Goalline Blitz

[WayAbvPar]

We are going to need CBs and WRs the most. Will probably use your QB when he gets to level 10 or so. Hell, I will sign him now if you want, but I think you will get more XP/PT in the dev leagues. I will post a more comprehensive list in a few days once the prison raping known as the regular season begins.

Straz- the system is screwed because new owners are put into a completely random situation. I woke up one morning and was the owner of the team. No veto power- if I don't like the situation, I can sell it back for 1/2 what I paid for it. So new owners come in blind, and have to A) try to fill out a roster with free agents, and B) convince the players who are still stuck on the team to hang in there. How many sports franchise owners buy teams without even knowing the name of the team, the league, who is on it, etc?

You notice how many offers you got from teams? Hell, I got 10 or so for my baby CB. Each one of those teams NEEDED my player. I ended up signing him to the Chiefs because I literally could not get a single FA to sign. I have sent hundreds of offers and dozens of PMs in the past week. I made a few cash trades, but I can't afford to pay $200k for each of 20 slots I need to fill.

I hear about players getting 70+ offers. If you crossed Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning all into one hybrid super QB, he could only get 30 offers (and would probably only get 10 or so). It is a fucked system, and I don't see it getting better. I am going to have CPU players or lowbies getting serious minutes for a AAA team this season. That is just not right, and it is not my fault. Even cuter is that all my players will be taking XP hits since I have more than 3 of them on a team I own. Since Santa didn't leave me a full roster under the tree, I had no choice. And I get fucked for it.

Fucking over the owners is just shitty, since they are by definition people who are paying actual money to play your goddamned beta game. Adding 1000+ teams every season makes no sense. Everyone can't own a team unless everyone owns 40 players to keep the team/player ratio intact.

DO NOT BUY A TEAM HIGHER THAN BBB or so unless you like sleepless nights and ulcers. You will need 20+ friends to have players available to sign immediately or your team will fall apart and everyone on it will walk as soon as they can.

[Strazos]

 


I'm sorry I didn't know...I would have signed a few of my players, and Hoax's, to your team if I knew you were in such dire straits.

[Nazrat]

Yep, the FA market is a player's market right now.  I can't get a 4th LB to sign as everyone is throwing big money to LBs.  I am considering signing a DE or a SS and playing them at LB until the market calms down.

[Furiously]

I'd certainly agree it's a players market right now. Everyone also wants to be on "The Winning Team". So you have a lot of intertia to work against if you were the bottom team in a league the season before.

[Sky]

I've got 8 offers on my WR, none on my QB. Sent both to WAP, even though the QB is a lowbie at 8.

CC's first game (regular season!) should be...interesting. 200-0? Defense is going to get shit for playtime :)

[murdoc]

I have a level6 LB that your could have WAP. He hasn't been boosted yet so can do that so at least he'll be lvl 10ish quickly.

http://goallineblitz.com/game/player.pl?player_id=646782

[murdoc]

Wow, that was quick ;)

He's 9 now too.

[WayAbvPar]

HOLY FUCK I SIGNED A FREE AGENT! Level 14 center just signed. I am self-actualized.

We still need a starting punter and depth at SS, FS, LB, D-Line, O-line, HB, FB, and QB.

[Sauced]

I've got a baby CB who hasn't taken a snap - I'd be happy to retire him and make something else.  I was also about to make a WR for the chiefs, since there are only 2 on the roster.

[HaemishM]

Hell, my CB got like 6 or 7 offers besides the one WAP made me. It's definitely a player's market. Maybe they shouldn't be selling as many teams (though since that's how they make the most money I can see why they do).

[Sky]

I just feel we're doing a disservice to WAP having our lowbies on his team. Will they demote the team to a lower division or something?

Too bad we don't have a B team for the lowbies, CC for the middlemen and the new CC for the higher players. Then we could have f13 for a player's entire career (with fair trades all the way up.

[Sauced]

Well, that's always been the ideal, but I've asked if anyone is in the queue for an A or BBB team, and no one has responded.

And trust me, no one was listening to any offers I made, and I know WAP made about 3 times as many, to try and fill out the Chiefs roster.  It's either our lowbies or CPU at this point.

[kidder]

Next they need to put in player injuries and really make it a players market. 

[WayAbvPar]

I would guess I made 300-400 offers to free agents, and got exactly 1 to sign (other than people from here, obv). I also made a few dozen cash trade offers, which were slightly more successful (5 of those or so). Current plan is to go 0-16 this season, get relegated, and then build from there. We will have a leg up on the lower division teams money wise, since we will have a bigger stadium (I assume).

Oh yeah, WRs. I can't believe I left that off the list. We need lots of them.

[WayAbvPar]

As it stands now, we need the following-

Starting punter
FB (level 14 or above would start, otherwise a backup)
backup QB
2 WRs (depending on level, starters or backups)
backup DE
backup LB (have a trade offer outstanding)
backup CB
backup FS

As soon as the rest of the team riots on me, I will need to fill their postions too, but there you have it. My free agent signings have now doubled to 2! We also got a shitload of money for tickets, so I paid off the loan for the new construction and still have 6M left. Will probably try to conserve that, since ticket sales will plummet later in the season and next year when we go 0-16. Should help us out when we get relegated though.

[WayAbvPar]

Just so you know how the powers that be @ GLB think- here is the response to my PM (you can see my original at the bottom). Are these guys SOE rejects?

I'm sorry you thought that having a team would be an easy thing, but just about every owner has had to deal with what you are going through. You might get an XP penalty if you add multiple people to your team, but it will not be a performance penalty for how well they do in a game.
Buying a team isn't broken, it just isn't easy. This is something that everyone knows, I'm sorry that it is a bit much for you.
-Thorn

---------- Original message ----------
From: WayAbvPar
Date: Jul 26, 2008 12:02:25
Subject: System for new owners is a joke
To: Thorn

I get to pay to take over a team (sight unseen of course) with 75% of the players on expiring contracts. I have sent hundreds of FA offers and not had one SINGLE PLAYER sign. Players are getting dozens of offers. This system is bullsh*t. To top it off, I will get penalized if I add more than 3 of my own players to the team. How exactly am I supposed to fill out my roster?

I am sorry I ever spent money (well over $100) on Flex Points. I am warning everyone I can find not to buy a team until this is fixed. Terrible way to treat customer who are paying to play your beta game.

I realize there isn't anything you can do for now, but you really need to reexamine this entire system. Paying customers have expectations.

[HaemishM]

Wow, yeah, that's pretty backhanded.

[Sky]

To be honest, WAP came off with a lot of 'tude in that PM, and the powers that be are making a decent amount of money from that broken system, so calling it bullshit might not be the best way to get your voice heard.

I agree with you completely WAP, I just don't know what else you expected in reply to that email.

[Furiously]

My FS will be a FA in 17 days, I'll switch him then.

[WayAbvPar]

Perfect.

Sky- the reason I sent the email was to give the developers some perspective of how frustrating it is to be a new owner, especially one of a high level team. There is no real documentation on anything in the game- you have to dig through the forums (which of course aren't searchable) to learn anything. I didn't expect them to do anything for me in particular, but I was hoping that hearing from a paying customer might help them mold future versions of the game to make the process smoother and less painful. Lrn2play was what I got, which is just fucking unacceptable. These clowns can't even keep the admin accounts secure, for Christ's sake. I don't know what I was thinking.

[kidder]

They really do need thicker skin, complaints about their system should be taken by them as an indication on what they need to work on. 

[Nebu]

Customer service is vital for customer retention.  There are 1000000 ways they could have addressed your concerns without being dicks about it.  It's sad that they took the low road. 

[Sky]

They're in a death spiral, I think. A couple coders and some forum mods stumbled onto a money hat. Unless they get bought out by a company with real CS, the rampant abuses, shitty CS and overall amateur hour stuff will kill this thing.

But it's beta lulz 

[Furiously]

OMG - it is progress quest!

[Hoax]

The four human teams I have players on all won, my QB still can't find a roster spot (no surprise, build is all sorts of screwed up).  May just retire him.

[Sky]

My QB is FA and neither of the f13 wants him. Orphaned :(

[WayAbvPar]

Put him on the marketplace, get on a team, and earn XP while you wait for a spot to open up on one of the teams.

[Alkiera]

So after reading all this, I rolled up a DT and joined a dev league team that is 4-0, and only has CPU characters at DT.

Player link here: ReShaun Williamson.  Not sure what I want for spec atm, but it sounds like I mostly need to put points into stats for the time being.

[WayAbvPar]

That is a good plan. Dump points in his main attributes (STR, AGI,TACK, etc) and then start sprinkling in the specialties a bit later on.

In case you guys hadn't heard, there was a hacking/cheating scandal during the playoffs last season. The incriminating chat log can be found here.

[Sauced]

Seing CCC and "Sauce" in that chatlog is freaking me out.

[HaemishM]

Was that cheating stuff against us? I can't tell because it's like retard speak in there.

[Sauced]

Just a coincidence, but it made me have to read it thoroughly, which I don't recommend to anyone.

[Strazos]

Nah, that's not involving us...directly, anyway.

[WayAbvPar]

Brown Trout was one of the teams that got cheated, and many of the quoted forum posts were from members of that team. They are a team full of players from 2+2, the largest poker poker community (where I also read and post). They were part of the impetus to get things investigated and were eventually vindicated.

[Hoax]

http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=722641