Extend the M, Abolish the E

[Grape 670]

Something I’ve always had a problem with involving the VHL is the open tanking some teams partake in in the VHLM. It’s understandable, since a core can only really be kept around for 1-2 seasons so windows are immensely short, emphasizing teams to either go into a fire sale to lose out or drain the future to win it all. And while that’s the reality of that league, it is always sad to look at a team, like Mississauga this season, and see one or two players just sitting there. It can be heavily demoralizing, especially for new(er) players, to be in this somewhat isolated state, losing every game and having somewhat of a lack of community. Another issue in the VHL is the VHLE. It’s like the bastard child in the league, always seeming to have problems and always being hated on. The TPE range is the same for both the M and the E, but the E struggles due to some of the new(er) members who fill out the M go inactive or leave. In my opinion, it’s a league that is going to struggle for its entire existence. So, a solution to add some more parity/ less open tanking in the M is to remove the E entirely and extend the TPE range for the M. Numbers may have to be tweaked a bit; I understand that some may not want to be in the M for very long, although some have already been able to skip the E entirely, so those super motivated may be able to still rush to the VHL. The main focus for this, though, is improving the community and interactivity within teams, and expanding the window of M teams, allowing for a legitimate core to be established for more than a season or two, means more players for each team and therefore a greater sense of community.

[ThePerfectNut 563]

Tbh why they didn’t do this instead lol

[Aimee 1,119]

As someone who is a first-gen and had this issue last season, I agree that it's a problem. I don't know the inner workings of the VHL as a whole to decide if I agree that turning 2 levels into 1 makes sense but I get where you're coming from. Last season I played on SSK. We were pretty bottom of the barrel for most of the season and aside from myself, I think there was only really 1 other player who didn't go inactive and wasn't a clicker. It was a very lonely team to be on especially when there was no interaction in the locker room. I honestly think if I hadn't found my way into the more social side of the VHL, I would have quit. 

[Daniel Janser 2,159]

but did we not have that prior? (prior me joining the league that is)... there was a cap of 250 TPE for the VHLM and no VHLE... if you just barely make the VHL you get steam rolled by the Hard Markinsons and Duncan Idahos of the league and have little to no influence on your team's success... you get third/fourth line minutes and no special team time... how is that more satisfying than to be competitive in an intermediate league?

[v.2 1,403]

The E was simply a kneejerk post COVID bandaid due to a member influx.  I think we are passed this and agree has already overstayed its welcome.  3 leagues has proven to be discouraging and bad for retention, plus max earners/vet members all strive to skip it and reach the VHL as fast as possible. The VHL cap needs to be fixed, the E has to go, and the M TPE range re-adjusted.  Unfortunately however the BoG and commish team won’t change anything soon at the fear of proving they made a mistake with the E implementation.

[Beketov 9,004]

2 hours ago, Grape said:

So, a solution to add some more parity/ less open tanking in the M is to remove the E entirely and extend the TPE range for the M.

Here’s the thing though: the E didn’t exist for 79 seasons and the VHLM got up as high as 12 teams with a higher TPE bracket than it had now and it still had a boom and bust cycle. That’s the nature of the VHLM ultimately.

[Garsh 1,179]

Big agree on the boom or bust cycle of the M being a problem.

[Beketov 9,004]

9 minutes ago, v.2 said:

Unfortunately however the BoG and commish team won’t change anything soon at the fear of proving they made a mistake with the E implementation.

I don’t care about admitting we made a mistake, I care about doing what’s best and still believe the E is the best solution to the issue. Constantly expanding both the VHLM and VHL to hit the needs of the league was not and is not sustainable, COVID or not. You take the amount of players we have in the VHLE and shove them into either of the two other leagues and both of them become over-filled.

[v.2 1,403]

2 hours ago, Beketov said:

I don’t care about admitting we made a mistake, I care about doing what’s best and still believe the E is the best solution to the issue. Constantly expanding both the VHLM and VHL to hit the needs of the league was not and is not sustainable, COVID or not. You take the amount of players we have in the VHLE and shove them into either of the two other leagues and both of them become over-filled.

 

What iffff....

 

We were harsher towards inactives and kept them off rosters to avoid the bloating.

[Gustav 6,400]

I hate the E and have hated it from the beginning. I'm on board with many others in this thread in that I want it GONE and could go on for a while about exactly why--anyone with BoG access can confirm that the E-related threads are filled with a lot of "is this really necessary" from me. To address some points:

 

3 hours ago, aimkin said:

As someone who is a first-gen and had this issue last season, I agree that it's a problem. I don't know the inner workings of the VHL as a whole to decide if I agree that turning 2 levels into 1 makes sense but I get where you're coming from. Last season I played on SSK. We were pretty bottom of the barrel for most of the season and aside from myself, I think there was only really 1 other player who didn't go inactive and wasn't a clicker. It was a very lonely team to be on especially when there was no interaction in the locker room. I honestly think if I hadn't found my way into the more social side of the VHL, I would have quit. 

 

We rolled with only the VHLM and VHL for a long, long time. If you take a look at the S75 draft, you'll see why a lot of expansion was needed very quickly--one YouTube ad got out of hand and we were flooded with new members. You'll click on people who were drafted after #100 overall and see that there are still some in that territory who made it up. VHL teams simply couldn't handle it, and neither could VHLM teams (some were completely filled up). This is also the first I'm hearing that any of this had to do with COVID, and with how inefficiently discussion moved on it, it was hardly a knee-jerk thing.

 

Simply expanding both leagues (by a lot) wouldn't have been the right choice because either:

• You now have to sustain those numbers, which will be a lot harder to do (and purposely larger recruitment drives might lead to another similar situation); or,
• You accept that it's unsustainable and just figure you're going to nuke some teams at some point.

Remember, if you lose 5% of your members in a 10-team league, you're missing out on a total of half a team--and if you list 5% of your members in a 20-team league, you miss out on a whole team. And that really means something in a bigger league where a tanking team will have more people to tank to. With more opportunities to buy and sell, you'd actually see far more boom and bust in a league like that (referring to the VHL specifically. The claim that the VHLE somehow is leading to boom and bust in the VHLM is 100% false for different reasons).

 

I'm also going to say that if you were met with zero engagement on your team, that's much more an issue with your team and much less an issue with a league that that team isn't even in. Much like we had just two leagues for a very long time, the VHLM cap was also 200 TPE for a long time and that worked fine. If there are teams that don't support their players, that's something that should be evaluated in any league.

 

 

I'm also going to say that the league (from my point of view) faces a bit of a dilemma at the moment. Let's assume that we want to get rid of the E--we can't just flip a switch and do that right now, because where are you going to put all those players? We still aren't down to where we need to be to do that. The options right now are either:

• Keep the E in place as a permanent fixture, which I hate, and live with it
• Purposely plan recruitment (or lack thereof) to naturally reduce the size of the member base, risk making the entire VHLM an inactive wasteland, make every draft really weird and top-heavy for a really long time, and make the dynamic really weird for whichever new members do join as the ones who stick around through this will be more established high earners while newer members or lower earners will be more likely to disappear, all while we weigh the ethics of that in the first place

I will say that if the league ever does drop down to the point where we can get rid of the E and move back to the way things were, I'd be 100% on board with that. We just aren't there at the moment. 

 

 

Finally, and also related to the above, I've been yelling for YEARS at this point that the goal of recruitment team should be to sustain  the size of the league rather than grow it--and this is since before the E was even conceptualized. The drive that hyper inflated the S75 class happened immediately before the trade deadline as some sort of stupid point that recruitment could recruit hard enough to keep up a larger league and I still can't get over how much that's messed with things. We need to plan recruitment smartly and make sure it's working as intended and in a way that actually helps out...and also for years, I've never received much clarification on what exactly the plan is for recruitment. I hope we're on the same page as far as sustainability over growth goes (and I like to think so as I haven't had any huge problem with it recently), but the information that's out there isn't as much as I'd hope.

[Beketov 9,004]

12 minutes ago, v.2 said:

 

What iffff....

 

We were harsher towards inactives and kept them off rosters to avoid the bloating.

We are to a point but when you’re talking inactives at the VHL level you’re talking about people that were around for a significant amount of time to get that TPE level. Yes, some of them still disappear but obviously they were active enough to be drafted and make the VHL. That’s a lot of scouting and prospect space taken to just say “welp, they went inactive so purge them all” like we do in the VHLM where we constantly need space.

 

I’ve also generally been of the mindset that you kill most chance you have of someone returning if they are simply gone for a season and their 500 TPE player gets retired.

 

The fact is that the VHLE either needs to exist or both the VHLM and VHL need to get bigger and I don’t see that as a positive. The M could sustain a few more teams, as it has before, but that’ll only make the boom / bust cycle worse but to keep 16 is about the cap on what the VHL can sustain, both in sheer number of players and in the sheer fact that adding too many teams waters everything down and makes it hard to even keep track. Expansion was not the answer here, I say recognizing the irony that we “expanded” by a whole league.

[Ahma 1,426]

Totally agree, abolish the E! nothing more to add other than screw the E.

 

[leandrofg 1,155]

Honestly, I don't know much about the past of the VHL, so this is a perspective of a user who's only been here since the beginning of 2022.

 

14 hours ago, Grape said:

Something I’ve always had a problem with involving the VHL is the open tanking some teams partake in in the VHLM. It’s understandable, since a core can only really be kept around for 1-2 seasons so windows are immensely short, emphasizing teams to either go into a fire sale to lose out or drain the future to win it all. And while that’s the reality of that league, it is always sad to look at a team, like Mississauga this season, and see one or two players just sitting there. It can be heavily demoralizing, especially for new(er) players, to be in this somewhat isolated state, losing every game and having somewhat of a lack of community.

 

I agree here and @aimkin posted about this issue, but this has to be tackled differently. As we know, there's an agreement in place for the waiver entries of the VHLM where GMs with a full team (9F/6D/2G) don't sign newly created players. Well, let's impose a rule here. Splitting this into two parts. A full team is now (6F/4D/1G) and teams with 6F/4D/1G can't sign another skater on those positions until the other teams have 6F/4D/1G. Remember this would be a waiver rule, so a draft that leaves a team with a surplus in a position isn't covered. Currently, there are 61 Forwards/21Defensemen/12Goaltenders in 10 VHLM teams. At the moment, every team in the VHLM could have two full lines of forwards.

 

14 hours ago, Grape said:

Another issue in the VHL is the VHLE. It’s like the bastard child in the league, always seeming to have problems and always being hated on. The TPE range is the same for both the M and the E, but the E struggles due to some of the new(er) members who fill out the M go inactive or leave. In my opinion, it’s a league that is going to struggle for its entire existence.

 

Yes, the E struggles. Mainly because of all the discouragement it gets. It exists to be a bridge between the leagues, to handle less active players (e.g. clickers) and other players like first-gens or others who aren't as active and still want to learn and be competitive instead of being fillers in the VHL. The steep jump from the M to the VHL would most likely make their experience worst, but a smaller jump with the change to a more competitive M would collaterally make the newbie-user experience worse.

 

14 hours ago, Grape said:

So, a solution to add some more parity/ less open tanking in the M is to remove the E entirely and extend the TPE range for the M. Numbers may have to be tweaked a bit; I understand that some may not want to be in the M for very long, although some have already been able to skip the E entirely, so those super motivated may be able to still rush to the VHL.

 

Alright, then let us take a look at this proposal. Let's say the cap is now 300 (hard cap). I counted 29 players with sub-300 TPE in the E, so let's say that each VHLE team sends 3 Forwards to the M - some are active, some are not - and there's an influx of 24 Forwards. We're now at 85, so you have much better players taking playing time from (mostly) new users, who just want to play - and that's the motivation/retention bit.

 

And those from the E who jump to the VHL? Let's say that the template in the VHL is to have 6F. Only 2 of the 16 have less than 6F. So there are actually 3 spots open. So you may have some playing time there, but you could also be buried down the line (and nobody wants that) or create a cap issue, which already exists and has been resolved this season by a 5% increase.

 

Also, some players play two seasons in the M to skip the E, but you also have those who skip the M Draft to play one season in the E.

 

--

 

I am in favor of the VHLE because it gives players the free will to choose their career paths. Even with all the negativity around the league, I still believe those involved in it - who may not be as vocal - still enjoy its existence. And the reality is that the E seems to bother a lot more than it should.

 

--

 

9 hours ago, Beketov said:

We are to a point but when you’re talking inactives at the VHL level you’re talking about people that were around for a significant amount of time to get that TPE level. Yes, some of them still disappear but obviously they were active enough to be drafted and make the VHL. That’s a lot of scouting and prospect space taken to just say “welp, they went inactive so purge them all” like we do in the VHLM where we constantly need space.

 

I’ve also generally been of the mindset that you kill most chance you have of someone returning if they are simply gone for a season and their 500 TPE player gets retired.

 

I agree with this, not only on a VHL level but on a VHLE level too. If you're a less active user and you averaged 8-10 TPE earned per week. Let's say you started with (60 Base Points + 5 First Gen + 6 PT  + 6 First Gen Doubles [+10 100TPE Bonus +10 VHLM Graduation]) 97 TPE and you are a 340 TPE to start your last VHLE season, hoping you make the VHL next season. It still took that person 24-30 weeks to get there. That's 6 months of the person's life that you can't just take away because they had to take a step back for some reason.

 

[Grape 670]

16 hours ago, Daniel Janser said:

but did we not have that prior? (prior me joining the league that is)... there was a cap of 250 TPE for the VHLM and no VHLE... if you just barely make the VHL you get steam rolled by the Hard Markinsons and Duncan Idahos of the league and have little to no influence on your team's success... you get third/fourth line minutes and no special team time... how is that more satisfying than to be competitive in an intermediate league?

That's why we'd extend the TPE range of the M to encapsulate what the E covers. So that when players eventually graduate the M, they'd be at a competitive level.

[Grape 670]

15 hours ago, Beketov said:

Here’s the thing though: the E didn’t exist for 79 seasons and the VHLM got up as high as 12 teams with a higher TPE bracket than it had now and it still had a boom and bust cycle. That’s the nature of the VHLM ultimately.

imo the M TPA range was too small. Bump it up to 400 max and the boom or bust cycle will be diminished.

[Grape 670]

13 hours ago, Gustav said:

I'm also going to say that the league (from my point of view) faces a bit of a dilemma at the moment. Let's assume that we want to get rid of the E--we can't just flip a switch and do that right now, because where are you going to put all those players? We still aren't down to where we need to be to do that. The options right now are either:

• Keep the E in place as a permanent fixture, which I hate, and live with it
• Purposely plan recruitment (or lack thereof) to naturally reduce the size of the member base, risk making the entire VHLM an inactive wasteland, make every draft really weird and top-heavy for a really long time, and make the dynamic really weird for whichever new members do join as the ones who stick around through this will be more established high earners while newer members or lower earners will be more likely to disappear, all while we weigh the ethics of that in the first place

I will say that if the league ever does drop down to the point where we can get rid of the E and move back to the way things were, I'd be 100% on board with that. We just aren't there at the moment.

I'm not advocating for an immediate removal of the E, as doing so would be way too drastic of a change. It would need to be a more gradual process, like chipping away at the E until it loses all relevance.

[Daniel Janser 2,159]

42 minutes ago, Grape said:

That's why we'd extend the TPE range of the M to encapsulate what the E covers. So that when players eventually graduate the M, they'd be at a competitive level.

That does not fix the retention problem though... if people know that they have to spend at least two seasons (max earning) in the VHLM to have a shortened VHL career, they will not stick around. My brother is a clicker (and using that TC as well) and did even a career task. And it took him five seasons (i.e. a full real time year) to get to the VHL. If he was not a stubborn SOB he would have jumped ship a long time ago.

 

Not even to start about the veterans with their 63rd player not willing to 'lose out' on VHL time because they need to spend two seasons in the VHL.

 

I think it gives more of a moral boost if you as a max earner are 'promoted' to the next higher league...

[Grape 670]

46 minutes ago, Daniel Janser said:

That does not fix the retention problem though... if people know that they have to spend at least two seasons (max earning) in the VHLM to have a shortened VHL career, they will not stick around. My brother is a clicker (and using that TC as well) and did even a career task. And it took him five seasons (i.e. a full real time year) to get to the VHL. If he was not a stubborn SOB he would have jumped ship a long time ago.

 

Not even to start about the veterans with their 63rd player not willing to 'lose out' on VHL time because they need to spend two seasons in the VHL.

 

I think it gives more of a moral boost if you as a max earner are 'promoted' to the next higher league...

As I stated in the original comment, max earners are capable of skipping the E entirely by spending 2 seasons in the M. Moving the TPA range in the M up and getting rid of the E altogether wouldn't make it so max earners have to spend a longer time in the M.

[Beketov 9,004]

2 hours ago, Grape said:

imo the M TPA range was too small. Bump it up to 400 max and the boom or bust cycle will be diminished.

How does that solve the boom / bust cycle though? It just pushes it down a bit because teams load up on picks in good drafts and instead of being dominant that season they are dominant 1 season later when they have a bunch of older players.

 

Meanwhile those new players coming in with sub-100 TPE are getting super buried down the lines because players have 4x the TPE they do so you get a garbage experience for new members.

 

At the end of the day members who know what they are doing and can earn at a high rate do not need to spend extra time in the VHLM.

[Spartan 4,383]

There is no way we raise the M cap to allow for 400 TPE players to dunk on 30-40 TPE new creates. We're going to lose so many players to a lack of engagement and interest if their brand new players do absolutely nothing against far superior competition. If it turns out we don't have the numbers for the E, and/or the VHL/M can handle the players from the E, we can discuss reverting back to the old 250 or maybe even a raised 300 cap. Until then though, the E isn't getting deleted.

 

2 hours ago, Grape said:

As I stated in the original comment, max earners are capable of skipping the E entirely by spending 2 seasons in the M. Moving the TPA range in the M up and getting rid of the E altogether wouldn't make it so max earners have to spend a longer time in the M.

What's the point though? It's the same hard cap as the E but now you're ruining first gen development as well.

[diacope 1,696]

[Grape 670]

13 minutes ago, Spartan said:

There is no way we raise the M cap to allow for 400 TPE players to dunk on 30-40 TPE new creates. We're going to lose so many players to a lack of engagement and interest if their brand new players do absolutely nothing against far superior competition. If it turns out we don't have the numbers for the E, and/or the VHL/M can handle the players from the E, we can discuss reverting back to the old 250 or maybe even a raised 300 cap. Until then though, the E isn't getting deleted.

 

What's the point though? It's the same hard cap as the E but now you're ruining first gen development as well.

Obviously a plan would need to be put in place for the transition back to two leagues. 400 TPE would just be too much to deal with versus first gens jumping in at under 100 TPE. At the same time, that influx of players boosts team depth and generates a more fun LR experience. Me as a first gen on an immensely stacked team in both depth and TPA, getting basically bottom line minutes, had probably the most fun in any other LR I was in due to the amount of people there and the environment they established. At that point, I didn't care how my player was doing because it was the community that made it fun.

[nurx 914]

honestly the boom bust cycle isnt necessary

[Grape 670]

4 minutes ago, nurx said:

honestly the boom bust cycle isnt necessary

I've seen some M teams have 3-4 seasons of being competitive and even some win back to back. It's just the pressure to win with that short term core that causes teams to buy out. It is definitely possible to be successful without going boom or bust, the league just needs to be formatted to promote continued competitiveness instead of the BB cycle

[rory 1,904]

how much active members does the E even have? like 15? lmfao