MFL

[Needalife]

Upgraded today... in addition to most of the other comments, I experienced the following:

No longer have the ability for Colors Setup on the commish tab

My Import Future Draft Picks processed incorrectly despite showing a correct list that it was about to process

Ahhh, the offseason.....

[GridironGuerilla]

I feel like I'm in the minority when i say so far, I like it quite a bit. I commission 4 leagues on MFL and just got them al dialed in for 2017. For a lot the managers in my league the mobile friendly aspect was vital as they don't use desktops much.

[MARKinMI]

Font update...

as seen earlier I sent in a help ticket regarding 3 issues that i keep getting complaints on from people who i design leagues for. One of those was the font and MFL said they are looking at it and will make changes over the next few weeks as needed. As per usual its the 'we might help you' approach MFL always takes when you ask for any type of improvement.

Personally I think this UI 'upgrade' is much a do about nothing. They didn't address any of things I've been begging them to for 5 years, chiefly the ridiculous set lineup screen. They say the pages use the same code but they obviously don't since some skins are scaling some things differently than others. And to be honest it largely looks the same as it did before. Most of the new skins look stupid and wont get used. Yay its winter! time to change to my winter skin... said nobody ever....

The reaction to the left menu being gone is just silly imo. It was literally redundant three times over. The main menu on MFL has always been the top menu. You can do every single thing on your site from that menu. So you have to click one extra button to bring a menu column down before choosing your option. I can see being annoyed at the lack of any real UI upgrade in the 'UI upgrade' but save your battles for the important stuff. So far the only real change I see is that mobile users get everything stacked in one row and waivers are a little different. There was lots of huffing and puffing by MFL leading up to this 'upgrade' on how great it would be but in the end I don't really see a difference.

[jordanzs]

I'm not sure how the new waiver setup will work, but MFL has made it so complicated in the past, whereas free leagues like Yahoo & ESPN make it simple & logical. There should just be an option for gametime lockup.

So whether your player plays on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, he locks up right before his kickoff, and stays locked up until the waiver wire run (usually Wednesday). If a player hasn't played, then he can be dropped for another player that hasn't played. In my MFL leagues, if you have a Monday night player who gets deactivated, you can't drop him for another Monday night player. Because waivers locked up the day before. It's stupid!!!!

I also think that MFL should include support for dispersal drafts. It would be so easy to do. Commish picks the teams that are being dispersed, those players get added to the pot. Commish decides if free agents are also added to the dispersal draft. And then a mini snake draft is created & facilitated. Every dispersal draft I've seen has to be done on the league messageboard.

[Cult of Dionysus]

Can't agree with that Mark. The "main menu" is by far the least used menu for me. Tabs and the top 1/3 Of the vertical menu is what I use on a daily basis. And MLF doing away with one click functionality for trades, submit lineup and rosters is damning.

The fact that they did nothing to improve the interface is equally terrible.

[jordanzs]

Can't agree with that Mark. The "main menu" is by far the least used menu for me. Tabs and the top 1/3 Of the vertical menu is what I use on a daily basis. And MLF doing away with one click functionality for trades, submit lineup and rosters is damning.

The fact that they did nothing to improve the interface is equally terrible.

I lived & died by the left side menu as well. I guess I'll just die without it now?

I hated the top menus. They were too clunky for iphone usage. And besides the top menu suckage, I actually liked how the site used to format (or not format) on mobile phones. I didn't mind the pinch & zoom. It was nice to know where everything was & to pinch/zoom accordingly to get to whatever I needed.

[jordanzs]

Can't agree with that Mark. The "main menu" is by far the least used menu for me. Tabs and the top 1/3 Of the vertical menu is what I use on a daily basis. And MLF doing away with one click functionality for trades, submit lineup and rosters is damning.

The fact that they did nothing to improve the interface is equally terrible.

I lived & died by the left side menu as well. I guess I'll just die without it now?

I hated the top menus. They were too clunky for iphone usage.

But besides the top menu suckage, I actually liked how the site used to format (or not format) on mobile phones. I didn't mind the pinch & zoom. It was nice to know where everything was & to pinch/zoom accordingly to get to whatever I needed.

[jordanzs]

It seems like MFL's business model is "you play dynasty...therefore you're stuck with us. Now bend over & take it up the you-know-what".

I say this in 100% all honesty:

If they waved the $69.95 fee & offered me a free league for one of my redrafters, I would turn it down faster than a trade for Justin Blackmon. Free versus Free, I would rather host a redrafter on Yahoo (where I've always kept my redrafters) or somewhere else.

[skip]

in the end I don't really see a difference.

I don't either but I also almost never used the side menu so its absence is meaningless to me. Every function that is there exists in the top menus. The only difference is the top menus have a lot more to offer so I never bothered to use the ones on the side. The desktop site works exactly the same for me as it did prior to the update.

To me the biggest positive is also the biggest negative - the mobile site. There are things it did very well (access to the top menus) so I don't have to zoom in for everything. But what it did to the tabbed modules now looks clunky. But web browsers give the user the option of viewing a site as the desktop version so there's always a way to see it the old way.

[skip]

So whether your player plays on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, he locks up right before his kickoff, and stays locked up until the waiver wire run (usually Wednesday). If a player hasn't played, then he can be dropped for another player that hasn't played. In my MFL leagues, if you have a Monday night player who gets deactivated, you can't drop him for another Monday night player. Because waivers locked up the day before. It's stupid!!!!

This sounds like an issue with your league configuration. I never spent a lot of time messing with settings because any leagues I ended up as the commissioner didn't start that way. In all of my leagues players aren't locked until their actual game time.

[jordanzs]

So whether your player plays on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, he locks up right before his kickoff, and stays locked up until the waiver wire run (usually Wednesday). If a player hasn't played, then he can be dropped for another player that hasn't played. In my MFL leagues, if you have a Monday night player who gets deactivated, you can't drop him for another Monday night player. Because waivers locked up the day before. It's stupid!!!!

This sounds like an issue with your league configuration. I never spent a lot of time messing with settings because any leagues I ended up as the commissioner didn't start that way. In all of my leagues players aren't locked until their actual game time.

Perhaps. There should be a simplified option for the commish to select called "game time waivers". I have some leagues where once the Thursday night game plays, ALL players get locked into conditional blind bidding until a Saturday morning waiver run.

[skip]

Perhaps. There should be a simplified option for the commish to select called "game time waivers". I have some leagues where once the Thursday night game plays, ALL players get locked into conditional blind bidding until a Saturday morning waiver run.

I think one of the biggest challenges is to try to create a functionality to account for every scenario. That's pretty tough because there are no doubt a lot of variations. My experience with any other sites is they don't come close to matching even the functionality of MFL.

Unfortunately, I think most things in life fall under the category of "deal with it". When was the last time Microsoft made a single beneficial update to their OS or to MSOffice? When was the last time the law gave you more freedom, not less? Or did your employer come to you and say..."You have too many responsibilities, we're going to give you less work to do every day..."?

In the end, MFL can do what they want because they are the best product on the market for the game. The decision to move to any other platform is also one which comes with its own pitfalls.

[hammertoes]

in the end I don't really see a difference.

I don't either but I also almost never used the side menu so its absence is meaningless to me. Every function that is there exists in the top menus. The only difference is the top menus have a lot more to offer so I never bothered to use the ones on the side. The desktop site works exactly the same for me as it did prior to the update.

We'll all just have to agree to disagree on the sidebar menu. Some people liked to use it, some didn't. Some people used the top menu, some didn't. No opinion is more right than the other.

Personally I thought the side menu was much simpler. One click access to everything important. Plus I didn't have to scroll to the top of the page every time I needed something.

Yes I know all the same stuff could be found in the drop-downs, but IMO it's in no logical order. Everything's just jammed into "reports".

[MARKinMI]

Can't agree with that Mark. The "main menu" is by far the least used menu for me. Tabs and the top 1/3 Of the vertical menu is what I use on a daily basis. And MLF doing away with one click functionality for trades, submit lineup and rosters is damning.

The fact that they did nothing to improve the interface is equally terrible.

I never used the side menu because as skip said. You could only do a few things from it so I learned to use the top main menu because it has everything on it. especially if you commish leagues, you just get used to it because thats where you have to go anyway. As for trades just add the trade module. it takes you right to the trade screen and/or tells you if you have open offers one way or the other. i just don't see the big deal. its basically just a matter of click here in stead of here to do something. its not like they took features away.

[bonscott]

I'm not sure how the new waiver setup will work, but MFL has made it so complicated in the past, whereas free leagues like Yahoo & ESPN make it simple & logical. There should just be an option for gametime lockup.

So whether your player plays on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, he locks up right before his kickoff, and stays locked up until the waiver wire run (usually Wednesday). If a player hasn't played, then he can be dropped for another player that hasn't played. In my MFL leagues, if you have a Monday night player who gets deactivated, you can't drop him for another Monday night player. Because waivers locked up the day before. It's stupid!!!!

Ummmm, have had that feature going in all my leagues for nearly 10 years. They added that a *long* time ago. Just got to check the option box for it and it still exists in the new setup. I've swapped out kickers or QBs before 5 minutes before MNF kickoff. So basically your commish locked all waivers on Sunday, but MFL never forced that.