BigTittySmitty's Guide to Recruitment and Retainment

[BigTittySmitty 172]

BigTittySmitty's Guide to Recruitment and Retainment

 

Hello all and welcome to my first and hopefully my last guide on recruitment and retainment for the VHL. It's a free doubles week and to be honest that is the only reason why I am even doing this (more on this later). But seriously, for a league that has been around for so long it does make you wonder why the VHL has an issue recruiting people and after recruitment keeping those people. To be flat out honest, when I re-re-re-returned to the VHL my intention was simple. Create a player do enough to earn my free point task for PBE and leave. It's why when my buddy Bayley kept trying to recruit me to join the Las Vegas Aces as a Free Agent for this year it is why I did not want to join him. I didn't want to fuck him over but I did not want to reveal that was my intention because for me that is not cool to my friend and may have gotten him in trouble with VHL. Now you are all probably asking.. Smitty why did you stick around? What kept you coming back?

 

First and foremost that is quite simple. @Motzaburger has been a great GM for our team and has been keeping me engaged and when I had issues with the league he would talk to me about them and understand exactly where I was coming from and essentially did not shut me down and it even allowed for discussion with other members on how to improve the VHL. Which since one of my borrowed ideas is being discussed now with Head Office/Management/etc, I will still include it here as it has not been implemented. So without further ado I will begin my list.

 

1. Weird Ass Recruitment Times
   1. Let's be honest, the league decides to push recruitment at the weirdest times and I re-re-re-joined the VHL as I promised I would discuss later. I rejoined VHL from the PBE affiliation and to make a big push for the league recruitment mid-season with such a huge demand of people is crazy. If you want to recruit people from another league it would make more sense to have the start at the beginning of the season. 
       
2. The Race to the Draft
   1. When I joined during a major recruitment time to get the next draft which was a few weeks to a month away from when I joined yet however when joining I thought I had an ample chance to potentially catch up and be a really good draft pick in my draft class. Oh boy was I wrong. Then now adding this new draft class for s73 which is after my s72 draft class. It makes me feel like asking myself the question. "Why bother?" For those who do not know the VHL allows players to earn TPE who have reached a benchmark for other players they made in an effort to try to keep those players around. However, that added perk just continues to make new prospects feel so far behind. I have earned 80 TPE and as per s72 Draft Class Rankings I am now ranked 32nd as per TPE. Where the top spot in my same draft class has 215 TPE lead over me and 37 TPE lead over 2nd place. Really? How can a new recruit feel welcomed and able to contribute if they feel they are always playing catch up. Then to add insult to injury the s73 Draft Class Rankings have just been released and I am already behind the leader there by 22 TPE. I am a year sooner into regression compared to them and I am already behind. What incentive or drive do I have to try to compete with them? What possible solutions could there be?
   2. Because I am already behind recruits if they feel they need to play catchup as let's be honest. If I am a GM why would I rather invest in an 80 TPE player right off the bat when there are players who have 3 times as much TPE compared to myself as a hot commodity. The only way I could feel the potential to catch up is the other avenue which is "pay to win." Is that what we want recruits to feel like the only way they could catch up to anyone in their draft is to buying loot boxes of TPE so they can catch up and maybe feel useful to their team?
      1. Solution 1: Scratch this and in place insert the ability to keep money between all players of a member
         1. When doing this they are forced to keep up and re-run the dog show race to earn TPE and keep things balanced assuming all were to start at the beginning of the season. The only added advantage they would have is they can buy a single piece of equipment compared to the other prospects without waiting. That in itself is a smaller gap to be able to climb compared to what we see now to my previous point about the weird ass recruitment times.
      2. Solution 2: With returning to Point 1 players who join at these times have missed time not through their own fault so I would propose a late joiners TPE that would allow these players to catch up on tasks (75% given to those based on schedule of maximum TPE they could have earned). 
          
3. The Stupid Ass Rules for Point Tasks
   
   1. Let me be real for anyone who is willing to listen and accept change and potentially make change for the better and the league is one where it has a reputation where if I may. It's like being in school all over again or for the younger audience being in school after school. Seriously? This is a league where we are here to escape the real world of professionalism and have a good time. However, the VHL has rules for Point Tasks that people can lose TPE for grammar. Seriously? Why would I be so inclined to write a media piece if I am being graded like I am in school and can earn less TPE because I am not great at grammar? I am a person acting as a hockey player who would release an op-ed to the media. It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be pretty. It's going to be me writing to you all and maybe 6 people at most will read it with 2 being those who grade the pieces. Please see my random picture I have posted to be able to make sure I am eligible for all 6 TPE as per the rules. It's gotta be pretty you know. So, that means a random ass picture is required per the rulebook.
       
4. The Old Boys Club
   1. When you hear from teams that the people running this site are slow to change and willing to adapt to even further better the rules and create a better form of parity and veterans mentioning "they are discussing your idea however it probably won't be implemented and it will take forever for them to potentially put in the idea if they even agree to". Many recruits will not feel welcomed about sharing ideas or wanting to participate with the general discussion of the league. Recruits see this as off putting non-inclusive so they go where they are welcomed and wanted. It's why other leagues don't have such an issue like this about recruitment. Between them and their older members it creates an us vs them mentality as the precious veterans don't want to lose their status.

 

So here you have it folks. These are the biggest things that prevented me from coming back and if it wasn't for my GM who would listen to my concerns and make me feel valued then I probably would have dipped on them but I have grown to like Motza as a human being after coming in with the mindset of just coming in. Cashing my free PBE TPE and moving on. However, these major issues are the stumbling block for the VHL and they need to be addressed right away if the league is serious about retaining new members.

 

 

Word Count: 1,378 - April 20 - April 26 - Theme Week Doubles

 

Spoiler

PS... what are the odds I get docked marks for this

 

[Beketov 9,143]

25 minutes ago, BigTittySmitty said:

However, the VHL has rules for Point Tasks that people can lose TPE for grammar. Seriously?

No??? That hasn’t been a thing since grading was abolished and auto-6 was brought in. Your task could net you reduced amounts of it’s really below standard but not for grammar?

 

25 minutes ago, BigTittySmitty said:

It's gotta be pretty you know. So, that means a random ass picture is required per the rulebook

Also not true and hasn’t been for awhile.

 

25 minutes ago, BigTittySmitty said:

When you hear from teams that the people running this site are slow to change and willing to adapt to even further better the rules and create a better form of parity and veterans mentioning "they are discussing your idea however it probably won't be implemented and it will take forever for them to potentially put in the idea if they even agree to". Many recruits will not feel welcomed about sharing ideas or wanting to participate with the general discussion of the league. Recruits see this as off putting non-inclusive so they go where they are welcomed and wanted. It's why other leagues don't have such an issue like this about recruitment. Between them and their older members it creates an us vs them mentality as the precious veterans don't want to lose their status.

One of these days this mentality will die but apparently it is not this day. We don’t care about our “status” we care about the overall balance of the league. A lot of suggestions need significant fine tuning not because they are necessarily bad but because they are often short sighted. It’s easy to suggest something based off your personal experience but that can be done without considering that there’s 200 other people at any given time that have different experiences and all of those need to be balanced. For example, handing piles of uncapped TPE out as we have done in the past and just pulled back on. It sounds great in theory, everyone loves more TPE, and it brings the average member to decent levels. Unfortunately the average member doesn’t account for the top members who earn ridiculous amounts and become vastly broken. In the same vein, pulling back too far to account for those members indirectly affects the lowest earners. This is the balancing act of stuff like updating scales. It’s not as easy as it sounds and no decisions are made just to better any specific group.

 

25 minutes ago, BigTittySmitty said:

With returning to Point 1 players who join at these times have missed time not through their own fault so I would propose a late joiners TPE that would allow these players to catch up on tasks (75% given to those based on schedule of maximum TPE they could have earned). 

Out of order but this is being discussed because I agree that the meta of “join at the deadline or be behind” is broken.

 

25 minutes ago, BigTittySmitty said:

Spoiler

PS... what are the odds I get docked marks for this

 

0% because again, that’s literally not how this works anymore and hasn’t been for a long time.

[BigTittySmitty 172]

8 minutes ago, Beketov said:

35 minutes ago, BigTittySmitty said:

However, the VHL has rules for Point Tasks that people can lose TPE for grammar. Seriously?

No??? That hasn’t been a thing since grading was abolished and auto-6 was brought in. Your task could net you reduced amounts of it’s really below standard but not for grammar?

 

35 minutes ago, BigTittySmitty said:

It's gotta be pretty you know. So, that means a random ass picture is required per the rulebook

Also not true and hasn’t been for awhile.

 

10 minutes ago, Beketov said:

37 minutes ago, BigTittySmitty said:

  Hide contents

PS... what are the odds I get docked marks for this

 

0% because again, that’s literally not how this works anymore and hasn’t been for a long time.

 

So.... the rule book is wrong? 

 

[Beketov 9,143]

Just now, BigTittySmitty said:

 

 

So.... the rule book is wrong? 

 

That says do your best, it’s a suggestion more than anything. Graders checking on stuff is really just to make sure people aren’t posting complete garbage or on-league related things. The standards are not ridiculously high and having poor grammar is not going to knock marks off.

[BigTittySmitty 172]

2 minutes ago, Beketov said:

That says do your best, it’s a suggestion more than anything. Graders checking on stuff is really just to make sure people aren’t posting complete garbage or on-league related things. The standards are not ridiculously high and having poor grammar is not going to knock marks off.

 

For me it should be updated and then leads to another issue... confusing rules  

[Beketov 9,143]

Just now, BigTittySmitty said:

 

For me it should be updated and then leads to another issue... confusing rules  

Those are being updated currently, @Quik is working on it. Because yes, they are outdated and over overly complicated.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

Can confirm. Received catch up TPE in PBE, thought "this is really smart - why don't we have this in the VHL?" and brought it up here. Coincided with an ongoing discussion about flattening out the advantage of creating at the trade deadline, so it was a win-win-win.

 

Number 4 grinds my gears. A lot. I think it was @Beketov who said this is another thread, but the VHL has changed more in the past 2 years than in the previous 10. To say that the "old boys club" wants to stifle progress and not change is aggravating. What is true is that it takes time to properly discuss and institute changes, and I'm probably one of the most "guilty" (although I don't look at it as a bad thing) of making slow, incremental change and drawing out conversation to make sure we're not missing anything with a change.