Spitballing...ideas for revamping the Fantasy League game
Okay, after talking with some co-workers about this stuff I think I have an idea that sounds do-able and reasonable, I think. Please poke holes in this.
(Doing my best to explain what's in my head. Days of week are purely for example.)
Tournament 1 opens on Sunday. Every player can enter.
A player selects 16 qualifying cars that they would want to enter in order of preference. This would include garage cars.
Then on Tuesday, each tournament gets seeded (automagically).
Player entry order is done based on your rank from the previous week's race; 1st goes first, 2nd and so on.
When it's your turn, the highest priority car from your entry list gets entered.
In the case where the car you have was already entered by someone else, the next priority car gets selected (and so on)
This would loop over players until all 16 tournament slots are filled
Tournament 2 would follow the same pattern but if you got a car entered in Tournament 1 you wouldn't be eligible for entry until the list of players cycled back around. So Player A that entered Tournament 1 couldn't enter Tournament 2 until Player Z was checked and then if there were slots still open, Player A would go and the loop would happen again.
What this accomplishes...
- All players have a chance to enter cars, no more "tournament is full" blocking
- Your chance at entering a car is directly impacted by your score from the previous week (motivation!)
- Lets players that aren't able to enter early get a chance at entering (new players can get in)
- Retains advantages of garage cars and encourages everyone to unlock, even those that couldn't enter before.
Bracket picking wouldn't change in process but now impacts your chance to enter in the next week.
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Does that all make sense? There are lots of little things to consider with this but that's the big picture. Right now, I like it. It sounds fair and addresses a lot of the concerns we've had about the game. It's also do-able in terms of being designed and built while still being easy to use by players.
Please let me know what you think. Why wouldn't this work? What sounds un-fun or unfair about it?
What if you want tournament 2 as your priority, how would you do this?
Example-
Tournament 1-Trucks
Tournament 2-FTE
You have a Ferrari 458 FTE in your garage. Assuming your previous results were good, how would you go about ensuring that Ferrari is your #1 pick to go into that FTE race instead of getting your spot taken with the Truck class?
How will people know which cars go with which tournament when making their selections so they don't select them all into one tournament and not the other? Or will both races always match the same vehicle criteria?
How do you break ties from the previous races and both players have Car A as their #1 car entry.
Its intriguing, I will say that much. Will people like choosing 16 cars each week versus the quick pick and be done with it? That I am not sure about. Will people be able to pick less than 16 cars, if they get bored with it?
I think I would almost prefer that the #16 spot in the previous race gets #1 choice and #1 gets the 16th choice. And then the others fill in behind that. Otherwise I am afraid of the top performers always getting first shot at the potentially best cars. Let the bad teams catch up by going in reverse order. Just an idea on that front.
Great idea Brian! This is an excellent way to make sure everybody gets to enter a car in each tournament. And good questions Iowa. I agree with Iowa about letting the the #16 player from the previous week get to go first to even things up a bit.
Would we all have to pick 16 cars each week? What would happen if we only chose 8 cars for example.
I haven't been playing for a while, but I will definitely try the new game out once it's finished.
I will wait until Brian addresses these questions before I comment more.
I think I would almost prefer that the #16 spot in the previous race gets #1 choice and #1 gets the 16th choice. And then the others fill in behind that.
Good point and good idea. Easy enough to do and I agree that it will encourage more people to keep up with the game even if they're behind after a few weeks.
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Thanks for picking this idea apart, you're always good for that, Iowa And keep the thoughts coming. I really think this might be the balance we need. It's not without it's issues, I'm sure, but I'm not looking for perfect, just better. Out of all the ideas I've thought about and that have been submitted, I think this one has the most possibility to be fun and interesting.
I realized when talking to my coworkers that I was trying to find a way to make our league fit into a football-style league but our game is just too different. I really like the thought of picking your "team" of cars for each tournament. I admit that picking 16 cars could be a bit daunting compared to just picking one, but I'm hoping the changes I make to the site will make that searching/listing easier in the first place. And this will hopefully get players to look beyond the Top cars when entering a car, getting more cars onto the track. Everyone can select the top car but knowing that only one person will get it will impact how your order your selection, which is good.
And of course, players that don't want to deal with entering and just want pick brackets can continue to do so. In theory, the "serious" players are the ones entering cars anyway so they're probably will to take extra time to try and get a winning car. Everyone else can just keep making picks-by-mail every week, no harm done.
I think people should be able to start their own team by picking other Fantasy League players to be on it.