Posted by mburgy on 3/2/2011 11:09:00 AM (view original):
I don't think the fatigue should be "corresponding" to the team with the ball. Theoretically, a team should be able to break the press and get the ball into the halfcourt with good passing, thus leaving the offensive team with a fatigue less than the trapping team. Additionally, as a game goes on, a team shouldn't necessarily be more fatigued because they've been trapped the entire game. Ideally, they would be able to adjust to the press as the game goes on. A team that traps, almost always traps the same way. A team's IQ of the press throughout a game should increase, and thus be able to break it easier, depending on the level of caliber of player in the game.
What I would like to see are some additions to the engine with respect to FCP in different styles of presses...i.e 1-2-1-1 or 2-2-1 or straight up man press. As well as add situational presses. For example, team has the ball inbounding at the far end of the court with 5 seconds left, have the option to press, or halfcourt-trap, or leave the inbounder open.
Your first idea (players figuring out the press as the game goes) is logical in a real life perspective - but for the purposes of this game it would essentially render the press useless. Who is going to run the press knowing that players are going to figure it out as they go? You could make the same argument for man/zone... you'd have to somehow allow the players to "figure out" that the SF sucks at defense and to go to the player he's guarding more.
Thinking about that idea more - that would make game planning much more meaningless as well. This should all be "figured out" by the coach in his initial game plan - not corrected by the engine as the game goes. If you put together a crappy game plan against a press squad, you shouldn't be let off the hook by your players adapting to the defense - your team should turn the ball over a lot because the coach didn't get it right when he was planning for the game. Same with the zone... if they go 3-2 with a plus positioning and your game plan was to hoist up a bunch of 3's, you should shoot a low percentage. The game shouldn't say "Well, yea... you WANTED to shoot a bunch of 3's, but it doesn't make sense against this defense so instead we're going to modify your game plan and pound it inside."
Your second idea can work to the extent of a press style, though that would still be a major change I'm sure as they'd have to rework how the press works (which, from reading the forums wouldn't be a terrible idea). I guess they'd have to focus on certain abilities to get you past the different presses? Maybe passing is more important in getting out of a 2-2-1 and BH is more important in getting past a 1-2-1-1 (just guessing off the top of my head). But there would also have to be different risks for each of those styles (2-2-1 more vulnerable to FB points if broken quickly over the top?).
However, as you get down to that specific situational logic of "I want to do this if there's 10 seconds left and I'm winning by one possession and the other team is inbounding the ball under my basket... but if there's 5 seconds left and they're inbounding the ball on the sideline and the game is tied, well then I want to to THIS instead..." - it gets to the point where it's just impossible to program for every scenario. And, if you did program for all of those scenarios, you're talking about bumping up the time it takes to process all of those decisions, which increases the time it takes for every single game to simulate.
I'd agree with the high level of adding styles to the press, but I just don't see how they could reasonably add in all of that situational logic while maintaining a realistic simulation schedule.