Yep, something that I think gets lost is that the bonus structure was developed as a compensation method when this league began. And in that old version of the simulator, NO players EVER developed skills unless they PLAYED GAMES.

In many ways, the simulator itself made the bonuses unnecessary over time.

I am in favor of dumping the SC bonus, but I'm not sure about dumping the other bonus. The lack of quality players on the draft board makes little to no difference in attributes from pick #4 to pick #24. Also, when you hit the third round, there's not much help there at all, regardless of what draft selection you have. So how do bottom dwelling teams get better then? If you eliminate a bonus completely, then teams that have warehoused stud or better players by cooking them in the minors for 5 or 6 seasons will have a distinct advantage for quite a few seasons until the bottom dwellers catch up. About the only way around all of this is have players salaries increase every year until they reach retirement. Perhaps add a year of eligibility or two to allow players to improve a little more.

corbs quietly put out a good idea on the league message board - No warehousing of your FP. This is your team captain, most important player and should be playing.

chuck, what you're forgetting is that the bottom dwelling teams are at the bottom because they are warehousing studs.  eliminating the bonuses all together just means that it might take an extra year for the top few picks to develop.  and an extra half year for the four to six picks.  it doesn't change a lot. except when teams like me and corbs go all out for three seasons, it'll take us longer to turn it back around.  which it should, IMO.  i shouldn't be able to go from last overall to first overall in three seasons. :>

and honestly, what i would love to see myself is the draft to have worse players in it than it currently does.  the only problem with that (other than the other twenty-three owners vetoing it), is the stamina issue.  wish they could have lower stats across the board, but still decent stamina.  i think it's too easy to get players to close to maxed out ratings.  i'd love to see a league where a maxed out player is so rare that each team only has one or two instead of five or six (or more) on their roster.  :>

could get around the stamina issue by lowering the injury totals to four or possibly two, but that might be too low.  lower the draft class and the max injuries and we would have a much more interesting league.  even the franchise players wouldn't always end up as maxed out guys.  :>

but i know i'd never get enough owners agreeing with me to implement it.  lol.  :>

Posted by paul71 on 9/13/2014 11:12:00 AM (view original):
corbs quietly put out a good idea on the league message board - No warehousing of your FP. This is your team captain, most important player and should be playing.

Agreed. I am 100% behind this.

ALSO agreed with god_mike about LOWERING the quality of the draft class. (And yes, I know - or strongly assume - that it's not something we can realistically ask admin to do.) Everyone always wants a better draft class, but when you listen to what we're actually discussing here, we're complaining about everyone having too many good players. We'd see more goals and more "action" in the box scores with lesser quality players. But no one wants to be the person employing them. :D

Agreed that what would be ideal - and more "realistic" - is lower skills with higher stamina.

How about 2 franchise players, both for 2 seasons, both of whom have to play. Combined with minimum number of players playing each game. More star players would be playing and using up seasons, leading to faster retirements of the top players. Being replaced by lower stat rookies, overall lowering the number of maxed out players.

Posted by damag on 9/13/2014 8:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by paul71 on 9/13/2014 11:12:00 AM (view original):
corbs quietly put out a good idea on the league message board - No warehousing of your FP. This is your team captain, most important player and should be playing.

Agreed. I am 100% behind this.

Ditto. I support corbs' FP must play idea!!

Posted by damag on 9/13/2014 8:28:00 PM (view original):
ALSO agreed with god_mike about LOWERING the quality of the draft class. (And yes, I know - or strongly assume - that it's not something we can realistically ask admin to do.) Everyone always wants a better draft class, but when you listen to what we're actually discussing here, we're complaining about everyone having too many good players. We'd see more goals and more "action" in the box scores with lesser quality players. But no one wants to be the person employing them. :D

Agreed that what would be ideal - and more "realistic" - is lower skills with higher stamina.

Ditto again. Yes to lower quality of draft class. And as for stamina fix - we could do this even if the sim does not have "tools" doing this for us. We could edit the Excel player file - let's say add +20 (or any other league wide number) on all rookie players stamina after draft is done!!

My fav possible rules changes atm:

1) Minimum dressed players in each game
2) Minimum full season players (20+ games)
3) Minimum dressed players also in playoffs
4) Get rid of SC-bonus
5) Get rid of non-playoff bonuses or change it for an evened out non-playoff draft pick bonus (f.ex +6)
6) FP's must end career after 3 extra b2b seasons
7) Lower draft class quality and pump up stamina (f.ex +20)

Pumping up the stamina of the rookies with a lower draft class would work rammers, but it would add a bunch of work for okp. Though if we removed all the bonuses, that would lessen the work load a little. I think we'd have to check with okp before putting that suggestion to the test. :>

Guys sorry just been so busy with real life I will get my thoughts on some of the good suggestions and some I don't agree with as much by the end of this week just need some time to go through them and analyze.
The FP player has to play every season that was the one thing I could not believe wasn't a rule. I never even thought of sitting my FP even with my worst teams till a few seasons ago I noticed a bunch of teams doing it, so I checked the rules and then I did it too even though it felt wrong.

More to come later

I don't see how sitting your FP is any worse than sitting your three five year close to maxed out vets. :>

Much like Corbs, I'm kinda busy with real life stuff atm but hope to chime in on this within the next week.