Does your online league use coaches?

[thomamon]

Just trying to get an idea of which online leagues are using what features. Thanks in advance for participating in the poll!

[Raidergoo]

This poll asks if online leagues use scouts, just like your other one.

[thomamon]

Hopefully people go by the title. Dang me

[Corsairs]

As with the scouting, PEBA uses coaches and wouldn't have it any other way. Coaches don't seem to add nearly the level of bloat to the file that scouts do (our coaches.dat file is only 1 MB). It's an enjoyable, realistic addition that adds a lot.

The major complaint I hear leveled against using coaches in online leagues is the simplistic hiring system that forces commissioners to set up out-of-game waiver claim systems or do without. That is indeed a pain, but it sounds ilke that problem will be addressed in OOTP 9. I imagine a lot more online leagues will use coaches at that point.

[Kelric]

None of the four online leagues I've ever been really involved in have used coaches or scouts (of course, I can't remember if we even had that option back with OOTP4/5/6/6.5).

[waltwa]

I have never had any interest in either Coaches or scouts in any league. I have been in around 20-30 online leagues and the first question i ask when joining is if C&S are used. If they are I never join the league. the use of Scouts just don't seem to add anything but confusion to an online league.

when I play solo I also play w/o Coaches or Scouts.

[Kelric]

20-30 online leagues? Either you're awful fickle or they collapse more frequently than they have in my experience.

[waltwa]

You know its probably closer to 30. I have been playing it seems since the leagues first started and i am always in 5-10 leagues. A few have folded and a few were poorly run and a number of times I have moved on to the new edition while the league has decided not to. For instance I was in 6 6.5 leagues. None of them moved to OOTP7 so that was a change of 6 leagues. It adds up after a while.

[Corsairs]

So I have to ask: We can't be the only online league using coaches/scouts, right? There's got to be someone else using them, or at least some leagues that would use them if they worked better in the online format.

I'm particularly interested because I got the impression this thread was put out there to gauge interest from members of online leagues on behalf of Markus. My concern is that if everyone sounds off that they don't (and never will) use coaches/scouts, their implementation isn't likely to get the developmental attention they need to become better suited for online leagues.

Maybe a more pertinent question would be, "If significant improvements were made to the implementation of coaches/scouts in online leagues, would your league have an interest in adopting them?"

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by Corsairs

So I have to ask: We can't be the only online league using coaches/scouts, right? There's got to be someone else using them, or at least some leagues that would use them if they worked better in the online format.

eMLB uses both. Scouting in online leagues makes you work. It especially makes you work during amateur drafts. You can tell really quick who is sharp crunching the numbers and who is phoning it in.

[Kelric]

Despite my distate for scouts and coaches, I am looking forward to the new scouting system in OOPT9. I enjoy taking over very bad teams and/or rebuilding my own team, so the ability to simply sink money into scouting and hope for the best (rather than micromanagement, as before) seems like I'll have more fun.

[ifspuds]

Dog Days Baseball uses both coaches and scouts. I kinda like using them, but like Raidergoo says, it really requires you to work at paying attention to what they say. If you get more than two or three leagues on your plate and your available time has other demands on it, you can get behind pretty quickly. Or maybe I just have an exceptionally small plate and can't handle it.

[Raidergoo]

I wrote 3000 words on using scouting for online leagues here.

[zekester91]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

I wrote 3000 words on using scouting for online leagues here.

The administrators want you to view a thread before you continue to browse the forum.

Seems a lot less that 3000 words and not really on topic.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by zekester91

Seems a lot less that 3000 words and not really on topic.

That's right, he wanted comments on coaches. Oops.

I can't help the issue with the admins, now that this new modern Internet can't simply accept a simple URL.

Let's try this on the topic of scouting.

Total Sports World Forums

[Cooleyvol]

just go past that thread and I'm sure you'll see what he linked you to. That's a newsletter announcment.

paste his link in once you go past that post. It only happens the first time a user logs in or probably just once per guest per visit.

[Corsairs]

Raidergoo, that is a fantastic write-up. I've linked to it on our forums (hopefully that's okay) so that our owners can benefit from your knowledge. I'll be the first to admit that I've routinely ignored my scout's biases when judging their evaluations. Most of scouts favor prospects and I now realize I may have been getting less favorable reports on solid veterans. I also love the draft preparation tips and will be encouraging our owners to follow suit.

It seems online league using scouts are rare, but I couldn't imagine playing without them. It adds so much to the game. My only hope is that a way is found to slim down the size of the scouting.dat file. I think that, if that could be accomplished, more online leagues would begin using scouts.