Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Possibly one normal and one reverse--don't think I'd do both events the same way. Or one normal, and one rotated.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.)

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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).

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.)

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

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...

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

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".

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

No that's correct. Technically my opinion that trade makes no difference in the result.

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:

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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).

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

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.
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.
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.

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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. 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...

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

We have a volunteer for Bayou, think we're good!

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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).

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

We kept it the same as 2015.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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:.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

"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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

We'll start investing in a full integration of BBQ into TBA and call it RIBMEATS instead of STEAM

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

This is highly challenging as everyone involved is on a team

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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 will respond in fuller detail later (there were some rather barbed comments in what I was writing), but there are two things I want to say first:

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.


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.



With respect to the inter-district play, I agree that we didn't come to a resolution on that. Again, I will respond to this in more detail at a later time. I would say that that particular point of view is in fact quite reasonable, though I can't say that teams should play without getting some points for it. There may be a compromise, to be discussed.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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


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.


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.



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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Trevors logic makes perfect sense to me. The only reason why I suggested not posting teams is because I don't know how realistic it is to maintain that kind of list. Maybe a FF team would be willing to take that up as a project?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I don't think it would be particularly difficult to do, but we'd need some help. Take the sort key we're using in the draft results tab, and then just take the list of undrafted teams from your excel (as a draft runner) or from the end of the draft thread (since this is partially retroactive) and paste. Then, if a team submits a claim for an added team, Eric discretely adds that team to the list (or adds it on his own if he notices them). So it's continuously updated and available for everyone to see and screen.

Five days after the first claim, that team is taken off the list, announced, and added. The team that's dropped goes to waivers.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Untitled Team and Questionable Decisionmakers have agreed to the following trade:

Untitled Receives:
#9, #10, and #20 Rocket City
#5 South Pacific
#21 Sacramento

QD Receives:
#3, #16, and #21 Rocket City
#6 South Pacific
#22 Sacramento

It is currently available for review.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

So I have a suggestion, why not make waivers permanent?

Hear me out: Last year I suggested to make teams go on waiver the week after the competed to stop an arms race, certain smart teams realized they were keeping track while others weren't so didn't put in the request for the weaker teams and just got them off the FA market.

So here is my suggestion:

For now any team that was open to be drafted during the draft is a Free Agent.

Any teams added after the draft goes on Waivers. Waivers are listed in a public location in their entirety and not announced when it is updated or who was added. 36 hours before a waiver is run the waiver list is locked and any teams who are added will not be cycled till the next cycle.

Any teams dropped from a Fantasy Team are put on the waiver list.

Teams are never removed from waivers once put on. Basically what that means is as soon as a team competes, all their other events they could be picked up at need to go through waivers.

I think this solves the worry about sniping teams once they are announced, keeps the risk of teams stealing diamonds in the rough from others who watched the events, and is actually super simple for the waiver runner to check because we have a list of who competes each week.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I think this was the general idea to begin with but I guess never got communicated. I am all for it. (except keeping a giant list of waivers)

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Honestly Eric runs the waivers but I would be willing to run the database of who is or isn't on the waiver wire. Basically I run the database but Eric handles the pick lists.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I'm kinda confused what this means. If I'm reading it correctly, what you're saying is that waivers run at a consistent weekly time. 36 hours before that time (say they run at noon on 12/10, which would mean that time is midnight 12/9) you have to have submitted your waiver list?

That sounds a tad excessive but the rest of it makes sense.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

No, any teams that someone is like "HEY 1114 IS AT SOUTH FLORIDA I WANT THEM" has to tell the waiver runner they are there to add to the list 36 hours in advanced, so everyone has a fair shot of seeing them. It isn't about having a whole list but it avoids scenarios where one team and who ever runs the waivers see a team but no one else gets to.

I am going to be honest here I didn't know my own team got taken off the waitlist for Rocket City till 9 hours after it happened. I have a life, and responsibilities, I can not afford to check every event every day for teams to appear, but I can make it part of my routine to check one spread sheet every day after work. I was just trying to create a system where the waiver list is where to go to check if a team is available and you have a whole day to make a pick list based on who is available to everyone.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Okay yeah, that sounds perfect, because same here. If you want QD's help in any way, feel free to ask.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I think there's a slight misunderstanding here. Really quick, currently the only way teams are on waivers (and thus on the list) is if somebody claims them. I don't announce who claimed a team unless they post publicly (and even then I don't announce it)--which makes making a claim a little bit of a gamble.

James is right on the general idea--there's a certain cutoff time for teams to be on waiver and claimed that week.

I should make one note, really fast: Having a hole in your draft gives you automatic top priority in the waiver system for that event, should you make a waiver claim (unless you took a COI). Or you can take a free agent.





A proposal on waivers. Call it "Smokescreen". This would only apply to waivers run during competition season.

-Lists LOCK on Wednesday of Week 1, for all events and all district block drafts. The only way to change 'em is waivers.
-During Week 1 events, someone (guessing me, but it doesn't have to be) pulls the updated team list for Week 2 events, pulls out all picked teams, and if there are any MIA teams in the picked list, flags those. I think that could be made practically automated (famous last words).
-After Week 1 events: The entire list is posted, for Week 2, sorted by event. Cue rush of claims
-Tuesday midnight, no further Week 2 claims are accepted.
-Wednesday, announcements of awards.
Repeat cycle of post list, announce awards through the rest of the season. The only teams on waiver for a given week are the ones competing that week. That should make life a little bit easier.

There would be one minor hitch: I would also put a ruling in that the only time DISTRICT teams can be changed would be the window before Week 3--most of them would probably have played one event, very few would have played more (and those teams aren't eligible to be traded in or out).

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

On the topic of teams playing out of district:

Correct that they do not get district points, directly. However, they do get experience that translates to district points in their home district at later events. And they do get ranking and stuff like that.

This might be controversial... but I have an idea. We also figured out that a consistent team's FF points could be hurt by playing 3 events, due to the averaging. On the other hand, it's kind of no fun to watch one of your teams playing and you get nothing from a good performance. So... What if interdistrict and 3rd-event play picks up 5 points (flat) and elims points (added to the averaging score for two events). So, if 67 attends 3 in-district events and 1 traveling event, and wins all 4, they will pick up TWO events that put all their points into the average, and they will add 10 points to their base for the two extra plays, and because they win both, they get two events of win points added into the average, which is still only divided by 2. So... (Event1+Event2+Win3+Win4)/2+10 is their score.

Kind of complicated, kind of crazy. Someone want to try to run some numbers?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

*Scratches head* Well, now that's interesting.

So I wrote up a quick macro to check picks vs. team lists for events. Wouldn't ya know it, after some testing (and "oh, THAT's why it's not picking the teams out"), it flagged two teams as MIA in South Florida: 108 and 2601. And yep, they're MIA all right...I checked on that!


If y'all are agreeable on the use of the "Smokescreen" plan, I might get some time this weekend to go through and run a quick waiver list, kind of see how it goes for a large-scale runthrough.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

That makes things interesting. Who would get first in waiver order at that event then? NE Way (108, 10th overall) or F3 (2601, 14th overall)?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Waiver order is actually different than normal order--unofficially, NE Way would win that. And they're both "first priority"--I don't recall if we've ever had to use a tiebreaker, but I believe it's normal waiver priority.

That being said, any free-agent team can be picked without needing to use waivers.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

So for the sake of ease of research, every team on the list during the original draft is fair game (no need to use waivers), the only team also not registered now is 6555

The only teams you would need to use your waiver on are 5558 and 6743

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I like this. But why do we need the week 3 trades for district teams? Is there a reason we didn't like the one play rule?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Too hard to keep track of, at least from my point of view. That being said, I think I could track district claims OK (we know there won't be too many late additions), so it's a matter of checking on both teams. Cue FRCLinks or TBA, whichever is handiest.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

TBA does have some latency due to how frequently it checks the FIRST site for updates. I would recommend frclinks for these purposes, just in case.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

We're aware... we've had people get burned in the past by using TBA and having the teams not there.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

*raises hand* Come back to Utah 6082, please

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Running the numbers on this now, might take me a little bit, give me some time :)

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Numbers running done, can be found here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

If you don't want to look at the data heres a tl;dr

Eric's System - gives more points(by a significant margin), than either other system, across the board, makes picking teams with more than 2 events extremely beneficial.

Current System - (its what you'd expect)

In District Only System - If teams do the same across the board at both in district and out of district, scores the same as the current system. Benefits teams that do well in district but poorly out of district. Harms teams that do poorly in district but well out of district.

Exact numbers and how they line up can be found in the link above.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Here's my thoughts on the systems and district picking overall.

#1 - Eric's system is way too wack, and I don't really see a good way of making it work. Even if you were to change the extra points from 5 to 0, it'd still give more points. You could try to give negative points, but it just seems like a lot of work for not alot of gain.

#2 - IMO, In District Only scoring seems the best. You're picking teams during those drafts for their performance in district, which is better supported by this system over the current one. As for "it sucks not getting points for your teams at events they go to",that doesn't make alot of sense. You don't pick 1114 for Waterloo than be sad when you don't get points for how well they did in GTRE.

#3 - To address the "they get extra experience", why does that matter? You should be factoring that into your picklist. Some teams only do 1 regional, some do 3, its the same thing.

#4 - At the end of the day, its the FIM draft. not the "Teams that are in FIM" draft. Points should be given for what happens in that event, FIM, not what happens to that team at every event. It makes no sense to pick district teams and have what happens outside of the event they were drafted for(the district) affect their points.

#5 - And finally, 27 was drafted at Northern Lights, but with the current system, those points also go to whoever drafts them in FIM? Doesn't make much sense tbh.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Incorrect. District event drafts specifically exclude regional points.

I see what you're saying about the points being skewed. So let's forget I said it.


In-district points makes the most sense. So, here's the pointage for district draft teams: They get points at all of their events within their own district (FiM in FiM, PNW in PNW, you get the idea). Those points are averaged across all in-district events (so, 1-event district teams get their points, 2-event district teams get their points/2, 3-event district teams get their points/3). Regional points are earned at the regional, and do not apply to district events. DCMPs are separate drafts. Interdistrict plays get you... nothing.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Ye, my bad I got confused, perks of being up for 30 hours straight I guess, forgot it used to be only interdistrict points :o

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

When can we expect the picking order for the next set of events?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Whenever Brennan or Eric post it, probably tonight or tomorrow morning. Should be up by then.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Brennan's draft.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Something came up and i'm not actually available to run the draft on Saturday. :/ VRC team has an event that day i'm supervising.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

If no one else is available I'll run it.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I got it

EDIT (Iowa Order):

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

EDIT 2:
I am gonna put up the Iowa draft when I get home (Pick time is still as scheduled), since I won't be home tonight and want it up as early as possible.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Could we add functionality to the Draft Runner to allow picks that aren't in the available teams list? Had some issues with that today. Or atleast make it so the Draft Runner doesn't completely crash while doing so.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Were you using "Remove Pick" to pull teams out of the draft?


Basic algorithm: For any pick, the FIRST check is the full team list (see if the team is attending). THEN it checks the picked teams (not the available teams) to see if somebody already has that team. Once it's happy that the team is 1) attending and 2) not already picked, it'll try to pull the team out of the available list. I suspect that that's where the problem was: in removing the team from the list. I don't think I have good error-handling there, and there's a known bug in there somewhere that I haven't been able to squash (causes teams to not be removed properly).

Basically, I think what probably happened was the team it was looking to remove just wasn't there, possibly due to not being put back in during the big shuffle. "Remove Pick" will do that putting in.


I'll see what I can come up with over the weekend. Weekend programming tasks:
--Error handling on removing teams from available list
--Bug fixes in team removal from list (and/or from draft)
--"Rookie" functionality in picklists

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Is "Remove Pick" fixed in the new Draft Runner? Last time I tried to use it, it also crashed the sheet.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

It's been working for me, not sure what's up then.

Time to start digging into the code.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Does it matter that I'm using excel 2010?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Might actually work better... Or maybe not. I'm running Excel 2016, but some of the bugs have been there since I was using 2010.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Flyswatter update #1: SPLAT! Found a bug (at least one) in the team removal. Helps to double-check variable names... Might explain why it's been buggy for so long.

And I haven't yet replicated the crashing. (Of course I'm trying here...) But so far, it's handled every non-at-event or previously-picked or otherwise off-nominal team I've tossed its way by flashing up a color like it's supposed to. If anybody experiencing a crash can pass along a crash report, that'd be pretty helpful.

Time to go introduce more bugs... by implementing random rookie functionality! (Don't worry, I'm not releasing YET.)

Edit #1: Huh. That was too easy... If anybody wants to beta test said functionality before I run a draft on Wednesday, use email and I'll send the beta over. Otherwise, I'll probably try to find what's been causing crashes and/or release the debugged sheet before then.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

FYI, we have a need for a draft runner for Bayou tomorrow--something came up with the scheduled runner, and we seem to be low on the usual crew. I might be able to run it, but it's a very long shot. James can't, Joseph is already running one. Anybody want to step up?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I might be willing to, with only one issue; I don't have Excel. I just have a mac, do the macros and the other assorted things work on Google Sheets, or should I try and install an excel demo on my VM?

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

The only functionality that really transfers from Excel to Google Sheets is the data/formatting, and vice-versa. You might be able to get the demo to run with WINE.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I can.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Deleted post since theres no way I can run two drafts tonight(Doing other work while running 1 is hard enough).

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Thank you, Joseph and Brennan for keeping Fantasy FIRST going tonight! I would have volunteered if I didn't have a final tomorrow :(

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Apparently, I don't have to do that work anyways, so if Brennan doesn't post thread by 6:40, i got it

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

My conputer has been uhh, temporarily handicapped. Apologies and thanks joe for picking up the slack.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

So I posted why in the thread, but Smoky Mountain needs a redraft.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

May need a redraft, depends on how Eric wants to rule it. You were in fact assigned the proper team, its just that after you were assigned that pick, TBC changed their pick, which means a higher priority team was available on your list.

Now thats all find and dandy, but it did technically happen before your pick time, but you did also send a list in which means your picks happen as soon as your slot opens.

Not sure how Eric wants to call this one, but if it does cause a redraft, I won't be assigning list picks until their exact pick time to avoid any redrafts in the future.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I mean, to be fair, it's not like the 744-48 swap was announced, even in the edit. I don't have a problem making that swap, or the execution after, but it really should be slightly better indicated.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Questionable Decisionmakers and Untitled Team have agreed to the following trade, posted and waiting for approval at 2:57pm CD Time:

Untitled Receives:
QD 1st Round - Montreal - #5
QD 2nd Round - Montreal - #14
QD 2nd Round - Wisconsin - #16

QD Receives:
UT 1st Round - Montreal - #3
UT 2nd Round - Montreal - #16
UT 2nd Round - Wisconsin - #18

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

I agree, I really wasn't thinking when I just made the edit, definitely should of put the trade in there somewhere for clarity.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

FYI, I had to drop next Wednesday's Lone Star Central, but I have tentatively picked up Midwest for Monday. I may also be able to do Idaho on Saturday but that's less likely. However, I might not be able to do that one either, because we'll be skiing in Vermont and wi-fi could be iffy.