Acknowledging the beginning of Round 8.

I have no problems with a draft, however you want to do it.

That's possibly a good way to handle it. Although KP's point about the difficulty of getting everyone together is valid.

I more saw the choice as:
1 captain
1 franchise
1 draft pick

Which is about the same situation as as two draft picks. However the advantage of a "franchise" player as opposed to a second draft pick is that the specification of a franchise player is really equal for all teams whereas a draft choice for the 1st place team is far less valuable than for the 5th place team that gets to choose first in both rounds.

I believe that trading the second draft choice for a franchise player is more balanced and is actually a fairer way to proceed.


Given that this is how the last draft occured this has to be considered the "status quo" and anything different would have to be considered a new rule that would require approval by the league.

Certainly there will be those that have this opinion, the question is whether it's in the majority or not.

Another possible idea is that if folks really want to stay with two draft picks with no "franchise" player then I would suggest that the draft order be reversed for the 2nd round to make the draft more equal for all teams. So 1 team gets the 1st and 10th choice, the next gets 2nd and 9th, the next 3rd and 8th, the next 4th and 7th and the final team gets 5th and 6th picks.

The idea that the worst team gets the highest draft choice is valid in real sports simply because a draft does not involve 100% turnover of the team. In our current case the only one that doesn't turnover is the captain so having a good record essentially punishes the captain and only the captain.

Given 100% turnover the previous seasons record is actually meaningless because you aren't helping out the worst team from last season since this new season the team is a totally different one.

This is an excellent idea. Brings to mind games such as Settlers of Cataan, where that is how initial settlement placement works. So I propose that the next draft be held as before, with 2 picks and the rest randomly assigned, except that we use the reversing pick order as stated above.

Sentient species taste better...

@Mumble: now that you've explained what you mean by the Franchisee pick, I do like it. I originally thought you had meant, like Pndrev did: 1 Captain, 1 Franchisee, and 2 Draft Picks. One Franchisee and One Draftee is workable to me.

I also REALLY like the Draft Order that you proposed. And by "really" I mean overwhelmingly approve of it.

There is also a slight chance we may need a new team for the upcoming season. I have already received notice from a player that he would like to be captain of a new team if one is created. We'll see where we are at with players as the Round progresses.

Woah, round 8 already? I thought I'd have a week or so before getting back into this madness!

Meh, whatevs. All victory round, should be very interesting.

Edit: Just to clarify, blind exploration unchecked? (We won't be exploring blindly, or more specifically we know our opponents territory from the very beginning?)

bookmarking

Personally, I would rather not see franchise players... this is because I am greedy. If the teams mix more thoroughly, it increases the likelyhood I end up somewhere with a great player I haven't previously worked with, and I can learn more. So I favor the current 2 round then everyone else random draft. Let me note that I love my current team, but if there is going to be a draft, it might as well be a draft.

One minor question: With the proposed rule-set, isn't it an enormous advantage for a team to have a very strong captain? If that is a fixed player, and I mean no offense to neilo, but it seems like team A with Mumblefratz as captain will have a marked advantage over team E with neilo as captain. My idea to fix this would be to have draft order dependent on the average score/year of the MVL submissions of the captains, either over the entire MVL history or just the last few rounds. This would seem to me personally to be the most balanced, since it seeds draft placement by lowest scoring captain. This is a minor point, and if no one else feels this way, pretend I didn't bring it up.

@Vegjed: Your setup screen should look like the screenshots in the OP; that is blind exploration not checked which means yes, you will be able to see where the AI is. In many respects this should actually be one of the easiest rounds played in the MVL. But its simplicity hides it competitiveness.

@JustinSane4: I know what you're saying but one strong player doesn't make a team; and unfortunately, I could cite examples of such. Also "strong player" can be subjective. While Mumble sets the bar usually when it comes to score, I would just as quickly say PlayJeff is a "strong player" due to his ability to post strong and versatile multiple round qualifying games in a very short period of time. Since Neilo's my buddy I'm gonna make an example of him here...but before I became Commish, I was the captain of Team E, and while Neilo wasn't our strongest or fastest player by any means, he was a very consistent, supportive, and positive player, and that mattered just as much to me as posting a good game.

I'm starting to pretend right now. I havent looked to see if who is the lowest scoring captain, but I'm not going to bother, as this seems like a pretty bad idea.

Sentient species taste better...

Alright, idea retracted, and apologies if I've offended anyone!

oh as an addendum to JustinSane: using the avg score/yr, actually Mumble may still end up as the "weakest" player as he usually has to drag his games out to get the scores he achieves. He may get a 40K game, but if its in 5 yrs thats only a 8K/yr average. And if let's say Neilo had all 1yr 12,500 games well, Neilo would have the higher per year average. Just a thought.

you posted while i was typing: you most definitely didn't offend anyone. I don't want anyone to EVER feel like they can't put forward an idea.

Not offended at all, I just thought of a half dozen reasons immediately as to why it would be difficult to do. It would end up in a long discussion as to what games to use, who was captain at what time, etc etc...bleah.

Sentient species taste better...

No offense at all.

If we are having a discussion about the upcoming draft, we should have it now and listen to all ideas that anyone can come up with.

I like the reversed order of picks in two rounds as well. I did see the two rounds of picks in the same order as somewhat unbalanced which is why I proposed the "franchise" idea but if that's not in the cards (and it's beginning to look that way) then reversing the draft order between rounds seems like a good compromise.

Also JustinSane's suggestion has some merit but certainly as Silver points out the value of a captain or for that matter any player is not so easily quantified.

If we do reverse the draft order between rounds it's subject to argument whether 1st is really better than 5th. In this case is it really necessary to have to subjectively "rank" captains.

I think this does make more sense if we were to keep the draft order the same for each round but that would effectively be "handicapping" the better captains and in fact the ranking may not be totally accurate and therefore possibly unfair.

On the other hand, does anyone have a doubt about which three players would be picked first in the current arraigment? There's no doubt that Wyndstar, Iztok and Motti would be the first three chosen although there could possibly be a different order among them.

If this was a pickup playground softball game (and it's really not so different from that) then the captains would automatically be the two best players. Another idea to equalize teams in a more balanced manner is to ignore for the moment the idea of a captain and simply assign the acknowledged 5 or 6 best players in the league to pick up sides. Once picked then the team can elect as captain anyone they want. After all there's really not all that much a captain really does.

Of course that has some issue as well. Who comes after the above listed three (plus myself I assume). I could think of 6 off the top of my head that I would suggest (and three of them are on my team) and probably if I studied all the results there's more that could easily be considered.

The thing is that competition is certainly a component of the league but this has been on a team basis and I really don't see the need or benefit to actually get into individual rankings.

I guess what I'm saying is that to be truly fair and balanced we would need to insure that the top 5 or 6 players (1 for each team we have) are the ones to pick the teams. However this might be both difficult to determine and even if it could be determined, may cause some level of grief for the current structure of the league. Is some idea of perfect balance worth the change? I'm not sure but I don't think so.

Simply, no. It sounds like a huge headache, and not worth the time or energy.

Sentient species taste better...

I think we're agreeing for a change.

When we play frisbee, we always make the 2 girls be the captains.   

i don't think we have 5 girls...and that seems a bit misogynistic

The captains are fine, and the draft with reverse order is fine, I have played with a number of the captains, and they deserve to be where they are for the support they give to the team. I have learnt alot from every captain and player I have been teamed with.
However, this should be in a thread of its own so RND 8 posts don't get too screwed up

OH YEAH, this was just a bookmark, so you can ignore

Well, I won't be doing any drafting... I'm not a captain. But I'm a little more opposed to the idea of a franchise player. That seems to promote less of a mix. Just have two draft picks per team. If there is someone you really want, pick them first.

My input,
~ Wyndstar

I'm still on sabbatical, but only due to the work hours that seem to get in the way of gaming.

Even so, I have a small input on the draft and franchise players. Personally, I'm not against franchise players as long as I have the choice to opt out of it. Rotating through the teams adds a friendlier dimension to it all and like others have stated, I too can and have learned from a great cross section of my team mates.

I'd like to have the opportunity to work with each and every captain and team. If there's a way to do that. I'm all for it.

Sounds like the "franchise" idea is dead but there does seem to be general support for the reversal of draft order between the two draft rounds.

So how about making a proposal that the Draft should consist of two rounds selected by each teams current captains where the initial draft order is randomly picked and is reversed for the second round and after the two rounds all remaining players are randomly assigned a team?

Does this sound like something the league could agree to?

Sounds good to me.

Looks to be an exciting round that will require a fair amount of teamwork to pull off a win.

Sounds good to me Mumble. Lets have a non MVL admin or captain come up with a draft order for the first round of picks and then reverse that for the second round.

What i would like to see though is the chance offered to the current captains to step down from being a captain so as to avail themselves for the draft. If any so wish.