Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

[SpectreBugg]

Madden bringing custom draft classes back was a huge deal for a lot of us. However, for those of us participating in 32 user leagues, where trust can be a concern, this feature could come at a cost.

With 1 user in an offline league, you can just download a custom class you want, trust yourself not to look at it, and you're good to go.

With a 32 user league, that doesn't really work. Someone has to import that class, and whether it's only that person who knows which class it is, or the entire league, you just can't trust that no one in the league is getting a sneak peak at the class prior to the draft.

So I'm looking for ideas on how to handle this. How would a 32 user league import a draft class, without anyone in the group being able to take that same file, load it into an offline cfm, and see the entire class? Any and all suggestions and ideas are welcome. This may help a great many leagues here on OS, and elsewhere, take advantage of a nice feature of the game without it ruining the experience for users.

[beastmode2013]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

Edits are recorded in transaction history.

[SpectreBugg]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

Edits are recorded in transaction history.

That's good.

It's not so much about post upload editing though. Even without edits, you could take that same class, upload it to your offline cfm. Then sim to the draft, complete the draft, see every players ratings and dev traits, and then know what they are in your online league. That way you know exactly who to draft because you've already seen the overalls and traits of every player.

[manEATgod]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

That's good.

It's not so much about post upload editing though. Even without edits, you could take that same class, upload it to your offline cfm. Then sim to the draft, complete the draft, see every players ratings and dev traits, and then know what they are in your online league. That way you know exactly who to draft because you've already seen the overalls and traits of every player.

I'm trying to get the league I'm in to use customs but concerns like these are making it hard to convince people. Personally I don't care, I don't want to cheat and i don't care if others do, but so far it sounds like my league is going to end up using those trash generic draft classes.

Would love some help with this.

[SpectreBugg]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

I'm trying to get the league I'm in to use customs but concerns like these are making it hard to convince people. Personally I don't care, I don't want to cheat and i don't care if others do, but so far it sounds like my league is going to end up using those trash generic draft classes.

Would love some help with this.

same thing for us. Right now it looks like we are going to allow the commissioner to choose the class, not tell anyone what it is, and trust him not to cheat the system. Not sure what else we could do at this point.

[BigTEX79]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

We've had same concerns here about custom classes. Best bet would be like you said, wait til someone else does a custom class and then import it so that no one has to actually look at the class and their stats

[DoTheSankeyLeg]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

same thing for us. Right now it looks like we are going to allow the commissioner to choose the class, not tell anyone what it is, and trust him not to cheat the system. Not sure what else we could do at this point.

Yeah it seems like you online guy's don't have much choice. I guess keep an eye out for other guys making blatant reaches. Like someone taking an 80 ovr superstar prospect in round 1 when his ranking/projection is round 6. This could help weed out some cheaters but idk how much this would actually help though. Good luck.

[rylin34]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

This was my concern when I posted a couple of days ago (still don't have access to the game). The way to fix it is to allow custom classes to have a range placed on attributes and overall. For example, you create real players at the college level or whatever you can dream up. For the ratings you would say you want speed 86-92, overall 72-79, etc. Each class would be random and no ability to see the classes outside of the franchise. If your commish edit's the actual class loaded, it would be in the logs.

I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement but seems like a good fix to me (I'm surprised this wasn't thought of in development to be honest).

[ParaAut]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

Funny enough putting ranges in there is actually the current system with auto generated draft classes - except you can give the guys a real name. Not a big different in my opinion.


Your problem is exactly why I thought before the draft classes won't be used in online leagues (and there I couldn't understand why it was No 1 on the feature request list). I really like the idea to generate your own draft class, create draft stories and make the draft even better. But there is always this problem that someone could see the draft.


I am playing in 2 good leagues and I trust most guys there. But it's almost impossible to get 32 guys and nobody would look for the draft class and tries to get an advantage. Even if that's not the case, then someone has some luck and gets 2-3 superstar guys, then there's a discussion immediately that he would cheat. Especially if it's the commissioner. At the end he only had luck or good scouting, but is rewarded with a negative discussion.


I can't see how it will work in online leagues. Even if nobody knows which draft class, you could still search for the names in there and probably will find the right file.


At the end it will be the automatically generated draft class again.

[solmon]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

Madden bringing custom draft classes back was a huge deal for a lot of us. However, for those of us participating in 32 user leagues, where trust can be a concern, this feature could come at a cost.

With 1 user in an offline league, you can just download a custom class you want, trust yourself not to look at it, and you're good to go.

With a 32 user league, that doesn't really work. Someone has to import that class, and whether it's only that person who knows which class it is, or the entire league, you just can't trust that no one in the league is getting a sneak peak at the class prior to the draft.

So I'm looking for ideas on how to handle this. How would a 32 user league import a draft class, without anyone in the group being able to take that same file, load it into an offline cfm, and see the entire class? Any and all suggestions and ideas are welcome. This may help a great many leagues here on OS, and elsewhere, take advantage of a nice feature of the game without it ruining the experience for users.

Ask a friend who is not in your league to do it for the commissioner

[SpectreBugg]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

Funny enough putting ranges in there is actually the current system with auto generated draft classes - except you can give the guys a real name. Not a big different in my opinion.


Your problem is exactly why I thought before the draft classes won't be used in online leagues (and there I couldn't understand why it was No 1 on the feature request list). I really like the idea to generate your own draft class, create draft stories and make the draft even better. But there is always this problem that someone could see the draft.


I am playing in 2 good leagues and I trust most guys there. But it's almost impossible to get 32 guys and nobody would look for the draft class and tries to get an advantage. Even if that's not the case, then someone has some luck and gets 2-3 superstar guys, then there's a discussion immediately that he would cheat. Especially if it's the commissioner. At the end he only had luck or good scouting, but is rewarded with a negative discussion.


I can't see how it will work in online leagues. Even if nobody knows which draft class, you could still search for the names in there and probably will find the right file.


At the end it will be the automatically generated draft class again.

You bring up a good point, which we did eventually cover, regarding members still being able to look up draft classes until they matched names and prospects to the one in the league.

So far the only solution we have at the moment is to allow the commissioner to create the class himself, which is he willing to do. Once it's created, upload it, add it to the league, and then delete it so that no one else can find that exact class. And then, of course, trusting him not to cheat. At this point I don't see any other options to take advantage of this feature.

[stinkubus]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

If you had a source of custom classes that you could trust were decent couldn't you just have multiples to pick from then use some sort of mechanic to pick at random and not do so until draft day?

[SpectreBugg]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

If you had a source of custom classes that you could trust were decent couldn't you just have multiples to pick from then use some sort of mechanic to pick at random and not do so until draft day?

Well, the problem is that the draft class has to be uploaded before week 3 of the regular season, so that people can scout the class. Which gives everyone in the league weeks to try and match what they are scouting to an available draft class on the net. And if you are using good classes that are presumably more popular, it won't take an untrustworthy user long to find out which one we are using.

[F17]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

The only way to do it is to have a commish or someone who really wants to do a custom draft class, with their own stories for the league or whatever, to do it. and then stream the draft, letting the cpu draft for them based on need etc. that way you know they aren't setting a draft board or picking anyone themselves. you cant see their scouted players, because why would they scout if they have access to the class itself

[SyncereBlackout]

Re: Ideas for handling custom draft classes for 32 user leagues

I threw this idea out in the Fictional Draft Class thread, and will start playing with it today as I start creating my custom draft class.

For Fantasy Draft Classes (after year 5 of a CFM and we are speculating about High School All Americans coming out of College)...My league (GML - Found in OS Sticky for PS4) will create a base draft class (GML Draft Class). Then we will copy the base class and make several variations (GML Draft Class A through F) to it by changing only:

1. Traits
2. Projection Order
3. The "Gems" and the
4. Top 5 Draft pick names.

Since I will have to spend more time editing classes than I want to, I'm going to remember too much about my class to use it in my league come year 5. I plan to create a thread in our sticky for other Commish's to request a draft class. I'll upload it (GML Draft Class D - Your League Name) ... wait for you to DL it, then delete it. If that turns out to be too much work (since I've got a day job and other people want to get on with their league). I'll just upload all 15 Variations and commish's can pick one at random not knowing which of the items above have changed between them. If you have people in your league willing to get a pen and pad and scout 15 draft classes for nuances. Boot em? They prob cheat or are cheese anyway? The way the draft classes are shaking out in Excel, there should be enough opportunity for at least 18 teams to get a:

• Normal Starter
• Superstar Dev
• Star Dev
• Quick Dev or
• Physical Freak (with little to no traits but good enough for situational downs)

If anyone got more than 2 of those in any given draft by reaching more than 1 round, I'd be skeptical...and grab my boot. The way I've mapped out the traits in Excel you wouldn't be able to identify the gems based solely on top 3 ratings and combine scores.