Yea, I think I'll play with it for a while too! :)

Maybe create another testing league like MFN-1 so that you could experiment with the contract offers. I am sure you could get enough owners to join this if it was declared a testing league only and get input from everyone.

I wouldnt hold an initial draft tho, Just have random rosters and have the teams handed out randomly to owners as they joined, no fair advantage or anything.

I really think this could be a very good way to get enough owners in it for testing. MFN-1 fills up very quickly with owners knowing they have an opportunity to be part of the success of the game.

One of the issues with 'testing' the contract system is that with a market based solution in place, it can take scores of seasons for the market to set itself and for changes to be seen. So for a testing league to be functional, it would basically need to be something like 3-days of off-season, 2-day draft, and then the entire season sim'd in one or two days. Even then it'd take a few months to get real results for each tweak.

Ohh nice to see that the bonus is not the only factor in resigning prolongation but I guess the way it is implemented mean that minimum bonus asked in a 6 year contract and you have a deal (with a sweet division of the cap hit on those 6 years).

I think the problem with this formula is that the bonnus should increase with the length of the contracts (not linearly but as I suggested in my formula dividing by year+3 so that a player will ask 50%more bonus to go from 1 year deal to a 3year deal and ask to double it for a 5 year deal).

another problem with the way it is implemented right now is that you can make silly backloaded contract for your veterans. For example offering a 13y veteran 1M, 1.05M, 1.1M, 1.15M and then a marvelous 80M on his 5th year that you're not going to pay as he will retire and even if he doesn't you can easily cut him by the end of his 4 year; but those 80M will count as it is 5M base salary for the first year in order to make the player sign.
I must say I don't see the rationale of permitting as much increase in base salary on one hand and make it a mandatory 5% minimum on the other hand; I would rather had set for a maximum increase than a minimum.

agreed with that, I would even advice to simplify the players and sim's (for example just giving a overall rating to players and then calculate a generic 4 grades pass/run offense/defense in order to perform just 1 calculation per game and 1 or 2 seasons per week).

I think one thing that would go a long way to reducing the negative impact this may have on the leagues is to have better players available in the yearly drafts.

It would help a lot if you had an opportunity to get a "potential" stud player with your 1st round pick without having to be picking in the top 5.

As it stands now, you have 2 options of getting a stud player. (1) Tank your season in hopes of getting a top 5 pick, or (2) offer a max contract IF one of these players becomes available and then hope he accepts your offer over others.

Otherwise, you're never going to be able to get one.

I feel strongly that making the drafts something owners will actually look forward to would go a long way to enticing them to stick around.

I can't tell you how many times I have been tempted to just pack it in and not renew when the next season's draft class is revealed.

I can see how owners who weren't part of the allocation draft (and therefore got stuck with one of those awful AI drafted teams) would get very discouraged and feel they have no chance of competing with the other teams in the league. When they can't even realistically expect to get one impact player in the draft, I don't blame them for leaving.

That's pretty much the reason I left the leagues I was in where I didn't draft my team. Year after year of crappy draft pools.

I notice also players in free agency always seem too ask for way too much money.The money they are asking for is not even close too what they are actually worth.You see guys we are around avg players trying too get top end contracts who are not elite talent in a league.I think this needs too be adjusted in some way.The bonus money also seems high on avg players.As for the ai picking teams.It could use some adjusting in making better decisions on drafting players.This is one of the reasons why other teams who are active are able too draft top talent.The ai is making poor decisions for un owned teams.At least that is what i am seeing at times in the drafts.

Average players are going to be overpaid in FA because...what else are you going to do? Fill your team with below average players? Rely on the draft?

Your right on about the AI during drafts.

The AI should be looking at the same as we do in players, potential in skill over current level at skill. I know some adjustments have been made but this still needs to be fixed. I can pretty much predict many picks ahead of me in drafts if there are a lot of unowned teams ahead of me.

+1

This is the main reason why I'm down to 2 leagues now, wouldn't surprise me if it's zero before too long.