Announcement: A big new feature has just been added!

[Kevin]

If you look under your Team Menu, you'll see two cool new menu items: Challenge Play and Recent Challenge Games.

I'll talk about the concept here, and then the practical uses in the next post.

The concept here is that you can challenge other teams outside your league to games. This is a bonus feature outside normal league play, but it also has a system where you can have your team ranked among the universe of teams based on your challenge play.

Our goal was twofold: first, we wanted to give players another option for play that opens up play across different leagues, particularly for fun in the Sandbox offseason, but also during the season. And second, it gives you a way to play games and test strategies outside your teams' normal 16-game season.

Your results in challenge games will be kept in a separate scoring category that is completely unrelated to play in your own league. So you'll still compete for the Sandbox Bowl in your league as always, but now you can also try to maximize your challenge score by challenging other teams to games.

More detail in the next post.

[Kevin]

The mechanics:

1. If you want to play challenge games, click the box that says "Enable Challenges" in the Challenge Play menu. If you do this, other players can challenge you and you can challenge them.
2. Note the rules at the top of the "Enable Challenges" page for some other mechanics.
3. You get more points in the rankings if you beat stronger teams, and fewer if you beat weaker teams. The same goes for losses: if you get upset by a weaker team, you take a bigger hit on your points and rankings.
4. Since challenges can take place in the offseason, we assume no injuries. If you want to model injuries, you can just take a player out of your lineup.

Let us know what you think! This is a new feature, so we're always willing to hear suggestions for improvements.

[cdcox]

One minor correction to what Kevin posted: during the Sandbox Simulation season what ever injuries are going on during the current week affect challenge games as well. Outside of the Sandbox season, all players will be available as Kevin stated.

[cdcox]

In the first Challenge Game in Sandbox history, the Detroit Vipers (owner: PaperLion) withstood the challenge of the Nashville Golden Mules (owner: cdcox). As a result, Nashville's Elo dropped form 1500 to 1475, while Detroit's went from 1500, to 1525. That Detroit defense is stout! Congrats to PaperLion.

[UmmBerrto]

Nice one!!!!!

[UmmBerrto]

Wow, liking the Challange Play addition already.

Here is to the hope that you open it up too many more challenges allowed per day.

i could easily see myself running through 12-15 of these a day.

[Kingswood]

Wow, liking the Challange Play addition already.

Here is to the hope that you open it up too many more challenges allowed per day.

i could easily see myself running through 12-15 of these a day.

I agree. I love being able to compete against other leagues.

[Aardvark71]

I am missing my 120 rated QBs and Left OT - 5 challenge losses LOL because it began week 7

[Kevin]

The model seems to indicate that losing your QB and LT can be a challenge.

However, I have to brag that one of my teams lost all of its QBs one week this season and had to roll with a street free agent. We had a good running back and strong defense, so we adjusted our game plan to the 1930s with nearly all runs and actually pulled out an ultra-low-scoring win.

[eaglesphan79]

I think the stats gets messed up when 2 teams with the same QB play each other…