The Terror of Welfare

[DoktorFunk 810]

So I'm in a bit of a weird place. Everything around me is taking up my time, but I still desperately want to be here. The rational voice in my head is saying that, in order to justify both, I might have to be something less than a max earner in order to allow myself the time. Or carve out time at work to write my stuff (like I'm doing now, but that's not super sustainable) because work is a boring fucking mess for the first quarter of the year. 

 

The temptation of clicking THAT button, though... is absolutely there. The only thing that stops me most times is the fact that people are usually nice enough to invite me to participate in their activities. But, when I can't be bothered, I want desperately to claim welfare. It's an interesting thing that it does to my brain because it actually makes me mad at myself whenever I actually go through with it! Years and years of optimization in video games and table top games makes me loathe even the thought of not wringing out every little bit of experience from every situation that I'm in! 

 

It's not even that the league takes that much time to do most of this stuff. A lot of the time I can have all my point tasks done in about 15-30 minutes. But, it's STILL a huge temptation to actually use that damn Welfare. More time I could be spending playing games, reading, playing music, studying a language, running, lifting, etc. It just feels, fundamentally, that Welfare is an admission of defeat. That I don't have or I'm not willing to commit the time to this site that I used to. I regret that I'm not more active in the discords. I think Welfare scares me because it holds a mirror up to myself.

 

I started on this site because I was moving to a new city and starting a new job. I needed something to fill the boredom gap. And I have had a ton of fun and spoken with some amazing people. Now, I'm in the most successful period of my life I've ever experienced, and it's hard to admit that MAYBE that void in my life is just not filled by this site anymore. Maybe I've found some things that I'd rather be doing. Should I still be ashamed of using Welfare? No, I don't particularly think so. But clicking it every week just makes me feel sad. So I hold out on doing it, but I'm sure a day will come where I finally admit the truth that my life is better than it was, and sometimes its okay to just enjoy it. Take it easy. Relax. Have fun.

 

Calm down, I'm not leaving. I just need to reevaluate what I do on here and whether that's really worth the time and energy I put into it. And I need to remember that TPE DOESN'T MATTER and I can still be great even on Welfare. 
 

 

 

 

 

[Banackock 8,062]

I love you, Dok. Don’t be afraid to push that button. There’s nothing wrong with the VHL sharing moments and time in our lives with other great things. This league should be an enjoyable hobby much like other things we enjoy.  I am similar.. I’ve been a normal employee, to a foreman, to a supervisor in the time frame of being the Bears GM (maybe a tiny bit before being hired). 
 

Life is challenging but rewarding. Life overall is good and I’m glad it is for you too. Keep kicking ass man! 
 

B

[Garsh 1,192]

My welfare button the first time I come to the site on Monday

Spoiler

 

 

But seriously people shouldn't feel shame in hitting the button.  We all have stuff going on in our lives (good and bad).  Based on my discord activity, I clearly have time to cap every week.  I choose not to because I would rather fill my time with things that I enjoy doing instead of writing or attempting to make graphics.  Not that I don't enjoy the league, but those specific things are not things I want to do.  It's actually a little crazy to me the when people get stressed about capping because they are suddenly busy that week or just don't feel like doing something.  Whether you get busy or just aren't feeling it that week just smash that button, that's what it's for and just move on with your week and don't worry about it.

[diacope 1,696]

The crazy thing is a lot of people don't know you can still have a pretty good player by pressing it each week, you can't miss it too much though or you'll be a depth player for sure

[Ricer13 2,796]

Its okay, to take a step back with activity. It may be good to do that rather than burning yourself out. Nothing at all to feel bad about Dok!!!

[BOOM 8,759]

You do you man. If its something that helps keep you here then go for it. 

[stevo 793]

Welfare is life

[Beketov 9,033]

21 hours ago, 16z said:

The crazy thing is a lot of people don't know you can still have a pretty good player by pressing it each week, you can't miss it too much though or you'll be a depth player for sure

Honestly if you are doing everything else you are missing out in 2 TPE per week, that’s all. People focus on maxing out too much. It’s better to claim welfare every once in awhile than it is to burn out but people weirdly look at it as “welfare players and max earners” when there is very much an in between.

 

And even to that point a “welfare player” isn’t necessarily only a depth player. 9 seasons (so 1 in the M plus 8 in the VHL) equates to roughly 72 weeks five or take. So by taking welfare every single week but claiming the rest of the cap, over an entire career, you lose out on 144 TPE. That’s not the tiniest number in the world but when you consider that 1000+ is pretty easy now 144 TPE isn’t going to be the difference between a HoF beast and a depth player and that’s if you never claim a full week.

 

Now obviously that math has flaws, theme week for example you’d lose more than 2 but in any case. The point is the number over a whole career isn’t a huge deal and people shouldn’t feel bad about THAT button.

 

So @DoktorFunk realistically if it’s burn out or press the button every once in awhile please just press the button. We’ve all done it, that’s what it’s there for. Don’t ever feel like a failure because you don’t max earn every single week.

[Victor 10,955]

Referring to welfare as the button does sounds pretty terrifying.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

There is absolutely 0 reason to feel bad about pressing the welfare button.

 

Imagine a VHL with no welfare - now you TRULY feel bad about not doing a point task week in and week out. This is one of the exact reasons welfare was added. The league recognized that "pedal to the metal" point tasking leads to burnout, burnout leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.

 

And to @Beketov's point about min-maxing TPE versus just clicking welfare - you can create a good to great player with just welfare and doing most, if not all, of the theme weeks. Take me for example. I've done welfare just about every week except for theme week and I did a builder HoF article. I'm somewhere around 10th in my draft class, but it's pretty close from 8th-12th-ish. However, with Smitty, I TPE whore'd my first 5 seasons or so and then was able to coast with half welfare, half point tasks.

 

While I'm going on, the ability to multi-claim longer articles has been another great addition to the league. Imagine writing a 1,500 word point task one week and then having to write another point task the next week.

[Beketov 9,033]

4 minutes ago, flyersfan1406 said:

While I'm going on, the ability to multi-claim longer articles has been another great addition to the league. Imagine writing a 1,500 word point task one week and then having to write another point task the next week.

God I hate that system but I think it’s just because whenever I did PT’s AI couldn’t use it because I did GFX or podcasts and podcasts couldn’t be multi-claimed at the time so they were an hour long every week. Oh well.