I was wondering how you are going to look at changes to fatigue during the game sim in the new update? I have noticed it seems to be pretty meaningless as far as performance goes and only seems to affect substitutions. I also had a recent game where my SIM opponent had players go from green to red in a two minute drive filled with incomplete passes and a time out. So my questions are:

1) What will fatigue (green to red dots) indicate?

2) IF it indicates the players level of fatigue - does that relate to substitution or will it also relate to diminished ability?

3) IF it relates to diminished ability - is it an across the board reduction in attributes? (If player at 80% (20% fatigued),  is his strength for example decreased by 20%?)

4) How is a players stamina level calculated?

5) Have you considered the option that players with lower durability may not be able to return to 100% health for the next game?

I have more questions, but I'll start the discussion with these.

Thanks in advance Norbert

1) How close to subbing out a player is

2) Both substitution and reduced ability

3) Yes.  Someone who is at 85% see all of his attributes modified by about that amount.  It's not exactly a one-to-one relation, but I was told in a ticket it's a very good approximation.

4) Not sure

5) DUR is used in figuring out the probability of injury, and how quickly he can recover (no longer be Out) from that injury.  It's also used in the game for when someone gets banged up and has to sit for a series.

Thanks for the insight mgm, but what I would like to have Norbert answer is how fatigue may change in the update. I have not noticed that fatigue has affected players ability at all. I made a run in D1AA into the 3rd round of the PO with all starters set at very tired. I had red dot players running and passing all over the game against human recruited green dot players - not what I would call reduction in ability. Also, I have not seen that durability of a player consistently indicates who gets injured. Stamina differences of 50% may only produce a 5% difference in plays during a game. 

Just want to know if these factors are going to mean more in the new update.

norbert is prob too busy revamping the engine to answer your fatigue questions 

Are you saying Norbert's dot is turning yellow now and he's too tired to  be bothered ?

i dunno...norbert can you answer that for us? oh crap this is like inception we are in a question within a question

Currently fatigue indicates the percentage that certain attributes are lowered during a game.  So those attributes would be lowered to 80% when the player's fatigue is at 80%.  The amount a player fatigues during the game is dependent on his position and his Stamina.  It's not a flat decline, so it may stay relatively flat for a period of time and then all of a sudden start to drop off.  If you have very short drives on offense or defense, you might not see your players fatigue much at all during the game because any fatigue they might acquire might be wiped out as they rest between the drives.  You generally will not see players get very fatigued unless they stay on the field for longer drives.  So that's the pattern of how fatigue works currently in the engine.

The biggest problem isn't the rate at which players fatigue or how far down they go, but the general issue of randomness in the game right now.  If a fresh player can have the same results as a fatigued player, and results are produced based on simple random chances, then fatigue may appear to be meaningless and not affecting the results at all.  What's happening is that the fatigue, by way of lowering certain ratings, is lowering the chances of success for those players.  But then the randomness can end up countering those hits to the chances and you end up not really affecting anything at all.

For the update, the major focus will be on minimizing the randomness.  I don't know exactly what that will entail right now, but we've been working through some ideas that should help out.  It might also be that I look directly at fatigue for some cases rather than just adjusting ratings, but I'm still looking at that.  However, anything we do to minimize the randomness should help in making fatigue matter more.  We might also look at the fatigue rate, but I'd rather check that after we get a good idea of how fatigue will affect the engine with the new changes.

Norbert, what about the possibility of a 'ghost world', for us as paying customers, to test these updates when they happen (prior to them being rolled out into the world), so we get an idea of what to expect for our actual teams?  Is that something that could or would ever happen?

Posted by tsut30 on 5/21/2012 1:32:00 PM (view original):
Norbert, what about the possibility of a 'ghost world', for us as paying customers, to test these updates when they happen (prior to them being rolled out into the world), so we get an idea of what to expect for our actual teams?  Is that something that could or would ever happen?

We are planning on having beta worlds open before we roll the changes out to test the engine and the settings.  I see a few technical issues we have to work out before this will work for us, but we will get a real beta out one way or another.  I hope to have it be an open beta where everyone can grab a team and check out the changes from the ground up.

Beta will probably be in August at the earliest.

Norbert:  Awesome response and glad to see a beta world on the way.  We really appreciate your efforts.  

Thanks Norbert for taking the time to answer my questions. It showed that due to the random effects, fatigue and player attributes mean very little as the engine just generates some random (or too many) match-up decisions with seemingly little regard for ratings. The effects of fatigue over a full game seem to be minimal, as, except for the long drive, they get recharged.

I would like to see low stamina players have drastically decreased attributes as they get tired. Not just on long drives but in the 2nd and 4th quarters as well. And low durability players may not bounce back and start each game at 100% health. Just my 28 centavos worth.

Norbit I am playing a game today agains ta team that only has 7 OL and the stamina for them is around 36 ( 3 in the 20's).  He is avg over 6 yards a carry.  His OL is playing in 90-95% of the game with a stamina of 20.  How is this possible?

Posted by coejds on 5/22/2012 8:00:00 AM (view original):
Norbit I am playing a game today agains ta team that only has 7 OL and the stamina for them is around 36 ( 3 in the 20's).  He is avg over 6 yards a carry.  His OL is playing in 90-95% of the game with a stamina of 20.  How is this possible?

Welcome to the POS new engine.  No way that $hit would've happened in GD1.0.....but there were people begging for a revamp.  Enjoy it.  :(

Posted by coejds on 5/22/2012 8:00:00 AM (view original):
Norbit I am playing a game today agains ta team that only has 7 OL and the stamina for them is around 36 ( 3 in the 20's).  He is avg over 6 yards a carry.  His OL is playing in 90-95% of the game with a stamina of 20.  How is this possible?

Because in real life, no matter how fat and out of shape an OL is, they very rarely come out of a game, becasue of fatigue.  This engine reflects that.