Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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 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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

Sorry we assumed ff also followed the spirit of FIRST.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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 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.

Re: [FF]: 2017 Season Long Fantasy FIRST
 

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.