Titre: Suggestions?

As a teacher, the nuances of BYfield, by itself, adjusted to byFIELD, to adjust for the bestial, sexual overtones of the sheep make this, I believe, the hands down winner. I had considered using this as a lesson point in my classes before reconsidering and considering my long-term employment situation there...

www.troll.me/images/angry...

But rest assured that Master Bates will be our silver medal choice...

I'm not Donald Trump but I do approve this message!

This has probably been said before, but I think they need to revamp the National Cup match selection. It really irks me to see legit teams facing off in the first round and someone getting knocked out, while at the same time we see Team Nonames get a bye to the next round, with a team strength in the single digits.

Its a bit insulting to active managers. I realize they don't seem to update the game anymore, but it wouldn't be difficult to put an exception saying Team Noname =/= bye.

Not a bad suggestion. There are a few different small things that would benefit from being fixed. I don't know if any of that is in the plans though.

Teams are grouped first by league level, then by OTR.

In the first NC round, the lowest level teams (pot 3) all have to play. Who they play in pot 2 are considered random. Inactive teams cannot be removed from the list because their former owners have the option to regain control at any point prior to becoming noname.

The only Round 1 Pot2 vs Pot3 games that were close were between teams of equal stature. All div2 teams basically made it through without a scare. It was only div3 v div3 that were close which you would expect. I'm not sure where your concern is.

Division II has teams that aren't just inactive with a chance of returning; they are actual Team Noname 123456. Because they are Div II they play against Div III, but there aren't enough teams to go around, so some of these noname teams get a bye. Meanwhile we have teams in Div III that have active managers, and are working to build up their team, that end up facing against another active manager. That means we have a Team Noname with a team strength of 8 moving on to round 2, but active teams with active managers who aren't simply because of bad luck matching. Just seems to me that even if there are Noname teams in Div II, they should make them match against a real team.

As I said, I know nothing is going to change, just trying to provoke some conversations.

I was a fan of complete folding. That is, 1 vs. 128, 2 vs. 127, etc. but even then there is the chance that a Team Noname will face another one.

They've gone to the random pots method, which is also good but heavier on the same problem since there is more variation in team strength across the wider ranges.

So, you would suggest maybe adding to the pots process that real teams from either side be matched up primarily from the selection of Team Nonames until there are no more, then select a real team instead? Or something along those lines?

Would this give advantage to someone? Yes, if the real teams are always selected in order - so a random real team would need to be selected first and subsequently until Nonames are gone from the other side, then switch and choose random real teams to choose from the Nonames on the original side, and then match real teams afterwards.

The National Cup, other than for the few elite teams at the top, is simply a cash grab. As a bottom club, you cross your fingers and hope to draw a top club with a 20,000 seat stadium so you get the $4M payday. When you start building a decent arena and get a couple of rounds as the favourite, you get one or two average paydays before the big rout/payout from the big boy. Check my history and you can see the same monotonous routine every season but ultimately it pays. Sometimes in the third or fourth round you there is a juicy match up elsewhere which is worth a watch on the PPM replay channel. I like it. Yup, they won't change it. I just enjoy it for what it is.

Valid point, I forgot about this.

Players not losing skills as they age is the dumbest part of the game

they do lose skills when they run out of career longevity.

You should check out my hockey team, then. My best player is getting worse in OR every day lol

Managers losing skills as they age is, on the other hand, one of the saddest parts of this game. My skill set has been in general decline for the past two years now...