THE PROBLEM:
As it currently stands right now, it is possible for a team in the bottom-tier of the league structure to make the playoffs, lose their first-round playoff game 213-0, and still get promoted straight up to Elite #1 or Elite #2 the following season, without having to spend any time in Competitive first.
Prime example: the Chimneyville Defenders in National Minor Elite #2. ( http://goallineblitz.com/game/team.pl?team_id=4780 ) Made the playoffs in the bottom rung last season, lost in the first round 213-0, and got promoted straight up to Elite #2. And did I mention they're a non-boosting team (I originally said slow-build by mistake) with an average level of 28, thrust into a league full of Level 46 players? They don't belong in Elite.
Neither do teams with empty or nearly-empty rosters, or teams with all-CPU or mostly-CPU rosters... they simply don't belong in Elite. Then there's the owners who sell their team on Day 43, after the script has already been run... they don't belong in Elite either.
I have plenty more examples too, and I'll post the whole list below, but let me propose my solution first.
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THE SOLUTION:
Every season, at some point after running the league-sort script on Day 42, have a real live person go through all of the Pro and Elite leagues and look for obvious "What the f---?" mis-matches that the script did. Pabst's Player Value To League Page greasemonkey script is very useful for this... I used that script to review all of the Pro and Elite leagues in the full-AI leagues last night and came up with the list you'll see below in about 90 minutes. If I can do this in 90 minutes, then it's do-able.
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THE REASONING:
Right now, the GLB staff relies on people filing Support tickets and on finding teams to swap with on their own. Problem is, there are cases where a team owner might be on vacation during the offseason and may not have been expecting to be promoted straight from the bottom rung up to Elite #1. And in the case of teams with empty rosters, if they're too lazy to recruit replacement players, they're probably also too lazy to send in a Support ticket to get moved out of Elite or find a team to swap with.
Sitting back and passively waiting for Support tickets is not working. GLB needs to take an active approach to this problem. It's clear at this point that the league-sort script isn't getting the job done, which is why a human touch is needed to finish things properly.
Relying on a computer to do a human's job is never wise.
(Edited to correct a couple of grammatical errors and one slight factual error.)
As it currently stands right now, it is possible for a team in the bottom-tier of the league structure to make the playoffs, lose their first-round playoff game 213-0, and still get promoted straight up to Elite #1 or Elite #2 the following season, without having to spend any time in Competitive first.
Prime example: the Chimneyville Defenders in National Minor Elite #2. ( http://goallineblitz.com/game/team.pl?team_id=4780 ) Made the playoffs in the bottom rung last season, lost in the first round 213-0, and got promoted straight up to Elite #2. And did I mention they're a non-boosting team (I originally said slow-build by mistake) with an average level of 28, thrust into a league full of Level 46 players? They don't belong in Elite.
Neither do teams with empty or nearly-empty rosters, or teams with all-CPU or mostly-CPU rosters... they simply don't belong in Elite. Then there's the owners who sell their team on Day 43, after the script has already been run... they don't belong in Elite either.
I have plenty more examples too, and I'll post the whole list below, but let me propose my solution first.
---
THE SOLUTION:
Every season, at some point after running the league-sort script on Day 42, have a real live person go through all of the Pro and Elite leagues and look for obvious "What the f---?" mis-matches that the script did. Pabst's Player Value To League Page greasemonkey script is very useful for this... I used that script to review all of the Pro and Elite leagues in the full-AI leagues last night and came up with the list you'll see below in about 90 minutes. If I can do this in 90 minutes, then it's do-able.
---
THE REASONING:
Right now, the GLB staff relies on people filing Support tickets and on finding teams to swap with on their own. Problem is, there are cases where a team owner might be on vacation during the offseason and may not have been expecting to be promoted straight from the bottom rung up to Elite #1. And in the case of teams with empty rosters, if they're too lazy to recruit replacement players, they're probably also too lazy to send in a Support ticket to get moved out of Elite or find a team to swap with.
Sitting back and passively waiting for Support tickets is not working. GLB needs to take an active approach to this problem. It's clear at this point that the league-sort script isn't getting the job done, which is why a human touch is needed to finish things properly.
Relying on a computer to do a human's job is never wise.
(Edited to correct a couple of grammatical errors and one slight factual error.)
Edited by Novus on Jun 26, 2011 21:29:37
