but too many people underestimate the impact of a GM who actually cares about the people they're GMing. That will ALWAYS be the primary factor in retention and activity on any team.

 

The hard thing about that is that it's impossible to make an issue of policy. Activity, or a lack thereof, and the extent to which said lack thereof is a GM's fault, is entirely subjective. I think GMs should just take responsibility for and be mindful of their own actions and efforts to keep a team active, attempt to improve, and know when to walk away when things aren't working out. This isn't something that can be enforced, but it can certainly be considered, and I hope it is.

[DrunkMonkey23 51]

6 hours ago, fromtheinside said:

 

VHLM 0-200

VHLE 201-400

VHL: 401+

 

But also the "TPE Cap Floor" for players to get into the VHL is set at 350. So if you are on an E roster and at 350 or higher, your VHL GM is allowed to call you up if they so choose.

Thanks that's something that wasn't really clear. 

[fromtheinside 1,290]

3 hours ago, GustavMattias said:

Part of the reason why the E sucks so much is that players move up from the VHLM, enter a mostly-inactive team, find no one to talk to, and become inactive themselves

 

THIS

 

That's a major concern of mine and I think is something that is definitely part of the problem overall.  Thanks for your thoughtful response Gus, cheers bud!

[Shindigs 1,771]

2 hours ago, fromtheinside said:

 

THIS

 

That's a major concern of mine and I think is something that is definitely part of the problem overall.  Thanks for your thoughtful response Gus, cheers bud!

Yeah, it's hard. People who know me are pretty aware of how active I am in LRs and how much I try and drive activity. But when it comes to LR activity. You need to hit "critical mass". You can have the biggest chatter box on the planet as your GM or AGM. But it takes a group of people to make a LR flow. So if you don't have enough people to go back and forth with, you just can't build up the steam to actually have sustained activity. But once you do, people who normally wouldn't talk in the LR, will suddenly start to do so from time to time. Because it's a lot easier to join a discussion, than it is to start one.

 

I can't speak for all E LRs. But actually hitting that critical mass is very hard to do in the current state of the E. Where rosters still have a lot of clickers and IAs. With prospects usually favoring talking in their M LRs (because it's their current team). It's hard to have an active LR if you only have around 2-3 active people in it. We certainly have daily activity in ours, which is great to see. But I don't personally see "daily activity" as something that helps retention much in the long term. Swapping 1-2 messages a day isn't exactly going to make you feel super invested in that LR. Even if it is "active". Getting into actual discussions and getting to know your team mates on the other hand. Yeah, that'll get you invested in the community aspect of the league. But when half your active LR members are made up of your GM and AGM. That's pretty hard to get going.

 

This becomes especially noticeable in the off-seasons. Even LRs that are normally booming with activity, become a hassle to keep moving during down times. The solution to the lack of activity during off-seasons is the off-season tournaments. Which I like, but they are a double edged sword of sorts. As they drive activity, but not in your LR. In fact they pull what little activity is left away from your LR, to put it elsewhere. Which is still worth it, but it hardly helps keep your own LR going.

[Daniel Janser 2,184]

11 minutes ago, Shindigs said:

Which is still worth it, but it hardly helps keep your own LR going.

 Which certainly is a shame for said LR's, however the main concern is that people disappear because they are not entertained enough... which is kind of mitigated with the JST/WJC/Pro-Am locker room of your respective team... which even may lead to find new friends in the community... In German we have a saying 'you can lead the cow to the trough, but you cannot make it drink'... I think it has partly to do that our society has become a 'consumer society' with the general approach 'here I am, entertain me'... I am by no means saying that this applies to all, I just noted the tendency...

[Shindigs 1,771]

1 minute ago, Daniel Janser said:

 Which certainly is a shame for said LR's, however the main concern is that people disappear because they are not entertained enough... which is kind of mitigated with the JST/WJC/Pro-Am locker room of your respective team... which even may lead to find new friends in the community... In German we have a saying 'you can lead the cow to the trough, but you cannot make it drink'... I think it has partly to do that our society has become a 'consumer society' with the general approach 'here I am, entertain me'... I am by no means saying that this applies to all, I just noted the tendency...

Yeah, that's exactly why I still consider it worth it in the short term. It keeps those people engaged enough over the off-season to stay active. If you can't get past the short term the long term doesn't matter. But it does come at some cost.

 

We actually had a player bring up something interesting in a way. He was asking if we had pre-season games in the E? Which we don't, but if we did that would effectively serve the same purpose as an off-season tournament, but while driving the activity in the LR proper. I'm not saying that adding another off-season tournament makes sense. Cause really that market is pretty saturated, as is. But it was something that made me go "huh, why isn't that a thing?" As it would give the E LRs something to actually talk about between the draft and the season start.

[Daniel Janser 2,184]

27 minutes ago, Shindigs said:

Yeah, that's exactly why I still consider it worth it in the short term. It keeps those people engaged enough over the off-season to stay active. If you can't get past the short term the long term doesn't matter. But it does come at some cost.

 

We actually had a player bring up something interesting in a way. He was asking if we had pre-season games in the E? Which we don't, but if we did that would effectively serve the same purpose as an off-season tournament, but while driving the activity in the LR proper. I'm not saying that adding another off-season tournament makes sense. Cause really that market is pretty saturated, as is. But it was something that made me go "huh, why isn't that a thing?" As it would give the E LRs something to actually talk about between the draft and the season start.

Something like the exhibition games the NHL does used to do in the preseason? Hmm maybe that is something that could be looked at with the people of the Pro-Am tournament? Teams can sign up instead of players and you can have some cricket score games when Metacouver beats the living daylights out of a VHLM team in rebuild... or may be gets humiliated by them? That would save the Pro-Am people the draft and the players would stay active in their LRs... I am pinging @WranglersSuck here for good measure...

[Shindigs 1,771]

2 minutes ago, Daniel Janser said:

Something like the exhibition games the NHL does used to do in the preseason? Hmm maybe that is something that could be looked at with the people of the Pro-Am tournament? Teams can sign up instead of players and you can have some cricket score games when Metacouver beats the living daylights out of a VHLM team in rebuild... or may be gets humiliated by them? That would save the Pro-Am people the draft and the players would stay active in their LRs... I am pinging @WranglersSuck here for good measure...

Just let everyone play against Chicago, and it should be pretty even. I think his question was more along the line of normal pre-season games (E team vs. E team) but without the pressure of it being the actual season. The issue there is that the index won't be posted yet. So it would need to be kind of like we had in the JST with a manual index done by people who aren't busy doing the league off-season business. This would give GMs a way to try out some line combos before the actual season too, which wouldn't suck. But I like your take on it too.

[Ricer13 2,796]

It does start with the GMs and not just in the VHLM but throughout all levels. I look at an LR like Miami when I was running that place and the amount of members that came out of that team that are now prominent members in the league. All it took was a GM who cared enough to put in the time to check in regularly. Once you got people talking and getting to know each other the activity sustained itself and retention remained high. That same effort hasn’t changed since moving up to the VHL as a GM. 
 

Continuing to progress the resources we have to help new members learn how the league works and what they need to do to succeed will also go a long way in helping people stay. It’s really hard to navigate this league when you first join. There are resources to help make it easier such as TPE Guides and build tutorials but we can always continue to improve on those to help new members better understand. 
 

 

[Shindigs 1,771]

1 hour ago, WranglersSuck said:

There are resources to help make it easier such as TPE Guides and build tutorials but we can always continue to improve on those to help new members better understand. 

And to a lot of people reading a guide just isn't appealing. They need the personal touch of someone talking them through it. Because without that guidance, even all those guides can be pretty daunting.

[fromtheinside 1,290]

9 hours ago, Daniel Janser said:

I think it has partly to do that our society has become a 'consumer society' with the general approach 'here I am, entertain me

 

Exactly, which circles back to my point in the original post... we need more substance to keep people interested. Or at least I think that's part of of the solution anyways.

[Acydburn 1,607]

On 1/31/2022 at 8:23 PM, GustavMattias said:

Part of the reason why the E sucks so much is that players move up from the VHLM, enter a mostly-inactive team, find no one to talk to, and become inactive themselves. And since, well, forever, VHL locker rooms have generally been less active than VHLM ones (there's nothing that can be done to completely eliminate this because a steady stream of new creates will speak more often and ask more questions than a handful of people who have been on the team forever). But there also aren't retention efforts in the higher leagues. No one ever cared how well I was retaining my players in the VHL, because if someone went inactive it was just seen as my problem. But I also saw so many people being called out in VHLM GM chat in my time there over the most minor things--supposedly not being active enough, running lines in a way another GM didn't like, signing players before another GM got a chance to offer (like you're supposed to just hand the player over?)--that I'd say the VHLM is practically overloaded with the "you must retain players and do literally nothing else" mindset.

 

 

On 2/1/2022 at 12:10 AM, fromtheinside said:

THIS

 

That's a major concern of mine and I think is something that is definitely part of the problem overall.  Thanks for your thoughtful response Gus, cheers bud!

 

 

So what LRs are you guys in that are dead? I just went through all the E LRs and neither of you are in there. So how would you know if an LR is active or not if you're not there? I see posts and conversations everyday in each one of them. I will 100% always stick up for the E GMS who are doing their job and doing what they're supposed to be doing.

 

All I've seen are these assumptions that it's the E's fault that members are leaving. Members left way before the E and will continue to leave regardless of what the GMs are doing/not doing. The point where most members leave are between 100 (higher now actually with the TPE granted if you sign up after the season) and about 300. Which is exactly where the E is. The point where a player leaves the site shifted from just graduating to the VHL to graduating to the E. The E was created to accommodate the members who just didn't have a spot in the VHL. When the E was created the numbers supported it as such, the numbers supported moving 2 teams from the M to the E. Now the numbers show that we don't have enough members in the VHL, suddenly that's the E's fault? No, because the majority of the members in the E wouldn't have been on teams in the VHL before the creation of the E.

 

VHL GMs are as much to blame as M or E GMs. No one talks about how VHL GMs are inactive, mismanagement of assets or blatantly skirt the rules. We're not sitting here calling out VHL GMs when their players go IA from lack of engagement, don't say that's not the job of a VHL GM because it absolutely is. So lets not ASSUME that the E GMS aren't doing their job. 

[Gustav 6,430]

4 hours ago, Acydburn said:

 

So what LRs are you guys in that are dead? I just went through all the E LRs and neither of you are in there. So how would you know if an LR is active or not if you're not there? I see posts and conversations everyday in each one of them. I will 100% always stick up for the E GMS who are doing their job and doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Then I hope this is true. I said what I did based on the general perceptions I’ve seen about locker rooms in the E—I remember a few months ago, I saw one member saying that they were their team’s only active player, and another saying that their team server had zero messages for over the past month. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Maybe that’s changed, and it’s a great thing if it has! But I can’t be expected to act like I think everything is going great when the vast majority of what I have heard about VHLE Discords has been negative. 
 

To clarify, this isn’t an attack on the GMs—I think it’s more a function of the way the league works. If a team is made up of either semi-actives or people who consider it their one-season stepping stone to the VHL, with no constant stream of new players…yeah, it’s going to be less active. That’s how I’d expect it to work. 
 

 

4 hours ago, Acydburn said:

No one talks about how VHL GMs are inactive, mismanagement of assets or blatantly skirt the rules. We're not sitting here calling out VHL GMs when their players go IA from lack of engagement, don't say that's not the job of a VHL GM because it absolutely is. So lets not ASSUME that the E GMS aren't doing their job. 

I find this hilarious because saying that I’ve never called out a VHL GM for anything ignores, like…half of what I’ve posted (and a good deal of what’s happened in BoG) for the past few weeks. In fact, I say IN THIS VERY THREAD that VHL GMs could do better in the retention of their own players. As could VHLE GMs, and as could VHLM GMs. A GM at any level should highly value retention, and be dealt with if they don’t (which, again, you would know perfectly well was my opinion if you read through anything I’ve had to say on the topic behind the scenes). 
 

I apologize if this sounds harsh, but the VHLE as a system is not immune from criticism and I believe the greater context of my post was misinterpreted as an attack on VHLE GMs. To anyone thinking that’s what I’m trying to say—please re-read it and consider that it is not. 

[Peace 1,534]

13 minutes ago, GustavMattias said:

and another saying that their team server had zero messages for over the past month.

For what it's worth Vasteras' LR during S81 was essentially the S80 championship team going back and saying 'WE CHAMPS!' throughout the season. Keep in mind we were alumni at that point, so the 'roster player' LR might have been different. Alumni only areas often fizzle out anyway.