[FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST [Archive]

EricH

19-07-2016, 19:36

With the passing of another IRI into the record websites, it’s time for another season of Fantasy FIRST! If more season long leagues crop up, we will use "Traditional"; otherwise, this is the only SLFF around. Sign on up... but make sure you've got the time!

We'll make this "quick hit" of the rules very fast: Miss 6 drafts (nominally 3 days, but we'll see how the schedule works out) in a row, you get one warning. Ignore the warning, you're out of the league and your teams are up for grabs! Speaking of teams, you get up to 5 players per team playing this game. Trades between playing teams are allowed if everybody agrees to the terms.

Drafting schedule is still to be worked out. Expect that the district event areas (now including Toronto!) will draft at the end of the season, near Kickkoff.

There will be a couple of changes to the rules, which I will go into in detail in a later post (I'm a little pressed for time). The first is that draft order will be randomized, then rotated, then randomized again... And the second is that once competition begins, all lineup changes will go to the waiver wire.

Speaking of the waiver wire, we're working on some adjustments to that, too, which will be announced as soon as possible.

1) Falcon (EricH)
2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill)--via PM, which may or may not validate their team name :p
3)

Rangel(kf7fdb)

19-07-2016, 20:02

1) Falcon (EricH)
2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill)--via PM, which may or may not validate their team name
3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

BrennanB

19-07-2016, 20:06

niklas674

19-07-2016, 20:08

frcguy

19-07-2016, 20:28

ghostmachine360

19-07-2016, 20:45

Back-to-back............to-back?

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill)--via PM, which may or may not validate their team name

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

thatprogrammer

19-07-2016, 20:55

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill)--via PM, which may or may not validate their team name

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8)FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

Poseidon5817

19-07-2016, 20:56

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill)--via PM, which may or may not validate their team name

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817) - If anyone wants to join PM me

EmileH

19-07-2016, 21:45

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill)--via PM, which may or may not validate their team name

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817)

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH)

Sperkowsky

19-07-2016, 22:16

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill)--via PM, which may or may not validate their team name

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817)

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH)

11)The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky)

TDav540

20-07-2016, 01:52

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817)

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH)

11)The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky)

Roboshant

20-07-2016, 02:07

BrennanB

20-07-2016, 10:22

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817)

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH)

11)The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant)

Gregor

20-07-2016, 13:55

As someone who's weary of rejoining (last time I played was 2013?), is there an updated rules list? Trying to gauge time commitment.

EricH

20-07-2016, 20:18

As someone who's weary of rejoining (last time I played was 2013?), is there an updated rules list? Trying to gauge time commitment.
There is, but it's not current to this year, YET. https://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2574 I'll publish an update once we figure out the waiver rules a little more.

The main thing is that district events are now drafted in blocks--so you pick an alliance for MI, one for MAR, one for Toronto, etc. Bigger districts will often use bigger alliances (MI tends to run to 6 teams per alliance), with drafts spread over two nights. I forget what all else we've adjusted since then.

Speaking of rules updates and changes and the like, I do believe I need to put those into more formal explanations. So, here goes.

1) Waivers, aside from any still-to-be determined changes in submission methodology, will have one change: Any team picked up after events begin will be a waiver claim. (The exception to this: any team assigned randomly by the scoring crew after an event to fill a hole.)
Reason: Had a bunch of folks simply wait out the waiver timing last year and then pick a bunch of teams.

2) Draft Order: The first draft will be randomized. After the first draft, each succeeding draft will rotate the order one slot (1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 3, n becomes 1--or reverse order of that, haven't determined which) until everybody has drafted in the #1 overall slot once. After that, draft order will be randomized again and rotation will recommence.
--Special Case: Tiered drafts. We didn't see any last year, but there may be some this year. If there's a tiered draft, rotation will happen before tier split.
--Special Case: District Block Drafts. The first district block draft will be randomized, and the remainder will be rotated.
--Special Case: Not a full rotation remaining. For either the regionals or the districts, if there aren't enough events left (e) to do a full rotation of n players, the decision process is as follows: If e<(n/2), all drafts will be randomized. If e>=(n/2), rotation will be used.
Reason: Random can slide some folks down a little bit in the average draft order, so we're trying to level the playing field even more.

It should be noted that DCMPs will use finishing order in the districts they cover.

3) 2Champs is going to do some messing with the CMP drafts, I think. Let's take any discussion on that to https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146725, though. (Same for any other waiver improvements to discuss, please.)

Poseidon5817

21-07-2016, 10:40

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH)

11)The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant)

Hitchhiker 42 added to Owning-Rex.

Ben Martin

21-07-2016, 11:44

Never played before, but I have some extra free time, so I'll give it a shot--

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH)

11)The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant)

12) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

EmileH

21-07-2016, 11:48

Adding Justin2648 to NE WYWI.

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

11)The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant)

12) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

Harrison.Smith

23-07-2016, 01:27

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (g_sawchuck, tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

11)The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith)

12) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

g_sawchuk

24-07-2016, 14:41

After evaluating my schedule and available time in the upcoming year, I've realized that I won't be able to effectively commit to Fantasy FIRST. I have adjusted FIRST Pick accordingly.

Good luck, everyone!

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) Impostor (Niklas674)

6) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

7) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

8) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

9) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

10) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

11)The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith)

12) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

niklas674

03-08-2016, 14:51

I am disbanding Imposters and joining the Regal Falcons

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Wired_Mike)

5) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

6) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

7)FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

8) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

9) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

10) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674)

11) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

BrennanB

03-08-2016, 22:39

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) OrangeBot.exe (Rangel(kf7fdb))

4) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646)

5) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

6) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

7)FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

8) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

9) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

10) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674)

11) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

Rangel(kf7fdb)

04-08-2016, 01:20

Disbanding OrangeBot.exe. No time to finish the program or even draft the normal way. :(

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646)

4) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

5) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

6) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer)

7) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

8) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

9) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674)

10) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

thatprogrammer

08-08-2016, 18:38

Updating team list for FIRST Pick (New member!)

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646)

4) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

5) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

6) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

7) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

8) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

9) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674)

10) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

fishing_cat

04-09-2016, 23:01

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646)

4) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

5) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

6) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

7) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

8) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

9) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

10) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

BrennanB

20-09-2016, 22:33

And with that TBC's roster is full with the return of our resident PNW expert! :ahh:

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

5) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

6) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

7) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42) - If you want to join send me a PM

8) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

9) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

10) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

Hitchhiker 42

21-09-2016, 23:41

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) tehbreadpofs (frcguy, Gravity)

5) Rotten Fruit Alliance (ghostmachine360, ttldomination, Navid Shafa, Dave McLaughlin, Anupam Goli)

6) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

7) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42, frcguy) - If you want to join send me a PM

8) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

9) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

10) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

frcguy moves to Owning-Rex; Team 4 is disbanded.

Anupam Goli

29-09-2016, 23:16

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

5) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42, frcguy, Gravity) - If you want to join send me a PM

6) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

7) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

8) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

After drinking a lot of Budweiser on the couch tonight, RFA has decided to disband and retire from Fantasy FIRST.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/broncos/files/2016/01/506959242-495x329.jpg

Navid Shafa

29-09-2016, 23:24

After drinking a lot of Budweiser on the couch tonight, RFA has decided to disband and retire from Fantasy FIRST.

Cheers Boys ;)
http://i.imgur.com/ZPC0lIZ.gif

ghostmachine360

30-09-2016, 17:20

Cheers Boys ;)
http://i.imgur.com/ZPC0lIZ.gif

In the immortal words of Token: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVYA-WS56J8

*claps hands**raises hands*

Until next time, gentlemen (and ladies, if there are any in this year's league). #backtoback #ridingoffintothesunset #allhailthespreadsheet #tsimfd

Dave McLaughlin

12-10-2016, 15:18

Thanks for the lulz, we had a good run boys.

http://gif-finder.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/frodobagginscheerhobbiShub.gif

TDav540

12-10-2016, 15:36

Any idea when we'll see the drafting schedule and/or rule changes and waiver updates?

EricH

12-10-2016, 19:41

Any idea when we'll see the drafting schedule and/or rule changes and waiver updates?
Working on the schedule now. Pretty much it's Thanksgiving to Kickoff, with a couple days off around Christmas, another couple around New Year's, and some off days built in (better known as "make-up" days if we miss a draft somewhere).

Rules changes that have been announced are: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1597807&postcount=15 Once events start, every pickup is a waiver pickup, AND the draft order will be shaken up a bit (see linked post).

Rules changes under discussion are at https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146725. The gist of the discussion so far is that we're undecided on waiver submission method, and we'll be excluding culture-change awards from district averaging, we think.

MARS_James

20-10-2016, 01:14

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

5) Owning-Rex (Poseidon5817, Hitchhiker 42, frcguy, Gravity) - If you want to join send me a PM

6) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

7) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

8) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

9) Swamp Life (MARS_James)

EricH

23-10-2016, 18:06

We have a schedule!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lszTYgJIcEmdJ5mS6jmjXnHW0VYvpYhBCs4Z4zVG7AI/edit?usp=sharing

Just for awareness... We're going to need draft runners. All drafts start 7 PM Eastern, unless otherwise announced. Due to the fact that signups are still open, I can't say for sure which drafts will be the randomization drafts (as opposed to the order-rotation drafts) yet, but when I can I'll mark those in blue. Example, see South Florida and Israel--as the first draft overall, and the first district draft, they're randomized.

I've also put a space to track attendance: due to the "miss six" rule, if whoever is running the draft would be so kind as to make a note if someone attends 0, 1, or 2 events, that'd be really great.

I plan to have any updated documents out before drafting begins, but it may take a bit of time.

Poseidon5817

23-10-2016, 21:13

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

5) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

6) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

7) Enemy's Gate is Down (Ben Martin)

8) Swamp Life (MARS_James)

Dissolved Owning-Rex

MARS_James

29-10-2016, 19:16

Just for awareness... We're going to need draft runners. All drafts start 7 PM Eastern, unless otherwise announced. Due to the fact that signups are still open, I can't say for sure which drafts will be the randomization drafts (as opposed to the order-rotation drafts) yet, but when I can I'll mark those in blue. Example, see South Florida and Israel--as the first draft overall, and the first district draft, they're randomized.
.

So Palmetto is the same night as South Florida. So lets say we "randomly" get the draft order as how we currently signed up. So Falcon would be first pick South Florida and last pick Palmetto correct?

EricH

30-10-2016, 00:16

So Palmetto is the same night as South Florida. So lets say we "randomly" get the draft order as how we currently signed up. So Falcon would be first pick South Florida and last pick Palmetto correct?
Direction of rotation hasn't been determined, but that sounds like as good a direction as any, so we'll go ahead and determine it. "The first shall be last"--that is, if you just had the first pick, you'll be the last pick in the next draft.

Speaking of which, the drafts in the left column will be considered to be before the drafts in the right column if they fall on the same day. Redrafts will use the original draft order even if they happen on a different day.

One other note on the rotations: In the event of an event having tiers, the rotation will happen before the tiers are split.

Ben Martin

06-11-2016, 07:15

Dropping, because going back to school is far more time consuming than I thought it would be

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

5) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

6) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

7) Swamp Life (MARS_James)

snoman

06-11-2016, 17:12

Never played before, but another mentor and I maybe interested. What kind of time commitment are we looking at? Hrs per week. Can you give me a example week on how it works during season? Thanks

ctt956

06-11-2016, 17:24

Rangel(kf7fdb)

06-11-2016, 17:52

Never played before, but another mentor and I maybe interested. What kind of time commitment are we looking at? Hrs per week. Can you give me a example week on how it works during season? Thanks

Not playing this season but you basically need to be able to figure out some way to make a pick list of teams based on whatever categories you see fit for every event/district area. If only doing this, time commitment can be kept to a minimum. If data gathering can be automated, even less time can be used to do well. If you don't have a system for doing this, it's probably going to be overwhelming and either quality of your picks will decrease or time commitment has to be increased. More time can be spent after generating a list for more informed decisions that your system might have missed.

For example of a system, what we did to start our first year was was take the team list for each event and then in a spreadsheet, assign each team their previous year's opr, awards won in past two years, chairmen's wins, and engineering inspiration wins. From there we gave each category a weight and outputted the sum of all the weights to give each team their fantasy first score based on our metrics. At first we did everything manually but soon realized it was going to be too much work and figured out a way to generate oprs for a list of teams using other opr spreadsheets on chief delphi so it was only awards we had to do manually. Eventually we did the same for generating awards data per a list of teams and everything was pretty smooth after that. After everything was calculated, the person on our FF team with the most familiarity of a region would modify our list for things the system couldn't account for(such as if a team is going to win chairmens at a previous event)

This is a basic system that got did a decent job and I think we did fairly well for our first year. Overall, I think the more time you spend upfront, the less time required throughout the season. One thing our system could very much improve upon was being able to analyze how the system was doing week per week and using new data acquired throughout the season to do a better job trading.

EricH

06-11-2016, 18:17

Time commitment is as much as you want to put in, and you can split the time up between your team members.

A typical drafting week is two drafts per night, at the same time (evenings). Drafts will generally last two hours, but you need not be there the whole time.

As noted, you can send in a list of your picks ahead of time, and whoever is running the draft will use that to pick your teams for you. The setup time for a draft can take a while, but it'll be worth it.

Personally, I take almost no time on setup, but I do run a lot of drafts.

TDav540

10-11-2016, 22:38

I might be missing something.....but on the drafting schedule, there isn't a Chesapeake draft.

EricH

11-11-2016, 01:14

I might be missing something.....but on the drafting schedule, there isn't a Chesapeake draft.
Fixed, will be the last draft of the season (other than the DCMP drafts). I've also fixed the name of Mexico City to Toluca.

TDav540

11-11-2016, 08:05

Fixed, will be the last draft of the season (other than the DCMP drafts). I've also fixed the name of Mexico City to Toluca.

Awesome.

When will South Florida open to the first pick (and we'll know the start of the rotation order)?

EricH

11-11-2016, 19:24

Awesome.

When will South Florida open to the first pick (and we'll know the start of the rotation order)?
Registration closes on Thanksgiving; South Florida should open fairly early (Pacific time, where I'm at) the next day.

Bkeeneykid

15-11-2016, 22:17

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

5) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

6) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

7) Swamp Life (MARS_James)

8) F3 (bkeeneykid,adisai1)

TDav540

21-11-2016, 09:34

EricH

21-11-2016, 19:40

I'm going to do a slight adjustment on signup/draft posting times.

Signup deadline will be NOON PST on Thanksgiving (3 PM EST), with the first draft being posted sometime before midnight that day to allow time for other drafts to fill rotations. I expect to be able to mark the next planned randomization that day as well. (If you're a little late... well, we might be able to sneak ya in. But once that first draft is posted, time's up!)

I may be able to fill some Saturday draft running slots, but there's a decent chance those run earlier than standard due to other commitments.

Also, for anybody paying attention, there will be another FF draft at some point, covering MI. To avoid crosstalk, we should be using [SLFF], particularly when running district drafts. (I suspect they'll be using [FFIM].)

ctt956

22-11-2016, 22:00

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germita)

5) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

6) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

7) Swamp Life (MARS_James)

8) F3 (bkeeneykid,adisai1)

9) Untitled Team (ctt956)

(yes, "Untitled Team" is actually the name of my team. :cool:)

EricH

25-11-2016, 01:15

South Florida is now open for picking. I have a list from F3.

Draft order for South Florida (will need to be rotated for following drafts):
The Regal Falcons
FIRST Pick
Swamp Life
F3
Falcon
Untitled Team
Questionable Decisionmakers
NE Way You Want It
The Breakfast Company

Next randomization will be St. Louis unless something changes.

MARS_James

25-11-2016, 13:09

As an FYI i can't run Orlando like i planned to because ironically I was surprised with a trip to said city by my family, sorry for the inconvenience. Palmetto will proceed as normal

BrennanB

25-11-2016, 13:49

Draft Schedule looks almost full, but we still have open spots in places. Looks like we'll need someone to help run Northern Lights this Saturday (11/26). After that, Southern Cross is the next open draft runner slot (12/3), then South Pacific (12/8), and then Iowa (12/10).

Quoted for awareness. Sheet is here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lszTYgJIcEmdJ5mS6jmjXnHW0VYvpYhBCs4Z4zVG7AI/edit#gid=0). Sign up if you can!

EricH

25-11-2016, 16:13

Quoted for awareness. Sheet is here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lszTYgJIcEmdJ5mS6jmjXnHW0VYvpYhBCs4Z4zVG7AI/edit#gid=0). Sign up if you can!
Slight issue, I had something come up and will be unable to run Rock City as I planned to. Looks like we'll need a runner there too.

EricH

26-11-2016, 18:37

As a heads-up (and for some future reference--Brennan, I think one of these is one you'll need to pay attention to), a couple of teams have traded draft slots.

F3 Receives
QD 1st Round, Lake Superior - #5
QD 2nd Round, Orlando - #10
QD 2nd Round, Northern Lights - #15

QD Received
F3 1st Round, Lake Superior - #2
F3 2nd Round, Orlando - #13
F3 3rd Round, Northern Lights - #19

Just a couple of notes:
If you agree to a trade of draft spots, it's a really good idea to notify the draft runners (found here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lszTYgJIcEmdJ5mS6jmjXnHW0VYvpYhBCs4Z4zVG7AI/edit#gid=0)) and myself immediately, not an hour before the draft. PM, posting in the draft threads, or posting in this thread will all work--just bear in mind that I might not be present at any given draft.

And if individual picks are traded, you might not see a slot move--the standard format isn't conducive to moving teams around in draft slots--but the times will probably change in the traded positions.

TDav540

26-11-2016, 18:42

Sorry. We finished the trade last night and who was contacting who got confused.

Our bad.

Bkeeneykid

26-11-2016, 18:45

Sorry. We finished the trade last night and who was contacting who got confused.

Our bad.

I'll take the blame for this one. I had a list of FF related tasks I needed to do today that got sidetracked when my 3D printer had some issues and caused me to have a few hours of maintenance. Just now submitting my two pick lists.

snoman

26-11-2016, 19:53

I am doing this for sure next year. Looks like a good time.

niklas674

27-11-2016, 10:11

The Regal Falcons and Untitled Team have agreed to a trade.

The Regal Falcons receive the 1st pick at Arizona North and the 7th pick at San Diego

Untitled team recieves the 5th pick at AZN and the 2nd pick at San Diego.

JosephC

27-11-2016, 15:55

I'm currently doing alot of work before 6:30, preparing the draft in between.

Arizona North WILL be in up time, have no fear..

JosephC

27-11-2016, 19:06

By the way, can we get this thread stickied instead of the 2016 one?

EricH

27-11-2016, 20:25

Falcon will take random teams for both Rock City and Orlando tomorrow.

For anybody wondering what those numbers are under the team names on the schedule sheet, those are how many drafts the team has made a pick in that night (including requests for full random, like above). So far, nobody's missed a draft.

As a side note, I was working on testing an update to the draft-running sheet during the Hub City draft. Survey says... not ready for release. (One bug fix, one functionality upgrade that so far isn't working right.)

thatprogrammer

27-11-2016, 20:32

1) Falcon (EricH)

2) Questionable Decisionmakers (TDav540, Pratik Kunapuli, Kellen Hill, BMSOTM)

3) The Breakfast Company (BrennanB, JosephC, jlmcmchl, Golfer4646, Wired_Mike)

4) FIRST Pick (tindleroot, thatprogrammer, Jeremy Germitan Devlin Moody)

5) NE Way You Want It (Drew4564, Aidan Cox, Jay O'Donnell, EmileH, Justin2648)

6) The Regal Falcons (sperkowsky, roboshant, harrison.smith, Niklas674, fishing_cat)

7) Swamp Life (MARS_James)

8) F3 (bkeeneykid,adisai1)

9) Untitled Team (ctt956)

Adding a new member!

TDav540

28-11-2016, 21:21

St. Louis Draft is now open. The draft order for it is below:

F3
Untitled Team
The Breakfast Company
Swamp Life
NE Way You Want It
FIRST Pick
Questionable Decisionmakers
Falcon
The Regal Falcons

The next eight drafts after St. Louis will reference this order.

niklas674

28-11-2016, 21:33

F3 and the Regal Falcons have agreed to a trade

The Regal Falcons receive the 5th pick at San Diego
F3 receives the 7th pick for San Diego

TDav540

28-11-2016, 21:38

F3 and the Regal Falcons have agreed to a trade

The Regal Falcons receive the 5th pick at San Diego
F3 receives the 7th pick for San Diego

But like.....why?

Brian Maher

28-11-2016, 21:41

F3 and the Regal Falcons have agreed to a trade

The Regal Falcons receive the 5th pick at San Diego
F3 receives the 7th pick for San Diego

Well, that's a questionable decision, even by my standards.

Sperkowsky

28-11-2016, 21:50

Well, that's a questionable decision, even by my standards.

But like.....why?

They did it in exchange for a hug.

Bkeeneykid

28-11-2016, 21:51

They did it in exchange for a hug.

SEVERAL hugs. To be exchanged at North champs. And maybe a favor later, idk.

Sperkowsky

28-11-2016, 21:51

SEVERAL hugs. To be exchanged at North champs. And maybe a favor later, idk.

As you can see we are still working on the full terms of the trade.

BrennanB

28-11-2016, 21:55

This just seems like two teams collaborating and shoving all the good picks/pick slots into one team to win. Trading obviously inferior pick position for a... hug? Cmon man.

TDav540

28-11-2016, 21:56

This just seems like two teams collaborating and shoving all the good picks/pick slots into one team to win.

That's just what we were thinking.

Harrison.Smith

28-11-2016, 21:56

This just seems like two teams collaborating and shoving all the good picks/pick slots into one team to win. Trading obviously inferior pick position for a... hug? Cmon man.

I wish we were.

Sperkowsky

28-11-2016, 21:58

This just seems like two teams collaborating and shoving all the good picks/pick slots into one team to win. Trading obviously inferior pick position for a... hug? Cmon man.

They are pretty good hugs.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 22:20

Alright guys, we changed the way we do pick order so that it would be balanced evently(we had more than a full pick position below the mean last year). Why would we just randomly start switching pick orders around?(This is the first year in the 4 years I've been doing this that this has happened)

It was just a whatever and a slight hassle for me as a draft runner for the first couple, but now things are getting out of hand.

#1 - Swapping #5 straight for #7? Come on, that solely benefits one team and hurts the other. It's basically pooling picks into one team.

#2- And this is what really gets me. As per THIS (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1617884&postcount=8) post, TRF would pick that nights picks for F3, in exchange for a swap of 27 and 2883. So the 7th picking team ends up with a first pick, in exchange for doing someone else's draft? How is that fair for the rest of the teams playing? Here's the kicker, the deal was supposed to mean that "niklas674" would make the picks for F3 at Arizona North. This didn't even happen. F3 proceeded to make their own picks during the duration of the entire draft.

So what does this mean? It means The Regal Falcons have effectively had THREE first picks, while the rest of the teams have only received ONE. It means, malicious or not, one team has effectively gained a draft position advantage over every other team in the league, this is the sole reason we changed how draft orders are done.

My proposal is a simple one. Ban draft position trades, ban allowing non-team members to make picks for you, revoke the 27 and 2883 trade, and just use the completely 100% fair system the way its supposed to be used.

As for the #5 for #7 trade, even if Eric decides he doesn't wanna do the above, I'll quit if it goes through.

Adisai1

28-11-2016, 22:22

Bkeeneykid

28-11-2016, 22:25

JosephC

28-11-2016, 22:27

The whole trade was really messed up. I was the only member of F3 online and a member of The Regal Falcons proposed the trade. Before they finished the proposal I agreed. They didn't think this was out of the ordinary as they assumed it was a gift for us helping them out in a tough situation yesterday.

Here's the thing, teams are not supposed to help other teams, at least not to the extent you guys have. Sure, I've pinged people before on facebook when their pick is coming up when they've forgotten, but that's just good sportsmanship(I do it as a draft runner too if I have you added). What's not okay is teams making picks for teams in exchange for superior advantages, trading picks for advantages, etc.

This is a competition. Its one team vs the rest. It's not two teams helping each other other constantly vs the rest. It's not fair for any other team in the competition that you guys are doing this.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 22:29

What you didn't see is that we were talking to Regal Falcons all throughout that post. Our automated draft system was immobilized due to some heavy debugging earlier that day causing us to exceed our Google API calls for that day. That meant we had no draft list. The Regal Falcons basically saved us from having to go full random. They supplied us a rudimentary pick list, mainly from niklas674. In the end, he still made our drafts even if we were the ones posting in the forum. Due to family stuff, we didn't know if either of us were actually going to be available during the draft to relay these, so we just gave it to them.

Also, see Adi's post for the explanation of the other. Frankly, we screwed up. In a lot of ways. For both of us.

You had an hour to manually make a pick list, the same way TBC has been doing it in an hour for 3 years. See my explanation above for the rest.

Sperkowsky

28-11-2016, 22:29

Here's the thing, teams are not supposed to help other teams, at least not to the extent you guys have. Sure, I've pinged people before on facebook when their pick is coming up when they've forgotten, but that's just good sportsmanship(I do it as a draft runner too if I have you added). What's not okay is teams making picks for teams in exchange for superior advantages, trading picks for advantages, etc.

This is a competition. Its one team vs the rest. It's not two teams helping each other other constantly vs the rest. It's not fair for any other team in the competition that you guys are doing this.

Sorry we assumed ff also followed the spirit of FIRST.

Bkeeneykid

28-11-2016, 22:30

Here's the thing, teams are not supposed to help other teams, at least not to the extent you guys have. Sure, I've pinged people before on facebook when their pick is coming up when they've forgotten, but that's just good sportsmanship(I do it as a draft runner too if I have you added). What's not okay is teams making picks for teams in exchange for superior advantages, trading picks for advantages, etc.

This is a competition. Its one team vs the rest. It's not two teams helping each other other constantly vs the rest. It's not fair for any other team in the competition that you guys are doing this.

Sure, but this is FIRST we're talking about. Where is Gracious Professionalism? The entire concept of the FIRST programs is to engrain the fact that you can compete without having to beat down other teams. Even if it's a competition with teams against each other, so is FRC. Gracious Professionalism still should apply.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 22:32

Sorry we assumed ff also followed the spirit of FIRST.

If it was in the spirit of FIRST, you would for just helped them, not traded a pick for an advantage.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 22:35

Let me put it this way in FRC terms. #4 seed talking to #5 seed. #5 seed - "We'll give you our picklist if you skip over picking team X so we can have them instead"

That's basically whats happening here. Helping one team is one thing. You wanna give them a pick list? Sure. There's no advantage for anyone, its the same as if they made their own picklist. Trading that picklist for a better team? It's advantageous vs other teams not involved. There's nothing the other teams can do about it.

You can't apply it to FRC the same way. Sure, help someone build their robot for your alliance, its the same as if you just picked a better team or they had a better robot. Teams can combat this by building a better robot for themselves, there is counterplay, its doesn't really give someone a large advantage over anyone else.

What can I do to combat your 3 first picks? pick better teams? thats reliant on my pick position, I can't force myself to get more #1 picks.

TDav540

28-11-2016, 22:36

See here's the thing: us at Questionable Decisionmakers don't even think that TRF even helped you guys much more than a random player would. Based on our data system, we came up with the following expected outputs for a player in your position:

AZN, Projected Points, 8th pick: 90.51
Hub City, Projected Points, 9th Pick: 85.24

And this is what the result was:
F3, AZN, Projected Points, 8th pick: 53.44 (17 points below 8th best score)
F3, Hub City, Projected Points, 9th pick: 61.92 (27 points below 8th best score)

Sure, you guys might still have gotten last. But by that large a margin? In no draft simulation we do is the largest gap by anywhere near 17 points.

Both the 27-2883 and the San Diego trade should be cancelled. I don't think draft pick trades should be cancelled, but they should be submitted to the commissioner for approval before 9am PST before the next upcoming draft.

niklas674

28-11-2016, 22:39

I'm ending this conversation. If you really feel that this is an issue then fine. I'd prefer to do FF without these issues. The trade at San Diego was wrong and I shouldn't have been ok with the straight up trade. The northern lights deal is a situation that we shouldn't have imposed. Regardless I felt that the picks supplied to f3 were good picks, but those picks shouldn't have equated to 27.

I just want this whole deal to be over so we can move on.

Sorry for these issues,

Niklas Murray

Sperkowsky

28-11-2016, 22:41

What can I do to combat your 3 first picks? pick better teams? thats reliant on my pick position, I can't force myself to get more #1 picks.
I only count 2 first picks. Trading the 2nd first pick team was worth it to them as without us they were just picking random. What we did was entirely within the rules and we shouldn't be penalized for it. If because of this you want rule. Changes I understand. But what has been done is done.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 22:41

Both the 27-2883 and the San Diego trade should be cancelled. I don't think draft pick trades should be cancelled, but they should be submitted to the commissioner for approval before 9am PST before the next upcoming draft.

I'd be fine with this as well.

Go ahead and collab between two teams if you'd like, but don't give one team an advantage over the non-involved teams while you're doing it. Nobody has a problem with TRF helping F3, the problem is the extra advantages TRF are receiving while doing it.

BrennanB

28-11-2016, 22:42

We definitely don't want to discourage people from playing. It's no fun playing against nobody. Just we definitely want to keep things fair! Thanks for understanding and that hopefully should clear up the issues.

I'm also not a huge fan of trading draft slots. TBC this evening were thinking of several ways to abuse this specific mechanic much to the levels of waiting out the waiver timer last year.

I only count 2 first picks. Trading the 2nd first pick team was worth it to them as without us they were just picking random. What we did was entirely within the rules and we shouldn't be penalized for it. If because of this you want rule. Changes I understand. But what has been done is done.

I mean c'mon. As you said "Sorry we assumed ff also followed the spirit of FIRST." Obviously this kind of pick trading benefits one team way more than the other. You can't just use the GP/Spirit of FIRST argument when it happens to be convenient for you.

TDav540

28-11-2016, 22:49

I'm also not a huge fan of trading draft slots. TBC this evening were thinking of several ways to abuse this specific mechanic much to the levels of waiting out the waiver timer last year.

I think it is possible to abuse this, but it makes it significantly more difficult to do so if it's screened by a consistent, reliable source (say, Eric, or a nine member committee, one from every team).

However, based on recent events, I am fine with suspending draft pick trades (or all trades for that matter) until we have a reasonable screening process agreed to by everyone.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 22:53

I only count 2 first picks. Trading the 2nd first pick team was worth it to them as without us they were just picking random. What we did was entirely within the rules and we shouldn't be penalized for it. If because of this you want rule. Changes I understand. But what has been done is done.

#1 - your standard FP, South Florida
#2 - traded first pick, Arizona North
#3 - 27 for 2883(27 was first picked at the event), Northern Lights

I have no problem with the Arizona North pick, theres nothing against it in the rules, and it was a fair trade, and of course I have nothing against your standard first pick at South Florida.

I mostly have a problem with the 27 for 2883 trade. If this was really about GP, as has been posted above, you would of helped them with no reward. Helping them for a reward isn't GP, thats just helping yourself out.

Edit - I also have no problem with you providing them a picklist or picking for them, just the trade at Northern Lights and the #5 for #7 trade.

BrennanB

28-11-2016, 22:53

I think it is possible to abuse this, but it makes it significantly more difficult to do so if it's screened by a consistent, reliable source (say, Eric, or a nine member committee, one from every team).

However, based on recent events, I am fine with suspending draft pick trades (or all trades for that matter) until we have a reasonable screening process agreed to by everyone.

The problem is it's too hard to moderate. I want to draft slots in-head of the strong teams and behind a lot of weak teams. I get to steal all the good teams from the teams that are weaker and make sub par picks.

Sperkowsky

28-11-2016, 22:54

#1 - your standard FP, South Florida
#2 - traded first pick, Arizona North
#3 - 27 for 2883(27 was first picked at the event), Northern Lights

I have no problem with the Arizona North pick, theres nothing against it in the rules, and it was a fair trade, and of course I have nothing against your standard first pick at South Florida.

I mostly have a problem with the 27 for 2883 trade. If this was really about GP, as has been posted above, you would of helped them with no reward. Helping them for a reward isn't GP, thats just helping yourself out.
What's wrong with helping ourselves out if it's within the rules? We also helped them.

We are playing to win. If anything in the past is changed then FF is being rigged in favor of everyone but us. We are not against banning pick position trades but changing the past because one team was able to use the system to its advantage isnt fair.

TDav540

28-11-2016, 22:56

What's wrong with helping ourselves out if it's within the rules? We also helped them.

They might as well have randomed and would probably have gotten just as good if not better results. I'd say that isn't helping, that's extortion at best and collusion at worst.

niklas674

28-11-2016, 22:59

They might as well have randomed and would probably have gotten just as good if not better results. I'd say that isn't helping, that's extortion at best and collusion at worst.

I told them those picks based off of my past experiences which is how I've drafted other teams. There was no harmful intent there, just picks that I felt to be good based upon how they had done at events that I have seen.

Harrison.Smith

28-11-2016, 22:59

They might as well have randomed and would probably have gotten just as good if not better results. I'd say that isn't helping, that's extortion at best and collusion at worst.

Just to be clear, I ran the selection of teams at Hub City past Devin and Adi. To avoid further confusion I believe that is why allowed me to post their picks.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 23:01

We've never had to make rules like this before because nobody has tried to game the system for an unfair advantage. You guys would be the first. If you really want to be within the spirit of first and follow GP, you'd realize you messed up, revoke the #5 for #7, trade back 27 and 2883, and carry on with your lives. (Unless of course you think you can't win without them :) )

Nothing else to say on the topic, waiting for Eric now.

MARS_James

28-11-2016, 23:02

Been doing this a long time, and with the implementation of the set draft schedule I am personally ok with people trading draft slots, yes it made it a headache when I ran the draft but it is no different then if the teams effectively said instead, ok we will pick X when our draft comes up if you pick Y for us. And then just traded the teams after (which has always been ok). With the set schedule it makes it easier to trade drafting slots because you know what another team is going to have. I actually have done this in Fantasy Football, and do not see a problem with it so long as these are kept track of (ie there is a section on the draft google doc that is documenting all these trades to just make sure they are staying relatively even.) and if the commissioner feels that someone(s) is utilizing this to get an unfair advantage he can put the kibosh to it.

I actually like the trading slots more so then the just pre-picking who you are going to trade for, as it involves less colluding. Plus I am interested in how this goes cause it could see an evolution to how we do the drafts..

Just my 2 cents take it for what it's worth.

niklas674

28-11-2016, 23:03

We've never had to make rules like this before because nobody has tried to game the system for an unfair advantage. You guys would be the first. If you really want to be within the spirit of first and follow GP, you'd realize you messed up, revoke the #5 for #7, trade back 27 and 2883, and carry on with your lives.

Nothing else to say on the topic, waiting for Eric now.

I'm perfectly fine trading back the San Diego pick, but the 27 trade went through and there was no backlash for it last night. I don't know what will happen, but I want to move on to the rest of the season.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 23:05

I'm perfectly fine trading back the San Diego pick, but the 27 trade went through and there was no backlash for it last night. I don't know what will happen, but I want to move on to the rest of the season.

I didn't even realize it went through until today, when you didn't make their picks for them I assumed the deal had been canceled, I was wrong.

niklas674

28-11-2016, 23:08

I didn't even realize it went through until today, when you didn't make their picks for them I assumed the deal had been canceled, I was wrong.

I had a family issue come up, therefore I was unable to call in the picks, but I made sure they had access to my picklist. (Which is being viewed as a bad picklist). As I've said I just want to get this whole ordeal over with so I can enjoy my first season of doing this.

JosephC

28-11-2016, 23:14

I had a family issue come up, therefore I was unable to call in the picks, but I made sure they had access to my picklist. (Which is being viewed as a bad picklist). As I've said I just want to get this whole ordeal over with so I can enjoy my first season of doing this.

As well, I just want a nice season of FF to compete against you guys square and fair, its just not so much the fair part right now.(We've been screwed over by draft position multiple years in a row now, and finally we got it to the point where all draft slots are even and rotated, except now its not so even anymore).

BrennanB

28-11-2016, 23:21

I had a family issue come up, therefore I was unable to call in the picks, but I made sure they had access to my picklist. (Which is being viewed as a bad picklist). As I've said I just want to get this whole ordeal over with so I can enjoy my first season of doing this.

No worries Niklas. Everybody has those kinds of things. And don't worry too much about "bad picklists" It's pretty subjective an team performance varies. Every system for measuring picklists that isn't your team's is going to undervalue your picklist.

I was concerned about the 27 pick prior. Didn't bring it up as it wasn't obvious that there was intentional lopsiding the picks. (No point in witch hunting) it was more the blatant swap for a worse pick position that made me bring it up. That clearly didn't have a morsel of fairness. I also think that the nonchalant "hug trading" got people on edge and was a poor taste of joke. We want to have fun and keep things fair for everyone of course!

James has bring up some great points. I just don't want this to be some super relegated league where nobody can have fun because there are so many rules about what you can and cannot do. This is for fun!

niklas674

28-11-2016, 23:25

No worries Niklas. Everybody has those kinds of things. And don't worry too much about "bad picklists" It's pre subjective an team performance varies. Every system for measuring picklists that isn't your team is going to undervalue your picklist.

I was concerned about the 27 pick prior. Didn't bring it up as it wasn't obvious that there was intentional lopsiding the picks. (No point in witch hunting) it was more the blatant swap for a worse pick position that mad me bring it up. That clearly didn't have a morsel of fairness. I also think that the nonchalant "hug trading" got people on edge and was a poor taste of joke. We want to have fun and keep things fair for everyone of course!

James has bring up some great points. I just don't want this to be some super relegated league where nobody can have fun because there are so many rules about what you can and cannot do. This is for fun!

Thanks for the vode of confidence in regards to the pick list. The hugs were in bad taste. In regards to the San Diego trade I should've pushed to give more after it was accepted straight up, my mistake. To fix this mistake the 20th and 23rd pick have been added into the deal to make it fairer.

I've been having fun competing against all of the other teams and am glad that FF is here. Now let's go out and have a fair rest of the season in which the winners won fairly.

MARS_James

28-11-2016, 23:27

Thanks for the vode of confidence in regards to the pick list. The hugs were in bad taste. In regards to the San Diego trade I should've pushed to give more after it was accepted straight up, my mistake.
.

Honestly just saying "A trade up in position during a future draft rotation yet to be determined" would have put everyone at ease.

TDav540

28-11-2016, 23:29

Honestly just saying "A trade up in position during a future draft rotation yet to be determined" would have put everyone at ease.

+1

EricH

28-11-2016, 23:48

Brennan's got it--this is for fun.

I might consider putting a couple of trade restrictions in--but I much prefer "gentleman's agreements" that, say, full trades be announced. There's a couple of days to work with for considering, as Wednesday is an official off day for drafting (and we don't seem to have any drafts to catch up on.)

On another topic: Joseph, Falcon will be taking full random in San Diego tomorrow. (St. Louis will depend on whether I'm online when my slot opens.)

On yet another topic: For a future event, I happen to want points, without having teams at all, not even random ones. Obviously, I would be up for taking some point penalty short of having no points at that event. Would median team score, times three, work, or is there some better idea? (I'd probably be writing this one into the rules under a specific name--there's a very specific reason for this particular topic of discussion.)

TDav540

29-11-2016, 00:07

On yet another topic: For a future event, I happen to want points, without having teams at all, not even random ones. Obviously, I would be up for taking some point penalty short of having no points at that event. Would median team score, times three, work, or is there some better idea? (I'd probably be writing this one into the rules under a specific name--there's a very specific reason for this particular topic of discussion.)

So, I'm of the mind that no risk, no reward. You shouldn't be able to gain points on any player due to not playing. So here's my thought: you can take no teams, but
1) You cannot make any trades related to that draft
2) You are ineligible to pick up teams off waivers for that event
3) Your score for that event is XX (agreed upon number or percentage) below the lowest scoring picking player.

Those would probably just be starting points. Loopholes would have to be closed for this.

MARS_James

29-11-2016, 00:12

On yet another topic: For a future event, I happen to want points, without having teams at all, not even random ones. Obviously, I would be up for taking some point penalty short of having no points at that event. Would median team score, times three, work, or is there some better idea? (I'd probably be writing this one into the rules under a specific name--there's a very specific reason for this particular topic of discussion.)

I am curious as to why but I think this is actually a rule that if implemented could potentially be used unfairly. Lets say we have an event with 27 teams and 9 fantasy teams in the league in theory the teams should score in a point system similar to 27 down to 1 meaning the 9th pick gets 19, 18, and 1 point for 38 points but the median score would be 14 which times 3 is 42 meaning you get more points for not playing.

I also dislike this because in traditional fantasy sports, to my knowledge, you can't just say "I want the average score of all running backs across the league for my rb1 slot" (which btw would be really stupid)

EricH

29-11-2016, 00:26

So, I'm of the mind that no risk, no reward. You shouldn't be able to gain points on any player due to no playing. So here's my thought: you can take no teams, but
1) You cannot make any trades related to that draft
2) You are ineligible to pick up teams off waivers for that event
3) Your score for that event is XX (agreed upon number or percentage) below the lowest scoring picking player.

Those would probably just be starting points. Loopholes would have to be closed for this.

Basically, I want zero, repeat zero, teams in that particular draft. So the first two points are fine. But, I would rather be "with the pack"--that is, I don't want to lose position because I don't participate in a draft. (You'll have to trust me when I say that I have a really, really good reason not to play in that particular draft.) That puts the third point as unacceptable--I have seen players that are within 20 points of each other in final pre-champs score, no joke.

What about some score determined by unpicked teams? Naturally, FF players will pick the top teams wherever possible, but there's the offchance for a fluke. Average the unpicked teams, multiply by X (where 2<X<=3)?

EricH

29-11-2016, 00:32

I am curious as to why but I think this is actually a rule that if implemented could potentially be used unfairly. Lets say we have an event with 27 teams and 9 fantasy teams in the league in theory the teams should score in a point system similar to 27 down to 1 meaning the 9th pick gets 19, 18, and 1 point for 38 points but the median score would be 14 which times 3 is 42 meaning you get more points for not playing.

I also dislike this because in traditional fantasy sports, to my knowledge, you can't just say "I want the average score of all running backs across the league for my rb1 slot" (which btw would be really stupid)
Right. One item I would have in the rule would be that the commissioner would have to approve the usage--or, the draft runner for that draft AND whichever draft runner was scheduled to run the most drafts (or second-most, if the first two were the same person), in the event that the commissioner is the one asking or is unavailable--and would have to be informed of the specific reasons prior to approving.

I had considered the "more points for not playing" part--I don't like that myself--and figured that usage should be very tightly controlled. As in, there has to be a specific reason to invoke it.

EricH

29-11-2016, 01:26

I've been asked to clarify the Northern Lights and San Diego situations.

So, just to state things as they stand:
Northern Lights, F3 has 2883 and RF has 27. (Result of trade requested and approved--as a result of RF drafting for F3.)
San Diego (not yet approved): RF currently HAS #7 (traded #2 to Untitled for a loosely-equivalent slot in AZ North), and is now working on trading #7 and #20 to F3 for #5 and #23.

Requested draft slots for RF: #5 (+2), #17 (original), #23 (-3)
Requested draft slots for F3: #7 (-2), #14 (original), #20 (+3)

I think that's fair, but I pity the San Diego draft runner keeping things straight!

The rulings:
I'm going to rule that San Diego is a fair trade.
I'm also going to rule that Northern Lights is a fair trade--it happened AFTER the draft was over, and there's no restriction on trading teams after the drafts (other than waivers, which this wasn't). Could have been a completely independent trade.
And one final ruling: All further slot trades are on hold until Shenzhen is posted. This is to give further discussion time and give a rookie draft runner a break from the hectic-ness around those trades. If something needs to be done to clarify slot-trade situations, then it'll be done and announced by the time Shenzhen is posted. Or there'll be a "nothing changing" announcement.

TBH, I'm mainly trying to buy some time here while the discussion(s) and considerations continue. I've got limited availability tomorrow due to non-FIRST volunteering (there is such a thing?), and Wednesday is a scheduled off-day, so there's time to consider things then.

JosephC

29-11-2016, 01:39

What about something like 60-70% of the mean drafted teams score times 3?

The only issue with the non-drafted teams mean is that it would probably be extremely low, considering the amount of teams in a regional that don't get picked. This could be offset by multiplying that mean by 1.5x or such, but then you run the risk in small regionals where the non-picked teams randomly pop off and score a lot of points.

Also with the non-picked teams, it doesn't account at all for your pick position, say if you were #1(It's entirely possible you invoke this as 1st pick given a good enough reason)(I can think of two off the top of my head). Using your #1 pick up for that rotation for points that would basically equal last pick or atleast close would definitely impact your ranking.

Another way would be to use pick position as a indicator of expected points and multiply the mean of picked teams by that, say +5-10% for each position you are above pick 5, -5-10% for each position you are below 5.

It's important to remember that the system would be extremely hard to abuse, as you'd need a very good reason to evoke it, and it'd have to be accepted, not just a "we can't make the draft today, instead of randoms or a picklist we want to evoke this rule". Also, I don't really see this being used by any teams with more than one member, its basically just a way for single person teams to completely remove themselves from a draft completely so they have no connection to any supposed bias for the event, at least thats how I infer it based on what Eric has been saying(say you end up being a judge of some sort for a competition and you end up giving a reward to a team you happen to have drafted, just one example of possible uses that I can see).

Brian Maher

29-11-2016, 01:43

I think a fair solution here would be to give someone who does not make a pick 2-3 times the average score of the top ten (maybe fifteen?) unpicked teams. That way, there is less of an inherent disadvantage of using this option at larger events with more teams that won't be picked.

TDav540

29-11-2016, 08:12

What about this: a score 5-10% lower than the lowest scoring player OR a score equal to the median of all undrafted teams, multiplied by three.

Take the score that's higher.

Bkeeneykid

29-11-2016, 08:17

What about this: a score 5-10% lower than the lowest scoring player OR a score equal to the median of all undrafted teams, multiplied by three.

Take the score that's higher.

Still, you have the problem with larger events of being a lot of unpicked teams, leaving you with a much lower score than a smaller event. How about the top number of teams that would have been picked including that team, if all drafted? So in a 10 team draft, the top 30 teams would be then taken the median from, then multiplied by three. Presumably, even with full random, you would still be off the median because you are either picking teams above the median, or with random, you would be taking teams below the median on average because the higher performing teams would be taken by the teams actually drafting.

TDav540

29-11-2016, 10:22

Just to help the San Diego draft runner, here's all the adjustments made in draft slot for that event:

Untitled Team owns TRF's first pick (#2)
TRF owns F3's first pick (#5)
F3 owns Untitled Team's first pick (#7)
F3 owns TRF's third pick (#20)
TRF owns F3's third pick (#23)

If I'm missing anything let me know, but I think that's it.

BrennanB

29-11-2016, 11:45

Why is there a scenario where you should be permitted to take zero teams? If I'm last pick in like. Shenzen (a weakish even that not many people know anything about) for example. If I just want an average and be guaranteed an average score.

I don't see a legitimate case where you wouldn't just take randoms. Randoms are more entertaining anyways. Maybe you get some killer teams maybe you don't.

I think FF should do everything in its power to incentivize actually picking teams and discourage people from not picking. I mean that's the whole point of this league is it not? We are here to pick teams not find some weird meta where it is better to not pick anybody.

As a side note. Should pick slots continue. I believe we should only be allowed to trade equally in the same teir. Matching pick order isn't enough.

If the rules don't change TBC will be accepting every and all trades of equal value where we get a better first team slot and you get a better second team slot. Or we get a better second team slot while you get a better third team slot. Contact us at an point as we will gladly take an inherently unfair trade to gain advantage from people. We would be glad to gain a significant advantage over everyone else :)

With this approved trade RF just boned F3 again. I'm sure it wasn't collusion, but one team definitely got the advantage. Though the draft position delta was the same. Teams don't follow a linear performance in points. RF definitely got the better deal :p (I mean it's still way better than the previous one)

TBC (pending approval) is also interested in trading for some select #3 overall pick draft positions.

Pratik Kunapuli

29-11-2016, 18:28

Just wondering, when will the San Diego (CASD) thread be up?

JosephC

29-11-2016, 18:40

Just wondering, when will the San Diego (CASD) thread be up?

Before the time the draft is supposed to start :rolleyes: :D

EricH

29-11-2016, 18:44

Why is there a scenario where you should be permitted to take zero teams? If I'm last pick in like. Shenzen (a weakish even that not many people know anything about) for example. If I just want an average and be guaranteed an average score.

I don't see a legitimate case where you wouldn't just take randoms. Randoms are more entertaining anyways. Maybe you get some killer teams maybe you don't.

I think FF should do everything in its power to incentivize actually picking teams and discourage people from not picking. I mean that's the whole point of this league is it not? We are here to pick teams not find some weird meta where it is better to not pick anybody.
There is a very, very specific scenario where it is to everybody's advantage for an FF player to either not have teams at an event, or not have the ability to know what teams they have. And I do mean everybody's advantage, both in FF and at the event. In some cases, simply taking randoms is acceptable--matter of fact, that's why I'm taking randoms in San Diego. I regard the no-team option as the option of last resort, and only to be used if that scenario is in play. Once we figure out how to handle the scenario, I'll post it.

It's been suggested that players taking the no-team option simply be assigned random teams after the event, during scoring. That's what we usually do to fill a hole that isn't previously filled, anyways--is that more workable?

I'm not trying to find a meta here, just so everybody's aware. I'm simply trying to screw over as few people as possible, including myself, while dealing with that very specific scenario that is creating an awkward situation. That scenario exists, and I plan to write it into any rules that are written to cover it, as well as a safeguard against misuse.

TDav540

29-11-2016, 18:45

There is a very, very specific scenario where it is to everybody's advantage for an FF player to either not have teams at an event, or not have the ability to know what teams they have. And I do mean everybody's advantage, both in FF and at the event. In some cases, simply taking randoms is acceptable--matter of fact, that's why I'm taking randoms in San Diego. I regard the no-team option as the option of last resort, and only to be used if that scenario is in play. Once we figure out how to handle the scenario, I'll post it.

It's been suggested that players taking the no-team option simply be assigned random teams after the event, during scoring. That's what we usually do to fill a hole that isn't previously filled, anyways--is that more workable?

I'm not trying to find a meta here, just so everybody's aware. I'm simply trying to screw over as few people as possible, including myself, while dealing with that very specific scenario that is creating an awkward situation. That scenario exists, and I plan to write it into any rules that are written to cover it, as well as a safeguard against misuse.

I'm okay with that.

Hitchhiker 42

29-11-2016, 18:47

EricH

29-11-2016, 18:56

I do have a draft pick trade in my PM box for Shenzhen and later. At this time, no action will be taken either way.

I realize the teams involved would like a speedy resolution, and I would too, but I also want to make sure that we get the draft pick trade situation right, which may by default require a retooling of that trade. So, the timeline is going to be as follows:

Next 24 hours (or so): Discussion on trades. Probably around 7 PM Eastern tomorrow, I'll make a preliminary determination, and see if everybody's equally unhappy.
After a couple of hours (or so), a final determination will be reached. If necessary, it'll be an interim, and tagged as such, to last until the next break day.
Immediately after that, a determination will be made on any draft pick trades that are waiting (unless they're pulled back).
And THEN Shenzhen will be posted.

JosephC

29-11-2016, 19:29

I'll be waiting until Shenzhen gets posted to post Dallas, for the above reasons.

TDav540

29-11-2016, 22:31

Questionable Decisionmakers have engaged in a few draft trade talks, and have since discussed the implementation and logistics of such trades. This is a consensus opinion of our team.

We believe that draft pick trades implement an additional dimension to the SLFF universe which has not been present to the same extent in the past. Although both team trading and draft pick trading are trading potential, the potential in those two objects is vastly different in nature. We also believe it easier to trade draft picks than teams, because everyone evaluates teams differently, but evaluate draft picks along a similar scale.

With that in mind, we have a few concerns that we would like addressed with a future system.

First, we would like to see a way for Draft Runners to keep it organized. For example, using a google spreadsheet, we can keep track of any traded draft slot, and it will be an easy reference for draft runners to check before posting their draft.

Second, we would like to see the implementation of a committee of chosen representatives from each team. This would be a nine member committee (one from each team) designed to review potential trades for approval. At least four vetos (or 50% of the non-participating teams) would have to veto the trade for it to get blocked. Rough framework, I know, but that is what we would like to see.

Third, trades would have to be agreed upon and sent to the commissioner at least 24 hours in advance of the first affected draft, and a determination on the approval of all trades that affect a draft must be completed at least three hours before the start of that draft. An exception will be granted to any trades approved that involve Shenzhen or Dallas (since the trade restriction will likely be lifted within the 24 hour limit), but any trades involving those must be sent to the commissioner during the trade freeze.

Lastly, we would like the order for the next randomization determined at least two to three days before the opening of the first affected draft. This will allow teams to have time to analyze which picks they have, and make trades well in advance.

Again, this was a consensus opinion the members of Questionable Decisionmakers came to as a group. We think this will enhance the league, and are willing to volunteer to help implement any of these systems.

BrennanB

29-11-2016, 23:36

Trevor's post is well thought out and has definitely changed my outlook on spot trading.

I do however think that an appointed committee is a bit overboard for our purposes, and likely too clunky to work smoothly.

I think a pretty fair compromise is that going forward trades be restricted in tiers. Meaning if team A gets a better team one for regional 1, Team B gets a better team one for regional B. I'm no no fan of the potential abuse of strong teams making same delta trades but getting better first pick slots. The game then becomes who can befriend the weak teams the best and convince them they are getting a fair deal. Restricting trades from #1-#9, #10-#18, and #19-#27 both eliminates the need for any committee/supervision, doesn't screw anyone over, and still allows for some added (fair) depth to FF. both teams must receive a draft spot within the same grouping of draft spots.

These can be submitted like QD says via Google sheet. (Preferably google forms so it automatically timestamps the requests) 24 hours seems like a good time line for deadlines for trades.

Secondly TBC has been in contact with RFA and has begun to attempt to recreate the automated scorer. (it was deleted :( ) We will be giving progress updates as we continue work on it.

EricH

30-11-2016, 01:25

Agree on the committee being too clunky, and agree on use of a Google spreadsheet. I think there's an empty tab on the draft schedule sheet--kind of makes it a one-stop-shop for all your FF draft updates (I haven't started filling in the draft results sheet yet, though). (Now watch somebody fill it with a possible outline by the time Shenzhen and Dallas go up. :p ) Wouldn't hurt to have trades put up with a flag that can be set for approval/disapproval/"hey, commish, review this one further" (someone that isn't me doesn't like the trade).

I would also agree on a time restriction--maybe not 24 hours before the first affected draft, but certainly no less than 1 hour. TBD after further discussion. It actually isn't that hard to move times around, but some notice is needed.

The extra time on draft randomization is... up for debate. The primary way to do that is to generate a draft, and depending on who drew that particular draft, they could have two or three others to do ahead of time. Just something to consider.

JosephC

30-11-2016, 06:34

Randomizing the draft order a couple days in advance isn't that hard, you can just use a list randomizer, post it in the main thread, and whoever runs the draft thats supposed to randomize it just uses that list.(like this one https://www.random.org/lists/) EDIT - I would be in favor of this, I really see no reason not to, and it gives more times for trades.

For draft swaps, the committee does seem a little clunky(getting a response from 9 people an hour before the draft or so doesn't seem very easy). Eric's idea of just having people hit him up if they smell something fishy works, but Eric isn't going to be here for every draft, and if the limit gets set for an hour before the draft, thats a problem.

Possible solution, all trades HAVE to be approved by Eric.

Possible solution #2, we could have something with Eric, and 2 other people(possibly whoever is running the most amount of drafts outside of Eric, and both can't be on the same team). If eric says its fine, it goes through, if Eric is not available, those two people would decide, it would take both of those people vetoing it to prevent the trade from going through. Could do it via the sheet thats being set up to manage trades. Just have 3 boxes, one for each person.

TDav540

30-11-2016, 10:13

As noted by Eric above, someone has been working on setting a record of everyone's picks up :). Our team has tracked the picks made by each team at each event so far. We'll be placing those into the Draft Schedule document.

Our team agrees with Joseph's second plan: Eric can be the main decisionmaker, along with a committee of three people (based on the number of drafts run and the teams which they are on, would include JosephC, MARS_James, and myself) who can also veto a trade.

1 hour deadline seems late to submit trades. I'd go with three hours (trades submitted by 4pm, approved by 6pm), but that's all details, not implementation.

With a screening panel, we do not believe in the idea of a hard cap on trades via a tier system. We think that limits activity between teams in a way that unreasonably restricts talks. However, we also have no problem with one or more of the members of the veto committee using it as a basis for their veto/acceptance, if they think that is the best way to evaluate a trade.

Randomization well ahead of time does not seem like a serious obstacle and can be tackled in a variety of ways, none of which is a detriment to the operation of the league. Therefore, we are firmly among those who would like to see that happen.

EricH

30-11-2016, 20:03

With a screening panel, we do not believe in the idea of a hard cap on trades via a tier system. We think that limits activity between teams in a way that unreasonably restricts talks. However, we also have no problem with one or more of the members of the veto committee using it as a basis for their veto/acceptance, if they think that is the best way to evaluate a trade.
I would argue that there is nothing saying that you cannot trade multiple slots--but as has been pointed out, there is a significant difference between moving up in round 1 vs moving up in round 2, or round 3. Round 1, there's a pretty fair chance you move up into picking one of the top teams at the event. Round 2, you might get lucky. Round 3? Hopefully it's a deep event.

What if... We could agree (somewhat) on an equivalence system? Just as a thought, let a Round 1 pick be worth 3 points/slot moved, round 2 be 2 points, and Round 3 be 1 point. Up/down are +/-. So if you trade earlier, you get + points. Then just set an overall cap on allowable points spread--just to pick a number, -3 to +3--and any trade that ends up with all teams within that cap is fair game by default. (And if we were really sneaky, there would be another number, say -10 overall, that would signal that it was time for an intervention.)

Just an idea, I don't think it'll be too popular.

JosephC

30-11-2016, 20:28

I'd be okay with that eric, although it totally breaks in deep event like FIM, where second tier picks might as well be 1st tier.

TDav540

30-11-2016, 20:31

I feel like that system has the potential to work for some events and absolutely fail for others. As Joseph pointed out, district events are exceptionally deep, along with a large number of California and Midwest events. So I don't mind putting in a theoretical value for each pick, but I don't see it as the end-all-be-all for determining if a trade is fair or not.

EricH

30-11-2016, 21:06

After seeing the discussions, and pending any responses to my most recent suggestion, there are some things that I know for sure. (I know I'm a bit late here... sorry about that.) This is going to be a long post.

1) Rules change (proposed):
Conflict of Interest Drafting
It may happen that players, either individually or as a team, determine that they may have a conflict of interest when playing FF and also volunteering at a particular event, depending on their particular volunteer role, and that having knowledge of their FF teams previous to the event has the possibility of creating uncomfortable situations. If the players determine that they cannot handle this by having another team member handle the draft, they have two options:
A) Randomize their picks. This is the preferred option, and will cover the vast majority of cases.
B) Request a Conflict of Interest draft (COI) by contacting the league commissioner, the draft runner for that draft, and one other draft runner (not either of the above), with the event and volunteer position. The draft runner for that draft and either one of the other two must both approve.
Approval guidelines: The player needs to be in a position that has the capability to directly affect either FF points or event outcome, or both, a list that includes but is not limited to refs and judges. Also, there needs to be a reasonable expectation that existing countermeasures may not be enough to deflect questions should they be asked. Existing countermeasures may include non-FF-playing volunteers in higher positions, or enough non-FF-playing volunteers, or even other FF-playing volunteers from other FF teams at the event.
COI Draft Implementation: Upon approval, the draft runner will place "COI" in the player's draft slots, and the draft will skip over those slots. The player is not allowed to fill those slots by any means--no trading, no waiver picks, and no selections. During scoring of the event, those slots will be filled by random teams after all other open slots are filled, and scores will be tabulated as normal.
COI Denied: If a complete COI draft is denied, the player will be assigned random teams during the draft, unless they make a pick.

2) Draft Slot Trading
I believe that we can agree on the following:
--A Google Spreadsheet, or similar, will keep track of proposed trades. There's one set up on the schedule sheet that works.
--A group comprised of the commissioner and the 3 most prolific draft runners, no two of whom are on the same FF team, will be the approval committee for trades. Currently, that would be myself, JosephC, Mars_James, and TDav540--BrennanB would be eligible but is on JosephC's team. [Fine print: commissioner's approval is automatic approval, otherwise 2 draft runners that are not involved with the trade must agree. That's why there's 4 persons.]
--Trades must be approved 1 hour prior to the draft start time, but must be submitted no later than 3 hours prior to the draft start time.
--Any player may raise a question about a trade between submission and approval.

I think that this would be a reasonable interim solution, to become more permanent if it works.

TDav540

30-11-2016, 21:10

....

Sounds all reasonable and good to me. Do we want to develop a Google Form to submit trades through that will end up in the proposed trades sheet? Or just let players post them in the sheet without going through a form?

EricH

30-11-2016, 21:21

Sounds all reasonable and good to me. Do we want to develop a Google Form to submit trades through that will end up in the proposed trades sheet? Or just let players post them in the sheet without going through a form?
I would start with--as an interim solution--just posting in the sheet. We can always re-evaluate in about a week.

BrennanB

30-11-2016, 21:56

I would start with--as an interim solution--just posting in the sheet. We can always re-evaluate in about a week.

Am fine with rolling with this. Lets do it!

EricH

30-11-2016, 22:43

I haven't read any screaming, so we're going to roll with it. Sheet will be updated shortly with the current trades I'm aware of, and that will be followed by Shenzhen.

EricH

30-11-2016, 22:55

Well, THAT won't work...

Untitled, TBC, you guys have some rework to do.

For everybody else, Untitled has the #1 slot at Shenzhen, and has reached trade agreements with both QD(#6) & TBC (#2) for that slot. QD is in first, by about 8 hours.

Because QD is in first, that trade will go through unless somebody puts a panicked PM in before I post Shenzhen, and the TBC trade will be vetoed on grounds of incorrect slots.

EricH

30-11-2016, 23:16

And Shenzhen is now up. Welcome back from the "off-day"!

EricH

01-12-2016, 00:01

I know this is strange, but I kinda just follow FF itself. I'm trying to understand the rules better. Is the pdf uploaded here on CD updated for this year? Just tryin' to maybe see how it works so I could play next year maybe.
Now that we've cleared a few things up that affected the rules...

I just put up the updated rules, including today's updates. (I did try to stay pretty close to the wording used in my earlier post, but going a little more general.) https://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2574

jlmcmchl

01-12-2016, 11:13

Now that we've cleared a few things up that affected the rules...

I just put up the updated rules, including today's updates. (I did try to stay pretty close to the wording used in my earlier post, but going a little more general.) https://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2574

Speaking of the rules, I was under the impression that we would use district seeding points for seeds, instead of the 20-12-12-6-6-6-6-6[...] system that was in the old document. (see Section 7.4.1 of the Admin manual here (https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2016manuals/AdminManual/FRC-2016-admin-manual-07.pdf) for the equation).

Which will we be using for FF scoring?

EricH

01-12-2016, 18:34

Speaking of the rules, I was under the impression that we would use district seeding points for seeds, instead of the 20-12-12-6-6-6-6-6[...] system that was in the old document. (see Section 7.4.1 of the Admin manual here (https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2016manuals/AdminManual/FRC-2016-admin-manual-07.pdf) for the equation).

Which will we be using for FF scoring?
...

I'll have to look that up after the drafts tonight. I want to say we discussed that in the "stuff to change" thread.

Cothron Theiss

01-12-2016, 18:51

JosephC

01-12-2016, 18:55

Thank you! I'd be interested in playing next year. Is there any chance of a stand-alone FF league just for Champs? I'd be interested in doing that this year.

I know there's one for IRI, and there's a standalone FIM draft this year(the rules are a little different for both), but I don't know of anyone doing a standalone Worlds draft, atleast not through this forum.

EricH

01-12-2016, 18:58

Thank you! I'd be interested in playing next year. Is there any chance of a stand-alone FF league just for Champs? I'd be interested in doing that this year.
If someone steps up, there can be. I know in the past some folks have done a free-for-all draft (pick any 3 teams as long as someone else doesn't have the same 3); there's nothing saying that there can only be one FF league/draft.

I have no plans to run a stand-alone Champs league, however. (It's going to be fun enough getting 6 divisions at each 1/2Champs drafted.)

JosephC

01-12-2016, 19:02

Erci uses the term "fun" very loosely here :o

Cothron Theiss

01-12-2016, 19:04

I know there's one for IRI, and there's a standalone FIM draft this year(the rules are a little different for both), but I don't know of anyone doing a standalone Worlds draft, atleast not through this forum.

If someone steps up, there can be. I know in the past some folks have done a free-for-all draft (pick any 3 teams as long as someone else doesn't have the same 3); there's nothing saying that there can only be one FF league/draft.

I have no plans to run a stand-alone Champs league, however. (It's going to be fun enough getting 6 divisions at each 1/2Champs drafted.)

Ok, thanks! If someone else sees this and becomes consumed with the idea of creating a stand-alone Champs league, I'll probably try and participate. But I'd say it's a bad idea to try and start a league myself without ever having played. Maybe next year.

TDav540

01-12-2016, 19:30

JosephC

01-12-2016, 19:32

Can someone explain to me why we use CD time? Everyone seems to get confused/not care about it, and, from my perspective, it's just easier to check that little box in the corner than remember that CD time is behind actual time.

Because sometimes people computers are not perfectly synced. The only option would be to go by the draft runners time, which may/may not be synced properly either.

EricH

01-12-2016, 19:32

Can someone explain to me why we use CD time? Everyone seems to get confused/not care about it, and, from my perspective, it's just easier to check that little box in the corner than remember that CD time is behind actual time.
Standard time reference.

Actually I just sent Brandon a PM to see if that could be fixed. I consider 5 minutes slow to be unacceptable with the clocks at home...

Harrison.Smith

01-12-2016, 19:33

Standard time reference.

Actually I just sent Brandon a PM to see if that could be fixed. I consider 5 minutes slow to be unacceptable with the clocks at home...

We are interested in this also. Just lost a pick due to this.

TDav540

01-12-2016, 19:33

Why couldn't everyone just check that with this (http://www.time.gov/)then?

Harrison.Smith

01-12-2016, 19:36

Why couldn't everyone just check that with this (http://www.time.gov/)then?

TRF would be in support of this.

JosephC

01-12-2016, 19:37

It's the time that gets posted above posts, it keeps things consistent instead of people arguing about timing. You can't really argue with the time above posts. I also see no reason to have to have another tab open as a draft runner that i have to constantly check when i already have multiple tabs open dedicated to the draft that I need to check. It's really not that hard to scroll down to the bottom of the page guys.

EricH

01-12-2016, 19:39

Time is good. TimeSTAMP is what gets the post.

As I said, I've sent Brandon a PM to reset the CD clock--it obviously needs it for time-dependent items.

I would also note that when lists are sent in, they are considered effective whenever the slot opens--which would be when they're the next pick up (or the time turns to that slot, if someone isn't showing up).

frcguy

01-12-2016, 19:41

Ok, thanks! If someone else sees this and becomes consumed with the idea of creating a stand-alone Champs league, I'll probably try and participate. But I'd say it's a bad idea to try and start a league myself without ever having played. Maybe next year.

I'm also interested in a stand alone draft but I'm in the same boat as Cothron in terms of not wanting to run it because of inexperience.

JosephC

01-12-2016, 19:45

I'm also interested in a stand alone draft but I'm in the same boat as Cothron in terms of not wanting to run it because of inexperience.

I'd recommend making a separate post to gauge interest and gather members, the SLFF main thread isn't the place to setup a non-SLFF draft.

JosephC

01-12-2016, 20:46

In lieu of a skew of issues with live drafting so far, I've decided to make a small "How to live draft" guide.

#1 - Keep an eye on ChiefDelphi time, it's approximately 5 minutes and 20 seconds behind the actual time. It is located at the bottom of the page, and this is the time we use for every draft.

#2 - Refresh the page before you post.

#3 - You're available to pick when the following conditions are met.
Your pick slot is up based on chiefdelphi time, or the person with the time slot before yours has picked.

#4 - Make sure the team you are picking is attending the event, and has not already been picked.

Or you can just send in a list, it's easier for everyone trust me.

TDav540

01-12-2016, 22:27

I'd like to propose that randomization for the next series happen at the conclusion of tomorrow's drafts (Miami Valley and Central Valley). That gives teams plenty of time to analyze which picks they own for the next set and prepare trade offers if they so choose.

Also, everyone should read Joseph's post, because it's spot on.

tindleroot

02-12-2016, 00:09

#4 - Make sure the team you are picking is attending the event, and has not already been picked.

One extra thing to expand on #4 is to make sure that you are typing the correct team number that you want to pick. I know this has been an issue with 2502 and 2052 at their respective Minnesota regionals, for example, but it's always easy to let a typo slip through. There are over 6000 team numbers - make sure you're typing the right one.

TDav540

02-12-2016, 11:35

Falcon and Questionable Decisionmakers have completed a trade and it is currently available for review:

Falcon Receives:
#9 Ventura
#10 Ventura
#3 Central Valley

Questionable Decisionmakers Receive:
#1 Ventura
#18 Ventura
#4 Central Valley

MARS_James

02-12-2016, 14:23

TDav540

02-12-2016, 14:26

jlmcmchl

02-12-2016, 14:51

So I have been thinking about something that has been bugging me for a while about the COI drafts. I think that if you are in need of a COI draft it is unfair if you are first pick, both to you and the league as a whole as whoever is second pick effectively gets to be first pick twice in a row. So I propose if a COI draft is called that event becomes a specific draft order for that round, basically we skip the normal rotation for that draft and switch it with the draft where the person in need of COI is at a specific location in the draft. I believe this position should be the middle spot (rounded down) so since we have 9 this year it would be position 5, if we have 8 it would also be position 5 since it is rounded down.

The reason for this specific position as I feel that the middle spot has the least impact on the draft, since putting them last basically gives the person who is second to last a 2 pick swing.

A problem still arises in this situation if two teams have approved COIs for a draft. If we have the first and last picks, which are the strongest positions to draft from (At least, for deeper events) declare and approve COI, what rotation do we choose? Say, for two teams that declare COI, they're at positions 1 and 6 in that draft. If we choose the rotation that moves 1 to the 5th draft spot, then the 6th place w/ an approved COI would be in the 1st position for the draft, leaving us with the same conundrum.

Instead, I propose this as a solution:

Remove all teams which have submitted a COI from the draft list, and mention them elsewhere as having a COI draft for that event. This should probably be in the SLFF Draft Spreadsheet.

For the remaining participating teams, randomize the draft order independent of the current rotation, and proceed to draft normally with the participating teams.

For the COI teams, leave their picks as COI until the corresponding FRC event has completed and assign them teams at random off the top of the random list. (I believe this is the same as COI Draft Implementation in the new rules)

While this does undermine our goal of rotating everyone through 1st pick, it's just one draft very infrequently and doesn't mean much in the full scale of SLFF. With as many drafts as we run, it won't cause us to deviate significantly from this intention.

MARS_James

02-12-2016, 16:17

A problem still arises in this situation if two teams have approved COIs for a draft. If we have the first and last picks, which are the strongest positions to draft from (At least, for deeper events) declare and approve COI, what rotation do we choose? Say, for two teams that declare COI, they're at positions 1 and 6 in that draft. If we choose the rotation that moves 1 to the 5th draft spot, then the 6th place w/ an approved COI would be in the 1st position for the draft, leaving us with the same conundrum.

Instead, I propose this as a solution:

While this does undermine our goal of rotating everyone through 1st pick, it's just one draft very infrequently and doesn't mean much in the full scale of SLFF. With as many drafts as we run, it won't cause us to deviate significantly from this intention.

This solution could prevent someone from achieving a first pick in that round which would be a big impact potentially, although i see your point with 2 teams potentially needing COI in which case i feel we combine our two ideas so:

If one team needs a COI we make the draft in which the COI is needed to be the draft that they are in the median pick position, rounded down

If >1 teams need it for a particular draft the draft is rescheduled to be the first in the rotation, the runner for that position randomizes all teams except those in need of COI. After randomizing those teams are put in median position rounded down (With 9 of us that means 5 and 6 with 8 it means 4 and 5) If three or more need it it still proceeds the same (9 people it is 4 5 and 6 with 8 it is also 4 5 and 6)

JosephC

02-12-2016, 18:49

Technical Difficulties are preventing me from posting tonights draft, more specifically, I can't get the teams list for CVR. https://puu.sh/sCekO/d2be13dfe9.png

(If someone could post it within the next 5 minutes thatd be great)

TDav540

02-12-2016, 18:53

294
670
687
751
852
972
973
980
1072
1323
1388
1422
1671
1678
1868
2085
2135
2367
2437
2493
2643
2761
3045
3256
3303
3495
3501
3970
4255
4276
4415
4543
4645
5104
5134
5677
5817
5852
6305
6650
6657
6699

JosephC

02-12-2016, 19:05

Thanks :)

EricH

02-12-2016, 19:22

Short note: Anybody thinking the CD clock is still late, it's now caught up to the rest of the world.

EricH

02-12-2016, 20:31

This solution could prevent someone from achieving a first pick in that round which would be a big impact potentially, although i see your point with 2 teams potentially needing COI in which case i feel we combine our two ideas so:

If one team needs a COI we make the draft in which the COI is needed to be the draft that they are in the median pick position, rounded down

If >1 teams need it for a particular draft the draft is rescheduled to be the first in the rotation, the runner for that position randomizes all teams except those in need of COI. After randomizing those teams are put in median position rounded down (With 9 of us that means 5 and 6 with 8 it means 4 and 5) If three or more need it it still proceeds the same (9 people it is 4 5 and 6 with 8 it is also 4 5 and 6)

I highly doubt that there will be two COI requests in the same draft. That being said, I have no problems at all with putting COI drafts in the middle (slots 4, 5, or 6) by swapping with another draft. Note that this means that COI requests will need to be in early, so that they can be announced.

Modified proposal: Standard COI procedure is to use the next draft order that places the requester(s) in the middle of the order, and replace that draft with the COI draft's normal order. (If a COI is known in advance, and a previous draft order works better, that may also be used if that draft has not run yet.) Should that not be possible due to multiple requests, a special draft will be added into the normal rotation as follows: Randomize all non-COI players, then insert all COI players into the middle slots in random order. Rotation resumes after said draft.

Middle of the draft order is determined by number of players in the league.

Speaking of which: Falcon is requesting a COI in Orange County. I sent the reason to Joseph and James last week. (Just our luck, it's a randomization draft.)

EricH

02-12-2016, 20:35

BTW: Random draft order for Greater Kansas City is:

Questionable Decisionmakers
Untitled Team
F3
The Breakfast Company
FIRST Pick
NE Way You Want It
Swamp Life
Falcon
The Regal Falcons

Brian Maher

03-12-2016, 18:59

Hey, when is the Utah thread being posted?

BrennanB

03-12-2016, 19:01

Hey, when is the Utah thread being posted?

Whenever Joe doesn't afk :'(

EricH

03-12-2016, 19:05

Might have to postpone to Tuesday--hate to take part of a break day away, though.

BrennanB

03-12-2016, 19:05

Might have to postpone to Tuesday--hate to take part of a break day away, though.

I got it covered up in a sec :)

JosephC

03-12-2016, 19:24

The yung power outage strikes again, I swear it happens to me atleast 1 draft a year. (My phone wasn't charged when I woke up, so I had no way to contact anyone until it conveniently came up 20m late -.-)

Brennan has all the lists for UT.

Golfer4646

03-12-2016, 23:15

EricH

04-12-2016, 00:05

Untitled Team receives:
#15 overall at the Central Illinois Regional
#4 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#15 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional

The Breakfast Company receives:
#16 overall at the Central Illinois Regional
#2 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#17 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional

I tried to enter this into the pending trades sheet, but may not have done so correctly.The entry was correct. However, it does help to look at the approved trades sheet. Untitled's #16 was already traded to TBC for the #11. Can't trade the same pick twice.

BrennanB

04-12-2016, 00:33

The entry was correct. However, it does help to look at the approved trades sheet. Untitled's #16 was already traded to TBC for the #11. Can't trade the same pick twice.

That shouldn't have gone through since Untitled double booked us and instead the deal went to QD

Harrison.Smith

04-12-2016, 00:36

TRF and F3 have completed a trade (pending approval) involving: Tech Valley, Central Illinois, and Sacramento.

TRF will receive
#1 at Tech Valley
#18 at Tech Valley
#2 at Central Illinois
#5 at Sacramento

F3 will receive
#7 at Tech Valley
#12 at Tech Valley
#1 at Central Illinois
#2 at Sacramento

We both view this a fair trade and hope that the rest of the FF community agrees!

EricH

04-12-2016, 00:37

That shouldn't have gone through since Untitled double booked us and instead the deal went to QD
Woops, my bad. I misread. It's QD and Untitled that swapped spots.

I see TRF and F3 have a trade request up involving Central Illinois--I'll see what I can do on that one.

BrennanB

04-12-2016, 00:44

One thing that I'd also like to propose is a no-trade draft position rule for district drafts, District champs, and world champs. Seems to make sense to me since these drafts are pretty highly regulated?

It is a bit in the future but worth talking about.

EricH

04-12-2016, 00:55

MARS_James

04-12-2016, 01:30

I'd have to think about how much sense it makes for Districts.

I actually think this is one of the things where it makes the most sense; hear me out.

Thus far I personally haven't taken advantage of the trading draft spots but I would do it to go up in certain drafts, for example if I am the 5th pick in Israel but the last pick in Michigan I would gladly trade my day 1 Michigan spot (become the 5th pick for rounds 1 and 2) and keep my number 9 spot for day 2 as I effectively become the first pick.

Now that I think about it, are we keeping that rule or did it get thrown out, basically for those not in the know previously that draft would get randomized for day 1 and it would go 1-9, 9-1, 1-9 like normal but day 2 it would be 9-1, 1-9, 9-1, with the rotating drafts I don't know if we acknowledged it but I think it should stay if we haven't already had this discussion.

Also looking at the sheet if we keep the multiday drafts the way they have been previously then we technically need another random for Chesapeake district. Which I guess for waiver we just flip that draft to make the start of the wavier wire.

TDav540

04-12-2016, 10:16

Makes sense for Champs, at minimum. Wouldn't be a bad idea for DCMPs. Those are ranking-determined, not random, so trading slots would kind of work around that determination.

I'd have to think about how much sense it makes for Districts.

My vote would be no draft pick trades for Champs, DCMP, and Two-day district drafts, since a two-day district draft is pretty effectively "fair" since the order is swapped for the second day.

JosephC

04-12-2016, 10:31

I agree with the above.

Bkeeneykid

04-12-2016, 18:09

I've just been contacted by Hitchhiker 42 to join F3. Is it fine to people to join in the middle of the season to a pre existing team?

BrennanB

04-12-2016, 18:12

I've just been contacted by Hitchhiker 42 to join F3. Is it fine to people to join in the middle of the season to a pre existing team?

Normally has to be approved by the commissioner. I don't have anything particular against it.

Bkeeneykid

04-12-2016, 18:27

Normally has to be approved by the commissioner. I don't have anything particular against it.

Alright, I guess I'll wait for Eric's approval. Also, is this in the rulebook and I'm just blind? Might be a good thing to add for the next addition if not.

EricH

04-12-2016, 18:31

Alright, I guess I'll wait for Eric's approval. Also, is this in the rulebook and I'm just blind? Might be a good thing to add for the next addition if not.
It's in the rulebook, under "Team Play", that players on multiplayer teams can be added, substituted, or removed "within reason, with commissioner approval", as long as the team is under the maximum size. We've had this sort of situation before.

Approved, and good luck!

Golfer4646

04-12-2016, 18:53

Untitled Team and The Breakfast Company have agreed to a trade involving the Greater Kansas City and Central Illinois Regionals.

The trade agreement is:

Untitled Team receives:
#15 overall at the Central Illinois Regional
#4 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#15 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional

The Breakfast Company receives:
#16 overall at the Central Illinois Regional
#2 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#17 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional

I tried to enter this into the pending trades sheet, but may not have done so correctly.

3rd times a charm?
Untitled Team and The Breakfast Company have agreed to the following updated trade:

Untitled Team receives:
#4 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#15 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#11 overall at the South Pacific Regional

The Breakfast Company receives:
#2 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#17 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#13 overall at the South Pacific Regional

niklas674

04-12-2016, 20:14

TDav540

04-12-2016, 20:19

I have a proposal... Can the random pick orders for each sets of drafts be released now? It benefits by giving teams a wider scope of what their season willook like. There aren't really any disadvantages of doing this.

I'm not sure why you would do this....but regardless, this is a function of the draft assistant, which is started when posting a draft. Additionally team lists for the event change (as we experienced at Utah :(), so a random list now will likely need to be changed.

niklas674

04-12-2016, 20:21

I'm not sure why you would do this....but regardless, this is a function of the draft assistant, which is started when posting a draft. Additionally team lists for the event change (as we experienced at Utah :(), so a random list now will likely need to be changed.

Sorry, what I meant was that the picking order for each sets of draft are released.

EricH

04-12-2016, 20:23

I have a proposal... Can the random pick orders for each sets of drafts be released now? It benefits by giving teams a wider scope of what their season willook like. There aren't really any disadvantages of doing this.
You mean the random team list, or the random draft orders for the entire regular season?

And I can think of a disadvantage if you mean the draft orders, could be a serious one. It's not unheard of for a team to drop out of the league. Going > 1-2 drafts ahead is asking for someone to drop out randomly, causing mass chaos as every draft ahead has to re-randomize and possibly re-trade.

niklas674

04-12-2016, 20:25

You mean the random team list, or the random draft orders for the entire regular season?

And I can think of a disadvantage if you mean the draft orders, could be a serious one. It's not unheard of for a team to drop out of the league. Going > 1-2 drafts ahead is asking for someone to drop out randomly, causing mass chaos as every draft ahead has to re-randomize and possibly re-trade.

The draft order... The reasoning behind why not makes sense.

EricH

04-12-2016, 21:10

3rd times a charm?
Untitled Team and The Breakfast Company have agreed to the following updated trade:

Untitled Team receives:
#4 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#15 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#11 overall at the South Pacific Regional

The Breakfast Company receives:
#2 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#17 overall at the Greater Kansas City Regional
#13 overall at the South Pacific Regional
Concerns about an overly unbalanced trade send this one back to the negotiating table.

EricH

04-12-2016, 21:48

Also looking at the sheet if we keep the multiday drafts the way they have been previously then we technically need another random for Chesapeake district. Which I guess for waiver we just flip that draft to make the start of the wavier wire.
Just as a note, Toluca is in the same boat, as randomization triggers at Israel for the DCMP drafts.

The general plan was that the rotation would simply run once again if the remaining drafts were <1/2 of one rotation, and only re-randomize if that wasn't the case.

Oh, right, and about the waiver priority: It's rookie players in order of signup, then returning players in reverse order of last year's finish (as much as possible). Hmmm.... Now there's an idea...

Any objections to running Toluca and Chesapeake on straight waiver priority?

My vote would be no draft pick trades for Champs, DCMP, and Two-day district drafts, since a two-day district draft is pretty effectively "fair" since the order is swapped for the second day. I concur on that. 1-day district drafts are still under discussion, I believe, but I'm leaning towards disallowing trading on those due to the deep fields seen at district drafts.

TDav540

04-12-2016, 21:59

Any objections to running Toluca and Chesapeake on straight waiver priority?

So would that mean the order would be the same for both, or reversed, or something else?

EricH

04-12-2016, 22:03

So would that mean the order would be the same for both, or reversed, or something else?
Possibly one normal and one reverse--don't think I'd do both events the same way. Or one normal, and one rotated.

JosephC

04-12-2016, 22:33

Concerns about an overly unbalanced trade send this one back to the negotiating table.

I'm curious what makes the trade imbalanced. If we use the system that you proposed that isn't being used, just as an example of balance, of the +3/+2/+1/-1/-2/-3, it ends up being +2 weighted towards UT(+6 for TBC, +8 for UT). Since TBC is the team receiving the better 1st round pick, it makes sense for UT to have the points skewed more towards them.

All things considered, how is a 2 spot move in the first round that much better than 2x 2 spot moves in the 2nd round. (And the whole, well there hasn't been a trade yet where a first round pick was traded without another" part is silly, theres been like 5 trades and its week 2, of course there haven't been many trades yet, and theres no rule that says you have to trade a round 1 for a round 1.)

Sperkowsky

04-12-2016, 22:36

I'm curious what makes the trade imbalanced. If we use the system that you proposed that isn't being used, just as an example of balance, of the +3/+2/+1/-1/-2/-3, it ends up being +2 weighted towards UT(+6 for TBC, +8 for UT).

At a regional where there are 2 powerhouses aka greater Kansas 2017 2nd vs 4th pick is a way bigger advantage then gaining a few pick spots at the end.

TDav540

04-12-2016, 22:36

I'm curious what makes the trade imbalanced. If we use the system that you proposed that isn't being used, just as an example of balance, of the +3/+2/+1/-1/-2/-3, it ends up being +2 weighted towards UT(+6 for TBC, +8 for UT).

I don't use the system he proposed. I am evaluating the trade based on the value returned through an independent system. As you know, the value of picks (theoretically) increases exponentially as you go up. While by definition, UT benefits from a position advantage, I don't feel that trade represents approximate fair value in the return. This does not mean that a first rounder is required to move up in the first round, but it does mean that if you don't, you have to make up for it with appropriate second/third round selections.

JosephC

04-12-2016, 22:40

TDav540

04-12-2016, 22:44

Trades shouldn't be being based on subjectivity regional by regional. AKA you shouldn't say, "well our picklist says they'll get a massive advantage here if we let the trade go through, so no".

Also, I disagree with exponentially, historical 2nd round picks are about .6x as valuable as 1st round picks.(exlcuding 1st pick and 18th pick).

Well, I guess that's why we have three people evaluating the trade. I'm not saying the AVERAGE first round pick is exponentially more valuable: it's that the difference between them is. So the difference between the #2 and #4 picks is greater than the combination of the two second rounders used in that trade by a reasonable margin.

I agree with your first statement. A team's picklist cannot be used to evaluate a trade's fairness. No team has the same picklist.

EricH

04-12-2016, 22:48

I'm curious what makes the trade imbalanced. If we use the system that you proposed that isn't being used, just as an example of balance, of the +3/+2/+1/-1/-2/-3, it ends up being +2 weighted towards UT(+6 for TBC, +8 for UT).
In all previously approved trades, trading up in the first round also required trading down somewhere in the first round. While I do not think this is a requirement for every trade, the differences between the two second round trades do not outweigh trading into the second pick of this draft from the fourth. Therefore, I believe this trade is weighted in the obvious favor of Team 1

For a deep event, I think that this one would have passed. For a shallow event, like Southern Cross, I believe there's some concern that it's less balanced than straight numbers would think. Some metrics show it one way, some show it another way.

The other item here is that this is the second (third?) attempt at this trade, with different non-GKC events; on the first one it was noted that there seemed to be a possibility at an undisclosed trade down the line. I can't say that that's true or false, so I can't evaluate based on that.

Let's put it this way: It's really, really close. And I think it's worth reviewing in more depth. I'll put a final answer before GKC (won't be an hour before, unfortunately--work schedules--unless it's issued tonight). And obviously GKC won't proceed past the first pick until a final decision.

JosephC

04-12-2016, 22:49

Well, I guess that's why we have three people evaluating the trade. I'm not saying the AVERAGE first round pick is exponentially more valuable: it's that the difference between them is. So the difference between the #2 and #4 picks is greater than the combination of the two second rounders used in that trade by a reasonable margin.

I agree with your first statement. A team's picklist cannot be used to evaluate a trade's fairness. No team has the same picklist.

Technically I thought the system was Eric, and if Eric is unavailable then it goes to the other 3, did I misread?

Anyways, I thought to the reason we were approving trades was to make sure nothing fishy was going on(two teams pooling picks, etc.). I'm not sure why everyone is up in arms if one team gets a better deal out a trade. Here's a secret, a team will only make a trade when they think they're getting the better deal out of it, so by proxy, someone will always be getting the bigger end of the stick at the end of the day. If one team is happy with 2 2nd round increases, and the other team is happy 1 1st round increase, and there seems to be no shady dealings, it should go through.

IMO anyways, I can't vote as its my team, and at the end of the day I don't really mind if our trade gets declined, I'm just arguing for the sake of all trades.

JosephC

04-12-2016, 22:54

For a deep event, I think that this one would have passed. For a shallow event, like Southern Cross, I believe there's some concern that it's less balanced than straight numbers would think. Some metrics show it one way, some show it another way.

The other item here is that this is the second (third?) attempt at this trade, with different non-GKC events; on the first one it was noted that there seemed to be a possibility at an undisclosed trade down the line. I can't say that that's true or false, so I can't evaluate based on that.

Let's put it this way: It's really, really close. And I think it's worth reviewing in more depth. I'll put a final answer before GKC (won't be an hour before, unfortunately--work schedules--unless it's issued tonight). And obviously GKC won't proceed past the first pick until a final decision.

TBC has had no talks to my knowledge about any trades down the line with UT, in fact we haven't had any talks about any trades at all, besides declining a couple offers(We trust our picklists, and prefer to trade spots rather than teams.)

As for the first trade, it didn't go through as UT had already traded another team, and thusly we were not able to complete the trade. So now we're trying again with a different event, as the first event chosen isn't realistic given the current 2nd round spots. In fact, this trade is more favorable for UT than the last one(they are gaining +2 in the 2nd round of the non-GKC draft, and compared to the +1 of before.)

EricH

04-12-2016, 22:57

Technically I thought the system was Eric, and if Eric is unavailable then it goes to the other 3, did I misread? That is true. Doesn't mean that I can't take input from the other 3, though.

Here's a secret, a team will only make a trade when they think they're getting the better deal out of it, so by proxy, someone will always be getting the bigger end of the stick at the end of the day. If one team is happy with 2 2nd round increases, and the other team is happy 1 1st round increase, and there seems to be no shady dealings, it should go through. I'll let you in on a secret: you're not entirely correct. There are other reasons to make a trade if requested, not all of them draft-related. And maybe some of those end up with one person getting a lot of small ends of the sticks...

JosephC

04-12-2016, 22:58

That is true. Doesn't mean that I can't take input from the other 3, though.

Of course, I was just making sure I was remembering correctly :)

I'll let you in on a secret: you're not entirely correct. There are other reasons to make a trade if requested, not all of them draft-related. And maybe some of those end up with one person getting a lot of small ends of the sticks...

Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't think of any reason a team would make a trade that wasn't advantageous for them in someway, barring any "fishy activity".

TDav540

04-12-2016, 23:03

Technically I thought the system was Eric, and if Eric is unavailable then it goes to the other 3, did I misread?
No that's correct. Technically my opinion that trade makes no difference in the result.

Anyways, I thought to the reason we were approving trades was to make sure nothing fishy was going on(two teams pooling picks, etc.). I'm not sure why everyone is up in arms if one team gets a better deal out a trade. Here's a secret, a team will only make a trade when they think they're getting the better deal out of it, so by proxy, someone will always be getting the bigger end of the stick at the end of the day. If one team is happy with 2 2nd round increases, and the other team is happy 1 1st round increase, and there seems to be no shady dealings, it should go through.

IMO anyways, I can't vote as its my team, and at the end of the day I don't really mind if our trade gets declined, I'm just arguing for the sake of all trades.

The primary reason to approve trades is to make sure nothing fishy is going on, correct. However, there has to be some understanding that certain trades unbalance the league to a more significant extent than others, something that has been a great topic of discussion. Do I think that one trade is going to make that difference? No, I don't. But what I don't want is similar trades occurring again, and again and again to the point that the league is unbalanced. I feel that, in a vacuum, this trade is unbalanced enough to warrant a veto, something that Eric clearly agrees with. I want to quote Brennan on a relevant opinion:

I think a pretty fair compromise is that going forward trades be restricted in tiers. Meaning if team A gets a better team one for regional 1, Team B gets a better team one for regional B. I'm no no fan of the potential abuse of strong teams making same delta trades but getting better first pick slots. The game then becomes who can befriend the weak teams the best and convince them they are getting a fair deal.

As Eric said, this trade is really close. Really close. So returning with a slightly closer to the center offer will probably get the result you're looking for.

EricH

04-12-2016, 23:07

Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't think of any reason a team would make a trade that wasn't advantageous for them in someway, barring any "fishy activity".
I can.
And it's related to the way some teams approach alliance selection: Accept any offer (even if you could do better by picking your own alliance). Granted, I don't expect FF players to play that way--but it's possible.

JosephC

04-12-2016, 23:09

I guess I misunderstood what we were making the system for. To me, I don't really see the logic behind policing every single trade to the utmost scrutiny, I thought it was going to be a more "Well make sure teams aren't just pooling teams into a single team, or trying to rig stuff".

I don't get why trades like the TBC/UT trade are being declined, because at the end of the day, theres absolutely nothing stopping us from just picking for each other and trading after the draft(We wouldn't do this, just an example). It's not like this is like 6th trade we've done where TBC is gaining first round priority and UT is only gaining 2nd, its just 1 trade, both teams are happy with it, and its not a huge amount of pick priority for either team that screws over other teams.

Edit - We approved the Falcon/QD Ventura trade, which is far more imbalanced than this one, but we can't get this one approved?

How is moving from #9 to #1 for a 1 spot 1st round trade and a 9 spot 2nd round trade more balanced than this?

EricH

04-12-2016, 23:16

JosephC

04-12-2016, 23:24

The one other possible motive would be to try to help make sure that people who are being very accommodating aren't getting stiffed. That is a possibility.

I haven't declined the trade YET (or rather, I pulled back the decline). It did raise an eyebrow or two.

We've never made sure people make good picks, or make sure they make good team trades, why make sure they're making good spot trades?

I guess I can kinda compared it to FRC. Imagine the committee as FIRST, and the traders as teams. FIRST gives you all the tools you need to get started, runs the events, tries to help you at events, etc. They also make sure you follow the rules. What they don't do is come into your shop and make sure you're building a good design. They don't come up to you at the event and make sure your picklist is good.

The committee, IMO anyways, should be there to make sure rules are being followed, as the main 4 draft runners(excluding Brennan), we "run the events" by running the drafts. What we don't need to do is make sure teams dont mess up or make bad picks/trades. If they do, thats on them. Maybe if they're consistently making bad trades, the commish could say something to them, and if they're consistently making bad trades to the same team, commish should step in. But just because someone makes a bad trade that some people might think doesn't benefit them, doesn't mean they have a safety net of the committee grabbing em and saying, hey this trade is bad we won;t let it go through.

That'd be like picking at a FRC event, and the head referee declining your pick because they're a bad team, and telling you to try again with a better pick.

Edit - @Eric, I'm not arguing for the sake of the TBC/UT trade, you're the commish, you decide the trades, I have no issues with that. I'm more arguing for the entire system as a whole, and the way its being used. The reason I supported the system in the first place was to make sure trades weren't overly unfair for the teams NOT involved in the trade. If you accept a trade, thats on you. But if trades are constantly overly favoring one team over other, and certain teams are consistently gaining advantage over the non-involved teams by a large margin(trading 1st round picks with no other accompanying trades for example, the entire reason the system was brought into place) thats when the committee should be vetoing, not when one trade is slightly tilted in the favor of one team.

tl;dr I don't agree with the committee being used as a safety net for teams involved in trades, and feel it should more focus on making sure nothing fishy is going on, and that the teams not involved in the trades aren't continuously getting cucked by extremely(emphasis on the extremely) unfair trades.

BrennanB

04-12-2016, 23:36

I'll jump in here since my opinion is being quoted :yikes:

This right here is exactly why I wasn't a fan of the trading at all to begin with. ::rtm::

Then I proposed the tiered system to prevent as much abuse as possible without being too restrictive (which wasn't put into place) largely because QD thought it restricted the trades too much. (that's fine) but then we use that argument when it applies to us. Seems semi-hypocritical to dislike the idea presented, but then use it against us to prove a point. :O

Obviously TBC thinks that this trade is in the favor of us, otherwise we wouldn't be trading.

I don't think it's that much different from the trades that have gone through.

"Shenzen #1, #19; Dallas #9, #27, Southern Cross #23, Central Illinois #16 Shenzhen #6, #13; Dallas #5, #23; Southern Cross #18; Central Illinois #11"

Shenzen #1 is miles above better than any other team at the event.

Falcon QD Ventura #9, #10; CVR #3 Ventura #1, #18; CVR #4

This one benifits QD pretty significantly IMHO. #1 pick is OP, especially at ventura where the pool is much weaker.

"TRF F3 Tech Valley #1 and #18, Central Illinois #2, Sacremento #5 Tech Valley #7 and #12, Central Illinois #1, Sacremento #2"

#5 pick probably better than #7 and #12 in my books. TVR #1 is more valuable than CI #1.

As I said I think the draft spot trading system just promotes sweet talking weaker teams and being best buds with other teams. If we see teams doing slightly skewed trades, we are obviously going to attempt to do the same.

Do I think the trade is "fair"? Well I think we are getting a better deal. Is it more unfair than other trades that have gone through? nah.

We can't judge based on subjective opinions, and the fact that it could be even argued that this trade is possibly fair means that it should go through. If the league were to put in non-subjective methods to resolve blatantly unfair trades that would make sense to me. The delta is good for UT, but the FP is good for TBC.

EricH

04-12-2016, 23:39

Edit - We approved the Falcon/QD Ventura trade, which is far more imbalanced than this one, but we can't get this one approved?

How is moving from #9 to #1 for a 1 spot 1st round trade and a 9 spot 2nd round trade more balanced than this?
You saw Falcon's Ventura picklist, and the note with it. Not as unbalanced as you might think, particularly from Falcon's point of view.

On to the rest of the post, which will be a little more on topic:

Trade approved.

I plan to contact Untitled via PM.

JosephC

04-12-2016, 23:44

You saw Falcon's Ventura picklist, and the note with it. Not as unbalanced as you might think, particularly from Falcon's point of view.

I've been looking at it from the view point of how heavily it is affecting the non-involved teams, As I thought that's what the system was for(My apologies in advance if I was mistaken, in which case I would of vetoed that as I did not have access to the note and picklist before the trade was approved.)

In this case, because Falcon benefits a little bit, and QD benefits greatly, even with the extra reason, Falcon only gains 1 spot extra, so it's just a little. Using the logic thats been shown above, QD benefits massively and Falcon only slightly benefits, so even though Falcon doesn't lose anything, the trade HEAVILY favors QD, much more than any other trade that has been done thus far. So by using the safety net logic, that trade should have been declined, however I don't see any reason we should make sure trades are super balanced for the involved teams, and as it was the first trade between the two teams, didn't smell anything fishy, I accepted it. (I was certain Eric had a good reason, but either way, its not my job to make sure all his trades are Grade A for him).

TDav540

04-12-2016, 23:48

Then I proposed the tiered system to prevent as much abuse as possible without being too restrictive (which wasn't put into place) largely because QD thought it restricted the trades too much. (that's fine) but then we use that argument when it applies to us. Seems semi-hypocritical to dislike the idea presented, but then use it against us to prove a point. :O

I was using it not to talk about the tiered system, but the idea of abusing teams. That point is valid outside of that argument, and if you want to look at each of the trades we've made involving "tiers" that were proposed at the time, we have always been on the fair or "losing" side of the trade.

Obviously TBC thinks that this trade is in the favor of us, otherwise we wouldn't be trading.

I don't think it's that much different from the trades that have gone through.

"Shenzen #1, #19; Dallas #9, #27, Southern Cross #23, Central Illinois #16 Shenzhen #6, #13; Dallas #5, #23; Southern Cross #18; Central Illinois #11"

Shenzen #1 is miles above better than any other team at the event.

That single statement ignores the fact that we gave up a significant of other picks in the trade, including one first rounder, and trading down from the second to third round twice.

Falcon QD Ventura #9, #10; CVR #3 Ventura #1, #18; CVR #4

This one benifits QD pretty significantly IMHO. #1 pick is OP, especially at ventura where the pool is much weaker.

I would have understood if this trade was vetoed. We thought it certainly might be. But both James and Joseph approved it. In addition, we did trade down in the first round. The distance from the average #3 to the average #4 pick is by no means a small jump.

"TRF F3 Tech Valley #1 and #18, Central Illinois #2, Sacremento #5 Tech Valley #7 and #12, Central Illinois #1, Sacremento #2"

#5 pick probably better than #7 and #12 in my books. TVR #1 is more valuable than CI #1.

TVR #1 could be more valuable than CI #1, but TRF traded down in two other high first round spots to complete this trade, as well as trading down in the second round. This is a fair trade, and it was approved by every single reviewer.

As I said I think the draft spot trading system just promotes sweet talking weaker teams and being best buds with other teams. If we see teams doing slightly skewed trades, we are obviously going to attempt to do the same.

Do I think the trade is "fair"? Well I think we are getting a better deal. Is it more unfair than other trades that have gone through? nah.

We can't judge based on subjective opinions, and the fact that it could be even argued that this trade is possibly fair means that it should go through. If the league were to put in non-subjective methods to resolve blatantly unfair trades that would make sense to me. The delta is good for UT, but the FP is good for TBC.

That last argument is very very valid, and that combined with a couple other fair points have been made to convince me that my (mostly irrelevant) opinion on the trade should be switched. However, I've started to notice a trend[1] regarding certain players, which should be monitored going forward.

EricH

04-12-2016, 23:49

On another note entirely:

I will be running a final beta test of an updated draft runner during GKC draft tomorrow. The main update is to allow automatic random picks if someone's list calls for randoms.

JosephC

04-12-2016, 23:55

(deleted to not spam text wall)

Just to address your points of every reviewer accepting all the trades thus far until today, I was not reviewing on a "fairness" standard, if I had been, I would of veto'd at least 2 drafts thus far.

However I don't think that's what the systems for, to me its just a way to make a convenient place to pool all the recorded trades, and make sure there isn't anything suspicious going on, but I've said enough on the topic already, just wanted to address that those trades would have been veto'd if I was using fairness logic.

TDav540

04-12-2016, 23:59

Just to address your points of every reviewer accepting all the trades thus far until today, I was not reviewing on a "fairness" standard, if I had been, I would of veto'd at least 2 drafts thus far.

However I don't think that's what the systems for, to me its just a way to make a convenient place to pool all the recorded trades, and make sure there isn't anything suspicious going on, but I've said enough on the topic already, just wanted to address that those trades would have been veto'd if I was using fairness logic.

Fair enough. I liked what Brennan said on the matter, and I've said enough already as well.

EricH

05-12-2016, 00:38

FYI: I've come across a slight hitch in schedule that makes me questionable to run Colorado on time (12/11). I don't anticipate starting > 1 hour late, though.

MARS_James

05-12-2016, 13:56

Man I have one early night and the world explodes. Since this has been resolved this is more so that my feelings on the matter are available for all to see and not to cause another argument.

Are all trades just a matter of +/- being equal?

In my opinion, no. If you look at the sheet you can see my comments on the TRF-F3 that I would not have approved it without the Sacramento exchange being a part of it that is because

Does it matter who is at the event?
The way that I have been looking at it, yes. It is more about known quantities then unknown. If you agree or not I do look at who is attending the events to see if these were teams being potentially traded would it be equal.

To use the above TRF-F3 trade the reason I approved it was looking at the teams at the events historically speaking :

At Tech Valley there are 4 teams that I see as major point earners. So TRF entered into a pick position to get those teams and F3 left it.

At Central Illinois there were 5 teams I see as major point earners. The trade of 1 to 2 was a wash

At Sacramento there are 2 teams that I see as major point earners. So F3 enters the position to get one of those teams and TRF left it

So with the overall trade I considered it even.

Now we look at the TBC-Untitled Trade. In my opinion this trade was pointless because there are 4 teams at GKC that can gain points TBC just feels more confident that there is only 2 so this trade is a wash.

Feel free to disagree with me looking at who is attending the event but the only reason you all want to make trades is because you looked at the event and determined based on the teams that you wanted to make the trade, so I did the same.

EricH

05-12-2016, 20:41

Got a couple of announcements and reminders.

1) No drafts tomorrow, folks. Enjoy the evening off. Tech Valley and Greater Pittsburgh are Wednesday night. If you see those drafts pop up, don't sweat it, you aren't late (until Wednesday).

2) For the draft runners, I just uploaded an updated version (3.2.3) of the program. (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/3042) The only change is to allow lists with "Random" to, well, pick random, automatically. Next up are a couple of changes to do the same for random rookies and possibly a couple of other minor tweaks (think "convenience"--like being able to just rotate the player list from the last time, or being able to tell at a glance which player(s) have lists).

3) We're still looking for someone to run Bayou, a week from tomorrow. That's the only hole left (other than a possible one in Colorado on 12/11).

Oh, and I'm pretty sure this is the first time we've made it for 20 drafts from season start with perfect attendance, ever. Usually I've sent at least one boot warning by now...

MARS_James

05-12-2016, 20:56

3) We're still looking for someone to run Bayou, a week from tomorrow. That's the only hole left (other than a possible one in Colorado on 12/11).

I can handle Colorado no worries, not Bayou though it is on our regular meeting time and we have a field to build

EricH

05-12-2016, 20:59

I can handle Colorado no worries, not Bayou though it is on our regular meeting time and we have a field to build
We have a volunteer for Bayou, think we're good!

jlmcmchl

05-12-2016, 21:02

Eric,

Have you been able to determine if we were planning to use the old ranking points system (20 12 12 6 6 ...) or the district ranking points system for scoring?

EricH

05-12-2016, 21:18

Eric,

Have you been able to determine if we were planning to use the old ranking points system (20 12 12 6 6 ...) or the district ranking points system for scoring?
Not yet.

Edit: On further review...

No determination. Any chance TBC can check the scoring system from last year? At this point in time, I don't see a reason to change the system from last year's, other than to exempt Culture Change awards from district averaging, and possibly to adjust district scoring (some discussion of removing inter-district points from the count and/or normalizing scores to two events rather than averaging all events).

MARS_James

05-12-2016, 21:48

Either I missed something or am misunderstanding.

In 2015 we switched over from giving the win loss points to the district ranking points because there was no win loss. I thought we kept the same in 2016 because our ranking wasn't based on win loss but on QP. Basically I thought we replaced the 2 points for a win 1 for a tie and 0 for a loss with the district ranking 2 years in a row (To also normalize the points between large and small events) but kept the ranking bonus points the same to reward the teams who understood how to rank well.

So did we switch it between the two years or keep it the same I honestly don't remember.

EricH

05-12-2016, 22:04

In 2015 we switched over from giving the win loss points to the district ranking points because there was no win loss. I thought we kept the same in 2016 because our ranking wasn't based on win loss but on QP. Basically I thought we replaced the 2 points for a win 1 for a tie and 0 for a loss with the district ranking 2 years in a row (To also normalize the points between large and small events) but kept the ranking bonus points the same to reward the teams who understood how to rank well.

So did we switch it between the two years or keep it the same I honestly don't remember.
I want to say that's correct, but I don't remember either. I'll try to figure that out at some point this week.

BrennanB

05-12-2016, 22:27

We kept it the same as 2015.

EricH

05-12-2016, 22:41

We kept it the same as 2015.
I don't think we saw any issues with that, so we'll keep it the same again*.

*Unless the GDC completely removes ranking points or an equivalent from determining rank. In which case, we'll discuss fallback options. Discussion if any to start no earlier than 1/7/17 :cool:.

MARS_James

05-12-2016, 23:15

I don't think we saw any issues with that, so we'll keep it the same again*.

*Unless the GDC completely removes ranking points .

"Welcome to the 2017 FIRST Robotics Competition game Steamworks"

*90 seconds later*

"Steamworks like the industrial revolution does not have an anyone can succeed ranking system, instead the top teams are decided by who has the most blue banners historically, any ties will be broke by oldest blue banner. There will be no picking in the top 8 and no matches but instead exhibitions for the top teams to observe and decided who to hire for their alliance"

Fantasy FIRST then becomes basically a stockmarket instead of a Fantasy sports league

jlmcmchl

06-12-2016, 01:07

"Welcome to the 2017 FIRST Robotics Competition game Steamworks"

*90 seconds later*

"Steamworks like the industrial revolution does not have an anyone can succeed ranking system, instead the top teams are decided by who has the most blue banners historically, any ties will be broke by oldest blue banner. There will be no picking in the top 8 and no matches but instead exhibitions for the top teams to observe and decided who to hire for their alliance"

Fantasy FIRST then becomes basically a stockmarket instead of a Fantasy sports league

We'll start investing in a full integration of BBQ into TBA (http://bbqfrc.x10host.com/) and call it RIBMEATS instead of STEAM

TDav540

06-12-2016, 08:03

QD and Falcon have completed the following trade:
Falcon receives:
#4 and #15 at San Francisco
#2 and #17 at Rocket City

QD receives:
#2 and #17 at San Francisco
#9 and #10 at Rocket City

MARS_James

06-12-2016, 10:01

So how are we doing requests for teams who join an event after the draft, but before season starts? Waiver or first come first serve?

BrennanB

06-12-2016, 12:06

So how are we doing requests for teams who join an event after the draft, but before season starts? Waiver or first come first serve?

All team will be wavered. Highly prefered in a private way so teams don't snipe us for our hard work.

MARS_James

06-12-2016, 13:04

All team will be wavered. Highly prefered in a private way so teams don't snipe us for our hard work.

This is highly challenging as everyone involved is on a team

EricH

06-12-2016, 19:11

All team will be wavered. Highly prefered in a private way so teams don't snipe us for our hard work.
Unfortunately, the only way waivers will work properly is if players know that there is a team on waiver, and where.

BrennanB

07-12-2016, 01:12

Unfortunately, the only way waivers will work properly is if players know that there is a team on waiver, and where.

Not sure if I follow the logic here?

First I guess we need to define what properly means. To me the objectives are as follows and ranked by importance:

1) Catch teams that were previously undrafted before the season, and teams that joined an event after the conclusion of the draft.
2) Prevent a "who can click submit" quicker arms race, (basically what we had last year)
3) Provide a fair and structured way about what to do when two FF teams want the same FRC team.
4) Add some skill and depth to FF in keeping up with teams/looking for new teams that may have just joined.

The only thing that I can think of is that you want to announce the teams on the waiver because without announcing it FF teams wouldn't pick up on the trades and just one team would get them all? Gone are the days of FF teams not being competitive enough to look for their own teams to trade (just look at this threads discussion about keeping the competitive integrity) I'm confident that "powerhouse" teams will be public enough that most/all the teams will know that they are attending an event, and if they don't, they probably wouldn't check CD for the waivers anyways. Just look at the 2016 or 2015 season, the majority of the claims/trades were the top teams anyways. The point here is that the main point of the abuse of not "announcing" teams is that somehow everyone misses team 148 is going to san diego and so I 2056, so some FF team snipes 3 god tier picks because nobody else in the league is competitive enough to notice that they are attending the event. Everyone is too competitive/strong for that to happen (rookie FF teams using tba api to make lists, passionate debates about team trading btwn 6 out of the 9 teams in the league, half of which are rookies, heck we even have a team logo for NE wywi,AND zero missed drafts by any team and we are like 1/4 through the season ) I don't think there is a chance in hell that at LEAST 3-4 teams make a claim for a late joining powerhouse team If it isnt announced.

To me the information is already out there (on TBA) and announcing teams up for grabs/who is picking them up is a disincentive for people to look for swaps in the first place. If you aren't #1 on the waiver when you find out 118 is going to hawaii, why bring it up? Hold it off and hope that teams use their priority on weaker picks.

OR if there is a deadline for waiver claims, TBC will just last second submit all our claims so nobody has a chance to snipe them?

But Brennan, If everyone knows about the powerhouse teams already who cares if you announce every team on the waivers?

Easy. The teams that have played throughout the season already and have suprised you (and the dark horse waiver pickups)

These trades dont really make huge waves points wise, but get enough of them and you can see some decent improvements. These are the teams where you spend the time knowing the teams performance and watching the matches. Looking at the scores. If i'm team "I do no work" and I see TBC try to pick up a waiver for ontario with 4476, I know TBC is a good team, so I will just copy their waivers/spend 5 minutes only looking at the good teams people have put waivers for instead of the 5 hours, that TBC spent on watching the ontario district where 4476 did okay at. And voila! I get all the good teams for doing minimal work and the teams that put in the work get punished for it. (even more so than resetting their priority which is enough of a balance.) is 4476 a super powerhouse that will win every event? Nah. Are they still decent? Yeah they are okay. It's not a dealbreaker I picks like these get through.

So yeah, fairly passionate about the outcome here. I didnt really cover everything I have to say on this but hopefully this convinces you/gets some good discussion on it. Since this has been in the 2017 improvement thread for ages. though nobody ever talked about it because it was just RFA and us agreeing that waivers should be private.

EDIT

We also never resolved if district teams score points for out of district events once again I think this should be a solid no as teams are unable to win many awards. Etc makes them a less valuable pickup.

Edit #2

tl;dr

Don't make announcing teams publically mandatory. Most FF teams will notice big teams joining an event anyways. Small(ish) teams have a small(ish) impact and not being announced allow for more ways for teams to gain small advantages at the risk of being low in priority for a potential bigger team down the road.

MARS_James

07-12-2016, 01:24

.....

Ok I need a serious tl;dr for this one because despite reading this I am confused as to your point. I personally think it is fair to announce, something like "Hey FYI 254 just popped up at South Florida" and you don't seem to be arguing that point at least I don't think so. You seem to be more arguing that when we are having our weekly waiver wire clears our lists should be private. Which they always have been, when I was keeping track of waivers more intently and I had a whole team on my Fantasy FIRST team we sent our waiver requests directly to Eric, who was running waivers, and I do not believe they were ever seen by anyone other then him.

BrennanB

07-12-2016, 01:36

Ok I need a serious tl;dr for this one because despite reading this I am confused as to your point. I personally think it is fair to announce, something like "Hey FYI 254 just popped up at South Florida" and you don't seem to be arguing that point at least I don't think so. You seem to be more arguing that when we are having our weekly waiver wire clears our lists should be private. Which they always have been, when I was keeping track of waivers more intently and I had a whole team on my Fantasy FIRST team we sent our waiver requests directly to Eric, who was running waivers, and I do not believe they were ever seen by anyone other then him.

tl;dr:
Don't make announcing teams publically mandatory. Most FF teams will notice big teams joining an event anyways. Small(ish) teams have a small(ish) impact and not being announced allow for more ways for teams to gain small advantages at the risk of being low in priority for a potential bigger team down the road.

Both lists and teams being picked up should be private.

EricH

07-12-2016, 02:22

JosephC

07-12-2016, 07:33

Just wanted to chime in with, I'm a firm believer that district teams shouldn't receive points for out of district events, for a number of reasons, mainly being that they can not earn as many awards.

There is the counter argument that teams going out of district gives them more experience, thus potentially earning them more points at their district events, but at the same time, afaik, all district teams recieve out of bag time during those weekends anyways(at least in Michigan, unless this changed recently as I haven't been on a team since 2014). So teams are basically trading robot work time for event experience time. What this means to me, is that the teams with an already good robot will earn points, and those that don't have a good robot won't.

Based on that, it basically disqualifies picking any mid tier teams that are going to an early out of district event, as the risk of them performing well isn't really worth the reward.

tl;dr - very good teams will still earn just as many points(probably) using either system, but mid tier teams that go out of district will be placed on a much lower picking priority scale.

I believe this is bad, as it makes some teams that look like good picks be too risky, and reduces the number of "good" middle tier picks. Example - 68 2015/2016, great pick up if it only includes in district events, middle pack pick up if it does not.

BrennanB

07-12-2016, 10:14

The objective of waivers is this: To allow teams that were not available at the start of the draft (or became available by somebody leaving the league) to be competitively distributed. To prevent click-race picking of second-event teams. And to provide some parity in distribution.

I agree. Your emphasis I think is included in my point #3. Maybe we forgot about switching teams mid way through season though? We said last year they would be waivered. Otherwise we just have what we had last year. Everybody waiting for them to just be free agents and seeing who could click submit faster. Both RFA and TBC could have gone through the waivers, but that would just give all the teams we wanted to pick in a nice short list for everyone else to see and contest us. At least by waiting we:

1) knew the team that beat us put in the work to find the same info we did
2) we still had better odds of getting good teams

As commissioner, the waiver process has always been as open as possible. This includes a full list of teams on waiver. I don't anticipate changing that.

If you want to write up a list of every single team that is on the waivers that's totally fine with me. That protects the integrity of the hard work, and still allows for teams to be aware of the people on the list. The problem is that list is every new joining team, and every team at every event that didn't get picked in the draft. So that's like a list of 5000+ teams at the start of the season. Unless we don't have the mid season swaps be waivers and go through some other system.

And I think there is a balance between secrecy and openness: A list of teams that have been claimed posted without mention of who claimed them, at a late enough time in the process to limit "copycat" picks, but with enough time to sneak some last-second adjustments (like that surprise 1114 claim) in. If that were in place, I think some incentive (points/bump-ups in waiver priority?) to have most (not all) of the claims in in time for the list would be in order.

The problem is any team that has been claimed is likely better than your 3rd/6th pick for your event. If I get a list of every team that is trying to be picked up now i'd spend 10 seconds per pick typing their name in TBA if I didn't know them and seeing if they are better than that or not. 10 teams? 100 seconds. For a team like 1114 everyone in the league needs the length of writing "we want 1114" to decide that they want to draft them from the waivers. It doesn't take long no matter how last second you make it to get sniped off of picks

To illustrate my point:

//Satire Zone

I propose we introduce a new rule where we now make it mandatory for all teams to post a list of their teams for each further draft from rank 4-10 on their lists respectively. I already know who the top 4 are likely, but it would be really nice if I could have each team's expertise for free on the "under the radar pickups" The teams don't have to be ranked in order, so don't worry I can't copy your list. 1197 is on this list? (courtesy of team falcon little do I know) They went to Einstein last year? I had no idea! They must be a underdog pick here! I wouldn't have noticed them but every team had to post every team they wanted to pick that thought they might be good. I got a nice little list to check over this week instead of the 45 team list at this regional.

//Satire Zone Ended

I don't like punishing teams for putting in work.

though I can't say that teams should play without getting some points for it. There may be a compromise, to be discussed.

Don't the teams themselves not recieve any district points for their out of district events?

TDav540

07-12-2016, 10:29

If you look at fantasy football, no player knows what everyone else has claimed on waivers. And that's really how it should be: if Team 1 has a better waiver position than Team 2, but sees Team 2 has (example) Julio Jones on their list of waiver pickups, Team 1 can just say "Oh! We forgot about Julio!" and then add them to their list and be on their way, while Team 2 is actually the team that remembered. So waiver submissions really should be kept private.

With that said, Fantasy Football has two things different from SLFF:
1) When players go OFF waivers is explicitly clear
2) When players go ON waivers is explicitly clear

You can obviously derive on from the other, but if you don't know what they are ahead of time, that's not really fair. And since we don't know the exact day some teams are added to the attending list at a regional, we don't really know when they go off waivers either.

So overall, I think a list of teams on waivers (which should be all undrafted or added teams) seems entirely reasonable to me. However, there shouldn't be any indication on which teams have been already been claimed, and there should only be announcement about that claim when the team is added to the roster of the winner. Additionally, if a team is the only team to submit a waiver claim for a team, they shouldn't lose waiver priority (however, if another team puts a claim in for a team, the winning team should go to the back of the order).

Just my thoughts.