Hello everyone, we have two new updates coming for Season 34. First of which is something for our friends who hate Forfeits and the second is something to further help struggling teams in an attempt to continually improve the league competitive balance. But first we will talk about the help towards Forfeits.
Nobody likes forfeits especially me, It is always a sour affair and many times turns good people into children. relationships are strained and league comradery threatened. Forfeits are however a necessary evil. Your time is your time. Nobody has the right to question you when a forfeit is enforced. In the interest of reducing this aspect we will now enforce a team “KARMA” rating.
Karma will be granted to any team who puts the league first. you will be granted the following Karma points.
(1 point) for every min over the league permitted grace period without calling a FF. This clock ends on initially 12 man match up. additional karma is not given if game crashes or players are lost during load up causing a longer wait period.
(5 points) for allowing a team to replace a lost player who is unable to reconnect. (regular season play only)
(1-15 points) Karma Protection *see below*
Karma points will be spent in the following manner.
-reduce a game from a players suspension -15 points.
-Reschedule a game without a forfeit -30 points.
-additional grace time -5 points per 5 min chunk.
Karma points will be LOST on the following. (in addition to GM points)
– Failing to have lines done on time -5 points
– Altering lines after deadline -5 points
– Failing to have stats done on time -5 points per day
– Failing to collect stats from a game -15 points. (being unable to get them).
– unprofessional actions by the team members -5 points (GM points not removed)
– unprofessional actions by the GM -10 points
Points being used or gained must be declared by the GM right away. if you wish to grant 5 or more extra mins to a team it must be declared in the GM chat prior to the grace ending. If a team wishes to spend their points for more time they are to declare it by the mid point of the grace period. for example, if a 9pm game has a grace until 9:10, additional grace must be used by 9:05. If extra time is granted to a team you must declare your permission before 9:10 along with the amount of total time you are willing to earn in karma points. The total amount of time “willing to earn” is not the total amount you will get. You only receive what is used. if you grant 30 extra mins, you will not get 30 points if they only use up 2 mins. you only get 1 point per min they use. After the granted time is used up you can still call a FF and receive the allotted karma points.
*Karma Protection* in the event a team forces extra grace by Spending Karma against you and this extra time applies pressure to your team being able to have all 6 players finish the game before one of your players has to leave, you will be required to provide a screenshot of your starting line up prior to the expiration of the league set grace period (9:10 / 9:55 / 10:40). If you can fulfill this requirement you will be permitted to purchase a reschedule for a reduced cost. (15 points)
15 karma points is granted to each team at the start of the season to protect you from this 1 time. These gifted points do not go toward the Karma total and can not be spent on anything else.
If a team forces you to wait. the key word is “forces” you will be granted 1 Karma Point for every 2 mins and 10 points for a reschedule.
It is a little bit of a read but the idea is to reward teams who are considerate to other teams by protecting them with the same consideration that is not normally given by some teams.
Now the second rule to be added this season is a way to improve the balance of the league. Currently we allow 1 re-sign per team. This in itself is not as balanced as we would like. some top teams have top players as GMs, these GMs also have the ability to re-sign and keep 1 top player. This is very good for top teams. Weaker teams have a great deal more difficulty achieving this. sometimes it is due to not having top players to begin with, some because top players don’t sign back up after finishing on a weaker team and go into hiding leaving the weaker teams with no valuable re-sign options. This makes the job of weaker teams even harder to get out of the hole. we do not need teams to go last to first but we would like to see last place teams finish with records of 20-25 instead of 7-35. Obviously there are way too many variables in play to undermine any actions we take as a league to help teams. some times the human element is too damaging to fix but some strides toward assisting those struggling is still needed. If not to improve league enjoyment for teams commonly in the bottom but to also make those teams worth worrying about by the top teams. So the new rule works as such….
teams will have the option to NOT re-sign a member of their team, but instead sign a player who was released by another team. To achieve this we will ask teams not re-signing a player from their team to declare it the day before Re-signs are named so it is a commitment. They are choosing to do this without knowing who is re-signed. Obviously they can speculate who will be released but they wont know for sure.
Once you declare your intent to not re-sign, you must select one of the other released players. you are not permitted to sign anyone you waived prior to re-signs. This is a Gamble so do not release all of your players if you have doubts. In the Event of more then one team electing to waive their team, the order for selection will be based on the reversed draft order. Where the better team picks before the weaker team. The reason for this is because weaker teams have better draft pick position and this rule is to help strengthen their one re-sign not to swing the bottom teams into a top position. The stronger teams still have a chance to risk their wealth to get a better re-sign if needed.
This is a lot to digest so if you have questions or need clarification please feel free to contact SA_Pliskin on PSN or discord Pliskin#4011