Some might think that, and I can see where they are coming from, but this IS the first time in some time on this board that there has been some meaningful conversation about the Forza league, which can't possibly be a bad thing. Besides, a lone suggestion without any input from others probably won't get too far. I'm just a little shocked that some are making me out to be a basher of the league and nosice and whatnot, which couldn't be further from the truth were people to read everything that I wrote.
I know this season I've pretty much been absent, this time of year has ended up being busy for me and I haven't raced. That being said, I'm gonna try and race out the season, then I will not be re-upping for season 3, as with the NHL league and my new job I wont be able to race at all, I would leave if I was taking up a spot for sure, since im not really contributing at all.
This is a good time to remind everyone that massive membership will probably improve attendance. Get the name of the site out there when you run into good drivers in pick-up races.
Even with massive membership you will still have the same problem with no-shows. In reality your going to have to rely on your members that have dedication to the site. You will find that when Joe Blow who I found racing in the room last night dosen't give a rip if he blows off races after he's been drafted and put on a team. I hope I'm not out of line but, from reading the posts the probable best course of action would be to reduce the numbers of rooms and/or racers to a room. Its always better to have a couple signed up as alts as opposed to trying to fill rooms to accomodate everyone on a team. As for the points, I don't know how you score them but I have a scoring system that seems to work rather well. PM me if interested. Again if I'm out of line let me appologize now.
im sure if we really look for decent people we could find them .. just have a couple things we look for .. clean driving - lots of online race time i think i have way over 100 hours so like anything above 75 .. have them register and then keep posting and running practice with us. ( i have open practice rooms twice a week) and then draft after like 2 weeks. just a suggestion
I've decided I need to practice Forza every day, like keeping up on a sport or musical instrument (I kind of suck at guitar lately, any guesses why? ) I'll make part of that practice some pick-ups online and recruit...
NOFear your not out of line... Your right on when talking about needing dedicated site members to be apart of the league. I think in this league you need either/or.. dedicated vets of the site or guys that love Forza. One thing ive tried to do from day 1 was make sure everybody could race. and everybody had a place to race. I dont like alts and i dont like benchwarmers.. You know the guys that dont think they're good enough to race so they wont sign up because it might hurt the team... (popular statement). I just wanted everybody to be involved. Didnt care about points.. I know they're important to some but ive continually been pushing for the "FUN" race. With that struggle... Ive pushed for it and pushed for it. We've dropped the name and ive still pleaded for the captains to keep a certain talent level in certain rooms to make it more fun for everybody.. We've succeeded and we've bombed.. In that same push we've had small rooms and a lot of empty spots. The thorn in my flesh if you will ... (People might call them noshows but most of the noshow didnt sign up, captains have to put them in the scheduler so they can put a guy in that spot later... part of the code on the site). Needless to say we're in a spot now that we're weeding out the guys that have run the course with this game. And its not a bad thing.. It's part of gaming life.. But we still made a commitment and we should all honor it. Nofear i believe your right that fewer races is the right medicine for this problem. It's not brain surgery.. I just tried to take the strategy out of the matchup part of this league and placed the importance on practice, tune up and skill. Everybody gets to race and get their points. IN the end TEAM effort and driver skill wins the day. Not matchup strategy. My scheduler in team forums is first come first serve basis.. the only exception that i make is to the guys that i konw are only available on certain days and i make sure to give them their spot and keep them there because they're reliable. That's Neodark and Jrocc.. they make it to every practice and lead the discussion on the car every week.. i guess im trying to get you guys into my vision and train of thought ... and let you go through the timeline of the decisions ive made to let you know that im doing my best to make sure everybody get's the most F.U.N. out of this league..
Random idea I got from nosice saying he doesn't like people having to sit out in a week of full participation of a team - Set room times, but leave one slot "open" as far as room numbers, and fill rooms as needed for the number of sign-ups. For instance, on Sundays there would be a normal number of rooms available, but if there are more drivers than rooms, extras would be opened. There would be only one extra room unless that one filled, and then it would run as normal and another overflow room would open. This would all be determined from sign-ups submitted by captains, and obviously no team can have overflow unless all their regular slots are filled on all other days. The last overflow room would race and score points as normal, but they would not be directly applied to team scores (unless the room was exactly filled and scored as normal.) Instead, they would replace the lowest team scores from other races for the week. Individual points would be the same for stats, this would only affect team points. To make an example to possibly make more sense : Room results... Friday 1 Green 2 Green 3 Yellow 4 Yellow 5 Blue 6 Blue Saturday 1 Yellow 2 Yellow 3 Blue 4 Blue 5 Green 6 Green Sunday 1 Blue 2 Blue 3 Green 4 Green 5 Yellow 6 Yellow Overflow 1 Blue 2 Yellow 3 Green 4 Blue Blue's scores would replace both of their Friday racer's (assuming the 4th place overflow driver had more room points than the 5th place Friday guy.) Green would replace their 6th place racer on Saturday, and Yellow would replace their 6th place racer on Sunday. Guarantees a spot for any driver once the regular rooms are filled. It should generally keep the scores more even between the teams, but a sweep of wins in every room will still pull a team away by almost as much. The only drawbacks I can imagine are a lopsided draft or one team having a lot of players improving greatly after the draft. (Although both of those things can affect the scoring system as it is, I suppose.) It also defeats the purpose of trying to put the best drivers from a team against the worst drivers from the other team, as those scores will likely be replaced anyway. I may have to run through some hypothetical races and scores to see if it wouldn't make the series too even.
That's not a bad idea, but there's likely to be situations where it becomes unfair; anyone in the overflow room would benefit from increased points standings no matter where they finish (since it likely will not be full and can really be an unfair advantage if only 2-3 people show up for the overflow room). I think you would also need to make sure that you can only replace the lowest team member's points IF the last place person raced (i.e., can't replace a DNS score).
True about the DNS, I guess I assumed it would be taken that way and didn't put it into words. All other races would have to be full on sign-ups and at least one race driven. I don't think any team would simply throw a race to replace it with the overflow score, though. Something could happen where that room's score wasn't very high to begin with, and someone could run hard, get lucky, and they might end up with a room sweep rather than having the score replaced. I guess I saw the system as a benefit for good attendance, but now that I think of more scenarios, it can unfairly penalize bad attendance. Assuming every team had equal participation, the system would make every week and therefore the overall standings closer - but it would also be harder to pull off that comeback, even at a smaller margin, in the last week. Darn me shooting down my own idea... it just changes which scenarios of attendance and finishes and drafts "break" a season, but doesn't decrease the number of ways it can happen, and it adds complexity, so never mind. There has to be some way of accomplishing this, though... *ponders more*
