I vote #3. Primarily because I am against the penalties for items that are not related to FPL. The 4 point penalty we incur under the existing system is the FPL penaly that accompanies the excess weekly transfer when the offending manager has to drop the illegally acquired player. I know we've kept a few manual adjustments over the years, but I prefer to have the FPL table be correct. The other aspect about having to enforce penalties is that it could strain some relationships. One of the guiding principles of this league is to develop long term trusting relationships, albiet, highly competitive relationships, among the managers. That is why we are so flexible in the "GO SLOW" phase of the draft which is usually sufficient to complete each league's draft without going to the GO FAST phase. It's not that I'm against this idea to use google docs, just not the penalty aspect of it. Furthermore, I am going to use googledocs when we do the small rocks draft next year and with that experience, I expect all the small rocks managers to become comfortable with making google updates before the provisions of this rule take effect. I'm going to suggest that all the leagues use googledocs during the draft and will put out a step by step description of the draft process using google docs in a separate thread.
I vote for option #2. I thought about suggesting a trial run year w/o penalties but I fear that for the docs to be reliable it needs a mandatory aspect. We are looking to improve upon the rules. I am sure it will become clear soon enough as to whether it helps or not and should be revisited at the end of next season.
Option 3 for me. I'm not in favour of penalties. We all want to win our divisions and the cups we enter but primarily we play this game for fun. I wouldn't want to lose that aspect of it.
Current Method 1) Current Method 1) Enter transfer on FPL league message board; time stamp becomes official confirmation of transfer. 2) Make transfer on FPL site. That's all we need to do to play the game. No need to change anything.
I vote #2, ... although I definitely appreciate and understand the sentiment summarized by Hal (and echoed by frasermc and Clan). My strong belief remains that there will never be any penalties, particularly with the proposed escalating schedule that allows for one correction without penalty and with the noted ability to request a proxy/announce inability to access googledocs immediately/etc. Or, at least there won't be any penalties unless someone has just decided to say F-- the whole system. That said, if the sentiment is in the no-penalty direction, I don't have any serious objection to #3 IF the concept is that optional means that "mandatory but no penalties." But, if optional really means optional, and one or more owners just say F-- the whole system, that has just as great an ability to put a strain on relationships in my view.
#2 looks good to me. I would have set up the original league like that back when we began it if Google.docs had been around then. Also, this should be for all leagues, otherwise, there's no point in this vote, right? Every league would just have to vote again in a few weeks...
Btw, I just saw this post on the thread about "Rate the EPL fantasy games." Does anyone know much about the Times game? Do they charge, and if so, how much? Is it run well? It sounds like EXACTLY what we've been trying to do on our own for years, and what we're still tinkering with in this thread. If it's free/cheap and if it allows us to create our own private divisions, maybe a few of us should try it this year as a trial. I went to the Times site but can't figure out how to get in to see the rules, interface, cost or anything. That's not a good start!
Here is a link to the rules for last season's game ... somewhat more elaborate than the FPL site. http://playthegame.timesonline.co.uk/soccer/help/rules.asp It looks like you can have an auto draft or an offline draft. The rosters consist of 20 players with defined positions: GK - goalkeeper LB - left back CB - centre back RB - right back LM - left midfield player CM - central midfield player RM - right midfield player FOR - forward Substitutions are allowed up until 5 minutes before each player's game starts. There are also differences from the FPL site in scoring and limits on appearances per position. Some of it looks similar to Yahoo. The more I read of it, the more I can see the chance for some resistance to it by players accustomed to the FPL game. Edit - some other info I found in the FAQ: http://playthegame.timesonline.co.uk/soccer/help/faq.asp Q. What is the scoring system used? A. All Leagues are scored using a "rotisserie" format. Rotisserie leagues rank each of the Teams in the League from first to last in ten (10) statistical categories - five (5) categories for goalkeepers and defenders and five (5) categories for midfielders and forwards. Q. What statistical categories are used in scoring? A. There are two groups with five categories each (each category is known as a Scoring Event) 1. GOALKEEPERS & DEFENDERS ONLY - Clean Sheets, Goals and Assists, Defence (Total of: Interceptions/Tackles/Blocks), Minutes Played, Points (as per club results). 2. MIDFIELD PLAYERS & FORWARDS ONLY - Goals, Assists, Successful Passes, Minutes Played, Points (as per club results). Q. Do my three substitutes score points? A. All three substitute positions on a team (1 G/D Sub, 1 F Sub, and 1 M Sub) score points. Also trades between teams may be made and there is a waiver system for claiming dropped players. I'm don't particularly like roto and the scoring system seems contrived, but the question was asked due to the ability of the site to have a draft league.
I actually like the roto format. It is--to my knowledge--the oldest fantasy format in the world, devised by the baseball fans who started it all at the Rotissserie restaurant (I'm showing my age now). What it does more than anything is stress the importance of having balance in your team, which to me is more real world-ish than (for example) having a striker who scored oodles of goals but not having a single player who recorded an assist. It's also more challenging than the traditional format, because you have to gauge your opponents' rosters in order to decide when you have enough firepower for each specific category (finishing #1 in a category by a mere 1 point over the #2 team is exactly the same as finishing 100 points ahead of the #2 team). I also love the inclusion of very important real world categories that are generally ignored by the shallower fantasy games, such as successful passes and win/loss club points. Again, it's more challenging, and those of us who best know the value of players generally ignored by most fantasy games (such as defensive midfielders) will reap the most reward. And I would argue that the scoring system is actually LESS contrived than most fantasy games.
In the spirit of devil advocacy, I will denounce the roto format for 2 reasons: (1) Goals (for example) is weighted equally with Successful Passes (for example)--I'm assuming it works that way--but most of us would agree that goals should carry a greater relative weight. (2) If you like to follow your progress as you watch the games, that loses some of its excitement, because it's very difficult to see where you stand until the actual fantasy results are published.
This is a deep reporting announcement. Rumor has it that Aviators will be establishing a Rotisseree type competition for the Rocks League this season. It will start out with Rotisseree competitions within each League and then switch to a Finals Rotisseree competition among the top two league managers after the Group Stage.
The question of using a different platform seems to come up from time to time; each time we also seem to conclude that FPL is the best option. Like Jay, though, I often wonder if there isn't a better system for us to use. I've even fantasized about setting up a fantasy league of our own, if only I had any technical nous whatsoever. I do see some flaws still with FPL - some aren't news, of course, like the surreal bonus point system. Other beefs I've kept quiet about for a long time. For instance, a true "fantasy league," in my opinion, should involve more than just knowing who plays for a good team. If one were assembling a genuine fantasy squad in the truest sense of the word, it would require not just knowing who plays for the strongest defensive teams, but who are the strongest defenders. A game that only rewards team shutouts is awful in this respect. Likewise the fallacy of FPL that players' only value is goals and assists. Anyone who knows the game knows the value of a defensive midfielder, for example, and also knows that significant aspects of the game are ignored by FPL's scoring system. That said, I'm against any sudden moves away from FPL. I think, if we ever find a platform that seems better, the best way to proceed might be to send a search party of sorts to try running a parallel league on that different platform for a season, or half a season, or some such period of time. They could report back on their experience of a "small rocks" type league, the rest of us could perhaps observe, and if we all agree it would serve us better, then we could think about switching over. I'm guessing we'd probably opt to stick with FPL, but adaptation and improvement is what's made these leagues such fun. As I recall, it was a few years before we ran any cups, for example. I hope we all keep an open mind about proposals to improve things. Maybe in a few years we'll be looking back on the "dark days" of using FPL?
The Guardian fantasy game tried this and I liked it - there were points for tackles for example, and defensive midfielders had to be chosen. But for some reason despite all its flaws, I prefer the one we currently use. There's another game out there some of us play at pro.fantasyleague.com. Its quite good - and the draft engine is fantastic - the only problem being the "supersubs" feature which I hate, and the fact it costs a lot to play.
It's football though (soccer) not baseball, if you get this indepth into stats, you lose the feel of playing the game and it throws up skewed numbers. Lets take a typical game. Team "X' are 2-0 up and there is 20 mins to play.Square passing is the run of the mill from there on out between the defenders and some midfielders.These players rack up points for a successful 'pass completion' and your team score rockets.Conversely, the opposition, being down and looking for a way to get back in the game, invariably lump it long, more often than not, losing the ball to the other team and you gain nothing...some of these 'stat' based games even penalise you for 'unsuccessful' passes. Resembles the worst game on the internet, aka Yahoo. Sometimes, keeping it simple is better
Great points Clan. I'll give it a bash though on an experimental basis but I completely agree with you regarding Yahoo FF. I played that for one season and one season only. As for your analysis of football. I don't see what you're getting at. The sentence I've underlined is basically what I watch every other weekend for my £440 season ticket...
I understand your point, Clan. That is the tricky part for all fantasy games. In American football, for instance, QBs and receivers on the losing team rack up (often meaningless) desperation passing/receiving yards when the opposing defense is employing a late-game "prevent defense" strategy. BUT, can't fantasy managers account for this situation in their strategy? Still, you have a good point about the stat being at least partially skewed/contrived in relation to its real-world value. For what its worth, though, successful passes in the Times game count only for mids and forwards, not defenders and keepers.
Which would stink if you had attack-starting defenders like Danny Alves, Jose Bosingwa, Roberto Carlos, Martin Skrtel, Lothar Matthäus or Marcel Desailly... At any rate, not to lose track of what's going on because of this fun side discussion, I thought I'd remind people to make their choice on this proposal here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17933611&postcount=45 Nobody's counting votes yet, and there's a lot of time left. But I thought I might as well bump it up in case others want to cast their vote.