Against. There are better ways to solve the problem in my opinion.

If you make the AP Cup 6 games in length it really doesn't add much to the season, and it makes it easier to develop youth because everyone in the league would get a mulligan. Obviously you don't want to NMR which would kill your mulligan if you used it early in the year, but it changes things because the Youth Cup might become less important and the last two sessions everyone could almost T11 all the time if they've not used their mulligan.

NMRs are dangerous in this game. In OLMEC, you have a higher chance of losing the game and have to manage EL levels for a round or two after that NMR. In MSWL-United, your whole development structure gets thrown off, and if the NMR machine doesn't do a good job, you lose CP as well with the games you lost.

I think a much simpler way to implement this would be:

1) If you have orders in, and you complete a trade, write a function which sends an automated email to the email address on file as a reminder to redo your orders. Having written login/password/forgot your password code in PHP before, this should be incredibly easy to write in PHP; the difficult part is adding the header file so it doesn't go into the spam folder. The function should be easy to call within the order deletion code.

2) If you 'honestly' NMR (which should not happen very often), you are allowed to QNL +1 every APP and SBY who has received maximum attention in every session prior to the NMR session (as long as the NMR machine didn't play them).

3) In accordance with section 2 above, you are also allowed to QNL +1 up to two players on your team based on the number of youth coaches you employ, as long as the players haven't been already maxed out.

Let's say I NMR next week (shouldn't happen, as my orders are in and I don't fancy a trade).

That's session 4, so heading into the session maxed out SBYs should have had 3 QNLs over the course of the season, leading to +1 RSD. APPs should have 6 QNLs over the course of the season, leading to +1 RSD and 2 or 3 QNL, depending on seasoning.

If I NMR, any SBY who had 1 RSD and 0 QNL at the end of session 4 would receive +1 QNL. Any APP with 1 RSD and 2 or 3 QNL at the end of session 4 would also recieve +1 QNL. Then I get to pick two players to +1 QNL because I have two youth coaches, but not on any player who would be further ahead in development as a result.

This obviously benefits teams who play their youth every week in order to give them developmental benefits, as if you take a week off with all your youth and don't have a youth coach then you would still lose a session of youth development - but since you took a week off with all your youth you're probably more focused on short-term winning anyways and won't lose too much sleep over it.

Oh, bugger. This is more complicated than I thought it was.

I'm in favor of lengthening the AP cup. I would prefer that it adds to the existing 10-session structure that we have though. Injuries seem to be way down to me compared to the first couple seasons - adding a 3rd and possibly 4th game to a few of the early sessions would really make people develop depth in their rosters, else be forced to choose early on.

I like the idea of being a bit forgiving and allowing a mulligan for managers who we know are dedicated and do put forth planning, but for whatever reason, misses a session (*cough* Kevin! *cough*) - a lot of the roster building, particularly, the youth development is really hampered for the whole season for just 1 week's problem. 

There is one correction to what Al mentioned above. I think my math is right here. If we're going to add an 11th session, then we have to be aware that APPs have the potential to go SL 11, not SL 10. As Al said, an SBY can now attain SL 5 QNL 2. A fully coached SBY in this manner, who is then fully coached as an APP would reach SL 11 QNL 0 (11 sessions = 22 matches = SL5+ QNL 2+ for the APP Season - add that to the SL 5 QNL 2 from the SBY season, and you get SL 11 QNL 0).

At this point, I'm on the fence with adding the extra session, for 2 reasons:

- I think the extra AP cup games would add a bigger impact to the game within the existing 10-session structure.

- Allowing all youth players to potentially reach SL 11 may not have the desired effect we want on the leage. It has ripple down impacts. Age I players can reach SL 16, age II can reach SL 17, age II can also reach SL 17, etc. 

Rob,

I was thinking the same as you SL 11 APP's !!! , but what Al says is " Allow APPs to go to a max of SL 10 QNL 2" so I guess this would be software limited same way as you can only raise SL by 3 points a season for age's 2 and up.

A simple solution (although maybe not so simple to implement) is to make the NMR program favour youth players. If they are always the first pick, even if out of position, then unless you have more than 11 players under age 1 youth development can't be compromised.

Along the same line as James notes above, why not build in functionality so that if you do NMR you already have a setting in place for your team that determines if you want to favor youth, winning or fit players.  Something like:

NMR Priority Options: Youth / T11 / Fit

Youth: Priority given to youth players in each match.  All remaining positions filled by highest SL non-youth players.

T11: Priority given to T11 players in each match.  All remaining positions filled by highest SL players (e.g. if the T11 includes two GK's, an eleventh player would obviously be required for another area).

Fit: Priority given to players with a Fit level of 2 for each match.  All remaining positions filled by highest Fit players (i.e. starting with Fit 1, etc.).

Shoot me down if I'm flying too high this morning.

If we do this, the league will go to 11.

I think Brian is flying too high again.  :-)  Just kidding.

Thanks for the input...

James, actually Rob did spot my bad math as I wasn't adding it all up.  :-)

Though of course we could put in an APP ceiling, but then we'd have to get around APPs that come in via the auction...so that gets messy.

Sounds like some ideas include an updated NMR program.  To be honest, NMR programs to do everything we think they should do are hard to write.  The one we have now works okay and does deal with Youth Cup games so perhaps could be repurposed a little, but gets trickier if we applied new logic and used it in a Youth Cup session.

Anyway, I'm going to modify my proposal...and I think it ties in a little with Mr. Holden's comments (and his Spinal Tap  moment of "this league goes to 11"...)...

So here's the proposal.  

If a team goes NMR (for whatever reason), their mulligan is this:

a) They get 5 Youth Coach slots to use IMMEDIATELY after the last league session (session 10).

b) They can apply them to 1 player each.  (so no players would be able to raise their QNL by 2, the max they can raise it is by QNL 1).

c) They would submit an email with WHO they wanted to use this for prior to the session 10 deadline (if they miss the deadline, their 5 YC slots are forfeited).

d) This starts immediately (so at the end of this season).

Why start it now?  

1) It seems like CRD/LEE both may have hit a glitch somewhere where they thought they saved but it didn't take.  

2) If I tried to do something to "fix" what happened (QNL, CP changes, etc).  Well, we reach a scenario where that's too much for me to manage.

3) I realize NMRs will happen and I want something in place that is "relatively simple" for me to manage as I can't add anything else to my load right now.

4) This allows for "some compensation" for a new manager who takes over mid-season for a predecessor.

Comments?

Rob,

Well done your right i'm  wrong !! , should have known I was giving Al too much credit :-p

Another "simple" idea , what about an automated email when orders are successfully submitted ?

If you don't get the email somethings up. 

This could also be extended to automatic reminder emails, obviously including some cheeky messages.

"3 days till orders are due and we haven't heard from you please sober up and put orders in"

"2 days till orders are due and we haven't heard from you, I know you have Tranmere twice this week but at least make an effort"

"1 day left for orders, please put orders in, if they are that bad I will use the NMR program to override them anyway !!"

You could also use some that are actually a bit funny . . . .

Yay, I'm right! The guys at work say they'll stop asking me questions when I stop being right - they haven't stopped yet.

I'd like to suggest a combination of Al and James' ideas. I think Al has a very good, and fairly easy to implement idea that allows for a manager to get a freebie without making a lot of code changes. I also think that James' idea of email notifications is a good one to code in. 

My only concern with your idea Al is this... what's to stop a manager from using the "free" slot on a player that the NMR program actually selected during the NMR session? That's essentially giving a manager an EXTRA QNL slot.

b) They can apply them to 1 player each.  (so no players would be able to raise their QNL by 2, the max they can raise it is by QNL 1).

I would change this to say you could QNL one APP twice as long as you have at least 5 youth players on your team. This would obviously count against two slots, so you'd only have 3 remaining.

Also, please ensure multiple NMR's do not give you more youth coach slots.

Other than that, it's fair and it seems easy.

Ooo: If you employ two youth coaches, you get six slots.

Too cheeky?

I agree with Rob's point.......I don't think it is fair if a NMR lineup played a youth player and then you youth coach again before session 10. Other than that it is OK with Lewes.

I like the new/simpler solution re: mulligan slots at the end of the season.   That way, the hard luck manager rightfully gets a break, but nothing is else affected during the in-progress season.  Sure, it's not quite the same as using the coaching exactly when the mgr intended, but it seems like a very fair way to work it out, for all parties.  I guess we do need to watch for the double-dipping that Rob says, though I wasn't smart enough to notice that on my own.

I would not pander to NMR teams by offering them a choice of Youth / Top 11 / Fit.

NMR will occur for genuine reasons, and I like James idea of concentrating the NMR lineup on youth players initially.

I would be in favour of moving from 10 to 11 sessions though to give a potential "second chance scenario" like Al outlined.

I have no great preference regarding whether there are 10 or 11 sessions.

Regarding NMRs, would there be the facility of putting in a provisional line up for future turns prior to the current week, to cover NMRs resulting from holidays etc?

Mark

Mark - I think the only thing that would prevent Al from immediately instituting pre-saved lineups is the fact that ANY roster change (selling/trading players, auction purchases, retirements, BRB transformations, SBY/APP findings) immediately erases your currently saved lineup.

Thanks for all the feedback guys...please add any more you have.  

I realise that injuries, suspensions etc would put a spanner in the works, but was wondering if a pre-saved line up would be a start, and in the event of an injury etc another plaer was subbed in for the same position. or is this all going to get too complicated to program?

I was going to suggest something similar, Mark.

If the system remembered the last set of orders, it could offer those as the starting basis for order entry in any given week, which would save some time.  A coach would still need to go and finalise and save their orders, but some of the work would be done.

If a player was traded or signed after those orders were saved, the system would remember the saved orders, meaning it shouldn't take too long to finalise and save orders.  This would encourage orders to be entered earlier in the week even if the coach is trying to get a trade organised.

In the event that no new saved orders were received, the NMR program would take the last set of saved orders as the starting basis and only make changes where necessary due to suspensions and injuries.

This seems a far better way to deal with the problem of NMRs than extending the season by an extra session, for which extra rules might be needed to deal with the extra week's qualifying for youth players, so coding would be needed either way.

Unfortunately, the last set of saved orders could be completely different than the current session.  As an example, let's say it's session 9 and your team is playing in the Youth Semis and AP Final.  Come session 10, you only have 2 matches as you lost the Semis and aren't in the Cup or Shield Finals.  4 games one session, 2 the next.  Same thing has happened from session 4 to 5 as well (Cup replay, AP round 2, if you lose both then you just have 2 league matches).  How is the program supposed to figure out which players or matches you would intend to use?

As for the extra coding in the case of 11 sessions, you wouldn't have to cap the SL or QNL.  Just cap the RSD at 5.  Schoolboys would take care of themselves as the 1 QNL per session limit would automatically prevent anything over RSD 3, QNL 2.  For the Apprentices, if you cap RSD at 5 then it doesn't matter how many more QNL you gather.  That would also take care of auction buys, as RSD doesn't depend on starting SL, so the rare SL 6 App could still reach SL 11 after 5 RSD.  The RSD must already be programmable based on age as the Age I and Age II+ players have different caps (5 vs. 3).

Because of that, I think the 11 session season is the way to go.  While it would help in case of unintentional or unavoidable NMR, it would also protect a rebuilding team in case of horrid luck with injuries or suspensions in a session.  While your results from one session should be skewed by the number generator, should your entire next season also suffer because of one bad day three months ago?

11 sessions allows a youth player to get injured and still have a chance at top development.  Two bad injuries or picking up their 20th DP before a 2-game session could still take them out of the max SL race, so not everyone is guaranteed a top lineup.

At the same time, Groundskeepers get more value for the cost as well.  Currently, you are only guaranteed 9 home games (league).  You can fairly easily go through the Cup/Shield/AP and not get a home match.  Switching AP qualifying to 6 matches, home and away, would give another 3 home matches so the BRB gets more guaranteed use and begins to gather a bit more value.

I would support the 11-session season even without the NMR considerations.  I think it makes sense in terms of team development, evening out the injury/card luck with more matches, and makes throwing the FA Cup opener far less desirable as teams try to load up on the AP matches to pad the goal differential and get home field.

The only thing I would worry about is the extra CP pouring in with an extra session.  Wins aside (potentially 30 CP), every team also gets the Fit CP.  That's an average of 20 CP per team across the league, with the top teams getting 40 or 45.  That translates to an extra SL 13 player hitting SL 16 (42 CP), so T11 scores would jump 0.27 on average for the top 5-10 teams and only 0.10 for the bottom teams.  The talent gap would increase, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as the divisions would still cluster together in tiers.  Teams promoting would not have their slight SL advantage the following season due to more wins against inferior competition as currently exists.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback, I appreciate the input.  To keep it simple for me, for the short term I'm going to use the "mulligan" idea to allow NMR teams to get a second chance.

So that's short term.  Longer term though I would like to revisit some of the orders ideas I see here along with the potential for an 11-session season.  It may not be something that occurs right away, but I'll keep it in the pipeline/roadmap for future thought.  Thanks!