Victory Points

[Cult of Dionysus]

For those of you who have done VP before, what's your opinion on that format? And what is a good setup.

[bruiser]

I like the concept, but couldn't get the owners of my re-draft league to budge. They hated the idea of IDP, too. And don't want to start 4WRs, so there's a little context about that. Anyways, in a league that over-rewards luck, I really wanted to get some credit for 2nd highest score (losing effort). It's not as extreme as head-to-head nor all-play (those being on opposite ends of the spectrum). I believe victory points to be the perfect blend of skill and luck, whereas you still have the novelty of playing head-to-head but get your victory points based on your skill.

Best format I've seen:
H2H WIN: 2 pts, LOSS: 0pts
Score Top 1/3: 2pts, Mid 1/3: 1pt, Bot 1/3: 0pts

Losing in a strong effort worth the same as Winning in a weak effort: 2pts

For background, my re-draft league is 16 teams. Eight teams make the playoffs. Of the eight that made the playoffs this year, only one team would not have been in the playoffs if we had implemented VPs. His team went 7-6 having won a game with the 2nd lowest score of the week (out of 16) in the very same week a team lost with the 2nd highest. I am not making this up. Said team that would not have made the playoffs if VPs were awarded made it to the Super Bowl. We were pulling our hair out and hoping that a team that should have been 5-8 would not win the league and $1700.

[sloth8u]

i prefer vp's to the typical w/l standings. ive only played 2 pts for the top 1/3, 1 pt for the middle 1/3, and 0 pts for the bottom 1/3 in scoring for the week. the real difference is how a win is scored. if you only score a win as 1 pt vs 2 pts...it takes away from the value of a win, which im not a fan of. for example, if i score in the bottome 1/3 and win i receive 1pt while the team who score in the top 1/3 and loses gets 2 pts. there is some randomness to how our teams score from week to week. some teams score a ton of pts but arent consistent. other teams score consistently the same and finish with a nice w/l record, but dont really get rewarded because they arent consistently scoring on the high end, but are still beating their opponents. it very feasible that a boom or bust team wins 5 or 6 games and ends up with more vp's than an 8 win team with only rewarding 1 pt for wins. if you reward 2 pts for a win, this could certainly happen aswell, but its less likely. ive found that building a consistent team isnt as successful in the 1 pt for win setting, but works well in the 2 pt for win setting. if you play in a vp league that rewards 1 for the win, you mights aswell shoot for a boom or bust team, because your better off scoring high, than you are winning your matchups.

[Goirish374]

how have you seen people split the 1/3s in leagues with a number of teams not divisible by 3?

[bruiser]

Top 5
Middle 6
Bottom 5

MFL has a VP option to select #of "buckets" being either 2 or 3, being 2 buckets is top 1/2 and bottom 1/2. 3 "buckets" being in thirds. Add the odd team to the middle of the pack

[ccj]

Losing in a strong effort worth the same as Winning in a weak effort: 2pts

This about sums it up for me. Exceedingly bland format IMO. The best teams are identified way before anyone is mathematically eliminated. Occasional statistical anomalies are good for the league... when the underdogs stop having a chance they tend to stop caring and trying.

[bruiser]

Occasional statistical anomalies are good for the league...

Yeah, I get that. Every league is different. The worst ones lack depth and play team defense. Statistical anomalies wreck those leagues. But on the flip-side, if you play in a deep IDP league where the better teams are consistently at the top of the standings, Victory Points format is really not necessary. My suggestion would be to play the middle with VPs. If you are in a shallow league (7 starters and a Team D/ST) use victory points as the 1st tie-breaker in the standings. I will say that almost everyone prefers the novelty of head-to-head records and following the standings in a "Games Back" race.

Ironically, we had this debate in my re-draft league at the same time as the college football selection committee made their final rankings. It was somehow a parallel discussion of how that committee uses a performance metric outside of raw W-L records. It is always a fair debate whether wins and losses are accurate qualifiers without any context. Ultimately, they decided to give the undefeated Florida St the #1 ranking even though they were consistently ranked #3 because of middling wins against mediocre opponents. They immediately got trounced by Ohio St who qualified by its performance metric late in the season. It's fair to say that the selection committee got it right by including "victory points" when they awarded the 4th spot to Ohio St. It is also fair to say they got it wrong when they ignored "victory points" and gifted FSU the #1 seed.

[Walter W.]

Instead of VPs, the final wildcard in our leagues is the remaining team with the most points scored. This works well for that team that seems to always score well but gets hosed by the match ups. It also keeps more teams involved in the playoff chase, because even if your record isn't that great you might still have a shot at the points wildcard. Works pretty well for my leagues, keeps more teams involved longer.

[splendorlex]

Instead of VPs, the final wildcard in our leagues is the remaining team with the most points scored. This works well for that team that seems to always score well but gets hosed by the match ups. It also keeps more teams involved in the playoff chase, because even if your record isn't that great you might still have a shot at the points wildcard. Works pretty well for my leagues, keeps more teams involved longer.

I prefer this kind of system to VPs. Use points scored to determine a wild card spot or two outside of W/L record.

I do think points scored should also be a factor in draft position, and not W/L record. Getting lucky and winning another game or two with a bad roster can actually hurt a team in some situations.

[Csl312]

I have never done a VP league. I like the idea, partly because H2H has never made logical sense to me in fantasy sports but I do enjoy the rivalry/smack talk aspect of H2H matchups. VPs seem like a good compromise to try to balance the craziness of H2H vs the lack of direct competition if you eliminate H2H matchups.

@Irishdoom, potential points is the best way to determine draft order for non-playoff teams for sure IMO. Also the league I commish uses points scored to determine the 2 wildcards as well, I think that is a great system.

Has anyone ever done a roto style football league? I have always wanted to try that.

[dlf_jules]

Instead of VPs, the final wildcard in our leagues is the remaining team with the most points scored. This works well for that team that seems to always score well but gets hosed by the match ups. It also keeps more teams involved in the playoff chase, because even if your record isn't that great you might still have a shot at the points wildcard. Works pretty well for my leagues, keeps more teams involved longer.

This setup also sometimes creates an incentive for a team to lose in order to make the playoffs.

Suppose you're 5-7, so you have no shot at making the playoffs based on record, but you have 1600 points. There are two teams -- LuckyDucks and WorthyOpponents -- tied for the final standings-based playoff spot. LuckyDucks are 8-4, with 1400 points on the season. WorthyOpponents are 8-4, with 1700 points on the season. No other non-playoff team can beat you in total points.

In week 13, the final week of the regular season, you play WorthyOpponents. If you lose, you're guaranteed a playoff spot: WorthyOpponents gets the final standings-based spot, while you get the total points spot. But if you win, you need LuckyDucks to lose; because if LuckyDucks wins, they get the standings-based spot and WorthyOpponents gets the total points spot.

[sloth8u]

i really dont like the total pts thing unless maybe you want to do it for draft position. total pts really is irrelevant imo when it comes to the best teams. if you score the most, often enough...you win your games or qualify via vp's. i have a few teams that just blow all competitors away by like 50 pts a few weeks a year, but typically finish below the average on a weekly basis. others in the league think im knocking on the door of greatness, while i realize the team is still a few pieces away from be a realistic contender.

one league, a guy posts a poll about who the best team is and the top pt getter gets the vote by a considerable margin. i state on the message board that his team wont even make the playoffs likely....i was right. this was a h2h league but even by vp's he would have been on the outside looking in. its great to have a team that can go huge, but if it doesnt happen often enough to make you one of the better teams in the league, you shouldnt be rewarded with a playoff spot.

[MEuRaH]

I'm in 4 dynasty leagues, and 2 of them use VPs... one I just created

I love it. If you are the #2 scoring team and play the #1 scoring team, you still get points for doing well. I wouldn't have made the playoffs without VPs in that league. I was unlucky, but my team was really good, so the VPs saved my season.

2 points for a win, 1 for a tie, 0 for a loss.
2 points for top-3rd, 1 for mid-3rd, 0 for bottom-3rd.

I love it better than total points. If you have one crazy week, your total points will be inflated. You could make the playoffs because of one or two fluke weeks. To be the best using the VP format, you have to be consistently good all year long.

[Walter W.]

Instead of VPs, the final wildcard in our leagues is the remaining team with the most points scored. This works well for that team that seems to always score well but gets hosed by the match ups. It also keeps more teams involved in the playoff chase, because even if your record isn't that great you might still have a shot at the points wildcard. Works pretty well for my leagues, keeps more teams involved longer.

This setup also sometimes creates an incentive for a team to lose in order to make the playoffs.

Suppose you're 5-7, so you have no shot at making the playoffs based on record, but you have 1600 points. There are two teams -- LuckyDucks and WorthyOpponents -- tied for the final standings-based playoff spot. LuckyDucks are 8-4, with 1400 points on the season. WorthyOpponents are 8-4, with 1700 points on the season. No other non-playoff team can beat you in total points.

In week 13, the final week of the regular season, you play WorthyOpponents. If you lose, you're guaranteed a playoff spot: WorthyOpponents gets the final standings-based spot, while you get the total points spot. But if you win, you need LuckyDucks to lose; because if LuckyDucks wins, they get the standings-based spot and WorthyOpponents gets the total points spot.

I haven't ever noticed anything like that happen in our leagues, but you're right it could conceivably. Most of the time the points wildcard has a pretty good record as well, but in one of our leagues a guy was 4-9 but outscored a couple teams with four more wins. The team in question had almost 100 more points against than the next team (we aren't a "points for everything" league, so 100 points is a lot), he just got dicked by the scheduling gods.

I am taking a good look at VP though, I like having something to mitigate crap luck somewhat.

[dlf_jules]

^^ Yeah, I have to think it's pretty rare. But every year I see someone posting on a message board, "Ethical question -- ok to lose to make the playoffs?"