Yeah, Im horrible. I said you lack experience amd invited you to join leagues and test your mettle against owners you called out for being jerks and whining bitches. If you arent up for it, dont make excuses. Im done with this, last post for me here because I dont have your class.

Forget all those leagues, come join the Rivals league, its full of MFNs best , isnt dying at all and maybe just maybe you will learn something.

I learned a valuable lesson myself so Im disengaging from this thread. Im sure you will respond and Im sure whatever you say will be classy but hopefully you join a league Im in so we can meet on the field instead of in the forum

Personally,

Thank you for clarifying that. Of the four least experienced owners that have seen participating in this thread, my join date was closest to December. I'm glad I was mistaken, but don't worry about offending me, it's unlikely.

Collectively,

I respect all the "old idiots"; I aspire to be one someday. My interactions with all the named parties (including Lamba) have been enjoyable and mostly positive. I believe we all have 90-95% the same goals, we differ in priorities . . . what we see as the best pathway to achieve them. I believe part of that is based length of participation, so we should ALL make the effort to engage in civil debate, ESPECIALLY between experienced and new owners.

At the moment, with this version, it seems to me that a convergence of "good ideas" are having a dysergetic (opposite of synergetic) effect on gameplay and are limiting gameplanning options rather than expanding them. They are creating a "right" way to play, other ways are wrong (ineffective, frustrating, etc.). I'm not thrilled about that. I'd encourage all owners, new and experienced, to explore and analyze the mechanics from that perspective with a view towards voicing considered opinions on how to improve the interaction.
I am disturbed by experienced owners leaving, which I also see as mainly caused by version changes that were too rapid. The rapid rate of change, by itself, causes frustration for established owners.
We all understand that MFN is evolving, 4.5 is not the final version, this is a work in progress. IMO JDB is a genius, and also certainly not infallible. Therefore, change that is too rapid causes a cascading effect. Unforeseen consequences require urgent fixing which causes further unforeseen consequences. When does it become LESS urgent to fix the fixes? Will the next version NOT have more unforeseen consequences?
So, analysis GOOD, debate GOOD, urgency of version change based on gameplay issues NOT SO MUCH.

Also, . . .
(this is where I believe priority divergence is influenced by length of ownership)

I am far more disturbed by an issue that increases the turnover among new owners. I believe focusing on that issue will more rapidly create a better environment for ALL owners, AND aid in retention of ALL owners.
It has nothing to do with 4.5 as opposed to other recent versions.
The trade value system is broken. It creates a toxic environment. It encourages predatory behavior, collusion, outright cheating, and accusations of cheating.
Rather than focusing on how best to fix it, debate has mainly focused on the best ways of limiting access to owners who understand exactly how broken it is. IMO limiting access just steepens the learning curve. New owners (definitely including myself) come out from under the limit and gain access with virtually no understanding of how broken trade values are.
The system and its incentives tend to exacerbate the divide between new and established owners. Established owners are more likely to accept this system in its current condition, because in general they receive an advantage on unequal trades. It's simple human nature.

And . . .

All of us that spend our free time and/or money here are invested in this game. We all want the game to thrive and improve, both as a system and community. Some are more vested than others, but we all care. That's why we are here talking about it. So, let's engage in civil, positive debate. Avoid toxicity. Avoid getting personal. That doesn't mean it needs to be all unicorns farting rainbows. It means EVERYONE please consider YOUR personal investment in this community and it's growth before posting.

My whole point (and I feel like Im beating a dead horse) is that 4.4 was rushed to release for reasons unknown when it could have been easily tested in the beta (MFN-1) league for a season first. Instead the Rivals league had first crack at it and after preseason and 4 games into the season EVERYONE knew how horribly broken it was with QBs hanging onto the ball on deep passes and taking 10-12 yard sacks. So of coarse all the owners switched to quick passing which resulted in +80 completion percentage where RBs and TEs became the primary recievers leaving all the star WRs basically watching the game.

Hence, 4.5 was rushed to release because nobody was enjoying the direction 4.4 had taken. So my point is this, allow 4.5 to play out while 4.6 is designed and fully tested in beta before general release.

I even suggested using MFN-1 as the bleeding edge beta and use another league like Rivals to test run new versions before release. This ensures versions aren't released that have serious flaws.

I dont get where any of my posts are considered whining or complaining. I figured out 4.4 pretty quick and won 2 championships under that version in its limited run. The difference was not my amount of success, it just became very limited, frustrating and very boring.
Watching post after post of owners saying, "goodbye, this isnt fun anymore" Watching leagues with teams I loved stop spinning because of the mass exodus. 6 or 7 seasons of drafts, trades and free agency to build a Championship caliber team only to have it all disappear because the league died. I became league admin of one of those leagues, added extra content and recruited owners to not only save the league but now its full, thriving and highly competitive.

Thats what I mean by frame of reference when it comes to veteran owners, newer owners and someone that owns 1 team and played 1 season.
The rapid change in versions has caused more then just the amount of short, medium or long passes called or the number of interceptions in games based on run/pass ratios. Its physicality driven away owners and ended leagues. All of which could have been avoided with minimal beta testing, it took Rivals a quarter of a season to isolate the flaws.

So my question is why was 4.4 rushed to general release when a Beta league is up and running?

Because you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

Rather than resolve single issues with hotfixes, JDB is rolling development forward a chunk at a time. My guess is that the 4.3 exploit(s) were deemed game-breaking enough to warrant transitioning to what was felt to be a stable update rather than airing it out for a longer test period. The same then being true of 4.5; your assessment of 4.4 is spot on, and it really wasn't much fun to watch, so a swift upgrade was probably wise even if 4.5 is proving to have problems of its own.

Such is the nature of development, particularly when the game is at a later stage of evolution, you play whack-a-mole with balance issues until they all stay down.

I may only be in my third season with each one requiring a tactical re-think in gameplanning, but that's fine from my perspective. The game is 90% "right" in terms of game feel, and I'm happy to stick around long enough for it to get to 100%, even if there are some speedbumps along the way.

Of coarse, I get that but we are talking 7-8 days here (real time) to beta test 4.4 before general release. It took us a quarter of the season to figure out it was broken.

But even if you dont use the bleeding edge beta to test new "stable" versions before release then chose a league like the Rivals League to test run it a season before general release. We had 1st crack at it anyway and by the time we hit week 4 of the season, the forums were on fire about 4.4 and every league was switching to it at the end of season spin. That is the reason owners starting quiting left and right. As league admin, I was bombarded with questions about "can we forgo the update please" but it what out of my hands.

Look, Im all for the game progressing and I feel like JDB is doing a fantastic job with something as complex as a football sim. Like I said, this isnt personal, I adjusted my gameplanning and kept right on winning but in my year and a half of playing this sim, I NEVER saw the shear volumn of owners logging out and quitting on this game like I did during the rapid transition from 4.3 to 4.4 and finally 4.5.
A week or two delay and 4.5 would have been 4.4 and although 4.5 isnt perfect, it would have been a positive step in the right direction without all the mess.

With that being said, its in the past and behind us. My concern is that we dont repeat this same mistake when it comes to the releaee of 4.6. I honestly dont think this sim/game can survive another oops 4.6 quickly followed by 4.7. I love MFN too much for that and want it to succeed.

I think you may have something there, CJfred, about letting another league...a "newer" league test for a season, after the Beta League does testing.

I believe some of the problem with the 4.4 release was due to MFN-1 not seeing some of the problems that 4.4 had. This, I believe was due to players being generated many seasons ago that were quite a bit inflated. There were many players generated for the MFN-1 draft many seasons ago that were 90+ players and some of the quirks 4.4 had didn't really show in MFN-1. Without seeing these issues, it was thought to be good to go. Upon release to the newer leagues, it was quite evident that there were some issues. The same can be said about the release of 4.5. I, for one, thought both these updates were better than the previous, looking at the results of the Beta League.

I think what you are proposing would be a good thing. Find a newer league that can play a season or two (after Beta testing), but before releasing to the rest of the leagues.

I shoulda brought popcorn!!

I never considered that about the "maturity" of the MFN-1 players and play familiarity. Makes perfect sense, thanks Mwd65.

And thank you Crazyrazor, Im glad someone is enjoying the banter

Exactly. I don't like 4.5, but I'd rather see it done this way.

JDB, please do something about the rate of turnovers in this new code 4.5... I am seeing 8-12 turnovers a game total whether it be by fumbles or INTs. That’s kinda unrealistic in my opinion.