UTG Season 2: Feedback & Suggestions Thread

[fanTCfool]

Coaches,

Your feedback is requested to shape the UTG going forward.

Share your thoughts along the following lines,

What worked well this year?
What didn't work so well?
What needs to be changed/fixed?
How could the Finals Series be improved?
Other brilliant ideas to improve the competition?

It'd be great to get your suggestions to apply to Season 3, I hope all coaches will be keen to return.

[Nige]

No consumables in finals is literally all I ask for, really just defeats the purpose imo (see my rant in the other thread if you don't know what I mean).

[LordSneeze]

What worked well this year?
The overall idea is great and was well run. Good group of participants that provided friendly, but competitive banter.

Trading – Great addition

Fixtures – Set weeks for set different rules is great.

What didn't work so well?
The Mini Games - Anything with a reward should always be competed at a level playing field, orders for selecting, first come first served all advantage and disadvantage people, in many cases making it near impossible to compete. The variability in the rewards should be where the randomness factor can come in.
 
The Mini Games Part 2 – The Champion system was poor as it ran for several weeks giving advantages to some players and then all of a sudden stopped removing the ability for all others to get that advantage.

Too Random – IMO the structure is slightly too random.

Auctions – Selling Cards after auction finished. Should only be able to use on-hand gold.

What needs to be changed/fixed?
Mini Games
Finals

How could the Finals Series be improved?
Limit consumables to those saved throughout the year and 1 per week


Other brilliant ideas to improve the competition?
I have lots

1 – Fixtures – While fixtures are great, this could be run concurrently with a normal selection. So you have your best team and then a second based on the rules. Each with their own gold rewards. However no player can be used in both teams on the same week.

2 – Mini Games – Implement only mini games that provide a level playing field for all teams. Make it so it is PM’s instead of posted as many teams would take another teams selections and then make a few subtle changes.

3 – Special Cards – Much like inform from Ultimate Team Games, a set of 10 Players each week are put as SE cards based. If you pack that player you get it as a SE version.

4 – Packs – Expand the range of packs that can be purchased. For example
20G – Normal Pack (3 Cards)
30G – Normal pack (3 Cards - 1 Guaranteed Silver+)
60G – 1 Gold Player Pack (1 Card Guaranteed Gold+)
100G – Jumbo Pack (16 Cards)
300G – 1 Platinum Player (1 Card, No Position)
500G – 1 Platinum Player (Pick your Position)

5 – Player Auctions – Open up the ability for players put their own cards up for a 2 day auction with buy now & reserve prices. Limit of 1 card per week.
For Example, if I had Neale as excess to requirements instead of being forced to sell for 50G I could list up as a reserve price of 100 with a buy now of 150 and anyone who wanted could purchase that card.

[fanTCfool]

Thanks for the comments LS.

I will point out that the Champion System had to be discontinued, along with Mini Games, when Levi required some time away from the forum. This was not planned and thus everyone suffered from my B-Grade Mini Games after that point.

Could you please clarify what you mean by,
"Too Random – IMO the structure is slightly too random"

Is that in regards to cards? Fixture? Otherwise?

As for the selling cards after auction, last season this was not permitted, and this season it was, now that both methods have been trialed I agree to lean towards not allowing sales after auction. However, this could best be put to a poll.

I am interested in expanding packs into at least one other option, a value pack of sorts for next season and beyond.

Finally, the coaches putting cards up for auction was experimented with in a Mini Game earlier this season, but is something that could be factored in for future plans. I would be inclined to have it as more of an occasional thing, like trading, rather than on a week-to-week basis.


While I'm here, some of my own thoughts,

If I am not mistaken, a total of 0 HGA cards were used this season, having far more value as 1/6 of a gold than 20 points.
This says to me that the card certainly needs a re-vamp.

Instead, I propose that the HGA card carry the points value of the Friday Night Margin, this way there is a bit of value to be had in the HGA, as well as a bit of a gamble as to whether the margin would be big or small.

It was also suggested that HGA provide the point value of the margin of any game of your choosing, as a stronger option.

[jvalles69]

What worked well this year?
Fixtures were great, kept you on your toes by looking ahead.

Good bunch of dudes.

Trading was one of my favourite parts.

What didn't work so well?
The final auction period seemed to throw a damper on the finals series.

What needs to be changed/fixed?
I think the finals system needs to be revamped.

Mini games were up and down, maybe list all the season long ones and vote for which ones worked and which ones didn't to cull out the bad ones.

How could the Finals Series be improved?
Not 100% sure but the season should have more impact on the finals series.  Whether that be h2h matchups through the season, grading weeks to make 2 conferences, rankings based on score accumulation or beating opponents.

Other brilliant ideas to improve the competition?
I think if you purchase a player at auction you should have to hold them for at least a week before you can sell them or trade them.

Could have a season long trade period with a trade deadline and with each team having limited trades.

Rewards for mini games could be a choice, a Gold card, a pack, an extra trade to use etc.

Just off the top of my head, and thanks for organising and putting so much effort into it FTC!

[jvalles69]

I'll add, the fizz has fizzled out of this comp, finals prob need a complete overhaul.  Think weekly rewards are necessary during finals as this is what hooks us in to improve our team and think this should still be the case during finals, maybe not the same as the regular season, but something to keep the comp active.  I'd go with no collectables are allowed to be used during finals, unless there are specific finals level collectable that can only be used in finals that can be pulled from packs (give the owner an incentive to keep it or sell it/trade it).

Up till finals I think eveything has been perfect, thanks again to FTCF.  Let's put our heads together and make the finals just as good.

[GoLions]

I'll add, the fizz has fizzled out of this comp, finals prob need a complete overhaul.  Think weekly rewards are necessary during finals as this is what hooks us in to improve our team and think this should still be the case during finals, maybe not the same as the regular season, but something to keep the comp active.  I'd go with no collectables are allowed to be used during finals, unless there are specific finals level collectable that can only be used in finals that can be pulled from packs (give the owner an incentive to keep it or sell it/trade it).

Up till finals I think eveything has been perfect, thanks again to FTCF.  Let's put our heads together and make the finals just as good.

I was meant to make a post on this a while back but completely forgot.

We currently have the Finals HGA card, which gives you +50 iirc, by trading in three regular HGA cards worth +20 each. I think we should have a similar concept applied to all collectables. This is what I'm thinking:

Currently, we can use a collectable such as a captain card in a finals game. I think regular captain cards should not be allowed. Instead, if you collect 3 captain cards, you can trade them in for a finals captain card, which can only be used in finals. I would also like this to be applied to every single collectable in the game, and this will make coaches think harder about what to do with these collectables during the season. Is it worth using them early to gain a big advantage to collect more gold and set your team up quicker at the start of the season? Is it still a good idea to trade them away in rarity upgrades? Or should they be saved for finals, knowing that, without having them in auctions or as mini-game prizes, it's probably unlikely that you'll get more than maybe 4-5 of each collectable throughout the season. Some you might not even get 3 of throughout the entire season.

This would mean that, for each team, you probably won't have more than 2-3 finals cards that you can use, and won't have a massive impact on allowing a team (or teams) to completely dominate the rest by loading up at the end of the year, but still makes enough of a difference to make things interesting both throughout the season and during finals.

[GoLions]

With regards to the mini-games, obviously Levi was supposed to be taking charge of that this season, but things came up outside of his control which meant he had to stop early on in the season.

It'd probably be nice to have all mini-games outlined as of round 1 though, so in case something comes up during the season, or to prevent ryno or whoever else from not knowing what to come up with, we will still know what's happening each week.

The prizes were done better than last season though, as I think they were a bit too OP last year.

[GoLions]

I'd say the rest went pretty well though. Love the mix of fixtures throughout the year. I quite like LS' suggestion on having the concurrent fixtures though!

1 – Fixtures – While fixtures are great, this could be run concurrently with a normal selection. So you have your best team and then a second based on the rules. Each with their own gold rewards. However no player can be used in both teams on the same week.

I reckon this would be awesome, however not allowing players to be used in both teams would be extremely difficult, particularly early on. I couldn't field a full team until like halfway through the season, as I was never able to get a ruck. Having that in two lots of fixtures can put someone way back, and I didn't manage to get a 2nd playing ruck either for the whole season, always injured ones

I also don't mind this idea:

4 – Packs – Expand the range of packs that can be purchased. For example
20G – Normal Pack (3 Cards)
30G – Normal pack (3 Cards - 1 Guaranteed Silver+)
60G – 1 Gold Player Pack (1 Card Guaranteed Gold+)
100G – Jumbo Pack (16 Cards)
300G – 1 Platinum Player (1 Card, No Position)
500G – 1 Platinum Player (Pick your Position)

Could probably be tweaked a bit, but definitely some sort of base to go off. Particularly like the jumbo pack

[LordSneeze]

Thanks for the comments LS.

I will point out that the Champion System had to be discontinued, along with Mini Games, when Levi required some time away from the forum. This was not planned and thus everyone suffered from my B-Grade Mini Games after that point.

Could you please clarify what you mean by,
"Too Random – IMO the structure is slightly too random"

Is that in regards to cards? Fixture? Otherwise?

As for the selling cards after auction, last season this was not permitted, and this season it was, now that both methods have been trialed I agree to lean towards not allowing sales after auction. However, this could best be put to a poll.

I am interested in expanding packs into at least one other option, a value pack of sorts for next season and beyond.

Finally, the coaches putting cards up for auction was experimented with in a Mini Game earlier this season, but is something that could be factored in for future plans. I would be inclined to have it as more of an occasional thing, like trading, rather than on a week-to-week basis.

I can understand the real life requirements, ive had a similar thing over the last month or 2 with the leagues I run. Just a frustration.

The randomness aspect of the game is good, its just I found that it was too random, too many aspects were reliant on randomness. You had randomness in packs, scores, mini games rewards, auctions, trading. So if you get unlucky for a few weeks you fall way off the pace. Also continually pulling crap rewards or packs is very frustrating when others seem to keep pulling things, EG GL not getting playing players in some positions, my statistically impossible run without a gold player.

Agree a poll is best, if you are willing to sell a card before bidding you take the risk you still won't get the card. Doing it after means you can hide what you are willing to do.

Expanding packs is really needed IMO. It allows better strategy, do you try for the luck, or spend more and guarantee something.

I thought the auction was a good idea at the time, but it was open pricing, if you could set a reserve price then I think more people would be willing to put up cards to auction. Without it I would be very unlikely to do it again.
Much like selling back to the bank, id be very unlikely to do this again given the pricing was well off the mark. Selling a bronze netted you 15 (7.5x sale value), a silver 25 (5x Sale value) & Gold 30 (2.5x Sale Value), others then had the chance to pick these up. Gold & Silvers were very cheap compared to market value while Bronzes were overpriced. Essentially benefiting the people not risking a good card while harming though putting up something with more market value.

Upgrade trade ins needs to be improved though. IMO mainly because of the experience I had getting Murphy, I had worked hard, done well most weeks and mini games, got a couple of good pack pulls, played the auctions effectively. Decided to upgrade 7 golds to get a platinum that I expected would be an upgrade, only to get a player that was clearly not a platinum player. Platinums should be reserved for the best of the best and everyone of them should be an upgrade for your team, not just based on PY averages.
I was very close to quitting after that as I felt like i went from being one of the stronger squads to one of the weaker based on 1 RNG

[fanTCfool]

Thanks for the comments LS.

I will point out that the Champion System had to be discontinued, along with Mini Games, when Levi required some time away from the forum. This was not planned and thus everyone suffered from my B-Grade Mini Games after that point.

Could you please clarify what you mean by,
"Too Random – IMO the structure is slightly too random"

Is that in regards to cards? Fixture? Otherwise?

As for the selling cards after auction, last season this was not permitted, and this season it was, now that both methods have been trialed I agree to lean towards not allowing sales after auction. However, this could best be put to a poll.

I am interested in expanding packs into at least one other option, a value pack of sorts for next season and beyond.

Finally, the coaches putting cards up for auction was experimented with in a Mini Game earlier this season, but is something that could be factored in for future plans. I would be inclined to have it as more of an occasional thing, like trading, rather than on a week-to-week basis.

Much like selling back to the bank, id be very unlikely to do this again given the pricing was well off the mark. Selling a bronze netted you 15 (7.5x sale value), a silver 25 (5x Sale value) & Gold 30 (2.5x Sale Value), others then had the chance to pick these up. Gold & Silvers were very cheap compared to market value while Bronzes were overpriced. Essentially benefiting the people not risking a good card while harming though putting up something with more market value.

Upgrade trade ins needs to be improved though. IMO mainly because of the experience I had getting Murphy, I had worked hard, done well most weeks and mini games, got a couple of good pack pulls, played the auctions effectively. Decided to upgrade 7 golds to get a platinum that I expected would be an upgrade, only to get a player that was clearly not a platinum player. Platinums should be reserved for the best of the best and everyone of them should be an upgrade for your team, not just based on PY averages.
I was very close to quitting after that as I felt like i went from being one of the stronger squads to one of the weaker based on 1 RNG

I strongly disagree with your sentiments that the pricing was well off the mark, bronze were offered 7.5x value as the bronze cards being offered up were actually decent cards. The majority of bronze cards are spuds, no one was going to put up a Luke Strnadica because no one would buy it. Obviously such a card would not receive a 7.5 mark up. As was most notably the case last year, bronze cards, such as Daniel Wells last year and say Zak Jones this year can, at times, be more valuable than other silver cards.

Speaking of rarities, I understand your continued displeasure at pulling Murphy, but what's to say he wouldn't average 102 again next season? Obviously history says an 80 average is more likely, but if I'm adjusting every card based on my personal opinion, then the game loses some integrity and is purely based on my skewed opinion. Doing cards on rarity is the only fair way to do it. Otherwise it is just my opinion, should I have made Josh Kelly a platinum after his pre-season? Hindsight says yes, but Heretier Lumumba says no. I concede that Murphy should have been a gold instead, but as previously mentioned I did attempt to manually adjust effected cards (ie. returning Essendon players) where appropriate. 95% of cards do not require adjustments as average is a fair representation of rarity. The chance of you pulling Murphy was exactly the same as any other coach, so you were not disadvantaged just unlucky to have pulled him. All teams had a chance of pulling Murphy in a plat exchange and it was a risk taken by all except a certain pelican named Koop.

Perhaps, next season, a new platinum exchange could be introduced where 10 gold cards guarantees a player that is in the top 40% of their position at that time. For example, if there were 10 platinum defenders, you would be guaranteed one of the top 4.

Or other possible resolutions such as in-form cards that could be exchanged for as previously mentioned.

As for the again mentioned statistically impossible run without a gold, you must consider that timing of your pack purchases and the number of packs you purchase each time impacts the likelihood of pulling cards, as many have picked up on.

[LordSneeze]

Thanks for the comments LS.

I will point out that the Champion System had to be discontinued, along with Mini Games, when Levi required some time away from the forum. This was not planned and thus everyone suffered from my B-Grade Mini Games after that point.

Could you please clarify what you mean by,
"Too Random – IMO the structure is slightly too random"

Is that in regards to cards? Fixture? Otherwise?

As for the selling cards after auction, last season this was not permitted, and this season it was, now that both methods have been trialed I agree to lean towards not allowing sales after auction. However, this could best be put to a poll.

I am interested in expanding packs into at least one other option, a value pack of sorts for next season and beyond.

Finally, the coaches putting cards up for auction was experimented with in a Mini Game earlier this season, but is something that could be factored in for future plans. I would be inclined to have it as more of an occasional thing, like trading, rather than on a week-to-week basis.

Much like selling back to the bank, id be very unlikely to do this again given the pricing was well off the mark. Selling a bronze netted you 15 (7.5x sale value), a silver 25 (5x Sale value) & Gold 30 (2.5x Sale Value), others then had the chance to pick these up. Gold & Silvers were very cheap compared to market value while Bronzes were overpriced. Essentially benefiting the people not risking a good card while harming though putting up something with more market value.

Upgrade trade ins needs to be improved though. IMO mainly because of the experience I had getting Murphy, I had worked hard, done well most weeks and mini games, got a couple of good pack pulls, played the auctions effectively. Decided to upgrade 7 golds to get a platinum that I expected would be an upgrade, only to get a player that was clearly not a platinum player. Platinums should be reserved for the best of the best and everyone of them should be an upgrade for your team, not just based on PY averages.
I was very close to quitting after that as I felt like i went from being one of the stronger squads to one of the weaker based on 1 RNG

I strongly disagree with your sentiments that the pricing was well off the mark, bronze were offered 7.5x value as the bronze cards being offered up were actually decent cards. The majority of bronze cards are spuds, no one was going to put up a Luke Strnadica because no one would buy it. Obviously such a card would not receive a 7.5 mark up. As was most notably the case last year, bronze cards, such as Daniel Wells last year and say Zak Jones this year can, at times, be more valuable than other silver cards.

Speaking of rarities, I understand your continued displeasure at pulling Murphy, but what's to say he wouldn't average 102 again next season? Obviously history says an 80 average is more likely, but if I'm adjusting every card based on my personal opinion, then the game loses some integrity and is purely based on my skewed opinion. Doing cards on rarity is the only fair way to do it. Otherwise it is just my opinion, should I have made Josh Kelly a platinum after his pre-season? Hindsight says yes, but Heretier Lumumba says no. I concede that Murphy should have been a gold instead, but as previously mentioned I did attempt to manually adjust effected cards (ie. returning Essendon players) where appropriate. 95% of cards do not require adjustments as average is a fair representation of rarity. The chance of you pulling Murphy was exactly the same as any other coach, so you were not disadvantaged just unlucky to have pulled him. All teams had a chance of pulling Murphy in a plat exchange and it was a risk taken by all except a certain pelican named Koop.

Perhaps, next season, a new platinum exchange could be introduced where 10 gold cards guarantees a player that is in the top 40% of their position at that time. For example, if there were 10 platinum defenders, you would be guaranteed one of the top 4.

Or other possible resolutions such as in-form cards that could be exchanged for as previously mentioned.

As for the again mentioned statistically impossible run without a gold, you must consider that timing of your pack purchases and the number of packs you purchase each time impacts the likelihood of pulling cards, as many have picked up on.

Obviously it all personal opinions and not an attack on you. Gotta provide honest feedback,
Im an analyst, so automatically/unknowingly look at the numbers in comparison and personally the mark-ups just seemed off too me given the added value of the higher cards trade in values.

I understand it was how it was and couldn't change. There is no way to change off personal opinion, but players that have played under a certain amount of games should be downgraded, otherwise you could be seeing players who have played 2 or 3 games and scoring well as plats when in truth they should be Bronze or Silver.

Personally I don't like the top 40% idea as I don't think we would ever see a Platinum trade outside that, Maybe reducing the Platinum pool of players and increasing the cost would work in a similar manner. For example top 5 def, Top 5 fwd, Top 2 Ruck, Top 15 mids

Probability Mathematics actually means that each pack and each player is independent of each other. So there is no other impacts that affect the rate of pulls, thus long runs are statistically unlikely.

[fanTCfool]

Thanks for the comments LS.

I will point out that the Champion System had to be discontinued, along with Mini Games, when Levi required some time away from the forum. This was not planned and thus everyone suffered from my B-Grade Mini Games after that point.

Could you please clarify what you mean by,
"Too Random – IMO the structure is slightly too random"

Is that in regards to cards? Fixture? Otherwise?

As for the selling cards after auction, last season this was not permitted, and this season it was, now that both methods have been trialed I agree to lean towards not allowing sales after auction. However, this could best be put to a poll.

I am interested in expanding packs into at least one other option, a value pack of sorts for next season and beyond.

Finally, the coaches putting cards up for auction was experimented with in a Mini Game earlier this season, but is something that could be factored in for future plans. I would be inclined to have it as more of an occasional thing, like trading, rather than on a week-to-week basis.

Much like selling back to the bank, id be very unlikely to do this again given the pricing was well off the mark. Selling a bronze netted you 15 (7.5x sale value), a silver 25 (5x Sale value) & Gold 30 (2.5x Sale Value), others then had the chance to pick these up. Gold & Silvers were very cheap compared to market value while Bronzes were overpriced. Essentially benefiting the people not risking a good card while harming though putting up something with more market value.

Upgrade trade ins needs to be improved though. IMO mainly because of the experience I had getting Murphy, I had worked hard, done well most weeks and mini games, got a couple of good pack pulls, played the auctions effectively. Decided to upgrade 7 golds to get a platinum that I expected would be an upgrade, only to get a player that was clearly not a platinum player. Platinums should be reserved for the best of the best and everyone of them should be an upgrade for your team, not just based on PY averages.
I was very close to quitting after that as I felt like i went from being one of the stronger squads to one of the weaker based on 1 RNG

I strongly disagree with your sentiments that the pricing was well off the mark, bronze were offered 7.5x value as the bronze cards being offered up were actually decent cards. The majority of bronze cards are spuds, no one was going to put up a Luke Strnadica because no one would buy it. Obviously such a card would not receive a 7.5 mark up. As was most notably the case last year, bronze cards, such as Daniel Wells last year and say Zak Jones this year can, at times, be more valuable than other silver cards.

Speaking of rarities, I understand your continued displeasure at pulling Murphy, but what's to say he wouldn't average 102 again next season? Obviously history says an 80 average is more likely, but if I'm adjusting every card based on my personal opinion, then the game loses some integrity and is purely based on my skewed opinion. Doing cards on rarity is the only fair way to do it. Otherwise it is just my opinion, should I have made Josh Kelly a platinum after his pre-season? Hindsight says yes, but Heretier Lumumba says no. I concede that Murphy should have been a gold instead, but as previously mentioned I did attempt to manually adjust effected cards (ie. returning Essendon players) where appropriate. 95% of cards do not require adjustments as average is a fair representation of rarity. The chance of you pulling Murphy was exactly the same as any other coach, so you were not disadvantaged just unlucky to have pulled him. All teams had a chance of pulling Murphy in a plat exchange and it was a risk taken by all except a certain pelican named Koop.

Perhaps, next season, a new platinum exchange could be introduced where 10 gold cards guarantees a player that is in the top 40% of their position at that time. For example, if there were 10 platinum defenders, you would be guaranteed one of the top 4.

Or other possible resolutions such as in-form cards that could be exchanged for as previously mentioned.

As for the again mentioned statistically impossible run without a gold, you must consider that timing of your pack purchases and the number of packs you purchase each time impacts the likelihood of pulling cards, as many have picked up on.

Obviously it all personal opinions and not an attack on you. Gotta provide honest feedback,
Im an analyst, so automatically/unknowingly look at the numbers in comparison and personally the mark-ups just seemed off too me given the added value of the higher cards trade in values.

I understand it was how it was and couldn't change. There is no way to change off personal opinion, but players that have played under a certain amount of games should be downgraded, otherwise you could be seeing players who have played 2 or 3 games and scoring well as plats when in truth they should be Bronze or Silver.

Personally I don't like the top 40% idea as I don't think we would ever see a Platinum trade outside that, Maybe reducing the Platinum pool of players and increasing the cost would work in a similar manner. For example top 5 def, Top 5 fwd, Top 2 Ruck, Top 15 mids

Probability Mathematics actually means that each pack and each player is independent of each other. So there is no other impacts that affect the rate of pulls, thus long runs are statistically unlikely.

Each pack should be independent of another, but, as the person with the generator, I can confirm this is not the case.