Update re. GM recruitment

[dsavillian]

Honestly, I've been feeling pretty down on the game/league in general over the last few months or so - can't put my finger on it. Started well before the season started, so it's not related to performance/success.

Maybe it's a common feeling and that's passively influencing the potential recruits? Hard to say since I really don't know why it's not as fun as it was before.

[Da_Chief]

Originally Posted by Swayze11

I understand your a little upset with me because I called your brother a cry baby, which is fine. Not looking for a pat on the back at all, just saying its possible to acquire top assets but it takes a time and effort. I forgot about those bums you mentioned, so thanks for that but it doesn't really matter. There are available teams that have better assets that the ones you mentioned that could turn the team around a lot quicker.

Nah, not upset at all. I just remember helping and guiding you through all your trade back in the day so was wondering to myself his team wasn't that bad. So I had to check and nope it was a decent team you were just a bit slow at learning this game.

[Swayze11]

Originally Posted by Da_Chief

Nah, not upset at all. I just remember helping and guiding you through all your trade back in the day so was wondering to myself his team wasn't that bad. So I had to check and nope it was a decent team you were just a bit slow at learning this game.

I hope the expectation in this league isn't to learn how to play it very quickly. I am having fun, and really... that's the bottom line (cause stone cold said so).

[Da_Chief]

Originally Posted by dsavillian

I was going to say "in before philly takes a jab at someone" but I missed it.

Not a jab bud, just speaking the truth.

[SportsJunky]

Da Chief mentioned the option of protecting a certain number of forwards, Dmen and goalies. Everyone leftover goes into a dispersal draft. I've been in a league that did just that. It definitely changes how you build a team. We did it at the end of every season. What about something like that on a three year cycle? Or maybe just once to shake things up.

Just spit-balling here.

[Swayze11]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Da Chief mentioned the option of protecting a certain number of forwards, Dmen and goalies. Everyone leftover goes into a dispersal draft. I've been in a league that did just that. It definitely changes how you build a team. We did it at the end of every season. What about something like that on a three year cycle? Or maybe just once to shake things up.

Just spit-balling here.

I would be open to this for sure.

[dsavillian]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Da Chief mentioned the option of protecting a certain number of forwards, Dmen and goalies. Everyone leftover goes into a dispersal draft. I've been in a league that did just that. It definitely changes how you build a team. We did it at the end of every season. What about something like that on a three year cycle? Or maybe just once to shake things up.

Just spit-balling here.

I think what Jiri was saying is that this goes against what the long-time GMs want. Can't say I'd disagree if I was one of the longer standing GMs.

[I wanna be like Miikka]

I had another league that did a re-draft and after that the entire league collapsed. A lot of veteran GMs, myself included, would not stick around if we did a re-draft.

I don't think the league should cater so much to GMs that are not willing to come in and do the work to build a good team. Right now, some decent teams are available so I think a dispersal draft would just be a temporary fix. I think the league made some nice changes with these cap restrictions as in previous years it was very easy to ice an expensive team year after year because you would end up getting 5-10 million in extra cap just from playoffs, awards, etc.

The league should continue to tinker with the grids and let the effect of the more restricted cap take place next summer. It is going to be much more difficult dumping contracts this offseason compared to previous ones.

Almost all the long term GMs came in to crap teams, we each have a story of how bad the team was and how we transformed the squad. Personally, I like the challenge of coming into a weakened team and building it up. Turd did it a couple years back, Dallas was trash and now it sucks in the sim but at least has assets. We should be encouraging those types of GMs to join, not ones who want a team with good assets to come and try and win for a year and then bail. We should be trying to get committed GMs to join and most of the time those are the ones who want to put the time in to improve their squad.

Edit: To add, I would be open to a dispersal draft with a high number of players protected. But I do think this is a more temporary fix and I don't think it would improve GM retention.

[dsavillian]

Questions for discussion. Please note, just like *all* of my debates, I'm not for one side or the other. Merely trying to present both sides.

How do you get brand new GMs into the league when, in a lot of cases, they will not get instant gratification?
While I realize that it's pretty much impossible for a new GM to get rewarded quickly without a ton of work (and even then it's not guaranteed), I would suggest that the ratio of new recruits that want quick results compared to those that appreciate the "long haul" are at a ratio greater than 9:1.

How do we integrate new GMs into the league? Can this be better?
I was lucky when I joined the league. I work with Pat and Rob, so I had a nice little group to talk shop with. It feels like that we aren't very welcoming to new GMs, which probably hurts retention.

Further to the previous question, how do we turn the CPHL back into a community?
I think that, over the last few seasons, the sense of the CPHL being a community has been declining. I can't point fingers at why, but turnover could be a part of it. Perhaps the endless petty bickering is another part of it. MIA GMs could be another part of it. Hard to say really.


Food for thought.


Interestingly enough, I ran a league/club for another game (Blood Bowl) that had many of the same problems we are having now. We peaked at like 25 members and dwindled down to 8-10. New players were quitting fairly quickly. We are back up over 20 again, but it took a lot of work.

If you want to pick my brain on my past experience, send me a message.

[JiriHrdina]

I actually think a factor is we lost our chat feature.
We have two ways that GMs can now talk
- PM on the site, which is great but any extended conversation can stretch over days
- Kakao talk which is great but since its always on, it doesn't actually create a lot of conversations

When we had MSN I would see a GM log on and think "oh let's see what he has on the block" and initiatie a conversation. Now there's this weird extreme where the conversations are too deliberate or too instant.

Not sure if I'm describing it accurately but I think there's something to this.

[SportsJunky]

Originally Posted by dsavillian

How do we integrate new GMs into the league? Can this be better?[/B]
I was lucky when I joined the league. I work with Pat and Rob, so I had a nice little group to talk shop with. It feels like that we aren't very welcoming to new GMs, which probably hurts retention.

I'll comment on this one. I was more than a little confused when I first joined. I wanted to figure out as much as possible on my own but it's a little daunting to wade into this place. Many GMs were very helpful when I had questions. devo22 went above and beyond when I got extra confused at times. Still, I definitely had a deer in the headlights thing going on for a while. What about having a welcome package that gets PM'd to the new GM guiding him to the pertinent stickies and areas of the CPHL website?

One thing that tripped me up were the stickies at the top of the page. Some go back quite a ways and it wasn't always clear if I needed to just read the recent posts or try to get answers from the very beginning of the thread, years ago. I wonder if there is a way to clean them up a bit? make them a bit more current maybe?

[flambers]

From my side of things I have been with the league on and off for around 10 years or so

In my time, there have been lots and lots of great GM's that are extremely creative. However the key is to spend lots of time at it.

A team can turn around very quickly.... Watched this occur many...many times.

Key to a fun league is lots & lots of activity, some GMs (Cheese for sure) in the older days would make 100+ trades a season easily....

Some GMs are great at finding players as UFAs. They spend hours & hours digging...

Some GMs don't participate within the draft, which in my experience is a major mistake.

Other Gms are absolutely great at drafting....

[flambers]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

I actually think a factor is we lost our chat feature.
We have two ways that GMs can now talk
- PM on the site, which is great but any extended conversation can stretch over days
- Kakao talk which is great but since its always on, it doesn't actually create a lot of conversations

When we had MSN I would see a GM log on and think "oh let's see what he has on the block" and initiatie a conversation. Now there's this weird extreme where the conversations are too deliberate or too instant.

Not sure if I'm describing it accurately but I think there's something to this.

Agreed, MSN was by far my favorite.... it was obvious when Gms were on line.

Was easy to create conversions.

During trade dead-line it was crazy....

[JonDuke]

I would guess that part of the problem with recruiting new GMs is economy related. People losing or worried about their jobs have more to think about and less time to do stuff like this, even though it really doesn't take a huge amount of effort. I would guess it has more to outside factors like that than it does to community. The group here is pretty amazing.

I'm still less than a year into this and happily consider myself new and constantly learning. The biggest asset to the league, imo, is the seasoned GMs who are always available for advice. I've used up more than my share of "phone a friend" cards to ask for advice, and never once was refused. To lose those GMs due to a complete redraft would be a shame.

I like the idea of a dispersal draft, but definitely not mid season. Also, if I were in the position of an older GM who has invested that time to build the team they have, I wouldn't want to blow it up either.

I took over a pretty horrible team. We're still horrible too, but mildly improving. That challenge alone is enough to keep me here. I love this place, and my wife now despises it

One thing I would like to see is all the trade being posted. I've noticed many haven't. Turris moving twice is just one example (unless I missed that post). Posting those trades both 1- show that other GMs are being active and might entice newer GMs to be as well and 2-help with understanding value, which seems to be a huge problem for newer GMS.

[Goffie]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

I actually think a factor is we lost our chat feature.
We have two ways that GMs can now talk
- PM on the site, which is great but any extended conversation can stretch over days
- Kakao talk which is great but since its always on, it doesn't actually create a lot of conversations

When we had MSN I would see a GM log on and think "oh let's see what he has on the block" and initiatie a conversation. Now there's this weird extreme where the conversations are too deliberate or too instant.

Not sure if I'm describing it accurately but I think there's something to this.

The "GM" has now signed on notification certainly spurned a lot of spur of the moment trade talks for me. I can always remember I knew peak times when the most GMs were online and used to try to make sure I was online to trade at these times. Once upon a time every Sunday night used to see about 20 gms online looking to deal.

[Hanni]

I may have a bit of a different perspective having been here for a draft/offseason/season and then returning a couple of years to a different team.

I think first of all there needs to be serious consideration about the desire to make drastic changes in the hopes of recruiting or retaining those that aren't committed and keeping the stable, life blood of the league GMs. In my opinion if those are the 2 extremes you always go with the latter. If there is strong resentment to a dispersal draft I don't think you do one (obvious I know). If there is only an appetite for a dispersal draft where a high number of players are protected what's the point? You end up shuffling around bottom 6 forwards, bottom third defensemen and backup goalies, I don't think that solves anything. It only works with a low protection or don't do one at all. My vote would be to not do one at all. The focus should be on finding and keeping the right people and not making drastic changes that end up killing the league in the long run. There is enough good and stable GMs here that you take the turnover for what it is and try and help new GMs.

As far as helping new GMs I think this is a very intimidating game and place to come into. I've shown this league to a couple of the more die hard fantasy sports guys I know in an effort to get them to join and it's complicated to figure out at the beginning. You see a huge page of rules, ratings, contracts and it seems like a lot. I'm not saying change any of that but it's a perspective to remember for the veteran GMs, new guys to sim hockey are going to need time to figure it out. It's tough at the start to wade through all the suggestions on how you should run your team, trade lots, youth is important, picks are valuable, picks are worthless. Everyone has an opinion and some are pushy with it in hopes of getting you to trade with them, some are just there to help. I see it's been mentioned but maybe some kind assign a mentor for the new guys to help them understand the day to day as well the long term game and that success isn't necessarily going to be instant. I do like the newbie 101 thread, I think that kind of thing is a great idea.

Obviously on the flip side you have the guy that's not going to want any advice and get mad and quit when the league rejects a trade.... you can't worry about these situations as I think it tells you that person wouldn't have been a good long term fit for the league anyway.

Hopefully this wasn't to rambling and made some sense.

[Hanni]

On the topic of POTW type things, what ever happened to the betting on game outcomes? I always found that to be fun and kept you more interested in other games especially when your team had an off day.

[TurdFerguson]

I would have no problems with a re-draft. For me, the most enjoyable element of the league is trading and building value...it always has been. The thing i have found is the more i "like" my team or the "better" my team is, the harder it is to trade and the less fun i have. I've long said that if i won the league id swap my team for a new one...new challenge.

I dont fully understand why GMs would leave if a redraft happened. so you start again with a median roster, and you get to trade for all your favorite guys again (if that's what you want to do). Instead of having 6 teams control 80% of the value (so you always end up trading with the same people), you have more spread out assets and more GMs to try and trade with. again, sounds like fun to me. As they say, the fun is in the chase.

Grant (and anyone else), I'm curious as to why you wouldn't continue if there was a redraft? would you quite sim hockey all together? Surely you wouldn't just go join another league where you;d be effectively starting new anyway. The "if i cant have my roster i don't want to play" angle is just confusing to me. Do you enjoy playing or do you only enjoy being stacked and playing? I just don't understand it. I can respect the time investment challenge but the investment is in the experience isn't it?

And Sim performance is such a crap shoot anyway i think there is a very small correlation between relative roster strength and sim success. Id argue that top team now would have near equal likelihood of being a top after a reset.

maybe im just on an island here.

[dsavillian]

we should just use Skype again. You get to use your MSN/hotmail tag and it's better than gtalk

[TurdFerguson]

I'd add that im not advocating change for the sake of change...I dont particularity care if we redraft...i'll be active either way.

I'd also add that we are always going to have:
1/3 of the league in active GMs with good teams
1/3 of the league with somewhat active, ok teams
1/3 of the league with absentee GMs and poor teams.

a redraft wont really change that long term, it will just make things tighter for a couple seasons until the asset divide emerges again...as its sure to with active/inactive people