Interesting view of perceived difficulty of fixtures -
@Philosorapter , you might like this (graphic in tweet)
All new teams entering the division get a 1500 rating, old teams keep their ratings. All teams also have their Rating Deviation reset to 350, with the RD getting progressively smaller when more games are played. This will give a decent accurate spread of how new teams are doing against established teams which already have a recognised rating in the league, given the results.
Most teams will lose or gain players between seasons, which means assessing the ratings or places from where a team has finished last year to this year, could be described as a little dubious. You would expect that teams dropping a division would have a higher rating than a team around a top of the division (and vice versa for teams going up a division) but this is not always the case, and can throw off any accuracy when doing ratings.
Six games in should give everyone a better view on the weightings of each team in the division, this should then solidify more around the tenth to fourteenth game.
Think I may do a GIF of this process for the first 12 games to show the process.
Edit - when I talk about 1500 for anything, it is the midway point in the league. Just thought I would throw that in. It is what everything is truly balanced around.