Spitballing...ideas for revamping the Fantasy League game

redlinederby Friday, 7/19/2013
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Feed back from another thread has me thinking (and rethinking) the basics of the Fantasy League game, so I'm coming up with thoughts on how to change/improve things...any feedback here is also appreciated.

Anyone can enter, random seeding - To help solve the "first-come, first-served" problem with entering cars, all players can select a car to enter in a tournament but the 16 that race are selected randomly. Bracket picking would remain the same and still be where majority of the points/achievements are earned.

No more classes - Or maybe just fewer classes. Having every tournament open to all cars could yield some not-yet-seen races over the course of a season. If there's any classes we limit it to the big ones (American, International, Real world, Fantasy).

Players pre-pickTop 25 for season - Before the season starts, all players have a change to select the cars they think will make the Top 25. You can't change them. At the end of the season, you get points for every car you had correct. Potential problem here is if car entry is random then this is more or less a lottery...which isn't bad per se, just not really dependent on research or stats like bracket picking can be.

...more to come...


Discussion

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AMH-412 7/19/13

One thing I have always liked is to be able to choose a car for entry into a tournament. I also understand how WorpeX feels, it has to be very frustrating for him and others to find a tournament always filled, and that is not fair to him or any others that would like to enter a car. I don't know the exact solution to this, maybe reserving a slot as WorpeX already mentioned, or a rotation of members for turns to select cars, perhaps a limited # of times to enter, I dunno, just throwing some ideas out there. In a rotation, if some do not enter by a specific time before time to pick brackets then other players have the option to pick entries to fill out the 16 entries. Just some ideas to throw in for thought.

I would be okay with getting rid of the 50 point bonus. I think that would get rid of the must be first in line. Still dont like the random selection with the garaged cars, which needs to stay in the game!

I still think 32 fields opens things up and allows twice as many people in as we do now. I know it would require a major change in the coding of the website though.

Maybe allow users to enter into just one of the races each weekend. Then you still can get 32 players in. I just dont know how many people are locked out now. Is it 5 or 20? Would hate to have random cars just thrown in because we can no longer fill out the fields.

I like the number of classes. Otherwise we will see the same cars again and again and again. Heck, I would like to see more classes! Be able to have a light weight race, metal/metal race, casting dates, etc...

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redlinederby 7/19/13
Site manager

Players own cars - Thinking Monopoly-style ownership of cars. You use credits to "own" a car and then when that car races and/or wins, you get get credits. Possibly an alternative to garage entry. And you could sell cars you own but their value would go up/down with their rating somehow.

Pay to enter - Taking Worpex's idea of buying a slot...to enter a tournament costs you credits at the time of entry. Not sure if this would actually help or hinder...depends on the cost of entry compared to how many you earn per week.

~~~

The one entry per weekend might be a good solution. Then you have to select which one tournament you think have know best or have a garage car for. But like Iowa said, I don't know how many people are getting locked out every week that want in. There's only 50 or so people playing and only a few of them have been vocal about not being able to enter due to the timing, so I'm guessing it's few. If it ends up being 16 people get in the first race and then 3 enter the second leaving 13 spots to random selection, then I'm not sure if that will make for any better of a game.

As far as cars per tournament, I'm going to be rewriting a lot of the game so 32-car tournaments will be a possibility but I'm not able to run two, 32-car tournaments in a weekend - I just don't have the time - so one 32 wouldn't be any different than two, 16s. Plus having smaller brackets means we can have more variance in criteria like weight, rating, etc.

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Stroller 7/19/13

Each race a different team could donate a diecast car to be won by the player with the highest score. The donation could be stock in the package or some custom vehicle made by one of the team members.....

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AMH-412 7/20/13

Players own cars - Thinking Monopoly-style ownership of cars. You use credits to "own" a car and then when that car races and/or wins, you get get credits. Possibly an alternative to garage entry. And you could sell cars you own but their value would go up/down with their rating somehow.

Pay to enter - Taking Worpex's idea of buying a slot...to enter a tournament costs you credits at the time of entry. Not sure if this would actually help or hinder...depends on the cost of entry compared to how many you earn per week.

~~~

The one entry per weekend might be a good solution. Then you have to select which one tournament you think have know best or have a garage car for. But like Iowa said, I don't know how many people are getting locked out every week that want in. There's only 50 or so people playing and only a few of them have been vocal about not being able to enter due to the timing, so I'm guessing it's few. If it ends up being 16 people get in the first race and then 3 enter the second leaving 13 spots to random selection, then I'm not sure if that will make for any better of a game.

As far as cars per tournament, I'm going to be rewriting a lot of the game so 32-car tournaments will be a possibility but I'm not able to run two, 32-car tournaments in a weekend - I just don't have the time - so one 32 wouldn't be any different than two, 16s. Plus having smaller brackets means we can have more variance in criteria like weight, rating, etc.


I like the one entry per weekend, give others the chance that want to get in to have that option, and if one tournament ends up not filling up by some stated time on monday,maybe a 24 hr window from entry time sunday, and if not both full after the 24 hour window, then 6p.m. EST monday the other players have the option of also entering the second tournament, would this be a viable option, it would keep the random selection of cars from happening and still give those that want to enter a chance to enter.

I like the variety of all the different classes, weights, ratings, etc. and the different tracks, it keeps you thinking and gives a bigger challenge. I would even like to see a race done with some of the cars that are 0-1 and 0-2 even 0-3 on wins so that same of those would get some wins. When looking you see where maybe a rookie car came out and went up against many of the best and didn't really get a chance to show its potential, some of those end up sitting and never getting a chance again.

Also, maybe some of the very lowest rated cars can be removed as new ones are added, some of the ones we all know wont be entered in a tournament again

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redlinederby 7/22/13
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The "true" fantasy league - Model the game after a more traditional fantasy league. Limit the number of cars racing per season to 128 and then have players select (draft) cars to their garage. Players get rewards based on how their car does during the season and if it makes it to the end. Cars entering per tournament would be random with each car racing twice during the season. There would be no player entries but you would still do weekly bracket picks. Season schedule would be decided ahead of time so players would know the locations and criteria before they draft.

That's the big picture for this idea. I'm sure there are a lot of little details that I'm not thinking about but just throwing it out there with the rest.

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redlinederby 7/22/13
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I would even like to see a race done with some of the cars that are 0-1 and 0-2 even 0-3 on wins so that same of those would get some wins.

@AMH - Adding more criteria options to tournaments is on my short list of updates. There will for sure be a new criteria for number of races so we can have a bracket of unraced cars. Never thought about a win/loss criteria, that's a good idea. I'll see about adding that as well.

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KandORacing 8/15/13

How about make it less like baseball, more like drag racing. I don't like the thought of people not being able to start there own teams. And how about make the races have 32 entry spots rather than 16. Another idea is to have one season per year, and make it longer. And one last idea, how about races that don't gives points, but just credits and/or prizes (Like bracket classes that only give prize money) and races that give points and/or prizes and credits.

Just my two cents.

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JDC442 8/15/13

Just saw this thread for the first time.
I like the idea of every player that wants to, choosing 2 cars for possible entry each week, but only 32 of those cars are randomly selected to fill the two tournaments (no class restrictions). For example, if 30 members chose 2 cars each (60 cars), then more than half of those cars entered would make the tournaments.
And to avoid having the same cars (fastest cars) entered/picked every weekend, the 32 cars that raced the previous week would not be available to choose the next week.

*I'd also be in favor of starting with a whole new batch of cars with no history, if you're really going to revamp this thing.
Not that you couldn't reintroduce the veterans at a later point if so desired.

Is this anything close to what you were thinking Brian?

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redlinederby 8/16/13
Site manager

Reducing the Fantasy League "season" is already in the cards. I started to lay out an annual schedule for myself and it has 2 seasons of Fantasy racing. Still 16 tournaments, same format and stuff (for now) but just limited to two, one in Spring and the other in late Summer. Not only does this help me keep things straight, it lets me get involved more with the mail-in racing too...plus I think a consistent schedule is what we all need.

Figuring out what a "team" means has always been a challenge, so if you guys have any further thoughts on that, I'm all ears. Fact of the matter is, the way teams run currently just doesn't work well. I know I don't promote it much but even then it's flawed and doesn't have much traction. It just feels like an add-on, which it is, so that feature will be dropped after this season but could return if we find a way to do it well.

I'm still on the fence about how tournament entry works. A lot of people like the entry part while a lot can do without it. Personally, I think that's a good hook as each player then has "their car" in the running but I also see the randomness of things being less interesting.

I know not everyone will be happy with whatever changes, that's really not the goal, but I obviously want to make whatever new version of the game fun and interesting. I want to keep racing for prizes and stuff, so it's just finding a way that is fair and not entirely dependent on luck. Chance certainly plays a role but everyone needs to feel like they have some influence on the game...I dunno. It's been a struggle for me to maul it all over to try and come up with something I think is good...so many ideas to consider.

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Stroller 8/16/13

I think that choosing a car to run should be more like wagering on a car to run. Everyone should get to wager on any car. The catch is there would be a set amount of points for each car. If more than one player selects the same car then they split the select amount of points and or credits. On races with prizes only the player that selects the winning car first would get the prize. Just an idea.

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redlinederby 8/16/13
Site manager

I don't like the thought of people not being able to start there own teams

I agree very much with this but the trouble is what is a "team"? Is that a player picking cars to be on their team, or is it players joining each other on a team?

When you create a fantasy football team you're picking players to be on your team...should our fantasy league be like that too? What's more interesting, a team of people or a team of cars? My instinct says people but maybe this is about the cars...???


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