Posted by d_rock97 on 2/23/2021 9:52:00 PM (view original):
I’ve probably said this 4-5 times now in various forums but i don’t remember where.

The reason I advocated for the riddance of AAA players is because, in my experience, newbs draft TOO MANY innings, not too little. Same with PAs. So while there’s a dropoff in quality between veteran owners and new players, it also double whammies when including AAA.

I went back into an OL and drafted 490 PAs at nearly every position knowing I can play my AAA regularly in the 1st half, and save enough PAs for the post transaction deadline AND an entire playoff run.

I got over 100 ABs of .377 batting average out of one of my AAA, and another one hit over .300, while at Dodger Stadium. This isn’t fair to other players. The random draw doesn’t put people on an even playing ground.

I know area51man won’t even draft a 1B and/or a RF, knowing there’d be AAA.

These are strategies that new players don’t even think to come up with after their 1st 100 teams. I don’t want new players coming in, losing 120 games and leaving. It’d be way more fun when a knew player goes 83-79 and sneaks into the WC, even though they’re way more likely to lose 90 games.

That, along with their favorite players underperforming bc of some OL only veteran playing cookie-ball, knowing players get an extra 10% PAs and pitches thrown, and playing AAA to keep them fresh rather than having to throw out a 200k scrub every once in awhile, is why I don’t want AAA in open leagues.

Champ leagues are fine however.

Couldn’t agree more with this.

When I’m not running a test or bounty team in an OL, I do similar in that I either don’t draft a 1B, or only draft around 200-350 PA at 1B and just use the best AAA hitter at 1B and often draft all 300-450 PA hitters at all but two OF slots where I draft one cheap full time player (such as ‘88 Wilmot) and a stud hitter and at C where I draft between 400-550 PA and bat them 9th... fill in the rest with scrubs who get sent down for the AAA to spell these full timers. New players, even those with several teams behind them don’t have the experience to fully take advantage of AAA and the WW that those with hundreds of teams have. A fair playing field goes a long way toward retention. Even though the rule set is the same, the knowledge gap is so large, especially with the recommendations (better now, but still very high if AAA is to be used effectively).

The more this "game" becomes about math and the less about baseball legends "matching up" via the "decision tree"/algorithm---the less attractive to newbies this site/game becomes IMO.

Also. 1 question.

Why are open leagues considered the "starting point" for newbies??
I started with a Progressive League team. Then moved on to selecting certain theme Leagues from time to time.
This Newbie NEVER played in open Leagues.

Open Leagues IMO is NOT where you're likely to learn the basics of this "game" quickly or well.
At least I didn't. Based on my own player rating, apparently I still don't get it.
But then, I don't come hear to try and "beat the system" and win all the time.
I come here to "fantasize" that I'm a Manager of a baseball squad and set batting orders, pitch counts etc. You know,----MANAGE!

The more you design features allowing the user to experience "decision making" and experience the results of those decisions the better.
The more it becomes about numbers and knowledge of which players "out-perform" (their) reality then the less it interests me. Which is why the LIVE game's loss is so damaging to this site. The LIVE game allowed much more BASEBALL decision-making. At present the game has become too much about (inside) Knowledge. Knowing which players exceed the real life performances most often here within this Sim. THAT disadvantages newbies more than anything I can think of, certainly hugely more than tinkering with the AAA guys!

Just my 2 cents.

just want to be clear for those above. Vet GM's have been nothing but helpful, and have been a great resource of information. their efforts and passion for WIS is what has kept the platform afloat these many years; and i thank them

the point i was trying to make, is that after however many years, and the thousands of games played, and dozens of leagues, themes, dynasty and so on; it becomes harder an harder to remember what its like as a brand new player. Just4me mentioned he referred a few people, and not many stayed.....and that was after providing them resources (and i assume links to forums) that would help accelerate their learning curve. Most new players won't have those resources and like it or not, are not like me reading page after page of forum info, asking questions of vet GMs. they simply create a team, usually based on player names and then enter open leagues and get hammered by more experienced GMs.

I've moved on from AAA's (even though their Christmas like "what did i get" was a favorite time for me), but what i hope to champion is OL's that are more fair to all players, by pitting GMs of similar experience vs one another, not newbies vs HOF'ers.

in addition, incentivizing staying around and not abandoning your team. simply done by having GM's move up "levels" based on games won to then face GMs in higher levels of OL. Also why not have a small reward ($0.25 or whatever) for setting a best/worst for a players performance history? this might incentivize GMs to use less often used players, try non Petco type parks, be more hands on with their roster, and keep them engaged, even thought they may be sitting at 50-80 with 32 games to go

best of luck to all

I agree with larameibob that I think OL are the wrong place for Newbies begin. I think the new team should promote Progressives as the entry, with theme leagues and open leagues as different challenges once you learn the ropes.

I got my entrance into WIS from an invite by my brother (just4me). He invited me to a 1969 Replay progressive that was beginning and I was able to choose my favorite team and manage the Chigago Cubs. Getting to play with some of the time greats like Banks, Williams, Fergie, Santo, (seeing them perform relatively how I'd expect), the camaraderie from the other owners and getting to learn from other veteran owners solidified my love of this game. I didn't play in an OL in the first 6 years I was on the site, and if that was were I started idk if I'd have stayed.

in addition, incentivizing staying around and not abandoning your team. simply done by having GM's move up "levels" based on games won to then face GMs in higher levels of OL. Also why not have a small reward ($0.25 or whatever) for setting a best/worst for a players performance history? this might incentivize GMs to use less often used players, try non Petco type parks, be more hands on with their roster, and keep them engaged, even thought they may be sitting at 50-80 with 32 games to go

While I don't personally agree with having separate "beginner/veteran" OL's, I agree that owners should be able to progress, gain more experience points if you will, over time with different successes with different rewards/achievements perhaps. I love the idea of encouraging using new stadiums/players to unlock different rewards for owners.

I also didn’t start with OL, sort of. When I started OL were all there were, but I didn’t actually field my first full season team until theme leagues were introduced. I spent my first 3-4 years just using spring teams and SimMatchup. Also, back then the Dream Teams were a big deal and they had leaderboards for dream teams with rankings for wins, W%, and W streaks (among others). People took their Dream Teams seriously. When I finally played my first full season team I simultaneously started a $40m and $255m team as soon as themes launched. I didn’t play my first actual OL until my 6th or 7th year on the site.

The reason OL are considered the starting point for new owners is because that’s how the site markets them and it’s where most new owners start. I’ve always felt progressives were the place to really introduce people to the magic of the site and those I’ve brought on in that regard are the ones that have stayed. The ones I’ve brought on for an office OL or office single-season theme, etc are the ones that were 1-3 and done.

There’s been tons of talk from site staff over the years about expanding progressive options and I think that would go a long way towards retention. They’re the most realistic, require the least explanation about normalization etc, feature stars and scrubs, cap is irrelevant, AAA is league specific, and they have built in retention incentives.

Posted by just4me on 2/24/2021 11:47:00 AM (view original):
I also didn’t start with OL, sort of. When I started OL were all there were, but I didn’t actually field my first full season team until theme leagues were introduced. I spent my first 3-4 years just using spring teams and SimMatchup. Also, back then the Dream Teams were a big deal and they had leaderboards for dream teams with rankings for wins, W%, and W streaks (among others). People took their Dream Teams seriously. When I finally played my first full season team I simultaneously started a $40m and $255m team as soon as themes launched. I didn’t play my first actual OL until my 6th or 7th year on the site.

The reason OL are considered the starting point for new owners is because that’s how the site markets them and it’s where most new owners start. I’ve always felt progressives were the place to really introduce people to the magic of the site and those I’ve brought on in that regard are the ones that have stayed. The ones I’ve brought on for an office OL or office single-season theme, etc are the ones that were 1-3 and done.

There’s been tons of talk from site staff over the years about expanding progressive options and I think that would go a long way towards retention. They’re the most realistic, require the least explanation about normalization etc, feature stars and scrubs, cap is irrelevant, AAA is league specific, and they have built in retention incentives.

The number 1 thing that prevents progressives (imo) of being the backbone of this site is the draft/owner tools being so outdated compared to other fantasy draft/owner tools.

We know that Adam and the team are working on this makes me feel confident that pushing progressives as the "place to start" would be a good move on their part

+1.

I agree that progressives should be the place to start, but it's unrealistic to expect that:

1) OLs fill up within 24-48 hours, whereas there's a lot of downtime between prog seasons, and newbies are generally anxious to get going.

2) The research needed for a prog draft can be overwhelming to someone who's got no experience with progs, never mind no experience with sim baseball of any kind.

3) Unless you're joining a brand new prog chances are you're taking over a rebuilding team. Not sure how many newbies want to sit through multiple losing seasons before getting the chance to be competitive.

But yeah, there should be more promotion of progs, and they should be the backbone of SLB. They're the best thing on this site, IMO.

I get this is more of a Theme Classifieds thing but there's a Theme League with many open slots that is set up as the old school $80M Open League with eight AAA players. Is this already a nostalgia play? :-)

MLB 130812

Just adding my 2 cents worth. I think it is a mistake getting rid of AAA and WW. I really like the randomness/luck of AAA player assignment. I have, like may others, been frustrated to see the $200k scrub player for a $2.6mil AAA player. The answer is not to get rid of AAA. I think it should only be AAA for AAA player trades. Also, go ahead and list the real names of the AAA players so it is easier to see their value.

Also, i keep hearing about the game having less users. Is that true? It seems to me the OLs fill-up very quickly.

Try a theme league for once where it's not as easy to be as successful with the same roster every single time as in 30 at a time OLs against newbs who don't know what they're getting into. Course, the brass might be more interested in 30 teams played at a time, and someone else might say it's your dough to do with as you please.

Posted by adlorenz on 2/22/2021 11:28:00 AM (view original):

Good morning SLB community,

I wanted to let you all know that I have been following the thread and seen all of the mixed feedback via sitemail, email, and the forums. I would like to address a couple of things.

1) The removal of AAA in standard open leagues, was a decision made to help brand new users to the site. Let's have a moment of honesty here: the site without brand new users that stick around WIS will die eventually (probably in the next 3-5 years).

With the lack of updates since the FOX era and the continued lack of adjustments and changes, all of the games populations are down significantly since the golden era of WIS. The games have continued to churn users month after month since joining SportsHub. I would like to bring us back to those golden days, but how do we accomplish that? Primarily, by bringing in new users that have a spot where the game is more new user friendly, learn the basics, join our community, and continue to play the game in more difficult or different modes.

It doesn’t mean that I think new users are more important than our current user base, but it is also in veteran users' interest to bring in new users as well, and not to beat in Open Leagues or to prey on for trades, but to learn the game and join our community.

2) Why are there not two options for OL (AAA and non-AAA)? Great question. The answer is our technology stack and past coding by the previous development team(s). It actually was the initial idea, but required A LOT of programming and sketchy database work (which we are still willing to do). Adding or adjusting anything in these games, is a scary process. The core of the game is close to 20 years old, think about the type of phones and technology the world was using back in 2001-2006. Chris and I talked about it, and I made the decision to test this new approach out.

Adding two options is something that we are still investigating but I tend to think that although this does shake things up, the change isn’t so massive that it ruins the experience. Some of the users in this thread, tend to disagree and that’s completely fine. The WIS team will continue to monitor the situation and going back is always a possibility.

3) Why were salary caps not increased with the removal of AAA players? I put out a poll about a month ago at this point asking for feedback around a potential increase to salaries in Open Leagues. I would say the majority of the group asked for the salaries to stay the same or even decrease them a little to provide more realistic results in the engine for OL. There was even a theme formed by a couple of the veteran members of the community to test that out with a $75 cap and real names on AAA players. This was another way to accomplish the same goal.

4) Is this change permanent? I don't know, yet. Nothing is permanent or has to be in application or game development. I do think based on this game mostly being stagnant for the last four years since dynamic pricing was discontinued, it is not a surprising response to see some players express unhappiness about change. While I empathize with the fear or adjustment of change, I would just ask that you give it a fair shot. I am not so arrogant that after we give this a bit of time and it doesn't work to revert back to having AAA again in OL's , or try something new.

Lastly, I would like to say, I believe that my goals are in alignment with yours to create and continue to have a fun game that enables us to continue to grow our community so that WhatIfSports once again can be the premier game in the sport simulation field.

I will continue to monitor the thread. Thanks again for all of the feedback, good and bad, it shows that this community cares tremendously about the game. We as a development team are lucky to have a user base like all of you.

Sincerely,

WIS Team

Thank you. It makes sense. Just a reminder to all owners that you can always create a theme league the way you want it. I’m sure if any of you started an $80mm theme with 6/2 average AAA you’ll fill it up.

We need new users. Anything that can generate more interest in the game and grow the user base should be applauded.

In the golden days, when SLB was growing steadily, Open Leagues always had AAA (and WW) both of which especially help new players. I was one of them. I remember. Was the person who is seeking to make the changes? Did he ask around, or just react to some of the new complaints, where other solutions could be found? (See the item immediately above.)

Minneapolis is one of those "change and hope" towns. Bless our hearts.