Posted by tufft on 9/21/2021 7:15:00 AM (view original):

Input from one person who would qualify and who has long advocated for HBD escalation worlds.

More important than any other point – Good on you for doing something (ANYTHING) to have any kind of premier / escalation world(s). One of the issues that has limited HBD from the start is that we're all being forced to fly in coach, with no chance to perform or pay our way into economy plus, business class, first class, or a private jet.

Having ONE premium world is bad idea. As the comments indicate, there are many different options. Still, please do ONE first. Then another, with a different model. We'll all learn.

I want HBD to make more money, and WIS to invest some of that money back into HBD. I will joyfully pay more for what I consider to be a better product. That includes being in a world others aspire to be in and must pay or perform their way in. Worlds where everyone has paid for at least as many seasons into the future as their longest player contact. WIS issuing a patch release every two months that fixes bugs, adds world-level options, and fixes things that, if there is enough consensus, need fixing. If I pay more, I want more. I'm not motivated to hand you more money if all I get is a star next to my name saying I'm in a premier world.

Neither paying $50 / season or winning $1000 will have any impact on my life. If bigger prizes is what it takes to make premier worlds work, so be it. I'm not against the idea. Just don't care.

We have zero reasons to trust that HBD management, or anyone, knows how to create 32 “evenly matched” teams. Pretty sure that's always been the goal. Many of us have experienced that seeming not to happen. Unless you generate identical teams, there will always be at least 1 out of 32 being unhappy with the evenness of a team they just paid 2X or more for. Some of this is opinion, different people liking to build teams different ways, and therefore not happy with the hand they were dealt. Therefore, I don't see ever wanting to be part of any world with a fixed number of seasons, as the first day at least one or two GMs will revolt. (Clearly you're going to fill the world you've described.) I don't think a promise of creating 32 “evenly matched” is realistic, unless all 32 are identical.

I agree with all comments that a 5 season model will result in a race to cut all budgets but salary. It will be a version of HBD that is almost entirely a FA bidding content. HBD FA Race is a strategy game that can be played different ways and more or less effectively. It will not be all luck. But it's not HBD, as the draft and most IFA will have no impact on 5 season reason results. Unless you bring them all in fully developed. Which then makes coaching even more useless than it is.

Life happen. People's priorities change. You will need to replace GMs. Free team in a “premium” world shouldn't be too hard to fill, until the last 1-2 season if the team is out of it. Who wants that team?

I would be more interested in promotion / relegation worlds if those things happened every seasons. This its own complicated topic.

Good luck. Please try this. Accept many will criticize everything. Don't let the trolls win.

Ladder leagues feel like a good idea. Something like any team that wins less than 70 games falls down to the next rung. Promote the most successful team in the league below. Promoted/relegated owners swap teams. Promoted owner is happy they moved up and relegated owner should be taking over a good team so they are incentivized to stay.
Give promoted teams a two year grace period to get the house in order and then they fall subject to the 70 wins rule. Up the price money and just let as many leagues as people want play out, with a waiting list at the bottom. Fixes the concerns about IFA/draft being useless. 70 wins keeps the turnover fairly high but not impossible to maintain in perpetuity if managed very well/

What would your guys' thoughts be on more of an exclusive HBD world (or 2). It would more or less but a normal HBD world that you still need to meet certain requirements to join and there could be a "pot" of funds to the winners that would be supplied to LeagueSafe and then the winners could get paid out using that. Say each user puts in $40.00 to the pot and that is disbursed amongst the top records for each league of the regular season, WS winner, etc. If we did two worlds we could still try to have a promo/relegation aspect. This eliminates the concerns about the "rake" that WIS is bringing in. It also caters to keeping IFA and the draft part of the strategy as you want to continue to build your program.

Posted by jholthus on 10/5/2021 2:06:00 PM (view original):
What would your guys' thoughts be on more of an exclusive HBD world (or 2). It would more or less but a normal HBD world that you still need to meet certain requirements to join and there could be a "pot" of funds to the winners that would be supplied to LeagueSafe and then the winners could get paid out using that. Say each user puts in $40.00 to the pot and that is disbursed amongst the top records for each league of the regular season, WS winner, etc. If we did two worlds we could still try to have a promo/relegation aspect. This eliminates the concerns about the "rake" that WIS is bringing in. It also caters to keeping IFA and the draft part of the strategy as you want to continue to build your program.

Not a bad idea.

My purpose for creating the league I did, was to ensure every single owner was doing all they could to field the most competitive team they could.

Also the draft was fun and in theory created more evenly balanced teams.

This modified idea of yours is solid in that it gets the focus on winning at the BL lvl without the dependence on owner commitment.

Biggest drawback I see is teams are simply not balanced, and no one is going to spend an extra $40 on a team that has no shot to compete.

Even if the world is newly created with as much balance as possible, I believe it would get unbalanced in only a few (3 to 6) seasons. It was the main reason my tourney world redrafted every 5 seasons.

I really love that you folks are actually brainstorming ideas like this.

I'd really enjoy a draft league format also. Two of those leagues could also incorporate the promotion/relegation portion.
Especially since WIS is already aligned with a draft site which should have ample capability to run a draft correctly.

The two biggest pulls for me are World exclusivity and a legit minimum qualification to join.

Where we have to be a bit more thoughtful is how to implement these types of Worlds. Within a given HBD World, there are several teams running different roster building strategies. In just one HBD World, there are several teams that run their team like the Red Sox or Yankees where the payrolls are high, the trading is high and the elite talent is at nearly every starting position on the field. There are also several teams that run their teams like the A's, Twins, Brewers, or Rays by having a low to mid range payroll and just push young talent through their system on a consistent basis. Finally, there are several teams that are running their franchise like the Astros to where they are somewhere between tanking and contending. This works for a regular HBD world because it is designed to be never ending and no strategy, in theory, is better than the others.

However, once you put a 5 season cycle on it, it immediately changes the way the game is played. A five seasons cycle gives an obvious advantage to the teams that have found success running their teams like the Yankees or Red Sox. This gives the other folks less incentive to want to participate in a world like this.

I think a great solution is to have two separate tranches of a Champions League.

1. Have a world where every five seasons, extra payouts get paid out to the owners that have had the best record over that five season span. This will attract the types of owners that have found success running their franchise like the Yanks or Red Sox. Maybe even eliminate HS scouting from the equation. Once Season 5 of this World is winding down, create another World that is nearly identical to this one so you can use the promotion/relegation aspect. Every time there is more demand to join a world like this, create a new world and WIS could eventually have several worlds with several owners clamoring to make it to the most prestigious World to win a WS there. Each new World will have more strict conditions to enter (i.e. World 2 would be more premier than world 1 and world 3 would be more premier than World 2, etc.).

2. Have a world where every ten seasons, extra payouts get paid out to the owners that have had the best record over that ten season span. This will attract the types of owners that have found success with the recruiting and development aspect of the game. Once Season 5 of this World is winding down, create another World that is nearly identical to this one so you can use the promotion/relegation aspect. Every time there is more demand to join a world like this, create a new world and WIS could eventually have several worlds with several owners clamoring to make it to the most prestigious World to win a WS there. Each new World will have more strict conditions to enter (i.e. World 2 would be more premier than world 1 and world 3 would be more premier than World 2, etc.).

Don't have much to add other than it's great to see you guys considering other options to keep things interesting or raise the stakes for owners who'd like more of a challenge.

We had a guy do a draft league a long time ago Mc"something" ran it and I think got kicked for cheating. It was ok but the draft part sucked drawn out. Id be in for a draft league or something similar ran by wis. I think at 4th place over the 4 season span I only got my money back.

That id is mine I use it for hd. It also depends on who is in the league. Id want a challenge.

Don't sell vaporware - it cheapens your brand.

Just a comment. The fair way is too make every team exactly the same on day 1 but vary the positions. Giving everyone the exact same team will lead to everyone having the exact same 1B, that won't work. People will make trades to build the team they desire and that will have teams changing quickly.

In a league like this you will see many more vetoes, I wouldn't worry about lopsided trades that much as people will be looking out for their own pocket book. I would still cut the amount of teams down to 6 or 7 for a trade to get vetoed.

I think the bigger worry is if someone is so far down after say 3 or 4 seasons they will just abandon their team, they may have already paid but why would they put much effort into a league they will be relegated from.

I would add bonus wins to teams that make the playoffs. You can add each win a team makes in the playoffs to their overall win totals. Winning a world series should have much more impact than just overall wins.