Fantasy Critic 2024

Kiith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121695983#Comment_121695983

Done there, sorry for the delay.

Mr Crispy

I haven't entered the games on the website yet, just on my trusty Excel sheet (which I'll upload here on completion so everyone can verify the picks), but so far it's going well. It looks like I'll only need a few more picks from @Kiith and maybe myself to guarantee everyone has their five draft slots completed.

Kiith

Added a few more there, that should cover me.

Mr Crispy

That's great! Everyone now has five drafted games. I'll update the FC website later. Then we can talk about the pick-up phase.

Zero-Cool

Nice, hopefully no one else picked Suicide squad, papa needs a new pair of shoes!

Thanks Mr. Crispy for sorting this out!

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121699796#Comment_121699796

I've had a stream of the game on in the background most of the morning.

Prepare to be barefoot!

Mr Crispy

Okay, here's the Excel sheet of everyone's picks (minus the ineligible games). Green is a successful draft, red is one someone else managed to snag before you, and the white ones we didn't need. Please check that everything is in order! I think it's all above board, but better safe than sorry. I'll enter the picks on the website in a few hours, and then we can all move on with our lives! Just remember that the draft order went left to right for one round of picks, then backwards from right to left for the next round, and so on until we each had five picks.

The undrafted games (in white) are worth making a note of as you may want to bid on some of them as one of your pick-up games. I'll write a post on the pick-up system in the next day or two. Thanks all for participating, and for your patience while we got things up and running.

Fantasy Critic.xlsx

JimBurnley

Fair play sorting that Crispy! Here's hoping Silksong does actually get released this year...

Retr0gamer

A lot of bravery shown there with Metroid prime 4 and silksong

Penn

Missed out on some of my top picks, but got Elden Ring DLC so that's the big one I wanted.

Zero-Cool

Ugh I'm screwed 😂

Mr Crispy

Ha, DS2 looking amazing (and mad), but not releasing until next year. So that's my single drop game used up already and I already took a risk on a new 3D Mario game. Oh well, there's always next year. 😁

Mr Crispy

Right, the draft is now complete on the website. Feel free to check your roster to make sure everything is in order.

I can't begin to tell you how discouraging it was to enter Death Stranding 2 now that we know the game won't release this year. The site even gave me a warning asking was I sure I wanted to proceed, and then rubbed it in on the standings table... 😪

Mr Crispy

The Pick-up System

***I'd ask that no-one places any bids on any games until we've all had a chance to read this post!!!!***

Here are the rules according to the FAQ (all times are US Eastern, so take that into account - the US changes summer/winter time on different dates than we do here in Europe);

• Pickup games are chosen over the course of the year (after the draft) by bidding a dollar amount on them, from your annual budget of $100.
• In our league, we will be picking three pick-up games each (although that could be changed).
• There are two types of bidding system; secret and public. Ours is currently set to public which I personally think is better, but I can still change it to secret if ye prefer. Let me know below!

Secret Bidding

• Any player that is interested in picking-up a game can place a bid for the game using some of their available budget. On Saturday evenings at 8PM Eastern, the system processes the bids.
• The top bidder for any given game will have the game added to their roster, and lose whatever money it cost from their budget. The other players who bid money but "lost the auction" don't lose any money.
• As far as I know, in the secret bidding system you won't even know if someone else is bidding on a game, let alone how much they've bid. It's all done behind closed doors until the bids are processed on the Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Public Bidding

• Here the week has two parts - the 'secret' section, and the 'public' section. From Saturday night/Sunday morning (after the previous week's bids have been processed) until Thursday night at 8PM Eastern, all bids are made secretly (just like the standard private system).
• Then on Thursday at 8PM Eastern, the names of all the games that have active bids are made public to the rest of the league. The names of the players and the amounts being bid are not revealed, only the names of the games. From this point until bids process at 8PM on Saturday (US Eastern), players can edit the dollar amounts on the bids they have already made, or bid on a game that someone else has bid on that they haven't. However, players are not allowed to bid for a game that no one is currently bidding on, and players cannot cancel a bid entirely in the 'public bidding window'.
• This system should prevent one "highly tuned in" player from dominating a league by always being the first to know about new games.

What games are eligible?

Same rules as during the draft. The system will warn you if you try to bid on a game that has already been released or already has reviews, but be aware that the game also must be eligible at the time the bids are processed, not just when you make the bid. For example, if you bid on a game on Tuesday, and reviews come out on Friday, then the bid will fail come Saturday. All pick-up games must already exist in the master database.

Minimum Bid Amount

For no particular reason I have it set to $1 in our league right now, but I reckon a higher amount would be more useful given that we only have to pick-up a total of three games each.

Processing of Bids

Bids are processed on Saturday evenings at 8PM Eastern (New York City time). While bids are processing, you will not be able to:

• Make bids
• Cancel bids
• Request drops
• Cancel drops
• Add/Remove Publisher Games post draft (as a manager)
• Associate Publisher Games

The processing doesn't take long (no longer than 20 minutes, usually less). The site needs to block these actions because if they happen during bid processing, it would cause conflicts with the algorithms.

How are ties handled on bids?

The default tiebreaker order is:

1. Highest bid wins.
2. Lowest projected points wins.
3. The bid placed earlier wins.
4. The player who was later in the draft order wins.

However, leagues can choose to flip the 2nd and 3rd options, so that after highest bids, the next tiebreaker is the bid placed earlier.

Questions I would like YOU to answer...

1. Do you prefer the secret or public bidding system?
2. What would you like the minimum bid amount to be (currently $1 with an annual budget of $100)?
3. Re: tiebreakers, do you prefer earlier bids to take precedence over projected points wins, or vice versa?

My answers

1. Public
2. $10
3. Prefer lowest projected points to win - helps lower scoring players stay in touch with the leaders

Zero-Cool

I agree with your answers Crispy.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703645#Comment_121703645

... (projected No.1 anyway)...

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703672#Comment_121703672

My answers

1. Public
2. $10
3. Prefer lowest projected points to win - helps lower scoring players stay in touch with the leaders

Yup, that seems fair enough to me.

Retr0gamer

I'll go with this as well:

1. Public

2. $10

3. Prefer lowest projected points to win - helps lower scoring players stay in touch with the leaders

johnny_ultimate

LOL the projection really doesn't like my (admittedly risky) strategy of focusing on weird little indie games 😂

Happy with the proposed pick-up rules.

JimBurnley

Happy with this also

My answers

1. Public
2. $10
3. Prefer lowest projected points to win - helps lower scoring players stay in touch with the leaders

Thanks!

DeSelby83

Agree with the above

Mr Crispy

That's a majority in favour of that set-up so. I guess we can starting bidding on pick-ups from Sunday morning then?

Is everyone happy with the dropped game settings? I chose having Automatic Super Drops because I thought it would allow anyone falling behind a chance to ditch their lowest scoring game in favour of another pick-up game, making the competition closer. But I was mistaken in thinking that it was the simplest option - it's a little convoluted and you're not guaranteed to get it, even though I initially read it as being guaranteed. From the FAQ;

A super drop allows a player to drop any one of their games, immediately, no questions asked. Even if the game is already released, even if it's been counter picked, even if it is a counter pick. You also don't need to wait for the drop to process on Saturday, it happens immediately instead.

This mechanic is intended to help players that have fallen far behind in their league. League managers can decide to grant a player a super drop manually using the "Edit Publishers" option. Additionally, leagues can also turn on "Automatic Super Drops". If this option is enabled, starting September 1st of a given year, any player that has less than 65% of the projected points of the player with the most projected points will be given a super drop automatically. Only one super drop can be granted per player in this way, but it doesn't matter what the current date is when the condition is met, just that it is September 1st or greater. That means that if a player doesn't meet the criteria on September 1st, but then falls further behind, they will get the super drop once they become eligible for it.

So even if you are awarded an Auto Super Drop, it may come too late for you to grab the extra pick-up that you wanted (lots of release dates will be updated in the summer showcase season for instance, and may be snapped up by the time you're eligible for a Super Drop). So would ye prefer a more lenient drop set-up then?

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121704170#Comment_121704170

Devolver Digital are announcing something next week.

Just saying.

Kiith

Is this how Americans do fantasy football? Bloody confusing 🤣

I do like my projected 2nd place though...as a Spurs fan, it wouldn't have sat well with me bring top.

Zero-Cool

Reddit post this morning shows Elden Ring DLC has entered quality assessment phase. I'd like to be the first to congratulate Penn on winning this year's fantasy critic league.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121709592#Comment_121709592

I should have copped it was out when they announced the PC port of Horizon.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121709592#Comment_121709592

Congrats Penn!

Mr Crispy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121709428#Comment_121709428

And we didn't even get into counter-picks, trades, drops, special game slots etc. Next year, eh? 😁

Mr Crispy

Blimey. Went to look at the upcoming release schedule for the first time and have only noticed that all 5 of @Kiith's draft picks are due to be released in the next six weeks or so! Was that by design or just coincidence?

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121732584#Comment_121732584

Feb/March does tend to be a busy period in terms of game releases, and less likely the game won't release this year even if it's delayed by a few months. Probably not a bad strategy anyway if it was intentional.