2037 Draft

[Guest]

Yup

[Guest]

I kinda like the class. I feel like there is a lot of depth to it, just mostly 3rd-5th round depth. Things will look better in the late rounds than they do now, I think.

[sawblade300]

I kinda like the class. I feel like there is a lot of depth to it, just mostly 3rd-5th round depth. Things will look better in the late rounds than they do now, I think.

I agree with this. Late rounders will be alright. Just nothing exciting early

[Guest]

Zzzzzzzz

I know I traded all my picks and all, but damn this draft is dragging.

[Aston]

We've finished each day hours ahead of schedule so far. Probably will do the same today. Calm your horses

[Guest]

It's not a draft if I'm not complaining about how long it takes.

It's got to be the way it's scheduled. Two weeks to do a draft seems longer than the entire season lasts... To me, obv. Or it's my perception of it.

[Aston]

Yeah, it's probably the schedule. This year we had one full week plus for the slow roll period. Last year we had maybe five days.

Although as a result, we managed to finish Round 1 in the slow roll period. I don't think we got very far last year, but I don't remember.

Is that better or worse, do you think? In any case, FA alone should take roughly two weeks, and that's something that probably does not need rushing into, or through.

[Guest]

In any case, FA alone should take roughly two weeks, and that's something that probably does not need rushing into, or through.

This is another area you and I disagree. I'm all for combining some of the sim stages, especially since we aren't simming FA every day of the week or most days of the week.

Isn't that how past schedules went? M-F w/o skipping Tues and Thurs?

[Guest]

Being new to FOF7 I'm comfortable with the pace to which this has transpired. It's not to fast and it's not super slow. Maybe in the future when I gain a bit of experience I might feel as you do Garion, but for me personally at this time, the pace is fine.

[Guest]

Here's what we accomplished in-game last week:

FA stages 3, 4 and 5.

In my other league we covered that on a Tuesday and Wednesday.

.

Now, don't get me wrong, during the season I like the M-W-F schedule because of gameplanning, but in the playoffs and offseason it takes forever to get anywhere and I keep finding myself disengaging.

There's only a handful of players who sign each stage, so combining a stage here and there shouldn't add too much pressure, right? In 2k7 you had to comb over just about every player every stage because it was easier to get people to sign whenever, but FOF7 is quite a bit more strict about who is signing and at what stage. Hell, even those who aren't slotted into a stage rarely sign before stage 7 (or is it 6 or 8, can't recall). I fire up the league, look at the 5 or 8 players willing to sign that stage and shut it off. I spent maybe a half hour total looking at in-game stuff last week for this league (other than draft-related stuff).

It just feels like we've slowed down to a glacial pace. No wonder old men like chuck came back.

[IrishGuy65]

I agree that I'd like to see a sim a day in the offseason.

I disagree about multiple stages per sim. I am one that likes to look at offers and make counters, etc. EVERY stage. If you sim 5&6 together, that takes away from the very little enjoyment I get from the offseason. I find the draft interesting, but I frankly don't like FA. We do it because we have to. I have had teams where I would have 50 players every season going into FA, so I only needed to dabble with the biggest FAs, otherwise I just waited for the draft or making a trade or two. If it was up to me, I'd get rid of FA altogether, I dislike it so much. But, it is what it is, and each team should get a shot to upgrade offers to free agents in each and every stage. Nickel and dimers like me are already at a disadvantage in FA, because I'm so friggin' cheap. Makes it worse if I have to over offer to some guy because 2 stages are run without me getting a chance to see what's happening in the FA dogfights.

We can still speed up the offseason by increasing the number of sims, up to one per day, without reducing the actual strategic part of the game in FA. Finances matter in FOF7, so each and every stage has meaning, unless the past in FOF 2k7 where there were few good FAs and by FA7 there wasn't much left to pick at.

[Aston]

Can you guys draw up an ideal FA/Draft schedule? I'm not a fan of coming up with them on my own, anyway. So I'll take a look and see if that would be better.

[IrishGuy65]

FWIW, here is my thought:

New Season:

M - Staff Draft
T - Franchise
W - FA1 & Utility Online
F - FA2 - 16 hour clock begins (I like the 16 hour clock better, and since we are starting earlier it's even better... unless you are away from the internet more than 16 straight hours, you should be able to see it's your turn. With my life, I could literally sleep 8 hours then work 8 hours (no internet) and miss a 14 hour pick now.)

M - FA3
T - FA4
W - FA5
T - FA6
F - FA7

M - FA8 & Draft Goes Live with rounds 1 & 2
T - FA9 Round 3
W - FA10 Round 4
T - FA11 Rounds 5 & 6
F - FA12 Finish up draft

Finish up the same as now, but more time predraft and every FA stage gets its own sim. If there was a way to get the Staff Draft and Franchise done more quickly, like over the weekend... then you could conceivably get the offseason done in two weeks if you wanted to push it. In this scenario, Rounds 1 and 2 should be finished by Monday with 10 full days on the 16 hour clock. This means we could conceivably have the draft done by Thursday. With 1 hour windows from round 3 on, and the clock running untimed overnights, it shouldn't really be a problem.

So let's say we disallow the franchise tag. You could conceivably do the Staff Draft and Franchise stage on Sunday, then you could do this:

M - FA1 and Draft Online
T - FA2
W - FA3 and 14 hour clock begins
T - FA4
F - FA5
S - FA6

M - FA7 and Draft Goes Live Rounds 1 and 2
T - FA8 Round 3
W - FA9 Round 4
Th - FA10 Round 5
F - FA11 & FA12, Rounds 6 & 7

Done in two weeks. You could even do a Sunday stage, and not have FA11 and FA12 in the same sim. I don't like this, because I think it will A) create too much work for the commish, and B) maybe be a little too hectic for some GMs.

I could live with the 2nd example, but prefer the 1st. 3 weeks to get everything done isn't too bad, especially in an offseason like this where there is a lot of trading going on. The speeded up version would also curtail the trading, which IMO makes the offseason more interesting. I like the 3 weeks and a LOT of time on the longer window (14hr or 16hr or whatever), to give guys ample time to watch what's being drafted and work more on trades.

I'd say this was my two cents, but after rereading it, it's like $1.25.

[Guest]

This started as me typing out an argument here just to spitball a schedule idea with myself.. But I feel like I came up with a solid schedule that could work. It speeds up the off season some without using a lot of 5 day a week sims and creates a 12 week season cycle.

We'll start at the end, Bowl week.

WEEK ONE

Monday: Bowl/new season
Wednesday: Staff draft
Friday: Franchise/Tickets stage along with FA 1:1, to reveal the draft class before the weekend and get us straight into the bidding period. This eliminates the largely pointless FA 1:1 sim.

WEEK TWO

Monday: Stage 2
Tuesday: 3
Wednesday: 4
Thursday: 5
Friday: 6

Start the draft on a slow roll Wednesday, with official clock starting in week three on Monday.

WEEK THREE

Monday: Stage 7+8
Wednesday: 9+10
Friday: 11+12 with the draft class hopefully ready to enter by the end of the friday sim.

WEEK FOUR

Monday: FA 2:1
Wednesday: FA 2:2+2.3
Friday: 2:4+2:5

WEEK FIVE

Monday: TC
Tuesday: Pre preseason midweek
Wednesday: Preseason 1+2 with injuries off
Friday: Preseason 3+4+5 with injuries off.

WEEK SIX

Monday: Pre regular season midweek
Wednesday: Week 1
Friday: Week 2

WEEK SEVEN

Wk 3, 4, 5

WEEK EIGHT

Wk 6, 7, 8

WEEK NINE

Wk 9, 10, 11

WEEK TEN

Wk 12, 13, 14

WEEK ELEVEN

Wk 15, 16, 17

WEEK TWELVE

WC, Div, Conf Champ

------------

And back to the top.



So the schedule breaks down to 12 weeks, 5 week off season, 7 week season.

There are some corners cut here, but I think they are worth cutting. Preseason sucks.

It is set up so there is some suspense for certain games, like the first week of the playoffs and the title game. Sims are set up to always run on the same days of the week from season to season, which I think is good for flow.

[IrishGuy65]

Here's the problem, in my opinion, Julio:

Week 1, everyone is bored to tears and basically zones out. Unless you are high the whole week, it's a wasted week. It's not wasted if you're wasted, I guess ;)

Week 3, we have too many double stage sims. If you watch what's happening, many, many players are still not signing in these late stages, unlike in FOF2k7, which means each later stage can still be very important, and running two at once makes the changes in the game irrelevant.

I personally don't like it. Again, just my opinion.

Also, FA 1:1 is an important stage.. it's when you start negotiating with players. Sometimes, for me, it takes many stages (up to 6-7) to actually sign a guy if you negotiate well to minimize your payments... and finances ARE important. Again, doing things like this kill the strategic part of the game that now exists in FOF7 that wasn't there in FOF2k7... finances.