Posted by girt25 on 3/24/2013 11:02:00 AM (view original):
Posted by graff on 3/23/2013 11:31:00 PM (view original):
I'm just coming back to HD for my 3rd go around. One of the things that just absolutely irritates me to no end is the limited amount of minutes it allows guys to play, thus forcing big minutes for all your bench guys (and a much larger rotation).
In reality, most teams play 7-8 guys and beyond that it's only for a couple spot minutes or mop-up time. Of those 7-8 guys, it's really common to have 3-4 guys playing 30ish minutes and if you have 1 or 2 "studs" then they play 34-36 minutes and only come out for a quick blow each half.
If you even attempt to go with an 8 man rotation and keeping your starters in for 30 minutes in HD, you're going to get killed because they'll all either foul out (due to fatigue) or simply play like crap late in the game with turnovers and missed shots (again due to fatigue).
It would be nice if guys with good conditioning (stamina) could play 36-38 minutes regularly without much drop-off. It would be MUCH more realistic instead of this forced 10 man rotation where starters play 22-24 minutes and bench guys play 16-18 minutes and there's very little distinction between starter vs. bench minutes (and production).
Would it be more realistic to play shorter rotations? Yes, that would mimic more real life teams.
But what you're giving up to do that is, in my opinion, a pretty massive negative. The way things are set up now, things like depth, strategy and team building really matter. They're important parts of the game. And in DI, it also allows lesser teams that are veteran laden and/or deep to compete with some of the big boys. If the big boys only needed to go seven deep, it would just be the rich getting richer.
So while it would be more realistic, it would also be much worse for the game, and make HD way less interesting and strategic.
See I don't get that line of thinking at all, but maybe I'm in the minority?
I think the draw/interest in this game is to be as real of a "simulator" as possible. If that's true then I WANT it to be as realistic as possible. There should be "stud" freshman at D1 who are better than Seniors and leave for the NBA after 1 year. For that matter, the lack of underclassmen being good/better than some upper classmen in general is another huge gripe I have. Sure guys improve some over time, thus IN GENERAL seniors will be better than freshman, but in reality you can't just say Team A has 8 seniors vs. Team B has 3 seniors...okay Team A is obviously better. Here you can. If I recruit a "stud" frosh he should realistically be good enough to be a starter/top 2-4 type player from day 1, not be just "good for a freshman".
There should be guys who can play 36+ minutes (not a lot, but 1 or 2 per team maybe) without any drop off. So that coaches can use realistic 7-8 man rotations and strategies.
I don't think it takes away from the strategy of the game it all, it just CHANGES it. Of course it also puts a lot more emphasis on recruiting.....which is also realistic!
To me, this game just feels way too "gimmicky". It plays like a big random number generator more than a basketball simulator, where the only thing that matters is figuring out the best probabilities instead of doing things that might be unconventional but actually work.
Anyway, we'll see if it's any more fun this time for me. Hopefully it is because I think the IDEA behind this is really neat.