GMs - WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

[UnknownMinion 727]

Coming from my prospective, as gm in the M and E I won’t lie my biggest fight is getting people to earn, I even been actively trying to get the IA on the watchmen now back, to no success, I did the same in Geneva, and with Halifax I was constantly dming, and bought some to the E with me, I did the same in Rome users how to do point tasks and how to update, I have even tried making a forum locker room but couldn’t get people to join,

 

overall it more then just us not trying, it also some user not responding, I think the gms could try more yes, but it’s going to take more then us, overall the league’s activity in general is down from when I joined and it doesn’t help, Also before making back handed comments at team, TALK TO PEOPLE, WHAT IS WITH THIS LEAGUE PROBLEM WITH COMMUNICATION, maybe instead of blaming it on the Gms let’s just blame inner league communication.

 

example reaching out before call ups, talking to gms about players before draft, just the basics, it will make the league go along easyier, all I’m saying is if we can get some basic Communication going, the league will work better, (maybe a gm chat for all the league Gms and AGM, sorta like BOG, but just gms bring up thought and discussion with each other, just some thoughts

[samx 1,173]

17 hours ago, Shindigs said:

The irony of that being that they are literally the same thing. If you treat your players like human beings and go the extra mile to help them. Not only will they naturally be more successful, they will specifically *want* to be successful to repay you for what you've done for them. They will want to play for your team, because it's your team. Having the mindset that what's best for your players vs. what's best for your team are two different things is just so short sighted. Since sustained success requires your players to grow and thrive. Not to mention sharing the LR with people you know and respect is a hell of a lot more fun than a bunch of people you don't know, but who certainly have a lot of TPE.

 

That's what I built Vegas on, I traded away all my 1st round picks to get 2nd/3rd/4th round picks letting me reach out to people who had all the potential in the world, but hadn't learned how the league works yet. What's the point in drafting as many 200 TPE recreates as you can? You won't teach them anything, they won't get better as time goes along, and you won't be able to significantly change their league experience. Whereas if you instead focus your resources on first gens that you actually can make a difference for (or lower earning recreates that may have had a similar experience to what's outlined in this thread) you can actually do something.

 

My starting point for all my players on Vegas was always to explain how Welfare+ works, what the career trajectory is compared to max earning and pure welfare, while doing welfare+, and just let them make an informed decision on how much effort they "need" to put in to reach their goals for their player. For some players they end up only doing welfare+ one or two weeks. Then realize that they just don't want to put in any extra effort at all. For quite a lot of players they do decide that some version of Welfare+, be it 8 per week or 10 per week, is what they are comfortable doing. And some get hooked on earning and go full max earning.

 

 

The most demoralizing thing for me when I was a VHLM GM, and still to some degree is, is that I kept seeing the same pattern repeating itself. With the slam dunk 100% players being the exception, so many of the players who I either worked my ass off to keep from going IA and stay doing Welfare. Or who I got invested enough to do Welfare+/Max earning would instantly fall off a cliff once they left the Vegas and went on to their VHLE teams. One of the primary ones being Town's player. He's literally one of the most prominent members in the SBA, but since all the jobs he holds over there to max earn don't actually give him any affiliate claims in the VHL he doesn't do point tasks here. He just does Welfare, but if you tell him about Theme Weeks/uncapped opportunities/Fantasy Zone/Predictions and the like that take 0 effort. He will do them, as long as you remind him to get his Welfare+PF in for the week, he does it. And as long as you give him build advice, he's more than happy to apply TPE that way. But he knows enough about sim leagues to not blindly want to apply TPE himself. Since that is a good way to completely ruin your player for their entire career as a Welfare earner.

 

What this lead to after he left Vegas was him sitting in the VHLE for almost a whole season at 200 TPA with like 260ish TPE until he finally just stopped doing welfare at all. I was too busy dealing with my own players to keep close tabs on my alumni, there's only so much time and energy I have. So I have to focus it where I "should" be focusing it and trusting that his VHL/E GMs actually do their damn jobs and continue developing him. Well, they didn't. After I noticed what was going on I just reached out to him in DMs and asked if he wanted build help to apply all his banked TPE, and he was more than happy to. Was literally just waiting to have either of his actual GMs talk to him about it at all. (He'd also been traded without being told by the GM who traded him and only getting a welcome message from the new GM, who he though was his VHLE GM. He had to ask me about the specifics of the trade) After the new build and me slightly getting his focus back on the VHL he did go back to doing Welfare again and went on to having a 100+ point season int he VHLE the following season, and from what I can tell on Cologne he actually did get sufficient GM help to stay on top of things. Well, sort of, he was never told to claim the Christmas TPE or the Theme Week. But at least he's doing the weekly earning.

 

Now on the flip side of that stuff, I do somewhat get it. Unless you've actually been a GM you probably haven't had the absolutely soul crushing experience of having a player completely ignore (or give 1 syllable answers) to any and all attempt to help them, no matter how heartfelt. Or players who will either a) completely ghost you or b) do what you told them in PMs/DMs but won't even show you the common decency of responding to said messages. You can only get your spirit crushed by so many people shitting on your best attempt to help them before you just shut down to protect your own sanity. At some point the likely outcome of dealing with a long-shot Welfare earner and putting your heart into helping them just becomes such a source of stress that you simply stop trying. I was approaching the point where that would be me, it was one of many reasons I stepped down as Vegas GM. Because if you *do* reach that point, you shouldn't be a GM anymore. You're no longer fit for duty in my opinion.

 

We also kind of have an issue among at least some VHL GMs where they consider their VHLE prospects to be "not their problem" if you will. Part of that is not wanting to step on the toes of the VHLE GMs that by all accounts *should* be guiding them, which I can respect. But part of it is also the mindset that as a VHL GM all you do is compete, you don't develop. That's someone elses job and it's not what you took the position for (Not like you could use your AGM for it or anything). So that's certainly something I'd consider a pretty glaring culture issue in the VHL as well. To go back to the Town example, when I was guiding him on his build. I was asking him what his VHL GMs plans were for his player moving forward, to give more informed feedback on how he might want to build his player to actually be VHL ready (and able to fill the spot he's needed in) once he hits 300-400 TPE. Which was when I found out that neither of his VHL GMs had even talked to him about anything of the sorts at all, ever. That's a problem which would be so easy to solve. I get not having the time/energy to micro manage every single one of your prospects, but not even having a quick chat on how they could go about making your roster? Really? That's not a good look. Do we not see the value in a player that would effectively be a Welfare (with some uncapped) GM player for all intents and purposes, since you'd have complete build control, and he won't actively pursue FA? Isn't that pretty much exactly what you want when the cap is this tight?

 

Seriously, a huge part of being a GM in a player league is that you're actually dealing with people. So if you don't want to do that, do you even want to be a GM?

holy shit I think you beat Gustav for writing Ms in reply threads

[Dom 1,445]

Short story for those who wanna be updated in less than a minute:

 

vhlm fucked up

vhle fucked up

vhl fucked up

the player fucked up

Dil fucked up

gustav fucked up

 

thank me later.

[Berocka 2,263]

2 minutes ago, Dom said:

Short story for those who wanna be updated in less than a minute:

 

vhlm fucked up

vhle fucked up

vhl fucked up

the player fucked up

Dil fucked up

gustav fucked up

Dom fucked up

 

thank me later.

Ftfy

 

/S

[samx 1,173]

I do think some of this comes off a bit negative to "clickers". Like you said you had a conversation with M gms about how there aren't as many super active people who are earning tons. which sure is true. but being a clicker isn't a bad thing. This isn't me saying things don't need to change but also having seen at least some of the past locker rooms that this person would have been in there's plenty of opportunity to have learned about point tasks. Idk if they was a forum only person at one point in which case it's a bit different. Yeah forum locker rooms could be used but they are honestly a pain in the butt imo. 

 

But back to more the point of what I wanted to say: There are tons of active people who were full earners now go more with the "clicker" type earning. People don't have as much time. I know when I joined within a few months covid hit and so everyone had a lot more time and over the past years as covid has taken a back seat, people are back to more normal lives and able to do things again. Having clickers isn't a bad thing which I think the original post does make it out to be in some light. I mean the league legitimately cannot run without them. I mean some welfare+ PF people were the most active in my lr during Halifax but they just were never that interested in doing more. Some people honestly don't give a fuck about their players so they aren't going to put in the extra time. id probably be a clicker if I didn't get job pay. I'm not here to be the best player ever. I honestly couldn't care less and I'm sure there are others in similar boats.

 

Honestly half the time people who do less stay around longer cause they don't burn out in 6 months.

[Gustav 6,402]

2 minutes ago, samx said:

I do think some of this comes off a bit negative to "clickers". Like you said you had a conversation with M gms about how there aren't as many super active people who are earning tons. which sure is true. but being a clicker isn't a bad thing. This isn't me saying things don't need to change but also having seen at least some of the past locker rooms that this person would have been in there's plenty of opportunity to have learned about point tasks. Idk if they was a forum only person at one point in which case it's a bit different. Yeah forum locker rooms could be used but they are honestly a pain in the butt imo. 

 

But back to more the point of what I wanted to say: There are tons of active people who were full earners now go more with the "clicker" type earning. People don't have as much time. I know when I joined within a few months covid hit and so everyone had a lot more time and over the past years as covid has taken a back seat, people are back to more normal lives and able to do things again. Having clickers isn't a bad thing which I think the original post does make it out to be in some light. I mean the league legitimately cannot run without them. I mean some welfare+ PF people were the most active in my lr during Halifax but they just were never that interested in doing more. Some people honestly don't give a fuck about their players so they aren't going to put in the extra time. id probably be a clicker if I didn't get job pay. I'm not here to be the best player ever. I honestly couldn't care less and I'm sure there are others in similar boats.

 

Honestly half the time people who do less stay around longer cause they don't burn out in 6 months.

 

I do get that apparently I've given off the "clicker = bad" vibe here, because that's been the main reaction of a lot of replies, but that was never the intention. I don't think players should be pressured to be any more active than they are, and in fact I've seen some styles of management that I'd consider "going too far"--I was in a supposedly casual league very briefly and partly left because I was getting pinged/messaged by random people multiple times a week and I just wasn't into that. If you read my last reply in this thread, you'll notice that I draw a big distinction between someone who clicks because they choose to and someone who clicks because they've never gotten help--which I initially fully believed was the case (and I'd write this thread again in a heartbeat if I find out it actually has been for someone else). 

 

I also feel like you've seen me make multiple points along the same lines as your second paragraph, because I've written up arguably too many posts/replies saying those same things for close to a couple years now, ever since I decided I didn't care to live my entire life in genchat. I'd collect them all here to prove a point, but I have to be up early tomorrow and I'm tired.

 

TL;DR: I DO NOT HATE YOU IF YOU DON'T MAX EARN and I've spent years of my life arguing exactly the opposite on this forum. I think the replies going in that direction might just mean my message wasn't communicated as clearly as it could have been.

[samx 1,173]

1 minute ago, Gustav said:

 

I do get that apparently I've given off the "clicker = bad" vibe here, because that's been the main reaction of a lot of replies, but that was never the intention. I don't think players should be pressured to be any more active than they are, and in fact I've seen some styles of management that I'd consider "going too far"--I was in a supposedly casual league very briefly and partly left because I was getting pinged/messaged by random people multiple times a week and I just wasn't into that. If you read my last reply in this thread, you'll notice that I draw a big distinction between someone who clicks because they choose to and someone who clicks because they've never gotten help--which I initially fully believed was the case (and I'd write this thread again in a heartbeat if I find out it actually has been for someone else). 

 

I also feel like you've seen me make multiple points along the same lines as your second paragraph, because I've written up arguably too many posts/replies saying those same things for close to a couple years now, ever since I decided I didn't care to live my entire life in genchat. I'd collect them all here to prove a point, but I have to be up early tomorrow and I'm tired.

 

TL;DR: I DO NOT HATE YOU IF YOU DON'T MAX EARN and I've spent years of my life arguing exactly the opposite on this forum. I think the replies going in that direction might just mean my message wasn't communicated as clearly as it could have been.

I think your original statement almost has two different directions of which it could go.

 

the first part of it is: we had a chat with gms cause their aren't a ton of super active first gens

 

 

the second part: possibly someone never being taught.

 

Which I mean don't go together really. you can lead a horse to water but you can't force it to drink.

 

 

I do have a genuine question that I was gonna respond to a different post and ask but this specific case seems to be kinda meh gms did what they were supposed to do. So is there actually a case where this happened? Where someone genuinely wasn't taught for seasons upon seasons? cause if not we are kinda screaming over something that hasn't happened. I mean I know there have been not great gms who haven't taught players well but then that also falls onto commishes to pay attention to hey this team has no one doing anything but PF and welfare.. is the gm actually doing their job. and if they aren't give em the boot. Not necessarily implying you and Spartan haven't been paying attention but in previous seasons. 

[JardyB10 4,865]

49 minutes ago, Dom said:

Short story for those who wanna be updated in less than a minute:

 

vhlm fucked up

vhle fucked up

vhl fucked up

the player fucked up

Dil fucked up

gustav fucked up

 

thank me later.

And don’t forget to blame Cole.

[Gustav 6,402]

1 minute ago, samx said:

I think your original statement almost has two different directions of which it could go.

 

the first part of it is: we had a chat with gms cause their aren't a ton of super active first gens

 

 

the second part: possibly someone never being taught.

 

Which I mean don't go together really. you can lead a horse to water but you can't force it to drink.

 

I have the first part in there because, having just talked to my GMs the day before, it would be really weird from their perspective if I'd talked some very much related issues out with them one day and then flipped the next. You'd also have to realize that the VHLM tenure in question was in the early part of the S80s--many of our GMs weren't even GMs, and I wasn't even commish. That part of it might not even apply to today's VHLM (and I truly hope it doesn't). I don't think that invalidates the situation as I understood it then being something to talk about, though, and I hope that's another difference between situations that's clear enough to sort out.

 

 

5 minutes ago, samx said:

I do have a genuine question that I was gonna respond to a different post and ask but this specific case seems to be kinda meh gms did what they were supposed to do. So is there actually a case where this happened? Where someone genuinely wasn't taught for seasons upon seasons? cause if not we are kinda screaming over something that hasn't happened. I mean I know there have been not great gms who haven't taught players well but then that also falls onto commishes to pay attention to hey this team has no one doing anything but PF and welfare.. is the gm actually doing their job. and if they aren't give em the boot. Not necessarily implying you and Spartan haven't been paying attention but in previous seasons. 

 

I mean, we have at least one reply in this thread from a very reliable user stating that they had to look outside their team to be taught much of anything, so that in itself brings up questions of how many people found themselves in the same situations and just never said anything about it because they went inactive instead. I also think there's some validity in Jacob's writing this week, where he said that there are teams out there that he'd rather not see his players go to for activity reasons. Granted, we've gotten much better than we used to be back when I first joined and we'd have GMs completely offline for months on end, but I think it's still valuable to care about where teams lie under the standards we have today.

 

If we want to talk about a commissioner's role in this, we can talk about our own recent changes involving draft pick limits and portal waivers to make player distribution more equitable, already-existing enforcement of rules surrounding IA players, and especially the fact that we literally just talked to the GMs about player activity and what both we and they can do to help. I can say that Spartan is amazing at tracking rosters and seeing what's happening where, and it's something we talk about a lot. Frankly, I'd be more concerned about what's being done beyond the VHLM to encourage retention--we've always, long before I was ever commish and long before I was ever in the league, had issues with people disappearing once they leave the minors. We can do all we can on our end, but all the VHLM optimization in the world (which we are trying to achieve!) isn't going to solve issues past a player's first few seasons.

[ShawnGlade 1,010]

On 1/24/2023 at 10:18 PM, Gustav said:

...and apparently NOT EVEN ONCE ALONG THE WAY had earning explained properly despite playing for SIX different teams on all three levels of the league. London is team #7, and this player literally just learned how to earn tonight. 

I understand this is serious and a failure on GMs alike, but i couldnt help but chuckle at this fact

[Beketov 9,021]

6 hours ago, UnknownMinion said:

maybe a gm chat for all the league Gms and AGM, sorta like BOG, but just gms bring up thought and discussion with each other

Given how fast the individual ones turn into a clusterfuck I can only imagine what a group one would become… a discord version, which I assume is what you’re implying, would be impossible to manage and a forum one would be messy at best.

[Berocka 2,263]

7 hours ago, UnknownMinion said:

maybe a gm chat for all the league Gms and AGM, sorta like BOG, but just gms bring up thought and discussion with each other, just some thoughts

But this already exists right. Each league has a GM chat. Each league has commissioners in that chat. I am sure the commissioners have a chat.

 

If GM's if a certain league have issues or suggestions isn't that the job of the commissioners to action them.

[UnknownMinion 727]

3 hours ago, Berocka said:

But this already exists right. Each league has a GM chat. Each league has commissioners in that chat. I am sure the commissioners have a chat.

 

If GM's if a certain league have issues or suggestions isn't that the job of the commissioners to action them.

We haven’t seen that the past few season I feel the issue I had in the E are still active issues

[Grape 676]

I will say, way back to when I first joined nearly 4 years ago, nobody ever told me how to do point tasks. I was moreorless just a welfare player and the GMs I had just kind of accepted that that was how it would always be. Eventually I found out how to actually do point tasks and here I am now. While it is true that some GMs fall short on educating new and returning members alike in regards to claiming, it isn't super difficult to figure out how to do them. The forum is laid out somewhat decently enough to find where they are and there's guides pinned on all of them.

[Spartan 4,398]

41 minutes ago, UnknownMinion said:

We haven’t seen that the past few season I feel the issue I had in the E are still active issues

I mean, bring them up in the GM chat you are part of. The chats exist, I'm not going to advocate for all three leagues to have a shared chat. That'd be fairly unproductive since each league has different areas of concern and improvement.

[der meister 3,183]

My first thought while reading the OP is that part of the problem is that league activity is separated between portal, on-site, and discord. Without fail, every time I join a team, I get a discord link right away from the GM, and then there's a brief flurry of activity in the on-site LR, which eventually peters out to be basically just me and the GM posting occasionally. Having to do PTs on-site is probably a weird concept to first gen members who have all of their VHL activity off-site.