Nooby's perspective on league

[Scurvy 1,488]

I recently read a post and several responses surrounding retention and just wanted to give you NOOBY’s take on this league and some of my thoughts.  I would like to begin with a thank you to the league Admin and leadership for making this league and taking the time out of your lives, so others get some enjoyment.  After reading the posts I can see there will always be differences of opinion which I guess is expected when so many care about the direction of this great league. 

 

I found this league by mistake and then tried to research it a little.  After a few Youtube clips and some forum browsing I bit the bullet and created a player.  Now a little about me.  I am married 45 years old man with a three-year-old daughter and two-year-old Doberman.  I love the game of hockey (Which is what attracted me to the league) but computer savviness is not something I am known for.  I am not terrible but anyone who has seen my graphic in a desperate attempt for 6 TPE you know what I mean.  

 

To me, the forum is not super user friendly and simple to navigate at first but after a few uses it gets better. Ok so after creating a player I was lucky enough to get a great GM in the minors who helped me navigate the super confusing ways to earn TPE.  Had I not had a great GM and some teammates who showed real interest in the league I can see how some newer players could struggle.    

 

For me, I was addicted immediately.  I awaited each day to see who my shitty defenseman did and to see him improve if I put in some work each week to earn maximum TPE.  I guess the hard part for me is there is only a few options for weekly TPE.  Media Spot, Podcast, and Graphic are worth the most (6). I suck at graphics (I mean really suck), podcasts I have no clue, so that leaves me to write a 500-word article each week, 2 -150-word articles for (2), 2 reviews (1).     I don’t mind writing; it’s just I don’t want to write a different version of the same story every week.  I think the addition of writing re-caps for TPE is a great idea for this year.  

 

I learned quickly that if you’re willing to put in some work your player will develop and its rewarding to see your player contribute during the season.  

 

Some things I really like:

 

Draft Hype- watching my player be discussed by people who have watched was nice.

  Also, being sent draft cards from teams that were interested in me made me want to keep putting in the work.

 

Draft- Draft was awesome!!   I have never watched Twitch in my life, but I found myself immersed in where I went in the draft. 

 

Junior showcase - Off season can be rough but this Junior tournament was great. Especially getting like 100 PIMs in 4 games was a nice shake up.  

 

Some things I would like better:

 

TPE Points and where/when to get them- Things like prospect report, Junior review, Recruitment, etc are invisible to know when/where to get those points.  Thankfully a GM or teammate can point you in right direction but could be clearer.  

 

CONCLUSION
 

Overall, I love this league and the people I have met so far.  I am a noob still, but I couldn’t be more happy logging in each day to see how my player performed.  I am in the E this year and excited to make the jump to VHL someday.  

 

As for retention, I am not sure what the answer is.  I just wanted to give a newer player’s view of the league.  I think for me getting into a good locker room and having good leadership was great for my development.  The tutorials are good but having someone tell you what you need to do and when is even better.  Maybe more TPE points earned to get players to VHL faster?  Incentive points for longevity?  Increased points for players starting a new player after retirement so he/she starts with more TPE?   

 

For what it’s worth, thank you from Brian Payne.  

 

 

 

[fromtheinside 1,290]

Awesome writeup from the Payne Train!!!  

You make a lot of great points, and thankfully you had a solid GM to help you get your footing when you were starting out, others aren't always so fortunate.  You've been killin it though dude, keep it up! Hope to see you in the VHL soon

[JB123 728]

You've done a fantastic job from Day 1. Glad you're enjoying the league, keep it going!

[Shindigs 1,771]

Good read. Great to see you keep feeding the addiction working on your player and developing. I feel like you don't give yourself enough credit a lot of the time. Your player is growing steadily, and you've max earned plenty of weeks. And hopefully will keep it up moving forward. You've already made an impact both on the Bratislava LR with activity and on the ice with a massive performance in game 2 of the season.

 

I will agree that there are just so many things you can do in the league that it's just so confusing at first. Not all of it is formatted the best way possible. It's very easy to "miss" something. I only stumbled upon the predictions by accident my first season I'm pretty sure. Same with Fantasy Zone. There are quite a few opportunities for uncapped TPE floating around, many of them with very little work required. The problem is the information overload when you join. You don't really know what is time sensitive and what can wait. Or where to find it, or that it exists in the first place.

[Daniel Janser 2,169]

19 hours ago, Scurvy said:

 Increased points for players starting a new player after retirement so he/she starts with more TPE?   

 

Already a thing, once you retire your player you have a so called 'carryover' where you get 4% of your TPE in addition to the 30 TPE any new player gets. This is capped at 50 TPE though.

[JardyB10 4,865]

I love hearing takes from newer members, this is awesome Brian!

 

I first got involved with the VHL in 2010, and even I’m not sure how to approach some of the issues you put forth. Don’t get me wrong, the league has improved drastically since then, but I think a common experience everyone shares since Day 1 is the information overload/how overwhelming everything is at first. Obviously we all settle into it, but no doubt we lose people because of it.

[Henrik Johansson 11]

Just joined the league today and I gotta say that I feel the same way you probably felt day one! I'm super excited for this coming experience but it's quite a lot of info to get a grip on. but thank you for giving me hope that I one day will understand it all  The draft times sound so thrilling! really looking forward to be drafted and all the preparation for it. I found it really cool that it's streamed on twitch. I will probably follow it live though I'm in an entirely different time zone!

Edited February 4, 2022 by Henrik Johansson

[Thunder 1,166]

Damn good read.  Who knew you were this smart?  Why didnt you tell me about this sooner.  I found it by accident looking around trying to get familiar with the site.  Keep it up scurvy.

[Beketov 9,025]

Funnily enough, and I’m not blaming you at all for this we’ve heard it before, back in the day we had so few ways to earn TPE that people demanded we add more. Now we have a ton of ways to hit the cap outside of the full PT (press conference, .com articles, .com graphics, reviews, game reviews, trivia, hell I’m probably missing a few) so the problem becomes an overload of options haha.

 

But yeah, kinda like what @JardyB10 said, it’s a lot of information unfortunately but there’s not really a lot of other ways to do it. We’ve done videos before which are a bit better but they get outdated super quickly. We really rely on the M GM’s and the newcomers discord channel to help people out.