About a year ago I sent up a list of suggestions to JDB and I have seen some of these actually get implemented (not saying because of me) most notably the highly enhanced players of the week/year stuff.

Thats a very cool feature that adds a great new level of detail (although the selection criteria needs a touch up, particularly in the case of defensive backs)

However this isn't about that. Its about another of the suggestion thats time has definitely come in my opinion.

There needs to be a public database of owners records across all leagues. I suggested this once before as a 'cool feature', but it occurs to me now that we need to give league admins (something that didn't exist before) this information when they put together new leagues, and prospective owners some idea of what they might be getting into when they join one.

The idea is a result of my own experiences.

I did a quick tally and my VERY ROUGH estimate is that I have completed 30 seasons in MFN. That is 480 games... of which I would bet I have won well over 400 of them. I have won the league championship 14 times in these seasons and lost that game four times. I have won the title at least once in every league where I participated in allocation. I have missed the playoffs once and have had one losing season.

I know this isn't the best record and not even close to the largest body of work, but I ALSO know that in some cases, especially recently, newer guys in the leagues that I play in will lose interest or bail altogether once it becomes apparent that only about 6-10 teams in the league have any chance of contending for a championship.

What is worse is that when we face off head to head they literally have no shot at winning. THERE ARE NO UPSETS IN MFN. The better team wins... yes if its close it can be a toss up and very random, but a bad or mediocre team simply NEVER defeats a good one.

Lets get all this info out in the open.

There are several advantages to this.

First off and as I alluded to earlier, if an admin is putting together a league, he can choose to craft it with the kinds of players he wants. Maybe it'll be a bunch of former league champs, or perhaps no one who has more than 7 seasons total. Maybe is an even spectrum or if he's a power mad goof his (short-lived) league will only have guys he thinks he can beat... whatever.

THIS IS KEY!! ->
Perhaps more importantly it creates the potential for leagues specifically designed for guys who are just getting started, or are good but want to get better etc. As it stands one or two experienced guys can trash a whole league and then it just isn't fun.

EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO WIN AND IMPROVE and I think this one tool could make that FAR more possible.

... and of course it would be cool to see it all.

=============================

My BONUS idea is even cooler, but would be much harder to implement.. a grand allocation circuit.

Take say the 160 most experienced owners (that would want to participate) and seed them one team a piece in five leagues. Best/most experience in league A... and on down to league E. At the conclusion of each season the top three from E though B move up to the next league, bottom three from A through D move down. Just like English Premier League Soccer. It would be wicked cool and would generate a TON of interest.

But for now, lets get that database up.

Total Season Completed.
Total Wins
Losses (and ties)
W/L pct.
Playoff App
Playoff W/L
Pct
Pct of years in playoffs
Div champs
Pct of Div champs
Conf champs
Pct of cons champs
Titles
Pct of Titles


Discuss if you please.

Well I definitely think it'd be a cool implementation to the game but then I also think about how I've grown up as an MFN player. When I first started playing MFN, I basically never checked the message boards. Starting off brand new I joined CUST-77 and had no idea what I was doing. I remember even signing a WR with 57 speed to be my #2 WR simply because he had 100 catch and thought it'd be awesome to have a "sure handed" WR. I also focused heavily on my special teams looking for the best players at that position with the computer generated weights! (Yes, that means DT's that had good ratings would be signed and added to my gunner position) Also not understanding the salary cap and blowing it up by signing awful FA's such as that #2 WR to pretty bad deals had me in trouble when it came time to extend my own players. What doesn't help is when the "Contract Wizard" tells you to resign them so you bend to their offer of a 5M cap hit with 2M bonus. With all that, the intrigue of the game was weighing heavily and I decided to join more leagues. I knew I wanted to rebuild teams but what I didn't know was how much time it took to rebuild and dedicate to a team. Especially not knowing what I was doing on top of that. With those already awful teams, I'd end up going 1-15 in CUST-82 or 6-10 in CUST-76. I even remember trading a young WR in CUST-76 and a 1st rounder to a division rival for a SS who was in a contract year and not being able to resign him because I wasn't aware of jsid's calculator. All while I left it up to the computer to game plan for me. It wasn't for a while before I actually dipped into the community forums and watched some of JDB's videos on YouTube that I started to understand the game, the attributes that were and weren't important, and some beginner guides to gameplanning. Now, I would like to think that I'm an above average GM in MFN being able to turn around a 1-15 Minnesota team to 12-4 in MFN-32, Having a winning record in a highly competitive Paydirt league, going undefeated and winning my first championship in MFN-31 (Yes, it is as much of a grind as everyone who's won a championship says it is), and being mostly successful in leagues that I actually devote my time into. There are exceptions such as teams I join who I end up not having enough time for or taking over a Dallas Cowboys team in NFL League which went 0-16 their inaugural year due to a trolled allocation draft. Those of which I do take complete responsibility for, it's just to say that record shouldn't be the end all be all and it'll be hard to distinguish which owners are on the rise and which owners just take over good teams half way through the season and collect the wins. I know that once the directory goes up I'll be at a 316-318-1 record

But I digress, yes I definitely do think that there should be a directory, but I hope it isn't considered the only way to measure a competence of an MFN GM. Bottom line is that there may be GM's who have no idea what they're doing while having great records and then GM's who are fairly decent who carry a bad record. It's job should be to just provide an easy way of checking to see if that GM is improving in their MFN career.

Off topic, but one of the absolutely, most important thing that helped me and I advocate to all Rookie MFN Owners is to take advantage of the forums and continually read up on the latest tips such as setherick's guides to game planning and positional guidance, Jsid's calculator, and just some overall guides to the game.

You're absolutely right and I did not mean to exclusively equate overall record with high degree of expertise. I got off to a great start right out of the blocks in my very first league (MFN-71). In fact when you (jouameng) and I inevitably meet in The Ranch league in either this seasons playoffs or next season as division winners in the same conference, that game will be a pick 'em for sure.

The ability to simply know what level of players are in a league can be enormously helpful to both admins and owners and can lead ultimately in higher interest level and more guys climbing the mountain as it were.

I'd have no problem seeding players by record because it has been suggested that after each season the seedings would change based on results/success/failure in your current league. Great concept, IMO.

So I got started off really slow my first few months playing MFN. Also the leagues do not always calculate your records correctly, but going off of that here are what my numbers ended up looking like.

43 Leagues Played in
247 Seasons
62 League Championships Won
23 Championship game losses
2,927 Wins
1,401 Losses

Great suggestion drogers.

Of course, I had to do an overview myself. I think I am evidence that you can be successful at this game playing it very casually. I have also always approached it in terms of team building and strategy with real football in mind.


3 - Leagues
13 - Seasons
13 - Made playoffs
5 - Championship games
4 - Championships
161 - 35 - 82 % - Regular season record
23 - 8 - 74 % - Playoff record
184 - 43 - 81 % - Total record

In my opinion, why does it matter



Oh right, now I get it

Yup...one guy looks at his lifetime record at least 5 times every day. No one else gives a ****.I think game improvement should be the focus, not virtual trophy polishing.

Yeah I figured that ^ would be part of the reaction. Took longer than I thought actually.

... but not the point.

This is what is happening now:

- New guy joins MFN -> this is the most important thing happening to ensure the growth, survival and improvement of the game.

- New guy joins league with opening

- New guy ends up in the same division (or conference) with (for example) the three guys whose records are listed here, and about 14 others who have 10+ seasons of experience.

- New guy goes 1-15 and no matter what adjustments he makes he continues to lose by wildly lopsided scores

- New guy loses interest and leaves.

However if there were leagues specifically set up for

Brand new

Casual Players

Psychos like me

.... our whatever. We don't need to predetermine what they would be. If there were a resource that listed where guys are at experience and success-wise then it would be easy to not only check out who is where, but also when creating a league send out private message invites for the players that the admin would be the best fit. Again that is only one example of what could happen.

But for any of that to work, we need to have a the records compiled. Otherwise its too much of a scavenger hunt.

I would like to see some sort of a tutor program established for new players. Where a new player gets assigned a tutor (a very experienced GM) to get them up to speed on how best to get off on the right foot. I have PM'd some GM's when starting off and learned loads from them, it was and continues to be, vital for me in enjoying the game.