NCAA 10 - FOFC Online Dynasty ideas

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by Kodos

In 2010, we could hypothetically create a Solecismic 8 type conference with all cupcake schools, and have people only have access to those teams. It'd start everyone off on equal footing.

I think it'd be neat to create a college version of my Rochester Lake Monsters from IHOF.

I like this idea...

So when thinking about NCAA 10, here's how I imagine the leagues going.

We have 2 total control leagues, and we go with the Solecismic 12 idea, or whatever we decide to call it. We'll divy them up between the upper echelon guys and then the so called "middle aged guys who are way past their prime" in two different leagues. In the upper echelon league, I don't see any reason to implement any house rules. Maybe outside of staying out of certain states for recruiting purposes...CA, TX, & FL. In the lower league, or "special" league some things can be enforced based on however next years gameplay seems to work.

We also have 1-2 coach only leagues, depending on what kind of interest this garners, and we'll have a vote to determine how we choose teams. Whether we take whoever we want ala RFL or only certain teams like the NOFL/EBFL, with some potential house rules in place again which I imagine would also be taken to a vote.

The release date for NCAA 10 is July 14th, and with the web based utilities EA will be releasing we'll probably have rosters available immediately, so we have less than 2 months before leagues launch.

What are your guys thoughts? I know some of you are definitely burnt out due to either being unable to compete, or recruiting unfairness, or whatever else. What other ideas would you like to throw out there for house rules? What things that I've outlined in this threads starter post would you change, what do you like? Please do share, I'd like to be able to compile all of this stuff so that we can hit the ground running this next year. I'll list everything in this post in checklist format, and update it as new ideas are posted. Really, I just want everybody to be able to have fun, and I'm pretty sure the rest of you feel the same way.

League Ideas
- Coach Only
- Separated leagues based on skill level
- Drafting teams, with the draft order being determined by overall "stick skills"
- 1 league, split into 2 divisions (east and west perhaps), with two CPU controlled 5-6* teams in each division and the rest are 2-3* controlled by humans (8 total Humans)
- Solecismic 8 type of league, with sub-par user created fictitious teams.

House rule ideas
- No choosing teams in talent rich states...CA, TX, FL
- No running "The Option"
- No recruiting 5* players
- No recruiting players with a SPD rating over X
- CPU controls kickoff/punt returns

[Kodos]

One thing I hate doing as the commissioner is the scheduling. It is like pulling teeth, because the computer fights you, and you often have to trick it into letting you have teams have the schedule that they want. If we consolidated into one or two conferences at best, there would be more automatic human matchups, and less nutzing with the schedule by hand.

[Sun Tzu]

Scheduling...I hadn't really thought about that. I can imagine it would be a bit of a headache for the commish of the Solecismic 12 dynasties, trying to set up 4-5 human v human games and then manually scheduling the rest of the OOC every year. It will be very interesting to see how this web based utility works when they release it in a couple weeks.

[Sun Tzu]

Dola

Here is a good look at how the team builder will work for next year. I'm really digging this...

[Kodos]

If I run RFL in NCAA 2010, I think I would set things up like this:

Take over a 12 team conference, but maybe only have 8 human owners total. I think with 12 guys, you're always going to get stragglers who wait until the deadline every week. I'd like a leaner, meaner RFL where things move along more quickly. Everyone will have a week here or there where they can't do things early in the cycle, and that's fine, but it bothers me when most guys get their stuff done well before the deadline each week, but then one or two guys ALWAYS wait until the last day to do stuff.

Each 6-team side of the conference would have 4 human owners, and then 2 cpu squads that are significantly higher rated roster-wise and prestige-wise. I'm thinking the humans teams start at 2 or 3 stars, the cpu teams at 5, or maybe one 5 and one 6. Basically, I want it to be a challenge just to get to the top of the division, rather than guys waltzing to the national championship with ease each year.

The divisions could be made up of either real teams with modified rosters and prestige ratings, or totally fictional teams. I think my ideal situation, if we used real teams, would be something like this. Take the Big 10 teams plus Notre Dame, move them to the Big 12, set up Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and Notre Dame as the high-rated teams, and then hobble the rest down to 2 or 3 stars. The conferences would be something like this:

East:
Ohio State 6*
Penn State 5*
Indiana 3*
Purdue 3*
Northwestern 3*
Illinois 3*

West:
Michigan 6*
Notre Dame 5*
Michigan State 3*
Iowa 3*
Minnesota 3*
Wisconsin 3*

Anyhow, this maybe better suited for a solo dynasty of my own, but I thought I would put my ideas out there and see if anyone liked it.

[Sun Tzu]

I like this idea...were you thinking this for the coach only or total control?

I would also like to put my name in the hat for Commish of a league next year. This year I held off because I was going to be gone on an extended 3+ week vacation right around the time that the leagues started. This year I'll be taking the same length vacation, but not until mid-september. If people would prefer me not to have that kind of role because of my "stick skills" I can understand that too.

[Kodos]

Honestly, I'm not interested in coach only. If I'm playing the game, I want to play the game.

[Kodos]

I think my idea probably works better with fake teams and taking over a crappy conference.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Honestly, I'm not interested in coach only. If I'm playing the game, I want to play the game.

+1 except my reason is that I doubt the coach only mode will be well done since it will likely be little more than an afterthought.

[DeToxRox]

I think I may allow any team to be used in mine, and split it up between 3 conferences. The only caveat to that would be that when we draft, the people with the most success pick last, and will be subjected to picking teams within a certain rating. Kind of have a sliding board of success. The guys picking near the top can have free reign if they so choose.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

Dola

Here is a good look at how the team builder will work for next year. I'm really digging this...

That does look pretty awesome. I may make my own high school league for an offline dynasty.

[wade moore]

Here's what I posted in the other thread:

What I'd like to propose is a "House Rules" league. I've thought about some House Rules that I think would help level the playing field and also not make us completely dominate the CPU:

1) Some sort of recruiting limits. The two things that jump to mind for me are either a) you cannot recruit 5* players and/or b) you cannot recruit players with a speed above X (A-?).

2) Special Teams - CPU controls kick returns, Fair Catch all punts.

3) Sliders - As much as I complained, I like something similar to what we have now.

4) Option - DENIED. I'm really iffy on this one. There are legitimate ways to use the option, but unless they change something in '10 it is just so overpowered.

5) Think about team selection harder. Potentially make certain states "off-limits" (i.e. Texas, Florida) because of the large benefit in recruiting. Potentially eye-ball certain teams that should be off-limits (I think some teams benefited because they were rated 78-79, but had TONS of speed).

Anyway, some of that applies here, some of it doesn't - figured I'd put it all out there though.

My biggest thing is I don't think I'd enjoy another year of seeing the other teams beating top 10 teams by 6 and 7 TDs while I'm losing 1 or 2 CPU games a year and never winning a human game. I'm finding my ways to enjoy it this year, but I don't think I can go another year.


I REALLY like the sole 8ish idea. I've always preferred fictional leagues in all of my MP play - and that would apply here too. Plus then we can balance however we want. If we want to handicap teams, we can do that. If we want all an even playing field, we can do that. We'd have 100% control and not have to pigeon ourselves into whatever is out there.

I also think that at this point I would prefer a longer deadline, but more human games. So cutting to 1-3 conferences, rather than 4. Maybe do 2 big conferences with say 4-6 humans in each conference, but split evenly between divisions. So that you have maybe 2-3 human games in-conference every year, but some of those games rotate.

As much as I complain about stick skills, i'm not 100% sure I would enjoy a coach only league - especially (as EF27 said) not knowing what the quality will be.

[Sun Tzu]

Haven't they already confirmed that outside of kicking, coach only mode is already going to be in the game?

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

Haven't they already confirmed that outside of kicking, coach only mode is already going to be in the game?

No, all they have confirmed is that QB's will now go on autopilot like they used to if you don't do anything. That effectively gives a "coach" mode, but in previous years I found it to be very poorly done with delays in the time that the QB would take over, running issues, etc - unlike Head Coach 09 which is designed to run in coach mode and does so very well.

[Sun Tzu]

Gotcha.

Yeah I've played, and enjoyed Head Coach 09...and I'm secretly holding out hoping that they'll announce an online franchise mode for Madden this year. It sounds to me like most people are already against the whole coach mode thing.

noted

[Grammaticus]

I would suggest looking at the star rating of the program more than the overall score of the team. It has a lot more to do with the ability to recruit. Fore example, if you get a 79 rated team with a 4 star prestige and the next guy gets a 79 rated team with 3 star prestige, the first guy is way ahead before the first season even starts.

Agree with blocking some of the states for school location.

I think the jury is still out on the impact of ratings such as speed. If it is over balanced, it would be more fun to set a cap on the rating during recruitment.

I would dislike anything that makes the league move slower. I still have guys on my roster as we finish up this season that were on the original roster. Plus EA says player progression will be slower. If we move at the current pace of the EFL, only the first 2 recruiting classes will ever come to fruition before the 2011 game comes out.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Take over a 12 team conference, but maybe only have 8 human owners total. I think with 12 guys, you're always going to get stragglers who wait until the deadline every week. I'd like a leaner, meaner RFL where things move along more quickly. Everyone will have a week here or there where they can't do things early in the cycle, and that's fine, but it bothers me when most guys get their stuff done well before the deadline each week, but then one or two guys ALWAYS wait until the last day to do stuff.

I'm one of those guys who sometimes waits until the deadline to do my recruiting and game. As I said in another thread, give me five days to play my game and I might take five days. Give me three days to play my game and I'll get it done in three. Sometimes what I'll do is play back-to-back games where I play one week, the commish advances that night and I'll play the next week the next day. It's much easier on my schedule to play this way and it's easier to remember the strengths and weaknesses of my team.

It's very diffcult to play an offline dynasty and have a great team in 2016 and then come back to an online dynasty and play with a team that you haven't really built up yet.

If you want people to play before the deadline, move up the deadline.


All this being said, this past year was relatively stable for me. I just started a new job and I think I'm going to be racking up the miles and hotel points. Next week I go to Huntsville for three days. The next week I go back to Huntsville for three days. The week after that I go to Ft. Leavenworth for three days.

I'm sure I'll travel a bit more in June as well.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Take the Big 10 teams plus Notre Dame, move them to the Big 12, set up Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and Notre Dame as the high-rated teams, and then hobble the rest down to 2 or 3 stars.

Or you could save time and just use, say, the Big 12.

The only thing that would tempt me to get NCAA 10 is if it were possible to be in at least 2 and maybe 3 leagues here at FOFC. Unless they really step up dynasty play, I think my solo enjoyment of the franchise has ebbed pretty low.

Ideally, here's the kind of leagues I'd like to play in:

* A RFL-type league where it's simply everybody's favorite team and you go at no-holds barred.

* A level-playing-field type league where everybody has crappy teams and you've got to work to build teams. If a Sole 8 conference works, great. I'd settle for everybody playing in the Sun Belt conference. Lots of h2h play.

* A NOFL-type league where you have 12 players in 3 or 4 conferences with below-average teams (maybe even a bit more below average than last time). However, I would want this league to be a FAST league -- limit human games to the same 12 weeks so everyone plays at the same time, 2/3-day max for sims, 1-day for recruiting/off-season processes, etc. Screw holidays and birthdays. If you miss the sim, we set the CPU to handle it for you. I'd like to see this league try and blow through a season a month.

I'd volunteer to commish a league to make any of these three happen.

+2 on EF27's reasons for not being in a coach-only league. I have no doubt that it would be handled extremely poorly in-game.

I'd like for one of my leagues to be a league of people like me: the 37-year-old rec league guys.

I'm also not a huge fan of house rules on teams. I think you can level the playing field a bit for a few seasons by having really crappy teams. I think some house rules mentioned so far would be extremely difficulty and annoying to enforce and would pretty much be on the honor system. I know I don't have the time or the inclination to make sure no one is recruiting a guy too fast or a guy in a certain state.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

If you want people to play before the deadline, move up the deadline.

I don't get this attitude at ALL.

If we set a 3 day deadline there are people that just wouldn't be able to play (like me) because they just can't do that without missing weeks. Whereas if it is at 5-7 days, but everyone plays as soon as they can you can advance in 3-4 days most of the time, but for when someone just can't free up during the week or whatever, they do not get penalized.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Grammaticus

I would suggest looking at the star rating of the program more than the overall score of the team. It has a lot more to do with the ability to recruit. Fore example, if you get a 79 rated team with a 4 star prestige and the next guy gets a 79 rated team with 3 star prestige, the first guy is way ahead before the first season even starts.

I think this is a REALLY good point and probably at the heart of some of the issues. UVA was a 3* when I took them over, other teams had 4 or 5 *'s even though they had the same rating. Probably more important to look at * rating and then consider the overall.

Originally Posted by kcchief19

I'm also not a huge fan of house rules on teams. I think you can level the playing field a bit for a few seasons by having really crappy teams. I think some house rules mentioned so far would be extremely difficulty and annoying to enforce and would pretty much be on the honor system. I know I don't have the time or the inclination to make sure no one is recruiting a guy too fast or a guy in a certain state.

I would definitely foresee it as an honor system. I think with the guys we have playing here we can trust everyone in such a system.

I'm also not dead set on doing house rules, I just know that for me personally something needs to happen for my enjoyment not to get killed.

[kcchief19]

Sliders are a different issue however. I'd like to see it a bit more difficult and a smidgeon easier to run than it is in the leagues I play in.

But maybe that's because I'm a pass-happy guy and I'm better at passing than running. I can see blowouts in the RFL because we all have top teams and can dominate the CPU. But I don't think we should be seeing some of the scores we're seeing the NOFL. But maybe that's just the style of play some of us play. You know, completely unrealistic.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by wade moore

I don't get this attitude at ALL.

If we set a 3 day deadline there are people that just wouldn't be able to play (like me) because they just can't do that without missing weeks. Whereas if it is at 5-7 days, but everyone plays as soon as they can you can advance in 3-4 days most of the time, but for when someone just can't free up during the week or whatever, they do not get penalized.

I wouldn't want every league to be a fast league. 5 days (7 is pushing it for me unless there's a holiday) is OK as long as everyone makes a good-faith effort to beat the deadline. I think this attitude has developed in some leagues where it seems like the same guy week after week is the last one to play days after everyone else has or misses the deadline. Call it The Pumpy Rule.

Originally Posted by wade moore

I would definitely foresee it as an honor system. I think with the guys we have playing here we can trust everyone in such a system.

A star-system house rule would be fine or even saying you can't recruit a player in the top 150 or something like that. I think my only complaint would be like no recruiting A or A- speed because that would be annoying from a recruiting standpoint to check that for even my own recruits.

[ColtCrazy]

I think some house rules would eliminate some of the unrealistic scores...of course we may have to tinker with the rules once 10 comes out. Maybe give it a week before leagues are set up. Let people play the game and see what needs to be set. Right now there's no way a 74 RB with 95 speed should be so much better than a 90 RB with 88 speed.

I LOVE the tiered league idea. Playing in a league with guys of similar levels would be great.

I think it would also be cool to have a created team league too. I would love to create the Elementary school I work at as a team.

[Kodos]

Wait until the deadline drives me mad. Note to self: No Raiders Army in my league. No offense. I just want guys who are excited to play, and don't wait until an hour before the deadline to play.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

A star-system house rule would be fine or even saying you can't recruit a player in the top 150 or something like that. I think my only complaint would be like no recruiting A or A- speed because that would be annoying from a recruiting standpoint to check that for even my own recruits.

Yeah, I'd be fine with that. I was definitely just brainstorming.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by wade moore

I don't get this attitude at ALL.

If we set a 3 day deadline there are people that just wouldn't be able to play (like me) because they just can't do that without missing weeks. Whereas if it is at 5-7 days, but everyone plays as soon as they can you can advance in 3-4 days most of the time, but for when someone just can't free up during the week or whatever, they do not get penalized.

Okay, I can understand this point and agree with it. I think the problem is when the person who waits 5-7 days rotates and it ends up being a 5-7 day turn as the rule as opposed to the exception.

Originally Posted by Kodos

Wait until the deadline drives me mad. Note to self: No Raiders Army in my league. No offense. I just want guys who are excited to play, and don't wait until an hour before the deadline to play.

No offense taken. I was initially excited to play but as time wore on it seemed as if there was always someone in the NOFL who waited until the last minute to play. The past season I haven't been as enthused to play since it's such a slow process and it's the offseason in real life. I think that if you look at the posts in the NOFL from previous seasons, you'll see that for the most part I was one of the first to play almost every week.

[kingnebwsu]

I was thinking about posting a thread like this a week ago. I'm glad someone else got the ball rolling.

I'm glad that someone else noted that the star-ratings are the most important thing when judging how good a team is. In the NOFL, I'd take Texas A&M over any of the other human controlled teams. They started out as 4-stars and are consistently rated higher than many other teams on the recruit's team listings. I think I want to be in a league where you start with a 3-star team.

There are many good ideas floating around here. It's an interesting idea to have the Solecismic 12 replace the Big 12. We could make our own teams or we could take a bunch of 3-star teams from all of the other conferences and dump them in the Big 12. However, I don't think I could be in a league that does this. I don't have the time to play 8-9 human games each season. I think a league with this setup would really drag behind. How did the all-MAC league work out?...

Honestly, I really like the setup of the NOFL right now. I know it's not enough human games for some people, but to me it's just the right amount. Maybe not as much at this point in the league (where our teams are actually not terrible & many of us are doing better against the AI). If I were the commish making the rules (which I don't want to be), I'd keep the setup we have now, where we have 3 human teams in each of 4 BCS conferences, the Pac-10, SEC, Big 12, and ACC. I honestly think the Big East & Big Ten are the worst conferences for the game. If we cut a conference, it should be the Pac-10, because I think the conference championship games are critical to the league. Plus the Big East (especially) & Big Ten are the weakest conferences in the game.

-Regardless of the final league setup, I think the commish should mandate the minimum number of games that a user must play against a human team. In the current NOFL, I'd mandate a total of 3 games against humans in the regular season. If you play 2 human opponents in-conference, then you must play 1 opponent out-of-conference. If you play zero in-conference human opponents, then you must play 3 non-conference human opponents. I think making this a rule from the outset is very important, so everyone is on the same page as to what the league expects from them. The online sports league experience is new to many people (myself included) and what some may think is "obvious" in a online multiplayer environment may not be as clear to people who don't play in these leagues all the time.

-Many house rules are really difficult to enforce. The NOFL went with minimum house rules and I think it worked out well. Although some (many) stats are skewed, it's much better than going, "I'm calling a deep passing play, but I'm not sure if this is not allowed per league bylaw 8.7." Also, stuff like not returning punts is just ridiculous to me.

-You can't plan everything out for a game that hasn't been released. Stuff like the 800 A+ speed recruits has supposedly been fixed, so having a rule on that may not be necessary. I do think the speed will still be way overvalued and overemphasized in the gameplay, so a house rule may be necessary. I'd probably only say no "A+" speed players, but even that may not be necessary.

I think it's important to try and get the league setup & league participants nailed down a few weeks before release. Just because you want to play in the "over-40 softball league", you may not want to be in it because they're using fictional teams in the Solecismic 12. Or you may be a really good player but you don't want to do a 5-day deadline. There are just so many variables. At some point, people are going to make some tough decisions that will ultimately drive some players out of the league. Sadly, that's the reality of online dynasties.

A lot of people are still on the fence about purchasing NCAA 10. I thought NCAA 09 was a solid game, but the online dynasty took it to the next level and made it a "must buy" for me. If they don't ruin the gameplay (aka 10 INT's/7 blocked kicks per game like some previous NCAA iterations), then I'll almost certainly buy it just for the online dynasty.

That's my rant I guess. I think that next week, someone should just post a bunch of public polls and have everyone vote. Stuff like quarter length, game difficulty, maximum days before each deadline, number of conferences, which conferences, number of players per conference, caliber of human teams, house rules, fictional teams, fictional leagues, yearly minimum number of human games, etc. Obviously there shouldn't be 10 polls, but these are some talking points to get the ball rolling.

One final thing I'm a huge proponent of is to require a microphone & chatting during the game. It's no fun when you're playing without a headset or when your opponent says one word each quarter. Maybe I'm alone in this one, but when you're not talking to an opponent it just feels like you're playing a laggy game against the computer. My favorite experience in the NOFL was the first quarter in my game against kcchief in the bowl game. It was a one-TD game after one quarter and we were joking around and laughing and having a good time. At that point, regardless of how the game was going to turn out, I was really enjoying myself (I won't talk about the rest of the game because I don't want it to appear that the result of the game was the driving force behind my enjoyment of it). Games like that are what I'll remember in the future...not the games against an opponent who doesn't have/use a headset. No offense to people who play without a headset, of course, but this is the time to "speak your mind" so I'm doing just that

[Kodos]

I prefer no headset, so I can concentrate on what I'm doing, rather than random chitchat. To each his own, I s'pose.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I prefer no headset, so I can concentrate on what I'm doing, rather than random chitchat. To each his own, I s'pose.

Same here. When I'm playing one of you guys, it is taking my full concentration to try to beat you

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by wade moore

I don't get this attitude at ALL.

If we set a 3 day deadline there are people that just wouldn't be able to play (like me) because they just can't do that without missing weeks. Whereas if it is at 5-7 days, but everyone plays as soon as they can you can advance in 3-4 days most of the time, but for when someone just can't free up during the week or whatever, they do not get penalized.

Ah thinking about it more, I don't get your attitude at ALL. If you want people to play in 3-4 days, then make the deadline 4 days. You can always extend it, but why make a deadline if you complain about people playing within the deadline?

For the record, I'd much rather have a more aggressive schedule with 2-3 days instead of 5-7 days.

[Kodos]

I think what annoys people is, if you CAN play within 3 or 4 days, why wait until an hour before the deadline in a 5 or 6 day cycle? Show some initiative, get it done as early as you can.

A longer official cycle allows for the times when a guy legitimately can't play within 3 or 4 days due to work, family, whatever. But if the majority of the league plays in the first 3 days and then repeatedly has to wait for Mr. Wait Til The Deadline, it's not a lot of fun for most of the league. Especially when that guy then can't get on the EA servers when he finally does try, and therefore the deadline ends up getting pushed to accomodate him. Which he then misses again. (Sorry, Pumpy -- think you're a great guy, but you're kindof the posterboy for this.)

Anyhow, I think we definitely have two camps of thought here, and it's probably best if those camps end up in separate leagues. I know I will be looking to populate my league with guys who don't routinely wait until the deadline to do things.

[Kodos]

It's becoming apparent that the KWhit mindset is somewhat common.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by kingnebwsu

-Regardless of the final league setup, I think the commish should mandate the minimum number of games that a user must play against a human team. In the current NOFL, I'd mandate a total of 3 games against humans in the regular season. If you play 2 human opponents in-conference, then you must play 1 opponent out-of-conference. If you play zero in-conference human opponents, then you must play 3 non-conference human opponents. I think making this a rule from the outset is very important, so everyone is on the same page as to what the league expects from them. The online sports league experience is new to many people (myself included) and what some may think is "obvious" in a online multiplayer environment may not be as clear to people who don't play in these leagues all the time.

As an aside to this, I think it's also important that for the conferences which have divisions, we need to either have all teams in one division (if there's three users) or two in each (with four). No one should have an easy path to the conference championship. Yeah I'm looking at you Detox.

[DeToxRox]

Originally Posted by Logan

As an aside to this, I think it's also important that for the conferences which have divisions, we need to either have all teams in one division (if there's three users) or two in each (with four). No one should have an easy path to the conference championship. Yeah I'm looking at you Detox.

Hey you told me to join the Big 12, I was happy picking USF bastard.

We'll fix this mess, don't worry. I'm gonna fuck your stereo.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Logan

As an aside to this, I think it's also important that for the conferences which have divisions, we need to either have all teams in one division (if there's three users) or two in each (with four). No one should have an easy path to the conference championship. Yeah I'm looking at you Detox.

That's why I suggested we have more in a conference, but split it up by division. Then you don't have to stress about scheduling human opponents quite as much, but you don't have 5 and 6 human games a year.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I think what annoys people is, if you CAN play within 3 or 4 days, why wait until an hour before the deadline in a 5 or 6 day cycle? Show some initiative, get it done as early as you can.

A longer official cycle allows for the times when a guy legitimately can't play within 3 or 4 days due to work, family, whatever. But if the majority of the league plays in the first 3 days and then repeatedly has to wait for Mr. Wait Til The Deadline, it's not a lot of fun for most of the league. Especially when that guy then can't get on the EA servers when he finally does try, and therefore the deadline ends up getting pushed to accomodate him. Which he then misses again. (Sorry, Pumpy -- think you're a great guy, but you're kindof the posterboy for this.)

Anyhow, I think we definitely have two camps of thought here, and it's probably best if those camps end up in separate leagues. I know I will be looking to populate my league with guys who don't routinely wait until the deadline to do things.

I think almost everyone in the NOFL would say that I've gotten in my games and tried to coordinate my human matchups early in the cycle prior to the current season. I'm not sure if this is directed towards me as well, but in the past I've been one of the first to play week and out and I'd be excited to play if we could get a quicker cycle going.

That being said, I really don't understand the mindset of complaining about somebody who plays their game before the set deadline. If you don't like it, set an earlier deadline. If the deadline is extended consistently for one person, either drop the person or stop extending the deadline.

I'm not sure if anyone else is busy with their life, but at work (up until last year and now it's gearing up again) I have multiple deadlines that I juggle and consistently meet them. When you are busy you have to prioritize according to deadlines and if the deadline is next week, then it can wait till next week. Earlier is usually better, but if I have something else going on shouldn't I assume that people won't be pissed if I turn something in by the deadline and not early?

This is my mindset so I don't have a problem with someone who meets the standard. If you don't like the standard, then change it but don't complain about the standard you set.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by DeToxRox

Hey you told me to join the Big 12, I was happy picking USF bastard.

We'll fix this mess, don't worry. I'm gonna fuck your stereo.

I needed all the sure victories I could find.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

Same here. When I'm playing one of you guys, it is taking my full concentration to try to beat you

+2 The only game I've every played with a headset was against kingneb and it was fun. But I do think it put me at a little bit of a disadvantage. In my epic game against Colts, I was talking to myself trying to think plays and ideas out loud, not to mention screaming and cursing at myself. I couldn't do most of that over the headset. I could see having a headset-required league but I wouldn't want to play in it -- maybe a headset occasionally, but not all the time.

[Sun Tzu]

Yeah, I've only played one game in my life in any of these dynasties with a headset on. I forget who it was against, but I'm much more in the boat of "I'm too concentrated on breaking your gameplan to be able to talk about how Pumpy is a real sex machine".

The more people talk about it, the bigger a fan I am of the 8 team, 1 conference, 2 divisions idea. It would be fun it everybody in the conference were fighting for the same title, though that would eliminate most of the bowl games being played as human vs human.

I'd be much more inclined to go for a shorter deadline, than a longer one. If you want to go with 3 days, hell I'm down for that. 4 days? Shit yeah. 5 days? Ok...why not...but think about this.

In the NOFL, Andrew Luck was my starting QB in our very first year. NCAA 10 is coming out in about a month and a half. right now, we are barely half way through his JUNIOR year. That means I wont even see my original freshman class graduate before we move on to the next game...and Pumpy is NOT in this particular league. Still want to have a 5 day advance schedule?

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

If you want to go with 3 days, hell I'm down for that. 4 days? Shit yeah. 5 days? Ok...why not...but think about this.

In the NOFL, Andrew Luck was my starting QB in our very first year. NCAA 10 is coming out in about a month and a half. right now, we are barely half way through his JUNIOR year. That means I wont even see my original freshman class graduate before we move on to the next game...and Pumpy is NOT in this particular league. Still want to have a 5 day advance schedule?

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't be able to play in a league without a 5 day advance schedule. There are some weeks where I just can't play during the week and that would occur too often with a 3 or 4 day schedule for me to remain in the league.

Edit: Actually, I can do a 3-4 day schedule if I'm only in 1 league. Maybe I'll do that next year if all of the leagues want a quicker schedule. Of course, if Madden has online leagues (and all signs point to that being their "surprise" announcement), I'll probably just limit myself to 1 Madden league.

[Mike1409]

I hope that one of the improvement is the ability to move the offseason quicker. the 2-3 weeks to go from one season to the next slows progress down too much.

Count me in as a headset guy,even though I have to concentrate to play well. Talking has made the leagues games between myself Wade and radii a lot more fun.

[Galaxy]

I'm not sure I'll be around for the '10 online format.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Mike1409

I hope that one of the improvement is the ability to move the offseason quicker. the 2-3 weeks to go from one season to the next slows progress down too much.

Count me in as a headset guy,even though I have to concentrate to play well. Talking has made the leagues games between myself Wade and radii a lot more fun.

Yeah, I like being able to chat when I play. It's how I have always played in the past - buddy sitting next to me and talking about the game. So, I'm kind of used to it and it adds some fun for me.

That being said, I have no issue with the guys that don't want to chat while playing.

[Grammaticus]

I would prefer a fast moving league, say a 2 day cycle with some tolerance for holidays and vacations. Make the off season cycle 1 day or even try to have an off season party with everyone and pound through it one night in a few hours.

I also like the idea of requiring a minimum of 3 human vs human games each season.

I'm not a big fan of create a school, I like the atmosphere of real schools. But it is not a big issue for me overall.

[DeToxRox]

Originally Posted by Grammaticus

I would prefer a fast moving league, say a 2 day cycle with some tolerance for holidays and vacations. Make the off season cycle 1 day or even try to have an off season party with everyone and pound through it one night in a few hours.

I also like the idea of requiring a minimum of 3 human vs human games each season.

I'm not a big fan of create a school, I like the atmosphere of real schools. But it is not a big issue for me overall.

This. I love the pace of the EBFL but it could be quicker. We can do 2 or 3 days per game and give time if needed but lately we flat out fly.

[Logan]

I would definitely be up for a quicker turnaround but since I travel for work kinda frequently (hasn't been much lately but will pick up around July) I need the 5 days so that there's always a weekend day in there.

[wade moore]

2 days?

Yeah, no way I could do that - that would probably have to be a whippersnapper league.

[Kodos]

Yeah. That seems a bit crazy to me.

[Raiders Army]

I'd be good with 2-3 days.

Also, I'd add a house rule that if you're playing against the comp and you're up by 35 in the third quarter or up by 21 in the fourth quarter, you put in your 2nd team offense and defense.

[Sun Tzu]

What are your guys thoughts on having a schedule like this.

2 designated league-wide bye weeks.

Week 1 (starting monday) - Games due by Thursday at midnight
Week 2 - Games due by Sunday at midnight
Wash, rinse, repeat.

Bowl games have 4 day deadlines

Recruiting weeks 1 and 2 have two day deadlines, whereas weeks 3-5 have one day deadlines.

This way, at worst case scenario, a full season from week 1 to the end of off season duties (next years week 1) would take approximately 2 months, and we'd be able to get in at least 6 years of full play. We could post a schedule that is non-negotiable kind of like how the FOFL does.