04-02-2019, 10:19 PMztevans Wrote: As far as SHL was concerned, honestly surprised we went to a 10-team playoff for this reason.  Went through the effort of reworking and limiting PbPs and removing playoff updates for a while (not sure if this is still the case) in part to shorten the playoffs to a somewhat-manageable two weeks, and then turned around and added a round that only includes 25% of the league and still leaves six teams watching.  Sure, it "gets more people involved" but only for a couple of days.  Figured there would be a much stronger negative reaction but the genie is probably out of the bottle now.

04-03-2019, 11:17 AMTML99 Wrote: The solution isn't to speed up playoffs, its to have enough things to do to keep people occupied until the next season starts imo

04-03-2019, 12:07 PMArGarBarGar Wrote:

04-03-2019, 11:17 AMTML99 Wrote: The solution isn't to speed up playoffs, its to have enough things to do to keep people occupied until the next season starts imo

Which I don't even know what that would be.

04-03-2019, 01:23 PMBarnabasCollins Wrote: What about having the players eliminated be a part of sim testing, for example testing engine 2.0 with injuries on and durability set at 99 for all, or whatever else we think may need testing in the sim that might make it more realistic. Find a simmer willing to test different premises within the sim and check results, that way players would still have games going on that they could see their player in. Would also let the league see results of different tests so they can see what is possible and what isn't in sim. Could test with minute limitations on lines or whatever we think may be a benefit.

04-03-2019, 01:26 PMCampinKiller Wrote:

04-03-2019, 01:23 PMBarnabasCollins Wrote: What about having the players eliminated be a part of sim testing, for example testing engine 2.0 with injuries on and durability set at 99 for all, or whatever else we think may need testing in the sim that might make it more realistic. Find a simmer willing to test different premises within the sim and check results, that way players would still have games going on that they could see their player in. Would also let the league see results of different tests so they can see what is possible and what isn't in sim. Could test with minute limitations on lines or whatever we think may be a benefit.

I’m sold

04-03-2019, 09:11 AMztevans Wrote:

04-03-2019, 08:59 AMGCool Wrote: I totally understand that. And yeah, not all the GM's have lives to attend to, that's for sure. I guess I'm just confused that with all the moving parts and all the suggestions that I'm sure the Head Office is trying to accommodate, how this one always comes up. Logistically it'd have to take a unanimous vote from all of management for something like this to go through -- as opposed to thinks like appointing a League Historian and streamlining the updating process, which the old heads can effectively ignore at no cost to themselves.

If I'm proven wrong, so be it; I just think this is hot air wasted. I won't believe it's going to change until it does, because I've heard the same complaint since S23.

I've advocated more than most for the "common user" with the ultimate goal of killing the tryhard mentality and making the game actually mean something besides acquiring maximum TPE. I don't think the two week layoff is the tipping point for common users; not right now.

In defense of HO, they had actually taken several steps while you were away-ish to condense playoff length.  When I joined the league, it was a three-week endeavor, and it had been chopped down to a much more feasible two weeks with consistency in recent seasons.  Granted, that came at the expense of several PbPs which had mixed but mostly positive reviews, but it was an issue that had been helped.

The issue now, which we haven't even seen in action yet, is where adding a new round fits into the league's "calendar."  The round itself is only a couple of days, but as @Bonk accurately noted on a Big Slappy Hour, that can throw everything on the schedule out of whack since we usually insist on doing preseason on a weekend and starting the regular season on a Monday, and the one time that didn't happen it had some gnarly unintended consequences on things like PT scheduling that left people fuming at the PT team for something they had absolutely no control over.

So yeah, it's just a couple of days of playoffs, but it could easily add a week to the offseason to keep things in rhythm, which puts us right back into that three-week range from the 20s and 30s when people were shouting from the rooftops for a quicker offseason (not that they don't know, but it was more prevalent and justified then).

04-03-2019, 01:57 PMBlastmeaway Wrote:

04-03-2019, 09:11 AMztevans Wrote: In defense of HO, they had actually taken several steps while you were away-ish to condense playoff length.  When I joined the league, it was a three-week endeavor, and it had been chopped down to a much more feasible two weeks with consistency in recent seasons.  Granted, that came at the expense of several PbPs which had mixed but mostly positive reviews, but it was an issue that had been helped.

The issue now, which we haven't even seen in action yet, is where adding a new round fits into the league's "calendar."  The round itself is only a couple of days, but as @Bonk accurately noted on a Big Slappy Hour, that can throw everything on the schedule out of whack since we usually insist on doing preseason on a weekend and starting the regular season on a Monday, and the one time that didn't happen it had some gnarly unintended consequences on things like PT scheduling that left people fuming at the PT team for something they had absolutely no control over.

So yeah, it's just a couple of days of playoffs, but it could easily add a week to the offseason to keep things in rhythm, which puts us right back into that three-week range from the 20s and 30s when people were shouting from the rooftops for a quicker offseason (not that they don't know, but it was more prevalent and justified then).

I have on a spreadsheet tracked how long every season has been since S31, dating the end of the finals/the Commisioners “Retire your players post”. As such even with the new round added in this season the season is still on track to end Saturday, which is what my prediction states at the beginning of the season. Assuming the Finals Game one is simed tonight. I also know that during my time as Assistant to the regional manager Updating Head. Myself and @Dude have made many tasks easier for all those involved. Things from weekly updating the sim file, the Simmer used to have manually input each number week to week, now they download a couple .CSV files and rosters are set and so are updates. Same is said for new player creation in the offseason and regular season, the Simmer doesn’t need to create all these new players. Myself and, formerly @Dude, now @GCool take care of all that work. Our Updating team is essentially responsible for this work. I have also taken almost all of the work out of Regression for @Eggy216, all he does is copy from a file I created. He no longer needs to go through team by team, player by player, and calculate and write up the reggression post. The new system isn’t 100% accurate yet, but the entirety of a weekend that has been freed up for the commissioner allows him and HO to keep moving on Offseason tasks. With these smallish things being done we have streamlined some parts of the league that allow HO to compensate for a lost couple days of the offseason. Basically what I’m saying is that the offseason really shouldn’t be affected by an additional couple days of playoffs.

Everyone wants to play in the playoffs, but then don’t want to wait when their team is eliminated. You get don’t get to have you cake and eat it too.

04-03-2019, 02:08 PMztevans Wrote:

04-03-2019, 01:57 PMBlastmeaway Wrote: I have on a spreadsheet tracked how long every season has been since S31, dating the end of the finals/the Commisioners “Retire your players post”. As such even with the new round added in this season the season is still on track to end Saturday, which is what my prediction states at the beginning of the season. Assuming the Finals Game one is simed tonight. I also know that during my time as Assistant to the regional manager Updating Head. Myself and @Dude have made many tasks easier for all those involved. Things from weekly updating the sim file, the Simmer used to have manually input each number week to week, now they download a couple .CSV files and rosters are set and so are updates. Same is said for new player creation in the offseason and regular season, the Simmer doesn’t need to create all these new players. Myself and, formerly @Dude, now @GCool take care of all that work. Our Updating team is essentially responsible for this work. I have also taken almost all of the work out of Regression for @Eggy216, all he does is copy from a file I created. He no longer needs to go through team by team, player by player, and calculate and write up the reggression post. The new system isn’t 100% accurate yet, but the entirety of a weekend that has been freed up for the commissioner allows him and HO to keep moving on Offseason tasks. With these smallish things being done we have streamlined some parts of the league that allow HO to compensate for a lost couple days of the offseason. Basically what I’m saying is that the offseason really shouldn’t be affected by an additional couple days of playoffs.

Everyone wants to play in the playoffs, but then don’t want to wait when their team is eliminated. You get don’t get to have you cake and eat it too.

This was a well-reasoned and very informative post showing some of the gains we have made and the research done that was worthy of applause until the snide comment at the end, but I appreciate it all the same.

04-03-2019, 09:33 AMJKortesi81 Wrote: Absolutely not.

I personally spend a lot of time line testing and doing everything I can to make the right changes to help my team win. Each game, especially with Simon T, is incredibly important.

It's a lot easier to speed through the playoffs in NSFL and PBE because quite frankly, you aren't making many changes. I mean, NSFL is a one game scenario anyway, not a series, so that doesn't apply here. And for the PBE, you really aren't tweaking your lineup a ton, your defense stays the same for the most part,  and your starting pitchers can't exactly pitch more often since they're exhausted.

I get the "waiting around" thing, i truly, truly do. Hell, i think I championed the whole "Battle for 1OA" in the SMJHL that was despised for this exact reason. . I think the better option here wouldn't be "speed through the playoffs", but "Let's run IIHF during the same time".  It'll give players who aren't in the playoffs "Something to do".

We can cut down on the times between season end and playoff start, although those few days are to help many people get Playoff Brackets in and things of that nature. Same thing when the finals start and we take a minute to get Championship Week/Finals Predictions up. If we speed through that, the more casual player will more than likely miss them, causing them to be ever further behind in easy TPE to the "crazies".

I suggested before that we make IIHF mean more. Give the winners even more money. Every 4th year hold an "Olympics" that'll be a HUGE payout, or even TPE for that. That'll keep the interest of the players not in the playoffs.

In reality, worst case scenario is that we have each round go to 7 games. If we just make it so that we'd sim a series in 3 days no matter what (Games 1/2, 3/4, 5/6/7) we'd be done in 9 days of simming, which isn't too bad if everyone is paying attention to IIHF, or the draft lottery, or things of that nature. In this scenario, we'd sim Game 7 not too long after Game 6 as soon as the GMs are ready) Add in a couple of days for the predictions, and the offseason can be wrapped up in, at most, two weeks-ish, which isn't that awful. Remember, this used to take A LOT longer when we had significantly more PbPs and whatnot. We've already cut down the playoffs/offseason a TON from when i started here.

The point is, we spend about a month of sims to get to this point, and we aren't/shouldn't just start rushing through the playoffs "just to do it" because we live in an era of instant gratification. Other sim leagues have a much easier time having the ability to whip through playoffs. Hockey is just different.