State of CSL - Feedback Needed

GM's -

I, on behalf of the entire admin team, feel a "State of CSL" discussion is very badly needed. Things have been headed on a downward spiral as of late and it is our job to get the league out of it. In an effort to do so, the admin team has come up with many different ideas and plans to improve the quality of the CSL. 

First, I'd like to say that in no way, shape or form is CSL dying. We have all worked way too hard and are too invested in this league to let it go away. We will continue to run CSL as we always have: with pride, hard work and with you guys, the GM's, always in mind.

There's been many "issues" we've encountered over the past year or so as a league. Many of these issues have been fixed and the others that haven't can be, however there are many different paths we can take to fix these issues. One of our biggest issues, league-wide scoring, has crippled the league severely, taking away from the realism and overall quality we hoped for when creating the CSL. There are also many unclear rules that have been encountered, a weak/inaccurate scouting system among other things, that we know and are dedicated on fixing.

There are a number of different paths we can take to fixing these issues, and we've laid all options out for you guys to give your opinions on, discuss and let us know what you feel is best. 

1. Restart CSL with contractions -
 This would be completely restarting the CSL, and cutting down the number of teams in the league to about 25 teams, and wiping out everything that's happened up to this point. I know this comes as a bit of a shock, and we understand that. That's why we want to make it clear that this isn't a decision, but a discussion, and we would like your input on this. Here's our reasoning and the advantages we feel this option brings the CSL.


- Improved ratings. The Admin Team has already began going through every single player's ratings, comparing them to real life statistics, and trying to make them as realistic as possible. Every single player's ratings will be fair, reasonable, realistic and will make a better league. This will avoid scoring, steal, block and other issues we've encountered in PB3 so far. 
 
- Updated Rules, CBA, ETC. There are many rules we've encountered that were either not clear or needed to be changed. We will go through all of the trade rules, CBA and everything else to make sure they are as updated, clear and fair as possible. Draft pick rules will be changed, trade rules, some CBA rules and more. 

- New and improved scouting system. The current scouting system is fairly inaccurate and weak. We have heard your feedback and have designed an entirely new, interactive and dynamic system that would completely change the draft/scouting system. This would be implemented with the restart and would improve activity, scouting accuracy among other things. (NOTE: This will be implemented whether we restart or not)

- Contractions. This would cut down the number of teams in the league to around 25 or so. We've had issues in the past filling teams with quality GM's, and this essentially gets rid of this issue. We can always expand as we go along if/when we feel it's necessary. 

These are just some of the improvements that can be made with restarting with contraction of a few teams. 

2. Restarting without contractions.
See above. Same idea but we keep the full 30 teams.

3. Alter SCR/DEF ratings in the off-season -

If we were to do this, we would continue with CSL as it currently stands. Same teams, players and everything, but we would alter the scoring and defense ratings to fix the scoring issue we currently face. We will carefully test the updated ratings multiple times before finalizing to make sure each issue is resolved and no new ones arise.

4. Keep going -

Just ignore these issues and keep going as is.

We are in no way forcing any of these onto you. We are making this post specifically for discussion and to gauge the interest of the league. Where do you guys stand? What's your opinion on what we've brought up? We want to hear from YOU. Any questions will be answered and all feedback/suggestions will most definitely be taken into account.

I'm going to say this pre-emptively because I think it needs to be said: constructive comments, criticism, and feedback only please. If you are going to say something, say something that contributes to the conversation.

I'm not opposed to restarting if that's what really needs to be done to solve the scoring problem, but I think contraction is a bad, bad idea. As of right now, we've got 30 GMs: a full league. Hell, Orlando even has an assistant GM. Cutting the league down to 25 means 5 or 6 GMs are either forced out or resign, and that's not exactly a comfortable situation to be put in. Eventually, I think we'd find that 25 slots isn't enough. And that also means if we ever wanted to expand the league an expansion draft is needed, and that's a whole fiasco in and of itself.

And IF we do indeed restart, I think it needs to be done quickly. There's no reason to continue on with this season if it means nothing. And a really long waiting period between now and the restarted season could kill the entire league.

Just throwing my thoughts out there.

Jake0890 (MIN) wrote:I'm not opposed to restarting if that's what really needs to be done to solve the scoring problem, but I think contraction is a bad, bad idea. As of right now, we've got 30 GMs: a full league. Cutting the league down to 25 means 5 GMs are either forced out or resign, and that's not exactly a comfortable situation to be put in. Eventually, I think we'd find that 25 slots isn't enough. And that also means if we ever wanted to expand the league an expansion draft is needed, and that's a whole fiasco in and of itself.

And IF we do indeed restart, I think it needs to be done quickly. There's no reason to continue on with this season if it means nothing. And a really long waiting period between now and the restarted season could kill the entire league.

Just throwing my thoughts out there.

To respond to all your points made -

While I understand your points about contraction, the fact of the matter is, there are easily five GM's who aren't even close to the level of activity required to be a CSL GM. No one would be kicked for no good reason. We wouldn't just contract for the sake of contracting.

Also if we ever get to the point where 25 teams isn't enough, we can always expand. 

A restart would happen fairly quickly for sure, as we've already started editing ratings and hope to finish within the next 24 hours or so. Once we're done testing the ratings and everything, we'll be ready to start.

Dylan (SAC) wrote:

Jake0890 (MIN) wrote:I'm not opposed to restarting if that's what really needs to be done to solve the scoring problem, but I think contraction is a bad, bad idea. As of right now, we've got 30 GMs: a full league. Cutting the league down to 25 means 5 GMs are either forced out or resign, and that's not exactly a comfortable situation to be put in. Eventually, I think we'd find that 25 slots isn't enough. And that also means if we ever wanted to expand the league an expansion draft is needed, and that's a whole fiasco in and of itself.

And IF we do indeed restart, I think it needs to be done quickly. There's no reason to continue on with this season if it means nothing. And a really long waiting period between now and the restarted season could kill the entire league.

Just throwing my thoughts out there.

To respond to all your points made -

While I understand your points about contraction, the fact of the matter is, there are easily five GM's who aren't even close to the level of activity required to be a CSL GM. No one would be kicked for no good reason. We wouldn't just contract for the sake of contracting.

Also if we ever get to the point where 25 teams isn't enough, we can always expand. 

A restart would happen fairly quickly for sure, as we've already started editing ratings and hope to finish within the next 24 hours or so. Once we're done testing the ratings and everything, we'll be ready to start.

Well with 25 teams, how would the conferences be arranged? Would you just take one team out of every division besides one? 24 might be a better number. Just take one team out of every division and you get 2 conference with 12 teams.

Jake0890 (MIN) wrote:

Dylan (SAC) wrote:

Jake0890 (MIN) wrote:I'm not opposed to restarting if that's what really needs to be done to solve the scoring problem, but I think contraction is a bad, bad idea. As of right now, we've got 30 GMs: a full league. Cutting the league down to 25 means 5 GMs are either forced out or resign, and that's not exactly a comfortable situation to be put in. Eventually, I think we'd find that 25 slots isn't enough. And that also means if we ever wanted to expand the league an expansion draft is needed, and that's a whole fiasco in and of itself.

And IF we do indeed restart, I think it needs to be done quickly. There's no reason to continue on with this season if it means nothing. And a really long waiting period between now and the restarted season could kill the entire league.

Just throwing my thoughts out there.

To respond to all your points made -

While I understand your points about contraction, the fact of the matter is, there are easily five GM's who aren't even close to the level of activity required to be a CSL GM. No one would be kicked for no good reason. We wouldn't just contract for the sake of contracting.

Also if we ever get to the point where 25 teams isn't enough, we can always expand. 

A restart would happen fairly quickly for sure, as we've already started editing ratings and hope to finish within the next 24 hours or so. Once we're done testing the ratings and everything, we'll be ready to start.

Well with 25 teams, how would the conferences be arranged? Would you just take one team out of every division besides one? 24 might be a better number. Just take one team out of every division and you get 2 conference with 12 teams.

Well contracting is all based on what the game will allow. It goes off of the real life NBA and how they expanded. So as a result, we're only able to do an odd number of teams (23, 25, 27 etc.)

Just use basketball reference to see how it would look. 1988-1989 season had 25 teams, 1989-1990 had 27.

We'd be looking at starting the restart within a week of making the decision. Altering the ratings would take place in the offseason.

We are also looking into finding a new forum, one that allows us to attach .tem files

I would be in favor of restarting with no contraction. I think keeping 30 teams is what's best for the league. Yeah, there are GMs that aren't as active as we'd like, but it happens. It happens in every league. The ratings definitely needed work, badly, and it seems you guys are working on that. We had to do this in my league as well. Restarted with new and improved ratings.

Would there be a draft to draft all new teams if we restart? Or are we just going to use default rosters? What year are we going to start off with? Keeping the same rookie classes we have now? Or going off more like the NBA?

Myles (SAS) wrote:Just use basketball reference to see how it would look. 1988-1989 season had 25 teams, 1989-1990 had 27.

We'd be looking at starting the restart within a week of making the decision. Altering the ratings would take place in the offseason.

We are also looking into finding a new forum, one that allows us to attach .tem files

I'm pretty sure InvisionFree and Zetaboards allow attachments like that.

Starting with current rosters at the beginning of the 2013-2014 season. Gay on the Kings, etc. Draft classes will still be done by me.

Like always whatever the majority decides. Though I have to admit we got now a core of +-15-20 really great and active GMs, guys I like and would love to know in reallife too. And there are guys I cant handle due to their inactivity etc. No Names here, but as Dylan said there is always the Chance to higher the amount of teams again as soon as there are guys that show they can contribute. IMO its a good decision. Better have 25 guys doing all they can instead of having 5 teams completely inactive.
I believe thats the best Option. Get a clear start with everything fixed.

Option 3 I dont really like. No doubt, ratings need to be fixed. But, I believe there would be fixed players I traded for, what I wouldnt have done with their updated skillsets. So if we adjust ratings we absolutely should make a clean restart as its fair for everybody.

Option 4 is another one I dont like. We cant just look away and behave like everything is great like it is.

About the scouting: thats good news! I like the idea of a New scouting System. Really thrilled to have more news about it.

Like Jake said, if we Start New it should be as fast as possible. If you need help, no matter what it is, just tell me. Im damn sure you are doing the best you can and are you are doing it great! Still if help needed, always open for it.

Just my thoughts, I know its no Really constructive comment, but IMO the Admin team figured out the problems very well and there is nothing much to add.

I'm happy with what ever you guys go with

Like whats been said already, Im down for whatever majority is voted on. Im kind of against the restart with contractions because that will mean we will have to kick a few GMs. I like the idea of restarting without contractions but idk its up to what everyone else thinks.

As a new GM with limited experience, I've seen the forums where the scoring/defensive issues are talked about but I'm self-aware enough to remove myself from that discussion. I have no doubt that the admins and experienced GMs could have much more relevant and better input than myself.

As far as the contraction to 25, I'm leaning towards no contraction but could probably be persuaded otherwise. I could be wrong, but I personally thought there was a decent amount of activity and most owners make a conscious effort to stay active. I can honestly say about a dozen GMs have reached out to help me in one capacity or another since I joined a couple weeks ago, which is pretty amazing. If there is a contraction though, I get that I would be one of the first to go since I'm the last GM that has joined. And if that's the case, I wouldn't throw up a big fuss. And hopefully I could become an assistant somewhere and be able to take on one of the expansion teams if we make some. I know I'm new to CSL, but I'm having a lot of fun.

As far as starting the league over, I'm okay with it, but my biggest concern is that this doesn't become a trend. If every few seasons the league gets started over again, I think you're going to see a serious devaluation of young players/draft picks because the league constantly gets restarted before the young players/picks can develop.

Just throwing another thought out there, but I think if a restart is happening, everything needs to be fixed and done. It always seems like there's a lot of turnover and changes in this league. We've already changed forums once (and or be honest I don't know why we left those because it was perfect imo) and it sounds like we would be restarting and getting a new forum. There needs to be some stability. Gotta pick something and stick to it at some point.

Edit: didn't see his post before, but Greenbear said it perfectly.

Well, the point of restarting would be to stabilize the league. We're not looking for it to become a trend and this would most definitely be the last time it happened. But the reason we're considering it is because of all the issues we've encountered in our first go. When restarting, we're fixing all these issues and taking steps to prevent them, while also improving the league in numerous other ways.

Yeah I believe too it wont be a Trend. Like Dylan said it was the first try and there were a few things that went wrong. Admin team learned from it and want to improve it. I believe that wont happen again.

Yeah, to be fair this is the first and only restart CSL will have. The previous forums were too buggy and difficult to work with, you could easily lose an entire article just because of the websites bugs.

Also, regardless of whether we contract or not I will be stepping down as GM. I'm not entirely sure whether or not I favor contraction yet but it's something worth discussing.

Just another question. If we restart, everybody will keep his actual team?
Obviously it depends on if we are cutting down the amount of teams, just curious to know if we restart how team selection will be handled. If its written down somewhere and I was just to dump to find it Im Sorry guys!

Edit: man Myles! This is bad news..

I do not favor a contraction.

I do (I guess favor) a restart so long as the ratings are changed to better reflect "real-life." Far too many players are just way, way, way too efficient.

I think this may also be an issue that lies within the DDSPB programming though as I swear every league I've been in there is always those 2-3 players posting 70% TS, with ridiculous PER.

I agree with what the majority decides is always good improvement. what would seem to me it is not cut the league to 25 teams.

Myles (SAS) wrote:Yeah, to be fair this is the first and only restart CSL will have. The previous forums were too buggy and difficult to work with, you could easily lose an entire article just because of the websites bugs.

Also, regardless of whether we contract or not I will be stepping down as GM. I'm not entirely sure whether or not I favor contraction yet but it's something worth discussing.

Fair enough. I just wanted to put it out there so that it doesn't become a trend. There is never going to be a perfect system, and someone is always going to have a complaint or two. I just don't want another restart 6 months from now, but judging from the responses I don't think that's very likely.

I think that what makes the effort and all the hard work put by everyone in this league worth it, and I mean that from the commishes to mods to every single past GM that has contributed to that, is building a league history and sticking with it. It's hard getting a nearly 3 season history as we've done here, to just end it like this.

And I'm not saying there's no need to change things (or that there is), my point is that even if we restart, new changes/upgrades/fixed will need to be made as seasons go on. I don't really think anyone can assure that if we restart and make some changes, there won't be need to make more in another 2/3 seasons.

What if the new scouting system doesn't work as expected? Or if the rating tweaks fix the 'problem' that they want but another one appears because of the previous one disappearing? People will try to do what it works for their team, and if defense or low scoring teams start paying more dividends than high scoring ones, GMs will start changing their preference to build their team, and in another 2 to 3 year period we could see the league build upon defensive teams averaging 90ppg, resulting in a similar situation, even if it's the last restart.

I'm not against changes. We've done that since day 1, like the new FA system for example. If it works, we stick with it, and if not we make another change or try retooling the new rule, but always looking forward and building upon it.

I know having players with 70% TS% is not good, but we can't assure something similar (not in TS%, but in any other parameter) happens again even if we get an even better player ratings. What we need to do is learn from it so that it doesn't happen again in future players, if that's what we want, IMO. We won't find a league file that sticks to actual NBA parameters in every single category no matter how hard we work on it. Changes will need to be made too, maybe not the first season but most sure in the second. We build teams and use strats trying to find what works, as a global rating that now may look fine could be found like a problem in the future if most of the teams start changing their strats to 'exploit' that atribute just because it works.
For instance, if everyone sets the FCP to 10 and the stealing stats starts going up we could lower the rating, but then coaches my find that it isn't worth FCPing that much and decide lowering their strat to FCP 1, so the rating downgrade + lowering the strat by GMs because not being worth it anymore could result again in the overal steals stats in the league being too low.

Finally, and going back to league history, I think that what OP did with the Heat, for example, is and should keep on being part of our league's history. And not only him, but also the teams that sucked past season(s) and have slowly build a young core by suffering losing seasons. If we restart, who's going to try to rebuild instead of trying to go all-in from day 1? I know that when we say that it's the 'last restart' we really mean it, but I'm also sure we also thought that the last time, as it couldn't be any other way everytime a league starts/restarts.

I've build so many league's myself trough the years, with different engines, rule changes, etc. I always wanted to make them better, and they were indeed, but too many changes what we killed was that sense of league history, that in the end is what makes a league strong IMO. Meanwhile, when changes were included while giving some sort of continuation as we kept building on, at the end resulted being better for the league. I don't know if I'm explaining myself here in terms of why, but at least that's the way I feel trough my own experience.

As for the contract thing, I'm not sure about my opinion on it. I would prefer keeping a 'real' 30 team league, but I understand that it's hard to find 30 GMs that stick to that level of compromise we all want. But I think that the goal here is to keep the ones that work and slowly find new quality ones. And for that league history is the most important. Joining a league that has some history behind is much more appealing to a new GM rather than any other thing. Or at least that's how I see it.

Anyway that's just my opinion, trying to add something to the conversation in case it adds anything.

I would not mind continuing on as-is, but I also don't mind starting over. However I do not favor contraction and am strongly against it, as that disrupts the realism that you guys work so hard to preserve. We have 30 GMs (I believe there's a team or two with an assistant GM as well) so there's really no reason to contract.

If I make a couple suggestions:

- If we do start over, I suggest full adherence to the NBA CBA, as much as the DDS game allows.
=> Real salary cap/luxury tax figures
=> Real life trade restrictions
=> Inclusion of Traded Player Exceptions

I really hope this game can get back on track. Y'all have been good to me, as this has been my first foray into a sim league and I've loved every second of it.

Responding to Biz about the CBA:

We use the game's CBA because it's convenient and easy to track. The trade restrictions are what the game dictates because that's very close to NBA rules and we have found it's too have to track otherwise. We can discuss using real life cap and tax but because our calendar doesn't mirror the NBA calendar we wouldn't be able to have a dynamic cap, meaning we'd only change the cap once per calendar year and not once per season. As for TPEs, those have been discussed before and were shot down at that time due to tracking and logistics issues, since the game doesn't include them we would have to make up a way to do it. Doesn't mean we can't discuss it again, just explaining the history there.