#113 | SimFBA | The Draft Page

[TuscanSota]

Hi everyone,

 

Hope y'all are well. If you want to watch a video form of today's dev diary, go ahead and watch this video:

 

 

If you want to read text instead, then scroll down and read below. Today's dev diary is covering the brand new SimNFL Draft Page. We will be going over the following features:

• Overview of the Page
• War Room
• Scouting
• Trading
• Drafting a Player

To access the SimNFL Draft Page, go to the nav bar at the top, and click on the SimNFL Team dropdown to pull down the list of pages available to visit. The SimNFL draft page will be at the bottom:

 

 

Overview

For those who participated in the SimNBA Draft, you may notice a very similar structure to the contents on this page. For those new, welcome to the SimNFL Draft Page. This page will handle this year's and all future drafts within the SimNFL League. Teams will be able to scout future NFL players from this page, keep track of their draft picks, the state of the draft, draft players, and trade picks,

The top section is the header of the draft page. Here, the user will be able to see the current round & pick of the SimNFL Draft, the team currently drafting, and the team that is drafting next. In the shown screenshot are some features that are admin-only, that will be used to managed the state of the draft and be able to support teams should any issues arise. Admins will be able to start, pause, and reset the timer on the clock if need be. A Help button is also shown at the top, giving the user a full description of the page, and what each function of the page does.

 

Draft List

The Draft List will show the draft picks within the current round. Up to 32-37 draft picks will be shown here depending on the current round of the draft. For this year, we are aiming to show only the current round on the page at the time, and I highly advise keeping up with alternative resources like Jieret's SimNFL Draft Book as a means of looking up previous picks made during the draft.

Each card in the list shows the Draft Number of the pick, the team that owns the draft pick, and will also show the name of the player once the pick has been used to draft a player. The Draft Pick outlined in red is the team currently picking; the card outlined in yellow is the next team drafting. It is important to keep track of these two cards, especially when it comes to trading. I will explain why later down.

 

War Room

The War Room Section is the first of 3 tab-able sections in the SimNFL Draft Page. The War Room will show you your team name, how many points you have available in scouting, how many points you have spent, and is the section used to keep propose & receive trades from teams.

To Propose a Trade with a team, select a team from the dropdown list. The trade partner selected will have their available draft picks appear on the right. Click on the Propose Trade Button to open up the trade prompt to propose a trade.
 

 

Trading

For those familiar with the trade block page, you may notice a very familiar experience. Regarding in mind that the Cap Space sections don't entirely work, the Trade Proposal Window will be used to propose trades during the draft. Teams will be able to propose trades using picks from this season, future seasons, and players currently on their roster. Please REFRAIN from using this trade window prior to the draft.

 

Once a trade is proposed, the partnering team will receive a notification via the bell on their War Room page. The Bell will highlight when a trade has been sent to them.

 

The Inbox will be very similar to the SimNFL Trade Block Experience, with teams being able to accept/reject trades in a very similar fashion.

Once a trade has been proposed, Admins will be able to see the Manage Trades button highlighted in red from their UI. They will then process the trade given the following criteria:

• The trade does not involve a team currently making their selection
• The trade does not involve any previously drafted picks

 

Scouting Players

To Scout a player, click on the Draft List button on the draft page. The Draft List section will replace the War Room section and will show all users the list of currently draftable players for this season. Users will be able to filter the list by position, archetype, and college. To add a player to your scouting board, click the Green Plus button on the player row you want to add to your board.

Once you've added a couple of players to your board, click on the "Scouting Board" button. This will replace the Draft List section with your team's scouting board. The rows on the scouting board will provide users with more player information, including attributes most important to the player that's being scouted. Up to 8 attributes + the Potential grade can be shown at a time on each row.

To scout an attribute, simply click on the attribute that you want to scout. This will also work on the Potential Grade button as well.

Here are the current costs per attribute:

• Potential: 10 points
• All other attributes: 4 points

Scouting Card & Options

On the right-hand side of each row are three buttons: One brings up a player's scouting card, another is the draft button for the player, and the other is the button to remove the player from the scouting board.

 

The Scouting Card will show more detailed information on the player, along with info regarding their previous season performance both in stats and win record. You cannot reveal attributes from this card. It is by design.

 

 

General FAQ

Can we reveal attributes outside of the current eight for the player in view?

Unfortunately, not this season. For viewing attribute grades outside of the general attributes shown, I recommend looking through Jieret's SimNFL Draft Book for all attributes applicable.

Why will the admins not process a trade involving the current team selecting?

For this season only, time. We want the Draft process to be as smoothed out as possible; and in order to keep things moving this season, any trades involving a team currently making their selection will be voided.

What if a team that was waiting for a trade to be approved but is suddenly making their selection?

I'm sorry, but it will still be void. In the event of this happening, I strongly advise using your pick, and drafting a player. With that said, any team who's draft pick isn't outlined in red or yellow, do keep tabs on when selections are made if you are planning on trading back.

Can we trade players we drafted earlier in the draft?

Not this season please.

Is David Ross draftable this season?

Not yet. That's just filler text at the moment.

What happens if my team accidentally drafts the wrong player?

Reach out to me and the admin team and provide explanation on what occurred. In the event of a mis-click or something happening on the backend, we will work with you to ensure that the right pick is made. We want to reduce as many pauses as possible with this draft; and having learned from technical issues with the SimNBA draft, I have made an effort to ensure that already-drafted players cannot be drafted again.

I lost internet connection mid-draft. What should I do?

When your internet is restored, please refresh the page. This will refresh the draft page with the most-up-to-date information for you and will have you re-synced to the page.

When will the SimNFL Draft take place?

We will be conducting a poll for when we will host the SimNFL Draft. Here are the following weeks we are considering:

• February 23-25
• March 1st-3rd
• March 8th - 10th

How can I best prepare for the SimNFL Draft?

• Make sure to find a location that has strong, stable wifi for this year's draft. This will ensure that everyone is in-sync during both the live stream and the draft process. Whether it's at home or a public setting like a coffee shop or library, I strongly recommend having good internet speeds.
• Set reminders and events on your calendars to prepare for the draft and to know when it is.
• We will likely take short breaks in between rounds to ensure that everyone has time to stand, get away from the computer for a bit, and stretch their legs.
• Bring snacks ahead of time. Snack on whatever you want. I plan on eating granola and dried fruit this year.
• I recommend scouting players before the draft and during the draft. Don't use up all 500 of your points prior to draft weekend. In the event that a player you desired to draft was drafted earlier, you will want to use those points to scout other players to draft.

 

With all this said, access to the SimNFL Draft Page is now available. I hope that y'all enjoy this year's draft experience, and I look forward to drafting alongside all of you.

~Tuscan

[Jieret]

When the draft class was released, did the grade fuzziness extend to the individual attributes or was it just the Overall that got fuzzed?

Put another way, will there be a need for teams to use scouting points on individual attributes?

 

And I know it's said a lot, but it still isn't said enough.  Thank you so much for all your hard work!

Edited January 8 by Jieret

[Rocketcan]

This will be the crown jewel of this site's functionality!

[TuscanSota]

43 minutes ago, Jieret said:

When the draft class was released, did the grade fuzziness extend to the individual attributes or was it just the Overall that got fuzzed?

Put another way, will there be a need for teams to use scouting points on individual attributes?

 

And I know it's said a lot, but it still isn't said enough.  Thank you so much for all your hard work!

Yes. Grade fuzziness does extend to individual attributes along with overall.

[SageBow]

Top top feature great job team