Current State of the VHL Through My Eyes

[fromtheinside 1,289]

As it is Sunday evening and I have yet to do my main point task for the week yet, I figured now could be as good a time as any to kind of ramble and voice my thoughts. I'd like for this to be an open discussion also and hear other user's thoughts. Currently, I am on my second player in the VHL. My first run was on Scotty Kaberle, and the experience was a fun one for the most part. There were some low spots for sure, but overall I thought it was a pretty solid run and I would say I look back at Kaberle's career fondly. I broke into the community as a chipper first-gen who wanted to get in on anything and everything. For a few seasons I did VSN, and while that was a fun experience, eventually I became too busy with real-life responsibilities to keep providing VHL-related content at that pace. 

 

Then at some point in the ladder-half of Kaberle's career, the VHLE was announced. I originally thought it was a good idea as it could be a place for all the inactives to congregate, and that would leave the VHL to be where the top TPE-earners would compete at the highest level. However, that's not really how the league was envisioned by its founders, and for better or worse, we now have three leagues in our ecosystem. It was a real game changer. After watching how the E played out in its first couple of seasons, I decided that personally I wanted to forgo my player having to play in the E. So around Christmas time, I decided to retire my first-gen a season early to get some extra uncapped TPE opportunities around Christmas time that would inevitably put me over the top when it came to getting to the VHL TPE cap floor and also exceeding the VHLE cap ceiling. 

 

So Scotty Sundin was born, and I spent a season and a bit in the VHLM once again. I got to play under @JB123 which was cool because he first came up under me in Yukon (rip Yukon  ) We had a pretty good playoff run but it was for naught. I was lucky enough to go first overall in the VHLM dispersal draft after I was drafted by @Moon in Houston. The full season in Houston was a blast, we had a a pretty loaded team. We dominated the regular season, but lost the finals in game 7 in what was a crazy series. Overall though, it was good times playing with Boom and Rhynex, and then also getting to meet new guys like Eagle. The VHL draft rolled around and I was once again taken first, this time by Chicago. I was (and still am ) thrilled to get taken by Chicago. I've gotten to know @JeffD a little bit through gaming with him and Beav over the winter,  and I am really happy to play under him on the Phoenix. I am even more excited about the core we have in place there. I think we could have a special team in a couple of seasons down the road.

 

But for whatever reason, I can't help but find myself growing more and more disinterested with the league these days. And it kinda feels like it's not just a me thing. Granted, my social circle in the community these days has been smaller, it feels like a lot of people are sort of checked out. It might be different for everyone, I'm not sure. I thought with the new hybrid attributes, things would feel a bit more fresh this season. But that freshness of that wore off for me after about a week. Personally for me, being on the BoG has been a pretty dejecting experience and the whole system feels kind of pointless. At the end of the day the commishes of the three leagues just do whatever they wanna do for better or for worse. Bringing up valid criticism on a number of things just falls on deaf ears so it kinda makes you wanna give up on trying to improve the league at all. 

 

Aside from the BOG specific stuff though, the VHL (as in the mother league) seems like such a barren wasteland these days. It feels like there's way less people actually making it to the VHL as an active member anymore. As a GM or AGM,. finding enough active bodies is such a challenge, nevermind keeping an active locker room. In Chicago, we are lucky enough to have a fantastic LR, but I know that isn't the case everywhere. Then there's VHL gen-chat which is a whole other can of worms. More and more I realize that isn't a place for me. Whether it's the onslaught of annoying users, or the over-policed feel of the whole place, it just ain't for me anymore. Once in awhile there's  a few cool peeps in there worth chatting with but more often then not, I avoid that place lol. 

 

Anyways, this is just a rambling mess but hopefully it will be therapeutic for me  to get it all off my chest. Although I mentioned I feel like I'm becoming disinterested in the VHL, I don't plan on going inactive during this player's career. Getting picked in the first round is a sign that a GM put some faith in you to come through for them, so I feel like I have a duty to make good on that for Chicago. I also urge anyone else who is in a similar situation to do the same. We need more actives, not less. Maybe this is the "burn-out" I've been warned about by so many people throughout the seasons I've been here. I don't feel burned out, though I am finding it challenging to find things to write about for point tasks. For now, the grind continues. I'd love to hear what other people think, even if it isn't similar to how I am feeling. I could use some insight for sure. Until next week, cheers VHL. 

claiming for two weeks

[Moon 575]

MOM I MADE IT INTO ONE OF SCOTTY'S ARTICLES LFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jacobcarson877 2,512]

I definitely agree on a lot of the things you've said. Obviously I'm not exactly in a position of power or anything, but having open conversation about some of the annoying parts of the league hasn't exactly gotten anywhere. And I don't mean that to be controversial or anything, but there's a lot of passionate users, new and old who want to see the league grow and flourish and that comes with change. I'm not privy to many of the behind-the-scenes processes, but it really does feel like the Commissioners do what they please and the BOG ends up just having really cool coloured names. I have also always been an advocate for the VHLM in particular, because that has always been a league of excitement and community for me. I'm sure part of the blame is on me for not putting myself out there, but the VHL has also always felt desolate to me. There's the couple of close-knit circles who do their thing, and then there's a bunch of people who aren't really around. The VHLM has always had great users and just general excitement for me. So much so that I almost stuck around for another season this season. I've been happy with Istanbul and in the Wranglers LR, but this experience was not one that I've had historically. I wish there was more I could say to help other than "I get it", but alas I get it.

[BOOM 8,717]

Hopefully you are just experiencing what many VHL users have in the past. Burnout/disinterest is fairly common and comes in ebbs and flows. I really hope you just need to stay active in the VHL while having another hobby to focus on for a while, and then the enjoyment of the VHL returns. The league is a better place with you here and active.

 

Happy to talk anytime if needed.

[v.2 1,400]

The E has been the worst thing to happen to the league.  Such a knee jerk move that is now severely dragging everything down.

[Shindigs 1,771]

I do feel the ebb and flow thing @BOOMmentioned. To be fair I'm still very active (relatively speaking) during my ebbs, but I do feel that regardless. I'll have like 2 weeks when I'm just super psyched about everything league related and just read/listen to most the media produced and interact with it. Then I'll have 2-4 weeks where I only interact with the stuff I get tagged in, and often only reacting without having the energy to actually reply to anything.

 

Personally I feel like mid season is the worst, same as in the NHL actually. Because by now we kinda know with a high level of confidence what each team, player and league is about for this season. Outside of massive runs/droughts we're more or less looking at the same standings we'll look at for the rest of the season. But we still have 30+ games to play before we get playoff YPE! So really it's all just kinda stale at this point, because that's just how seasons work.

 

I get that doesn't exactly line up with your problems @fromtheinside. But it hardly helps, I do agree with the above recommendations to focus on other hobbies for a bit. Just doing what you need to do league wise then giving it a rest for the week to focus on other stuff. It's what I'm currently doing, I basically put in my max earning and VHLM GM duties for the week/day. Then I'm just available but not really super active in the LR while doing other stuff. It's part of why I'm dropping the stats thing I was doing in the Chicago LR for the rest of the season, doing that for both Vegas and Chicago was just too much. At least rn that I also feel a need for some time away.

[rory 1,899]

14 minutes ago, v.2 said:

The E has been the worst thing to happen to the league.  Such a knee jerk move that is now severely dragging everything down.

i could see the E being good if it was used as a GM developmental league, and the M becoming a player developmental league (because of the huge old guard of M gms that made it compete first lol)

[Beketov 8,993]

1 hour ago, v.2 said:

The E has been the worst thing to happen to the league.  Such a knee jerk move that is now severely dragging everything down.

It wasn’t knee jerk in the slightest, it was by far the best solution available to the massive problem that was presented to us, I stand by that. The issue was that the problem rather immediately rectified itself with smaller and less active draft classes that pretty much immediately crippled the problem we were solving which potentially just made the VHL as a product watered down. I’ll have to look at the numbers bud “worst thing to happen to the league” is a long stretch when PP2 existed…

 

I also rather take offence (not from you V2, just mentioning it after quoting you) to the notion that the commish teams just do whatever we want and fuck the BOG’s opinion. We ultimately have final veto power but 9/10 times the BOG’s opinion is what controls what we do unless we have very valid reasons for not doing so.

[Spartan 4,369]

14 hours ago, fromtheinside said:

Personally for me, being on the BoG has been a pretty dejecting experience and the whole system feels kind of pointless

I feel you here man, there have been times where I feel like we've gone in circles or points are just tossed into the void. I've had plenty of days where I've wondered if my time and effort was worth it, especially when considering responses to things I said or how topics were engaged with. 

 

I feel like rolling out the meta fix was a big reason for this though, plus add on that most existing BoG members (not me) also had to implement the E. It's some large changes that def contributed to burnout or generally exhaustion with the BoG, especially if someone's ideas weren't given the time or thought they deserved.

 

I don't know how we recover from that, but maybe baby steps are what we need to take. Maybe some lower priority issue that doesn't need massive portal changes, or maybe even something tasked to us by commissioners. It'd be nice to feel like we're being leveraged for our experience and viewpoints instead of just being a think tank with no guarantees of being listened to. I think @Beketov is pretty aware of that and I think we'll see some steps in the right direction this week and next.

[v.2 1,400]

8 hours ago, Beketov said:

It wasn’t knee jerk in the slightest, it was by far the best solution available to the massive problem that was presented to us, I stand by that. The issue was that the problem rather immediately rectified itself with smaller and less active draft classes that pretty much immediately crippled the problem we were solving which potentially just made the VHL as a product watered down. I’ll have to look at the numbers bud “worst thing to happen to the league” is a long stretch when PP2 existed…

 

I also rather take offence (not from you V2, just mentioning it after quoting you) to the notion that the commish teams just do whatever we want and fuck the BOG’s opinion. We ultimately have final veto power but 9/10 times the BOG’s opinion is what controls what we do unless we have very valid reasons for not doing so.

You’ll have to fill me in on what PP2 was lol

[MubbleFubbles 1,288]

15 hours ago, fromtheinside said:

Personally for me, being on the BoG has been a pretty dejecting experience and the whole system feels kind of pointless. At the end of the day the commishes of the three leagues just do whatever they wanna do for better or for worse. Bringing up valid criticism on a number of things just falls on deaf ears so it kinda makes you wanna give up on trying to improve the league at all. 

 

 Then there's VHL gen-chat which is a whole other can of worms. More and more I realize that isn't a place for me. Whether it's the onslaught of annoying users, or the over-policed feel of the whole place, it just ain't for me anymore. Once in awhile there's  a few cool peeps in there worth chatting with but more often then not, I avoid that place lol. 

 

 

I can definitely get where you're coming with on those two points in particular.

 

I've been in the BOG twice and the first time I was in there (S45-56) wound up being a big reason why I took a leave of absence, cause I felt like I was bringing up issues that were very valid only for them to be ignored and overlooked (The particular instance I remember, I posted two topics trying to fix things that were legit broken that got little attention, but changing the names of awards of all things got a 3 page topic). I can't obviously speak to the current state of the BOG but it does suck when you put time and effort into coming up with an idea and not getting the reaction or interaction that you were hoping for.

 

Agree with the problems with general chat as well. I'm very surprised that we don't actually have a channel that's just dedicated to VHL discussion. If I want to talk about the VHLE, there's a VHLE chat. If I want to talk about the VHLM, I go to VHLM chat but if I want to talk about VHL, I have to go to general which obviously isn't that a lot of the time. 

[hedgehog337 3,483]

6 minutes ago, v.2 said:

You’ll have to fill me in on what PP2 was lol

 

every player has two players if he wants it. Though you have to do media spot/vhl.com etc for each player. so two media, two vhl com, two pressers etc. in a week a good source for a burnout lol

[Shindigs 1,771]

20 minutes ago, MubbleFubbles said:

Agree with the problems with general chat as well. I'm very surprised that we don't actually have a channel that's just dedicated to VHL discussion. If I want to talk about the VHLE, there's a VHLE chat. If I want to talk about the VHLM, I go to VHLM chat but if I want to talk about VHL, I have to go to general which obviously isn't that a lot of the time. 

This tbh, I wanted to talk about something that I would have done in VHLE/M chat but for the VHL the other day and was like "wait where is that chat?" and realized it's gen chat. And I ain't going there.

[fromtheinside 1,289]

claiming for week 2 of 2