Some thoughts on recruiting new members mid-season

[Elmebeck 378]

A thought on joining mid-season and incentivising that. I was thinking about hounding one of my friends to join earlier in mid-season, but then realized it's probably detrimental according to how the rules work.
 

So I propose either:
1) The first seasons doesn't count as a season after a cut-off point (say if you join after 36 games, next season is still your first season, kind of how NHL doesn't count <40 games seasons for rookie purposes)

2) You get x TPE for every week into the season you join. So say you join week 5, you get 30+(4x6) or something like that (not sure where the balance would be, but Practise + Welfare would be that and is something you could do without interacting with the team or the GM)

I was lucky to join during the Reddit recruitment and the ten year anniversary, so I am not complaining, it was just a thought that occurred to me for future recruitment, and so that mid-season joiners aren't "handicapped".

I have some more thoughts on the TPE system, but I will probably delay most of those until the end of my first VHL season, seeing as I am really a newbie here still and maybe don't see the whole picture on this long-lived league.

[Elmebeck 378]

A third idea would be that VHLM seasons doesn't count, but rule #1 is that when you hit 200 you HAVE to go to VHL at the end of that season (weak Fight Club-reference). So it doesn't matter how many seasons you spend in VHLM, the count starts in VHL. Which would probably help VHLM teams to be a bit more stable.

[Beaviss 4,949]

38 minutes ago, Elmebeck said:

A thought on joining mid-season and incentivising that. I was thinking about hounding one of my friends to join earlier in mid-season, but then realized it's probably detrimental according to how the rules work.
 

So I propose either:
1) The first seasons doesn't count as a season after a cut-off point (say if you join after 36 games, next season is still your first season, kind of how NHL doesn't count <40 games seasons for rookie purposes)

2) You get x TPE for every week into the season you join. So say you join week 5, you get 30+(4x6) or something like that (not sure where the balance would be, but Practise + Welfare would be that and is something you could do without interacting with the team or the GM)

I was lucky to join during the Reddit recruitment and the ten year anniversary, so I am not complaining, it was just a thought that occurred to me for future recruitment, and so that mid-season joiners aren't "handicapped".

I have some more thoughts on the TPE system, but I will probably delay most of those until the end of my first VHL season, seeing as I am really a newbie here still and maybe don't see the whole picture on this long-lived league.

 

Trade deadline is the cut off for each class so there is a cut off but it doesn't take career years till you get drafted. Mid season joiners ain't handicapped that badly as we have had multiple first overall picks that joined later into the season.

[Elmebeck 378]

I don't see how I would have reached 200 TPE if joining 5 weeks into this season.

This is more about player expectations and making people feel good, "Sure, I joined late, but I didn't do too badly."

Again, I am not criticizing, just pointing out that the 7-8 season life seem to be pretty real and you don't necessarily want to join 2 weeks before playoff.

[Gustav 6,097]

I agree that joining just before the deadline doesn't do much for your player in the first season--I had a few active guys hop on board in Mississauga right before the deadline, and had they joined earlier, they would have been quite a bit better as they'd have had more time to develop. Lots of guys who join the league even after the draft do just fine, though--@rjfryman joined after the S65 dispersal and ended up going 2nd overall in the VHL draft, for one recent example.

 

With this being said, though: there still has to be some cutoff point, and those cutoff points, when you think about it, will have to be a full season apart no matter how you look at the system. Those who join right at the deadline will always have an advantage, and it's simply "tough luck" to those who join at the end of a season's creation period.

 

I agree that it's a bit unfair to those new members who come into the league at those times, but I don't know if there's anything that can reasonably be done about it.

[Beketov 8,642]

6 hours ago, Elmebeck said:

 

I don't see how I would have reached 200 TPE if joining 5 weeks into this season.

 

An average full season (off-season, regular season, and playoffs) takes about 8 weeks. If you’re joining 5 weeks into a season most likely you’ve hit the next trade deadline and therefore aren’t going to be drafted for another full season.

 

Unfortunately it will happen that people will join right before the deadline but like @GustavMattias said there’s nothing we can really do to avoid that. The cut off does need to exist, and does, but no matter where you place that cutoff there will always be advantage to joining the day after instead of the day before. It sucks but it’s inevitable.

 

Now you could say that suggestion #2 solves this and it does, but I’d argue it makes things unfair in the other direction. It balances things out for those that joined later but how do you balance how much to give them? Give them too little and it’s needless complication. Give them too much and it makes it unfair to those that joined earlier but might be less active because now they’ve got guys ahead of them who simply received a handout.

 

As for your bonus point: it’s been discussed a lot whether an extra VHLM season should count towards the 8 or not. I’m of two minds. On the one hand it makes sense but on the other hand, everything we do is based on draft season. The career clock, depreciation, even contracts to a point. Changing all of that to match a different season per player is ludicrously hard to keep track of.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

5 minutes ago, Beketov said:

 

As for your bonus point: it’s been discussed a lot whether an extra VHLM season should count towards the 8 or not. I’m of two minds. On the one hand it makes sense but on the other hand, everything we do is based on draft season. The career clock, depreciation, even contracts to a point. Changing all of that to match a different season per player is ludicrously hard to keep track of.

 

It would just create more issues as people who want to get the most of their TPE will just wait at 199, for having the extra season and start gaining from there. If starting at the trade deadline can get you towards 350 TPE for your draft, then this would be even more.

I dont think there is a perfect solution for what is suggested, but I would keep things as they are right now.

[Beketov 8,642]

6 minutes ago, Green said:

 

It would just create more issues as people who want to get the most of their TPE will just wait at 199, for having the extra season and start gaining from there. If starting at the trade deadline can get you towards 350 TPE for your draft, then this would be even more.

I dont think there is a perfect solution for what is suggested, but I would keep things as they are right now.

That too.

 

Ultimately the league functions because the VHLM is a stepping stone. If you incentivize people to stay in it you clog the doorway for new members who are trying to get in but have nowhere to go because the VHLM is filled with people who have no incentive to go up to the VHL. Like you basically said, what’s a couple of weeks of holding off getting TPE if it means you get a whole extra season? People will always do whatever gets them the most TPE so something like this would be incentive to stay down instead of graduating to the VHL level as things are designed.

[Elmebeck 378]

All good points, consider me a bit more educated. It's hard to immediately see all the consequences, and what is intended to happen, so this has been very helpful.

We'll see how my TPE suggestions go in two months (if I still have any then, or happy with how it works).