The Sandbox Suggestion Box ("Sandgestion Box")
 

An owner suggested that we create a suggestion box, but there was no place to put his suggestion. So I'm creating this suggestion box so he can submit his suggestion for a suggestion box.

Also, please put any other suggestions here to improve the game so we can centralize the feedback and separate it from the game discussions themselves. As our beta testers, we appreciate your feedback and volunteer work. If we are creating the Apollo moon mission, you people are Ham the chimpanzee.

I suggest a suggestion box..

and a place to put notes so we can use it for player evaluation, game planning, and other ideas we would like to keep

Personally I think the "notes" would be great, but even better if they were decentralized. That is to say...I think every activity should have a place to enter notes.

For example, let's look at the FA process. I am keeping a separate Word file with rankings and notes of the FAs I plan to pursue. It would be great to have that functionality inherent to the program.

Another wish list item: I'd love to have a depth-chart view of the team, rather than just a text list.

Yeah, I second the depth-chart view.

Agreed

I've been using excel, seems to work really nice to organize my team

A trade block would be cool.

Both with spots for looking for and up for trade. Including picks.

this is a must have imo..it would make trades a lot easier if you can see who is on the block and what the other person would like in return

not sure if this is possible or how long it would take to set up, but upon registration have users enter their mobile # and during they draft they would receive a text message notifying them they are up to draft. I think that would greatly speed up the draft because most people dont check their email that often

Some sort of rookie wage scale.

The way FA is set up no player is going play his entire career w
a team, without hitting FA. The price for long term contracts even for positions of lesser value is set up for a lot of roster turn over. While I understand the desire to make players available. I think a majority of owners have a desire to build through the draft and retain players they have drafted.

I would suggest something like this:

1st round- 4yr contract @ $15 w option for 3 more at a discounted rate ($12)
2nd to 4th 3 yr @ 10 w option for 2 @ 5
5th to 7th 3 yr @ 5 w option for @ 1

My rational is rookies are not proven and it rewards for good drafting
just like real nfl

Seconded.

This would be good if we didn't already know the stats of the rookies.

That was the last "cheater" draft

U gonna have to put on ur scout hat, son

Good that was to easy, and it made the 6th and 7th rounds just scraping the bottom of the barrel

A lot of great ideas here. Once I get past basic function, we'll prioritize the projects according to demand and coding effort. Maybe we can find someone who knows how to post a poll to get user input.

Would be helpful to have a "draft board" of sorts for free agency.

I've got all my players picked out in a text file but having it on the site would be useful.

Found the search bar

Also the tables are sortable by column. You can sort by position or by high bids once the bidding starts.

Several people have suggested notes page.

I'm thinking of a transparent popup text box for the key pages that you could save your notes to, to recall later.

Actually I would prefer to have it exactly like the draft setup, where you have the big list on the left and you can create your own board next to it. Would that code be hard to copy/paste into the FA section? Or is that even possible?

I can see the value of that. There are some differences between drafting and bidding. The bidding system would be less complicated since there is no autopick. It is just an easily constructible and sortable list of your own free agent targets. The most difficult portions of the code could be adapted from what I've already written. It probably won't happen for a while but is a decent idea.

If we made some changes to the system now based on feedback (no guarantees, just saying), would it screw up everyone's contracts? We're just figuring out if we should make any changes now or wait until the 2013 season.

I'm cool with whatever. As long as I don't have to click on 1,000 PFR pages again.

Okay, here's what we're proposing.

We're hearing three main critiques: rookies are too expensive, contract lengths and costs for mid-tier players/positional value, and a desire to keep some players from becoming free agents.

The Rookie Issue:

We'll have a rookie contract table that is separate and used only for the draft. It will price contract lengths by round, though as a concession to ease of use it will not price by position.

It will look like this:

The Positional Value/Contract Length Issue:

For free agents, the bidding will proceed as normal. However, the pricing will be based on five position tiers:

Tier 1 - QB
Tier 2 – HB, LT, WR, CB, 3-4 OLB, 4-3 DE
Tier 3 - TE, DT, NT, 3-4 DE, 4-3 LB, MLB/ILB
Tier 4 –G, C, RT, *S, FB, KR/PR if no other position listed
Tier 5 – P, K = 0.5

When you bid on a free agent or re-sign a player, the contract length correlates to the amount of money you pay for them. It's the same system originally put forth, but now we delineate by positional value.

The table below shows the thresholds for each contract length. Once you pay above the thresholds shown below, you have the rights to that player for X years (unless you trade him). So for example, if you pay 40 points for a defensive tackle, who is a Tier 3 player, you get his rights for four years. (Look at Tier 3, and if you pay between 37 and 54 points it's a four-year contract.) If you pay 40 points for a quarterback, who is a Tier 1 player, you only get his rights for two years. If you paid that quarterback 44 points you could up his contract to three years.

The Retain My Players Issue:


At the end of each season, all of your players with 0 contract years remaining will go to free agency, just like usual. However, there are two exceptions to the existing rule.
You can retain up to two players before they go through free agency. However, in order to do so, you must give them a contract of five years or longer. Also, note that they are now paid on the veteran scale.

Note that you can still retain the players by beating the high bid, as discussed in the initial rules.

Suggesting for the FA auction:

A 'blind' auction close date. Nobody really knows when a FA is going to make up his mind. He may make it up in 2 days, may make it in 10. GoChiefs was worried about sniping and this would discourage that.

If every player has a somewhat randomized date that he goes 'final' on the auction block, you're well served to be honest in what you're willing to bid and bid it. You also have a real concern about where you're making your bids because you can't bid out more than you have and someone under the radar that you have your eye on could go off the board while you're allocating your FA dollars to other guys.

Seems to solve a few problems and also create some additional strategic possibilities.

nobody will get sniped because the bid has to be inactive for 72 hours before it is a done deal.

Yeah my sniping concern was people only bidding on a player because others were bidding on said player.

ya i never thought about that.

And this kinda sidesteps that.

If I want a player and bid on him early, he may just say "**** it" and 1/2 an hour after I put my bid in, he signs the damn thing.

It certainly has the chance to backfire and piss some people right off, but if you know what you're willing to bid...sure seems to encourage you to bid it, does it not?

Maybe you give it an open 24 hour period and then after 24 hours, it could just close up on you.

I see what you mean now.

I'd be down for that, especially as there are a LOT of players I'm interested in.

This would also be more realistic.

The reason for this approach is that it's completely transparent, and also prevents bid sniping. If we have a blind close date and we've got 100 leagues active (or 1,000...), we'll constantly be getting complaints from conspiracy theorists. So our goal was to design a system where if you want a guy, you have every chance to go get him, and it's not subject to who can squeeze in the last bid before a deadline. (I wonder why e-bay doesn't go with this type of system. I bet it would produce higher bids.)

If you want a guy, you can't let him sit there with an offer in front of him. You have to bid. But if you bid, you're investing precious dollars that can't be used elsewhere so you'd better want the guy. You can try to bluff and drive someone's price up, but it would be a very risky and inefficient move for the most part.

Free Agency bidding should be private. We should be able to see everything that is shown now, but not who has the highest bid in, IMO.

+1

Why?

I'm not necessarily against it, I'm just wondering why that would be better.

Because people will intentionally target players specific owners are.

zeke is right.

The real NFL doesn't work that way, though.

Players will go to one team, get an offer, and then another team will outbid that offer.

the offer amount yes, but it doesn't necessarily know who the offer is coming from.

Clay's concerns about sniping were also warranted.

I've seen too many people fly under the radar for a day, only to have multiple bids rocket them up to believe otherwise.

I still think getting rid of the damn clock takes care of this. You can just sort by the clock time and know everyone that's rec'd a bid. You can even wait until there's an hour or so left and then toss another bid in.

Nobody knows when/how a FA is going to make up their minds, it makes no sense to me at all to have a running clock that tells everyone exactly who's getting offers and when.

I know the goal was 'complete transparency', but there's entirely too much of it. There's really no incentive at all to have done your homework here.

EDIT: Even if CD wants to make sure that there's 3 days after each bid before it closes (which is way way too much time, IMO), there's still no reason at all to make it obvious when that three days expires. You can have your consistent time periods without also having a running clock alongside for everyone to sit there and stare at.

I think, at the very least, the timer should be reduced to 24 hours.

This rewards the more active teams who are monitoring everything.

I agree 100% with this as well.

3 days is just way too long. 48 hours at the most.

I had Andre Brown as one of my first bids and sat there and watched everyone ignore him for two and a half days. Was sure I was going to land him cheap.

Gets bid up about an hour ago. :mad:

Get used to it.

It's going to get much much worse over the next few days.

All of this.

I feel like the hours I spent researching were a pretty big waste of time. I'm not bitter, I knew the rules going in. But I don't think the system as it stands today is optimum.

I think every player (or at least MOST players) should have an immediate signing threshold. If you bid over $300 for Sherman he's yours. The actual number shouldn't be public knowledge.

Or perhaps an algorithm that assigns a percentage chance for an immediate signing that increases in probability as the bids get higher (a guy has a .0001% chance of immediately signing for $1, but a 75% chance of signing immediately for $250).

There needs to be an incentive to bid early and often. Otherwise the snipers have all the leverage.

I also think the whole system is a bit too transparent. To best illustrate what really happens in the NFL, the waters need to be muddied a bit, IMO. An NFL GM has an agent and other GMs for sources, neither of which may be telling them the whole story. I'm not sure how you implement that into the game, but I think it would be an improvement.

What if you set a limit on the number of bids a team could place in a 24-hour period.

This would make each offer that more precious.

Right now people just flip offers willy nilly if they feel like it.

I like this idea.

I deleted the rest of his post since I don't see how the snipers have any leverage whatsoever as the clock doesn't end, it just restarts with each new bid.

I had also pondered the idea of a "half life" timer, with the countdown becoming smaller with each bid, but that just encourages ebay style bidding I think.

Or maybe...if you don't bid on a player within a certain amount of time, you're out of the running for that player.

Leverage might have been a bad choice of words. But there is no incentive to do any research and there is no incentive to bid until the last minute.

There was 1 day 6 hours left when I bid on him. Weekends are my weakness. I am rarely online on weekends. Wasn't ignoring him, was just watching the market a bit.

Like when Foster sat there for 36 hours without a bid and then you bid on him within 5 minutes of me making the opening bid on him? 15 minutes later he's the highest paid guard on the FA market.

You're as bad as anyone about it.

I don't like the immediate signing. it caters to the person that clicks the button first.

Here's a thought though. Instead of having the nickel and dime micro-transactions that go back and forth. Make it a 3-bid limit per player... meaning you can only bid 3 times for that player. Once you've bid that third time You've submitted your highest. Will make people actually bid closer to what they'd be willing to pay rather than just doing $1 over the most recent, repeatedly. This only works if the bid owner is private though.

By the way, you're going to sit on that Foster bid for 48 hours before I jump you up on it again. This is stupid.

Wait what? There was NO bid on Foster when I made the bid for him. I gave him a multi yr contract bid. I thought I was the first to make a bid on him and wouldn't have any competition. I thought it was weird that I made a bid on him and then people were bidding immediately after I started on him. I had only gone through Half the FA's leading up to today... am finishing up the rest today... I think the timing of our bids were coincidental on him.

There's two things at play here that need to be changed.

1. the bids are private, only the amount is viewable. The timer\owner of bid needs to not be seen.

2. the bidding timer needs to be reduced, drastically.

That's a good idea. There is a 48-hr window from the initial bid. Anyone who makes a bid within that first 48 hours can then bid until the Free Agent signs, but no one else.

Not true, I made the first bid on him this morning.

Perhaps it's just a fluke and we both made a bid at the same time, but I gave him exactly what it took to get him locked into a 4 year deal and a couple minutes later yours was $1 above mine. That was why I immediately bid on him after you did; I'd targeted him this morning.

I've had to counterbid like 4 times already this morning. When I made my bid, I was the first person. I see what happened. Your initial bid was more than mine... I had made the initial bid, however your browser had not updated as you were going through it, this has to be true from my perspective because I checked my bid after I had submitted and it was there with Dallas's 3 yr deal I had offered. Your "initial" bid was naturally larger than mine, I countered immediately when seeing this.

I may be one of the few, but I like the idea of knowing what team is bidding on what player. It isn't like the Chiefs don't know who the Raiders are bringing in for a workout.

Makes sense because I did the same - as soon as I put my bid in (and the screen said 0 at the time), I was the high bidder. I did a quick sort just to make sure. You've counterbid several times this morning because I tried to get back above you.

Eh, makes little difference at this point. But when rage said 'leverage', he was partially right - there's no incentive for me to make a quick counter to this and that's just wrong. If you try to slow-play a FA like this, he's going to tell you to get ****ed and sign the deal he has in front of him.

It's fine like it is, as far as I can see. The prices will go up until people don't want to pay more. Who cares if it takes weeks? We've got a lot of time until anything interesting and football related happens in the real world.

More research may not lead to getting incredible players at low prices like you may have hoped, but it will help you know when to stop bidding and who to focus your efforts on when money gets tight as prices continue to rise. You know, kind of like real free agency.

'bid history' (as in, some sort of system that tells who you've bid on--via link, etc.) would be a welcome addition.

Thanks for the input, everyone.

As background for people, recognize that we're running a compressed process right now, so this is probably not really how it's going to run in future seasons. In future seasons the free agent signing period is going to occur during the NFL season, and you're gong to be pursuing free agents on a staggered basis rather than seeing the whole league at once (based on our current plans). This means that a longer window may be required on the bidding.

Linked to that is, quite frankly, our business goal of keeping people involved in the league so our paying customers don't wander off and start playing Tetris or something during the offseason. We want their involvement to be year-round at a low intensity with a big burst during the Sandbox season in February and March. So we need a system that is strategic in nature and keeps people active at a low but sustainable level over a 16 to 20 week "Sandbox offseason". So as you're providing feedback, please keep that in mind.

We'll keep improving it and appreciate the feedback. But the real test is going to come in the next free agent period after this when we enter the real-time league calendar.

Maybe I'm alone on this one, but I'd like to see a minimum increment for outbidding. Perhaps every higher bid has to go to the next tier of contract length.

I feel like we're never going to finish this with all these $1 outbids (and yes I'm frustrated that I just had a guy get bid up by $1 with 14 hours to go.)

Any thoughts to having an option to trade cash (cap space)? Would be nice if you have the option to sort of pay for part of a players contact by trading cash in addition to the picks/players.

We haven't thought about that. You can kind of do it by signing a player and then trading him, though the timing would be delicate on that. We'll consider it.

Yeah, I just thought about it when I was talking about a trade. If the players are similar and one is signed to a longer contract, it would be nice for the other team to have a way to make the contacts similar just by giving the cash it would cost to sign them to it.

Need injured reserve.

I'm thinking moving signed free agents to the bottom of the list might be prudent, no?

Man one day away from being signed and someone bid on one of my guys gets so frustrating.

I don't think it should reset to 3 days, once two days is up it should only reset to a day. once a day is up it should reset to 2 days.

ok I have a minor beef... if I am winning a free agent with only a few minutes left... I should be able to increase my own bid to get the contract length I want without having it reset the timer. Or maybe give an option to increase contract lengths with leftover money after free agency. Call it a "restructure period."

Agreed on above. This would be nice.

Yeah, we've talked about that ourselves.

I finally won a couple FA's & was scared to death to up the points for longer contracts since it would expose them that much longer.

Why not open your bid at the contract level you want? There's no rule that says you have to min bid to get your guy. If you want him on a 7, open your bid at 100. If you want him on a 3 open at a 40 or whatever.

edit: I don't understand why poor planning on the bidder's behalf necessitates a coding/rule change.

I do not like this idea. As in my last post, I think you should bid the contract you want and run with it.

this

How come when you release a guy or trade a guy, your salary doesn't change?