Here's A Resolution For You

[Mongoose87 387]

When I first joined here, three players ago, the M was an amazing experience. I was an inaugural Marauder and our plucky team of upstarts managed to upset the top seed. It was a great time. 

 

Now, the M is in bad shape. I just spent a season on a team with two active players and one inactive. I know other teams were in the same boat. This is really bad for new recruit retention. The M used to be our best foot forward where people got hooked and learned the ropes or ramped up their recreate. Now, it's littered with short benches and bots, unless you happen to be on one of the few loaded teams. When you can rule out nearly every team from contention by mid-season, that's a bad situation. 

 

What is the root of this problem? This is my theory. 

 

Recruitment was doing well leading into COVID. Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly, everyone was spending a lot more time on the internet. This had the effect of driving two demographics of users to the league. 

 

The first consisted of people who would have been involved in the league if they'd heard of it before, and were now hearing about the league because of their increased internet time. I'm going to call this group “Typical Users.”

 

The second group consisted of people who would not usually have the time or not usually be interested in sim leagues, but suddenly had a glut of internet time, be it due to working from home, being laid off or having fewer social obligations due to the pandemic (or all of the above). The majority of these users were unlikely to remain when their leisure time became more scarce. I'm sure some became Typical Users, but the majority fell off and became at most clickers, more likely inactive. I'm going to call this group “Tourists,” perhaps uncharitably.

 

You're probably not surprised to hear me say that the Tourists present a problem for the BoG. What might surprise you is that they both do. The downstream effects of both these groups have presented a serious challenge for league planning. 

 

The Tourists are challenging because the league didn't know they were Tourists when they joined. Heck, a lot of the Tourists probably don't know that, either. They were impossible to differentiate from Typical Users until the pandemic petered out and its effects on their leisure time and behavior were gone. 

 

So, how did the BoG work around this group? As best as they could. I was obviously not privy to their conversations, but I'd bet they identified this demographic and did their best to accommodate them. The challenging part was making accommodations that could be adjusted to the departure of the Tourists. 

 

The Typical User influx presented another challenge. Like the Tourists, they needed accommodation. Unlike the Tourists, they would be around for longer. 

 

I think it's safe to say that the arrival of both of these groups was at the root of the decision to create the VHLE. The E had two major advantages for accommodating a growth spurt of new users. First, it swiftly opened lineup positions for low TPE players. Second, it was a delaying tactic that meant that new users going inactive would be more likely to do so in a developmental league, where their players were useful, rather than up on the big league, where they would cause great consternation to GMs.

 

For the situation at the time, the move made a lot of sense. I personally disagreed with the decision, but I understood why it was the route that was chosen. Then, two things changed, one expected, one unexpected. The first was that the Tourists went back home from their vacation. Though expected, as I noted before, it was way beyond the means of a sim league to accurately measure just how many of the new users were Tourists, so the drop off may have been larger than expected. 

 

Remember that I referenced an unexpected effect of the influx of Typical Users? Here's where that comes into play. The thing about Typical Users is that accelerating their recruitment left fewer of them in the population that our recruitment tactics were reaching. Let me bore you with some math for a moment. 

 

P(t) is the population getting exposed to recruitment media. t is the time period. 

 

r is the percentage of P(t) that joins the league. 

 

g is the growth rate of P(t)

 

P(t) = P(t-1)-(rP(t-1))+(gP(t-1))

 

Necessarily, unless g>r, P(t-1)>P(t). I think g<r.

 

If t is now and t-1 was during the pandemic, then we are trying to recruit from a diminished population, because we've already recruited those users. 

 

I think this is at the core of the league's growth problem. If I'm right, discussions about new approaches to recruitment could be fruitful. 

 

However, with the current reduced recruit intake, retention has become even more essential. This brings us back to the VHLM - and to the VHLE.

 

While our development league situation adjusted to the pandemic recruitment boom, it has not adjusted to the echo. There was a contraction in the E, but as it stands, we have two leagues for as many players as would make for one slightly overfull league. The result is that both developmental leagues are struggling to ice enough players to have competitive teams. GMs are frustrated and attrition is up, for both them and for players. 

 

I have a few policy prescriptions that I think could help to counteract this problem, which is ultimately a numbers problem. 

 

1.  Disband the VHLE. I know some have been calling for this from the beginning, but this is not simply an opportunistic moment to drive in my dagger. Rather, I am recognizing that the E served its purpose for its time, but now that time and purpose are gone. Again, this is a numbers problem and we only have the players we have. I know there is trepidation in the league about teams having to ice a third line, but I think the player experience in the M would be far superior if players had slightly reduced ice time but greatly increased competition. As the old sports adage goes, “winning fixes everything,” and right now a lot of teams are never winning. 

 

2.  Raise the VHLM TPE cap by 50 per non-waiver season in the league. I know this is another touchy subject, but if players are going to be in the M for longer, and they will, they need something to work for. Banking doesn't have the same appeal as updating (not for most, anyways). I know there will be concerns about the TPA disparity, but we have significantly larger disparities in the VHL, and that seems to be fine. By tying the cap to the seasons accrued, we also offer some reward to players who end up spending more time in the VHLM. 

 

3.  Fix the waiver crisis in the M. Maybe crisis is a strong word. However, since waiver players began choosing their own destination, they've been king makers in the VHLM. I know the intention is to give players the freedom to play where they want, with their buddies and on their favorite teams. That's laudable. The unfortunate result is that the dearth of active players in the M allows a team full of waivers to skate circles around their bot-ridden opponents. Many GMs are essentially helpless, having nothing but a couple draft picks per season to build their team, leaving them with as few as three roster players. There needs to be a waiver player number cap, or a system that prevents any team from adding more waivers while they have more than another. 

 

I know these sorts of grand sweeping changes can sound pretty rich coming from someone who is ultimately a petty casual user. I also recognize that I don't have the hard data to back this up. I don't know if anyone does, but I think the thought process behind it is sound. 

 

 

[Gustav 6,469]

I love this article! I’m a big fan of keeping things logical and I think this is a great example. I’m at work and don’t have all the time to go over every point, but…

 

27 minutes ago, Mongoose87 said:

1.  Disband the VHLE. I know some have been calling for this from the beginning, but this is not simply an opportunistic moment to drive in my dagger. Rather, I am recognizing that the E served its purpose for its time, but now that time and purpose are gone. Again, this is a numbers problem and we only have the players we have. I know there is trepidation in the league about teams having to ice a third line, but I think the player experience in the M would be far superior if players had slightly reduced ice time but greatly increased competition. As the old sports adage goes, “winning fixes everything,” and right now a lot of teams are never winning. 

Thank you. 
 

28 minutes ago, Mongoose87 said:

2.  Raise the VHLM TPE cap by 50 per non-waiver season in the league. I know this is another touchy subject, but if players are going to be in the M for longer, and they will, they need something to work for. Banking doesn't have the same appeal as updating (not for most, anyways). I know there will be concerns about the TPA disparity, but we have significantly larger disparities in the VHL, and that seems to be fine. By tying the cap to the seasons accrued, we also offer some reward to players who end up spending more time in the VHLM. 

I have mixed feelings on this. I disagree on some level with the idea that players need to spend “more” time in the M, and my ideal player progression system is a return to the old 8-season format where one VHLM season was standard and we didn’t have any of the weird depreciation loophole business we do now. It’s been pointed out to me that there are some benefits to keeping a higher cap and more than one development season (mostly from an administrative standpoint; numbers become easier to manage when the M is less volatile), and I don’t disagree with that, but I think there’s some harm done there to the individual player experience. 
 

32 minutes ago, Mongoose87 said:

3.  Fix the waiver crisis in the M. Maybe crisis is a strong word. However, since waiver players began choosing their own destination, they've been king makers in the VHLM. I know the intention is to give players the freedom to play where they want, with their buddies and on their favorite teams. That's laudable. The unfortunate result is that the dearth of active players in the M allows a team full of waivers to skate circles around their bot-ridden opponents. Many GMs are essentially helpless, having nothing but a couple draft picks per season to build their team, leaving them with as few as three roster players. There needs to be a waiver player number cap, or a system that prevents any team from adding more waivers while they have more than another. 

As the brains behind the current system and the guy who yelled at BoG for a year until it happened, I do admit that it has its issues. I think those issues are less about players stacking teams (a lot of low-TPE players means less than you think, and that’s sadly more true under a higher cap) and more about the user experience. In theory, the players get quicker engagement from their GMs under the current system, but the automated nature can make it seem less personal and lead to later “real” engagement, if that makes sense. We actually are currently looking at ways to improve this experience and hope we can do that well. 
 

 

Some great ideas here, and I’m glad I read them!

[Ricer13 2,824]

40 minutes ago, Mongoose87 said:

 

When I first joined here, three players ago, the M was an amazing experience. I was an inaugural Marauder and our plucky team of upstarts managed to upset the top seed. It was a great time

 

These were the days!  

[Mongoose87 387]

15 minutes ago, Ricer13 said:

These were the days!  

It helps to have a great GM. 

[Victor 11,021]

1 hour ago, Mongoose87 said:

I think it's safe to say that the arrival of both of these groups was at the root of the decision to create the VHLE. The E had two major advantages for accommodating a growth spurt of new users. First, it swiftly opened lineup positions for low TPE players. Second, it was a delaying tactic that meant that new users going inactive would be more likely to do so in a developmental league, where their players were useful, rather than up on the big league, where they would cause great consternation to GMs

I'm very pleased this thought process has made sense to the wider population now. Those who thought that COVID recruitment was sustainable would have seen us expand to 25 teams which would now be half empty. The E solved a problem and was designed in a way to ensure it could be removed if it became a problem itself.

 

1 hour ago, Mongoose87 said:

The thing about Typical Users is that accelerating their recruitment left fewer of them in the population that our recruitment tactics were reaching. Let me bore you with some math for a moment. 

I like this as a simple explanation for the supposed recruitment crisis we are having. This was always a niche site which previously would have been delighted with the regular stream of users it currently gets.

 

 

One thing I would point out that you've not touched on is that one other major change happened between the creation of the E and now - player builds change. So whilst in S80 I would have said yeah, unplug the E just like we plugged it in, now there are a couple other considerations to keep in mind making it a slightly longer, albeit inevitable discussion.