Posted by zyrion on 3/4/2014 11:11:00 PM (view original):
I'd say Mike has been very helpful for a lot of people. I've utilized his Ask the MikeT23 thread numerous times, and I have always received prompt and helpful responses. I tend to agree that in a dynasty game like HBD, it doesn't make sense to make numerous and frequent changes. Having such frequent changes would make it much more difficult to plan for the future when you don't know what it will look like. Today's effective strategy might lead to a disaster given a certain set of changes made tomorrow.
I liked the last two sentences of this quote. On the contrary, I would argue that unprectability leads to dynamism, which leads to a more realistic experience relative to real baseball, which leads to a more fluid experienc, which leads to more fun, more users, better loyalty, whatever. Baseball evolves. Some GMs anticipate the trends better than others. Beane structures the A's roster within a long-term framework but with short-term flexibility to adjust to dynamic factors. If you are worried that an engine update might counterfeit the players that you signed to 5 yr/$100mil contracts, then maybe that's a You problem. Real GMs rue albatross contracts all the time. Be better.
As for any updates, the devs could perform an engine overhaul incrementally rather than all at once. IOW,for example with the K/9 statistic,currently the "velocity" attribute, 90 arm roughly correlates to 9.0 k/9, and higher or lower Vel is scaled to higher and lower k rates. The definition itself is fine, but in the past 10 years, humans have drastically re-defined what a shoulder and elbow joints are capable of. 100 mph is the new 90. WIS could plan an implementation where the goal was to re-scale Vel so that 70 = 9.0 k/9. 99 Vel would be aroldis chapman and k rate would be re-defined at 14.0 or whatever. However, instead of doing so all at once, schedule quarterly implentations that will re-scale by 1 year from now rather than 1 week from now. IOW, the next time your league rolls over (in 3 months), 85 Vel = 9.0 k/9. In 6 months, 80 Vel = 9.0. Etc. This way, the engine evolves while its users have the opportunity to plan ahead.
Additionally, in conjunction, the devs ccould re-define the regeneration pool and write clearer templates for positons and how they match to certain attributes. It would work off of a bell curve. 75% of the SP regen pool would carry a Vel rating (potential) betwwen 55 and 75. Outliers would exist above and below those thresholds, and there could be a few guys in each world who topped 90, 95, and maybe 1 guy who touched 99. In this fashion, Vel would become a primary attribute for some guys (the outliers), but would remain secondary for the middle 75% of the bell curve. Thus, best of both worlds, static and dynamic. I