Fantasy league draft

redlinederby Sunday, 5/29/2011
Site manager

It's been a suggestion from several people in the past and I like the idea of having some sort of Fantasy League draft, but I'm just not sure how to integrate it into the game. So I'm looking for thoughts and ideas on how you might see something like this working.

Thing to keep i mind is that it needs to be simple enough for new players...unless we segment the players and create a "Draft League" that gets points from the normal races but does so in a different way.

Some of you may remember the first season of the fantasy league where every player had a garage and picked cars to fill it. That turned out to be a mess because I actually ran out of cars for the number of players that signed up. It was a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. I think the garage concept is interesting and fun but maybe there's a better way to bring that back and have it work with how the tournaments work now.

Please share your thoughts on this if you think it's something that would be fun to do. I'm going to use this thread to dump my ideas too so fair warning that rambling may continue


Discussion

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challenger 5/29/11

Maybe you could do it like the NFL, the players with the least amount of points get to pick first. Or you could do the oposite and have the winner pick first. Either way I think a fantasy draft would be cool.

Maybe you could do it like the NFL, the players with the least amount of points get to pick first. Or you could do the oposite and have the winner pick first. Either way I think a fantasy draft would be cool.

That sounds good, but you'd definitely have to have the worst player picking first. Giving the winner first pick would just create a larger gap. Make it challenging. And besides, just because someone picks first, doesn't mean they get the best car.

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redlinederby 5/30/11
Site manager

Thinking it about it more now, I'm not sure what the draft would do though?

So you get pick your car, what does that mean? Does that mean you're the only one that gets points for the win? Since they're only 16-car tournaments, I can't have one car from everyone's stable race each week, we already know that doesn't work.

The only thing I can think of is players pick cars for their garage that only they have and then when/if that car races in a tournament and wins, you get bonus points as the car "owner" of sorts. So there may be a week when none of your cars are racing.

The other worry about a draft pick round is how long it would take. Lets say your garage has 4 slots for cars and the next person can't pick until the previous person picks. Fifty some odd people playing times 4 picks is 200 rounds of picking. There would have to be an expiration on time to pick, of course, but even then I worry it would just slow things down.....unless the draft was during the winter...hmmm....

I want to keep thinking about this concept because I think it's a winner, we just need to figure out how to fit it into the puzzle.

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Bandeezee 5/30/11

Would there be a way to have anybody who's picking rank the car list 1 to whatever according to the order they would pick them. Then have them submit their lists by a certain date and have the computer go through their lists in order by who's pick it is. It would just give them the car that's closest to their top pick (unless it has already been chosen, then it skips to their next one). I just don't know what program would do that. I'm sure their has to be some kind of online drafting program or something.

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redlinederby 5/30/11
Site manager

I understand what you're saying. Thing is we can't have at least one car race each time, know what I mean? Lets say 20 people draft cars and even rank them. The tournament can only have 16 cars, so people would be left out.

I guess it's kind of hard to have a draft when there's not a set number of cars racing throughout the season. But I guess fantasy football is the same way, isn't it? You pick the players you want on your team but there's no guarantee that they'll play each time, right? Hmmm...

Also, don't worry about programs to do stuff. I can make those myself (that's half the fun) so think without restraints and we'll find a happy middle from there.

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seattlegreyy 5/30/11

Maybe this is how you better integrate the "team" concept--not by having individuals draft cars...but the TEAMS have a draft.

Obviously, there will need to be rules for forming/comprising a team. Each team must be made up of four individual players, all of whom had to have been active as an individual player the season before...something like that. One of the players for each team is nominated as the "captain".

Then, before the season...a draft is held. Random order the first time, in order based on team rankings the following seasons. There are no "keepers" from the previous season. I'd say that every team might pick, let's say, eight cars...and those are that team's cars for that season. Lots of strategy, because you want cars good enough to win matches, but not so good that they win once and are retired for the rest of the season--and you'd want variety, because you don't want there to be too many races where the stipulations leave you without the possibility of your team scoring points.

But everything else remains the same--individuals pick the cars that go in, individuals score points regardless of which team the car belongs to...etc.

(The team standings could either be determined JUST by the points scored by that team's chosen cars...or by a combination of individual scores of each team member AND team car scores, but the individual scores would have to be reduced in "weight" to put the emphasis more solidly on the team's drafted car performance.)

Or something like that, anyway...

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redlinederby 5/30/11
Site manager

I like what you're saying. I think something along those lines is a good way to make teams more meaningful in the game. I'll be interested to see if there are enough active players to create some teams like this and coordinate. Like you said, there would be some strategy and planning there, so that would be very cool to see.

I think with teams doing the drafting, it would be a separate point system strictly for teams and no points would go out to individual players (except maybe a bonus trophy or something). I think you could even have each team member pick several cars, like a primary and secondary car. Each member would then select which car they wanted as "active" for a tournament.

I think you're right with the random order for picking the first time around, then for following seasons it would be points based. Each team has a limited time to make their picks for each member. Any spots unfilled at their deadline get filled by random cars...or should they go unfilled? You snooze, you lose.

I think points would have to be pretty straight forward too. Rather than have various points for round wins, just have points per win and be done. Like 100 points per win, period. And if we go with the yearly season like I think we can, teams will accumulate points for a full year. As tough and interesting it would be to have teams pick cars for a full year, I think it would be more fun to have a draft each series since there will be new cars added, etc. I worry about time still...we'll have to find an easy yet quick way to do the draft so it doesn't drag on for more than a week.

We're on to something here. Lets keep thinking out loud...

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redlinederby 6/14/11
Site manager

Just an update. I've decided to not include teams as part of next year's update so I'm not sure there will be a good spot for any sort of draft concept either. That doesn't mean this idea is dead in the ground, it just won't be on the map for the immediate future. If we can come up with a nice way to do drafts or something that lends to the game play then I'll explore it more.

Thanks for your feedback on all of this, it has helped a ton. If the fantasy league expands like I hope, this is something we can revisit later.

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