4 - in no way shape or form is #3 easy to accomplish, but I submit to anyone caring to read this or comment on this, that the excellence with which #3 has been accomplished has made this game successful

i would agree with this completely, at least for the core sim engine. i am convinced that without a realistic simulation, this game wouldn't be worth squat. however, i don't think its required for the entire game engine, if you will (defining the game engine as the sim engine plus the other logical elements; essentially, how you get to the point of having the players you use in the sim - everything from recruiting to jobs to injuries to grades).

Posted by gillispie on 9/14/2010 2:48:00 PM (view original):

Posted by isack24 on 9/14/2010 1:49:00 PM (view original):

They eventually had to go into a legitimate halfcourt offense at some point, and they pressed off of makes, but didn't trap the entire game.  No team could ever sustain that type of energy.

Even then, that's one team.  Can you name a team that does it now?  I can name some uptempo pressing teams, but nothing like what the HD press is.

personally, i am 100% in favor of a complete rehaul of the press to make something resembling real life. HD press is a joke. even when i played it exclusively (back when it was unstoppable, before the new engine), i always felt full court press should be taken out of the game and replaced with a variety of pressing options. i feel similarly about the fast break - to me, the fast break is something to play on top of the other core offenses.

that said, i don't expect HD to make every offense and defense. but the ones they do make, i would like to be realistic. there is only so much you can do, after all...

Yeah, I totally agree with this.

IMO, this game is unmatched for what it does as has been said. I would also like to see more game planning options. I would also like to see the press/fastbreak as a primary defense/offense dropped. I say keep the press but make it a secondary which is what I understood was supposed to take place at some point anyways.

In terms of real-life stat comparison, i agree with OR in that individual stats reflecting real life IS important. when i look around and see no players getting 10 boards per game, nobody getting 5 assists per game, it just feels wrong. one of the main reasons i don't enjoy GD very much and can't get into it is because you see these players getting 100 TDs in a season and teams with four 1000 yard rushers. that's not the sport i know and love. for the record, i'm a football fan first, every other sport is vying for 2nd, so you'd think i'd prefer the football game. instead, i prefer the basketball game for, among other reasons, the added realism.

for the press/fastbreak, i think there should really be a fastbreak/crash boards sliding-bar gameplanning option (where the existing +/- pertains more to guarding PE vs guarding LP). the notion that you need to practice press nearly as much as your main defense to utilize it seems silly to me. i'd like to see it where you can practice your primary set for 20 minutes, throw 5 into the press and you can then effectively use the press in certain situations.

This is one of those things that makes you stop and think a minute or two.  At least it did me.  There is so much said in so few lines of the original post and in some of the ones that follow.  I guess first, I should give my opinion to OR since that is what (I think) he was asking for (or maybe eh was just stating his own and seeing where that went.  Anyway, I think that the engine needs to simulate real life to at least some point.  As someone stated, it always seems odd to never see any 20 or 30 point a game scorers, 10 boards or even averaging 5 dimes when you commonly see those averages (not in the same player) in college basketball.  It seems that the root of this is actually the way that fatigue works in conjunction with the ratings to artificially limit the "quality" minutes that a player can play.  This is further exacerbated by the (unrealistic?) demands of all players not freshmen to play.  There are few teams where underclassmen that are not starting get the number demanded here, especially the last 2 or 3 or 4 on a team.  I think that this even contributes to higher average team stats since these secondary players only play when they are fresh thus always playing at their best (I know there are foul out situations, but in general).  It also seems like the secondary players are not really that much worse than the primary players which does not really mirror real life ball (thus not mirroring real life stats) as many teams only go 7 or 8 deep some 10 but few 12.

Point 2:  I couldn't agree more and I think it is rather refreshing :)

Point 3: At least within reason.  Everyone has seen the 1 game abberations in RL those are not the problem (at least imho) but rather the 1 game followed by another game followed 5 games later by another, etc.  And point 4 follows 3 as surely as night follows day, again, in my opinion.

5.  I agree with the statement although I appear to be in a very distinct minority when i consider recruiting, prestige, and jobs to be fairly unbalanced by design, thus making it inherently unfair, just like RL.  Of course, Duke has an advantage over Florida International.  In RL, that is just how it is, in here, I do not get it (yes I understand what people say, I just don't get why that is such a good thing unless you already have Duke :)

6:  I like most of what Davis said and some of those, especially the box and 1 are a pet peeve of mine because it does not even attempt to be a box and one but rather a matchup zone and one is nothing like the other.

7.  While I can deal with grades and injuries and early entry, they all pretty much are killjoy items with no real add to the game that I can tell.  Having star players go down at the critical time is painful when it happens to you and does not really make it more enjoyable for the other coaches (again, my opion)

8.  To isack's point, if there are gonna be press/fastbreak teams and I can only think of a few that are close, Loyola-Marymount back a decade, Arkansas with their "40 minutes of Hell" and Grinell with the 150 point a game offense and 30+ a game takeaways, well, those teams look and play very different than the ones here.  In fact, honestly, if you have the IQ, I think that almost any team can play at least 2 or 3 of the offenses or defenses and come out very close to the same, especially offenses.  (I think the defenses are actually showing mroe differentiation in the new engine but that is purely anecdotal from my teams and the ones I have played against.

9.  I think we are beginning to see a lot more variation in players stats, not wholly brought about by new recruits as some of the players are old style and the variations are showing with them too.  Some are becoming stars, some are becoming nobodies and some are now very inconsistent.  if that can be mixed with the std devs and averages, then I think that is good too.  Maybe it will be when this all settles down.

wow, 5 posts in two weeks.  I will have to be quiet now for several months to make up for it 

Posted by isack24 on 9/14/2010 11:44:00 AM (view original):

Posted by obesecat on 9/14/2010 11:08:00 AM (view original):
isack i think the uptempo fastbreak/press is legitimate. It shouldn't work as well as it should, but not because of stamina. Most AAU teams run these sets and succeed very well. But if you have average passers breaking the press and getting a layup is easy. If you get the bucket, the fast break can't work as well then because teams need to pass the ball in, but off the rebound, you should be able to run the fast break.

There is absolutely no team in the history of college basketball that runs uptempo fastbreak/press the way it is used in HD.

AAU is totally, totally different, and even then, I've never seen an AAU team employ a 100% trapping defense in the halfcourt while also running a fcp.  Maybe there are a few, but they certainly don't do it in college.

I played AAU this summer.... We had many sets for trapping and pressing....

i don't think there's enough variance anymore. i suppose i shouldn't complain since i usually have the best team but i feel like game to game variance is so low now, my players are shooting the same # of shots (relatively speaking), scoring the same # of points, etc. There is no hope that my sg catches fire and goes for 28 or osmething, because the rest of my team is too good and my distro is too balanced. even in a team with relatively balanced distro, there's just no reason that he shouldn't be able to score a bunch of points every once in a while. i feel like that used to happen up until a few weeks ago.

Posted by obesecat on 9/14/2010 8:52:00 PM (view original):

Posted by isack24 on 9/14/2010 11:44:00 AM (view original):

Posted by obesecat on 9/14/2010 11:08:00 AM (view original):
isack i think the uptempo fastbreak/press is legitimate. It shouldn't work as well as it should, but not because of stamina. Most AAU teams run these sets and succeed very well. But if you have average passers breaking the press and getting a layup is easy. If you get the bucket, the fast break can't work as well then because teams need to pass the ball in, but off the rebound, you should be able to run the fast break.

There is absolutely no team in the history of college basketball that runs uptempo fastbreak/press the way it is used in HD.

AAU is totally, totally different, and even then, I've never seen an AAU team employ a 100% trapping defense in the halfcourt while also running a fcp.  Maybe there are a few, but they certainly don't do it in college.

I played AAU this summer.... We had many sets for trapping and pressing....

I'm sure you did, but I'll bet you never did it the entire game, and again, AAU is totally different from college basketball.

Posted by aejones on 9/14/2010 9:28:00 PM (view original):
i don't think there's enough variance anymore. i suppose i shouldn't complain since i usually have the best team but i feel like game to game variance is so low now, my players are shooting the same # of shots (relatively speaking), scoring the same # of points, etc. There is no hope that my sg catches fire and goes for 28 or osmething, because the rest of my team is too good and my distro is too balanced. even in a team with relatively balanced distro, there's just no reason that he shouldn't be able to score a bunch of points every once in a while. i feel like that used to happen up until a few weeks ago.

based on my experience with balanced teams, i would strongly disagree with your claim that we used to see guys on balanced teams have significantly more high scoring games than we do now. if anything, the reverse is true.

Interesting points OR--the RL versus HD debate and how to merge those two aspects for the good of this game. 

As an army of one also, I think the means to the end is as critical than just the end.  For example, a game could have 5 timeouts called, but if those timeouts were all called by a team in the first half or all by one team or all called by the team that was leading, then the means doesn't justify the result.  And that is happening all too often. 

Quite frankly imho, there is very little in this game that is similar to real life anymore--from recruiting (limits on calls but not visits and costs) to recruit generation to potential to budget carryover, to the actual game engine (differing IQs, stamina levels, how TOs are used, practice plans maxing out, defensive sets, minutes played,) etc. 

It was a few years ago but recall the end of the Memphis/Kansas title game and the last second made shot that sent the game to OT.  It was a flurry to get the ball and to shoot it.  Unfortunately in HD, the chance of that shot going in would be dependent on a specific offensive set IQ.  Maybe it's a make if the kid ran flex in HS and maybe it's a miss if he didn't.  IRL, it wouldn't have mattered.  And much of rl bb is based on more of a global BB IQ, not a specific IQ--not to mention that many possessions are short where an actual offensive set is not even used.  Again, I'm looking at the means as much as the end.

On a side, I just can't believe no one is discussing the 1/2 court press sets where now the defensive is trapping in the frontcourt just like the fcp.  It literally blows me away.

the halfcourt press thing IS pretty stupid...