The length of time it takes to fill leagues is alarming, and it’s been bad for a long time. Why not take look at retooling the game to help remedy this issue.

First - reduce the number of teams per league from 32 to 24. Structure the leagues (AL and NL) with either two division of six each or three divisions of four each. It would be simple to set playoffs. Four team divisions - top team in each makes playoffs plus top second place team as a wild card. In six team divisions - top two teams make the playoffs.

Second - HBD combined leagues before when leagues collapsed, so there is precedent for combining or reworking leagues. Seek volunteer leagues to test concept, but I am betting you’d have a long line of leagues ready to give it a go.

Third - improve HOF voting and record keeping by adding to awards things like # of seasons player led the league in AVG, HR, RBI, SB, W, SV, SO, ERA, etc. would give people a better sense of exactly how dominant players were.

Finally - increase the financial incentive for owners to renew and return to a league. Maybe offer a $5.00 discount for owners who renew before rollover.

Oh - and bring the DH to the NL. Time to bring the game in line with the rest the baseball world.

all good ideas but I doubt much of that, if any, will happen. As you said, its been tough to fill leagues for a while, plus no big changes to HBD have been made for a long time.

I love this game but my god I couldn’t imagine someone coming in new and trying to learn how to play it with a UX from 2007.

And leagues that have no issue filling do what... go lord of the flies on 8 members? And before your response is, well they could just stay at 32, now you are talking about having two fundamentally different games operating at once. WiS has a hard enough time keeping one game operating. If they were to spend any time on changing the game, I'd hope they'd take aim at some of the bugs/flaws that coaches take advantage of. IMO, those tend to propel superteams which are a more common cause of people leaving worlds than HOF voting (which Id agree could be improved, but its pretty low on the list).

1 - I'd rather see less leagues then changing to 24 teams. Just doesn't feel right and resolves the same issue. No need to drastically change it.
2 - Betting they'd be lined up? I have my doubts, especially if that means changing their history or having to drop players because they only have 30 and having trouble finding the last 2. I wouldn't be lined up to drop 6 owners just to test out your 24 owner league.
3 - I'd love to see these and more than just the #1 person, maybe a top 5 or 10?
Finally - They will just charge more so its a moot point.

The original concept missing the big point. All of the new code that would need to be written in addition to scheduling format. The current issue why HBD is behind the times is having to rewrite the old code into something modern. That process is allegedly still taking place, albeit at a very slow pace. I wish it was different, but it isn't.

Posted by cosborn on 11/15/2023 9:09:00 AM (view original):
Oh - and bring the DH to the NL. Time to bring the game in line with the rest the baseball world.

Why repeat MLB's mistake? Keep the DH out of the NL

You guys crack me up. Years and years of great suggestions on how to improve the game, only to be routinely ignored. They used to pretend like they cared. They don't care. Stop trying to do their jobs for them. Play the game, have fun, enjoy the challenge, laugh at the 364 day injuries to guys with 99 health. Somebody gets hit by a bus every day.

Don’t worry! An upgrade is being worked on! (so has said the last 5 owners of WIS)

A good world is not hard to fill. If you put some effort into recruiting and maybe introducing new players to HBD (not just some random person) but someone that actually has the capacity and financial ability to play the game, it will produce long term owners and maybe they will try out other worlds.

When you look at the total number of teams across all worlds, less than 3% are without an owner right now. Sucks when you are in a world with openings but open teams aren't really as big an issue as it seems. With over 97% of the teams having owners, WIS is probably making a little money off of this game, just not enough to invest in the changes/updates it needs apparently.

Posted by dyoungquist on 11/24/2023 12:58:00 PM (view original):
When you look at the total number of teams across all worlds, less than 3% are without an owner right now. Sucks when you are in a world with openings but open teams aren't really as big an issue as it seems. With over 97% of the teams having owners, WIS is probably making a little money off of this game, just not enough to invest in the changes/updates it needs apparently.

That's a little misleading. Considering all in-season worlds are full, you need to know how many teams in worlds waiting to fill are open. It is going to be a different picture. Just a quick look at the classifieds and I see worlds with 5, 7, 8 and 9 openings -- and those are the ones actively recruiting. How many others have given up or are trying to merge due to double-digit vacancies?

14 private worlds are open + 9 public worlds

To keep me around it's simple, when leagues merge, bring the history. The great part of the game for me is building a team over a period of years and tracking player statistics and development. I've already dumped one team that was going to merge, now I'm sitting on another in a league sitting on 10 openings for a month now. Frankly I'm not interested in starting over with a new team at this point so given the interesting parts to me are lost in a merger, I'm out.

IMO enhancements to HOF voting and the DH... that's fine but let's look at why people are either leaving or cutting back teams. Enhancements like that pretty clearly aren't coming.