(ps sorry for any typos, I was submitting from a phone and the backspace is all messed up)

Read enough to know how to respond.

The best example, from MLB, about a major overhaul would be tighter drug testing.   Power hitters signed to long-term deals suddenly became far less valuable.   Now for the difference between MLB and HBD:
1.  Salary cap.   Big deal if the Boston Red Sox dealt out three long-term deals totalling 65m per for the next 5 years.  They won't have 3 suddenly less valuale players eating up 1/3 of their budget.   Because they don't have a strict budget.
2.  Franchise value.   The owners of the Boston Red Sox can't say "Goddammit.   Well, that's 25 bucks down the drain.   Guess I'll just dump this team, costing me nothing, and find me another world to play in.  I'll just start over there."

So, please, don't pretend a massive overhaul would be good for HBD.   At least not in the short-term.   And don't compare it to MLB.  It's a sim that costs $8 a month to play. 

I'll also refer back to your Madden analogy.

I bought the most recent edition.   If I decide to play a "dynasty" or "career", whichever it's called, I'll be playing with the same engine for the 25-30 seasons.  So, if I sign Terrelle Pryor to a 5 year deal, he'll be the same player, give or take a few points, in the first year and the last year of his contract.   There will not be a massive overhaul is S2 that kills his run option ability and renders him useless.

Finally, I'll address the "2005 model" the game is based on. 

Over the last 4 seasons, MLB teams have averaged 695 runs per season.   My 4 worlds, teams averaged 696, 712, 716 and 753(public world) runs in the last completed seasons.    Is the "model" that far off?    Take into account some incompetency/soft tanking and I think HBD is real damn close to the current MLB.

Yeah, I think the "forest" of HBD results is pretty good.  Some of the "trees" are a bit out of whack, but not ridiculously so.  As long as the game is playable, I don't really think it's productive to feel like you have to keep tweaking the engine to try to represent present day stats perfectly.  If you start tweaking, for instance, K ratings, then you have to change other things to keep a balance, and eventually you've got a completely different engine, which I don't think it a good idea.

Any updates should be about providing new options, more control, a better interface, not fundamentally changing how the numbers are crunched.

Posted by willsauve on 3/5/2014 3:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/5/2014 2:39:00 PM (view original):
That seems a bit dramatic.   Three types annoy me:

1.  Bad information/advice offerer guy:   Posts something that is entirely wrong in response to a question.   pjfoster saying good make-up overrides poor pitches/splits.   n00bs read this **** and don't always know which advice is good and which stinks like fresh poop.

2.  Statement that's posed as a question guy:   Semi-asks a question but really just wants confirmation.   Gets prickly when you explain what he's thinking is wrong.  rangerup with his "true knuckleballer" thread. 

3.   Bad suggestion but won't take "yeah, that's a bad idea" for an answer guy:    A cousin to #2.   Makes a suggestion that EVERYONE agrees sucks then gets pissy because NO ONE can understand how brilliant they are.   tuft with his real-time FA, ebay-style bidding.  I think there was 12 pages of no one agreeing with him.  Yet me and tec are the dicks(and I don't even know how tec gets lumped in with me).

4. People who disagree with me..

5. Jeter realists, who realize that Jeter isn't Jesus in pinstripes (although he fields like he has holes in his hands)

"And don't compare it to MLB. It's a sim that costs $8 a month to play. "

Uhh, it's a baseball sim? You're right, why would I ever compare a sim of baseball to baseball itself

"There will not be a massive overhaul is S2 that kills his run option ability and renders him useless."

Again, the changes do not have to be massive or immediate, they can be incremental and periodic (more periodic than 1x every 2 years) and still be effective. 

"If you start tweaking, for instance, K ratings, then you have to change other things to keep a balance, and eventually you've got a completely different engine, which I don't think it a good idea."

It's not a completely different engine, it's the same engine with tweaked inputs to produce tweaked outputs. Slightly different =/= completely different. Slightly different = evolved / evolving and that's a good thing. You will evolve with it. Are you all scared that if they make changes that you won't be the best players anymore??  Any reason to fight against change is selfish.  Resistance to change is the greatest obstacle to success.

"Take into account some incompetency/soft tanking and I think HBD is real damn close to the current MLB."

Incompetency is a function of the users and not a function of the game itself.  Purposely trying to lose, and spending money to do so, is hard to understand. Purposely being terrible is voluntary.  Purposely being terrible is not written into the engine.

"I think the "forest" of HBD results is pretty good"

I actually do too, and I like the analogy.  The master algorithm of pitcher vs hitter seems close to in-balance but probably favors the hitter too much at this point.  irl pitching is way stronger in 2014 than it was in 2005, both in terms of volume and on an individual level, so it would be nice if the engine was at least capable of evolving and producing more good pitchers with more accurate abilities / statistics.


Look, Mike, you're obv the unofficial spokesman of the users, or whatever, and you're definitely a guy who helps a lot of players. You've even given good advice to me personally even though I "annoy" you.  As a founding father, I understand why it would be difficult for you or others in your situation to hear suggestions about stuff like how the engine could be improved.  But you shouldn't talk down to me or anything just because you rule HBD and I don't.  I know baseball.  I collected baseball cards as a kid and memorized the stats.  When I was 15 I sat in computer lab and played fantasy baseball instead of doing my homework.  I understand the difference between 1.15 WHIP and 1.20 WHIP on WAR. 

But as for HBD, You appreciate the game for what it is and what is always was.  As a new user to HBD, I want to see it for what it could be and what it should be.  HBD is fun and addicting and more fun and interactive than Yahoo Fantasy Baseball or Madden or MLB2k14 or other games on the market.  As an MMO it's more fun for me than a game like Warcraft or an FPS.  The game could be the best of all of those wrapped into one.  But it does have some pretty obvious and serious flaws, some minor and some major.  The poll on page 1 (and other topics) asks WHEN ARE WE GONNA GET AN UPDATE and users constantly respond "No it's fine, no it's fine."  It's good and we all like it, but it could be so much better, and if it changed you'd probably still like it and you'd evolve with it.  It's not change for the sake of change, it's change for the sake of betterment.  Change is good.  Mike I'd be happy to discuss ideas on sitemail or conference call or anything like that.  You have admitted that I "annoy" you but it doesn't have to be that way.  If you have the ear of the devs you could use that power for so much more than just giving 790 pages of advice to noobs.  I would be happy to get together and compile a list of inconsistencies within the game's player development model, budget model, regeneration engine, game engine, bullpen engine, etc.  We are capable of auditing the engine, and we are capable of making constructive suggestions.  I just wish some of you guys would be more willing to give it a chance

You're gonna have to give me the cliff notes version of that.  But I'll respond to the first sentence.

You can't compare it to MLB because of the reasons I listed.  A) Owners pay $8 a month to play not millions/billions of dollars to own a team.    So turnover is much, much, much, much more frequent and easier.     B) There is no league instituted budget cap.   Make more money, spend more on assets.   Or buy a bigass boat.  Not HBD options. 

PJ sounds like the kinda guy that calls talk radio and says, "I just traded Tom Brady for Drew Brees in Madden 2K15, why don't the Patriots do that?"

Maybe.  I began to limit him to 2-3 sentences when he proclaimed that high make-up could counteract low splits/pitches for RP. 

PJ, you're a classic business problem. "As a new user to HBD, I want to see it for what it could be and what it should be."

There is also an existing user base of players here who have invested cash into building their teams. As Mike kinda says, building a refit that invalidates their work would crash the user base. It's one thing to launch a new build of a single season game so everyone has a bright shiny toy to play with and everyone starts at ground zero. It's another thing to give customers a handy excuse to walk away.

Is WiS a hot fresh young venture wanting to roll out the hottest and fastest new thing? Maybe at one time it was. It's not now.

HBD is a legacy game at this point.  It will keep running along as long as the user base keeps buying the product.  But I wouldn't expect any significant overhaul.

I don't think anyone is against improvements.   The problem is deciding what is an improvement and how much of it is needed.  I think newer users tend to think "more is better" while ignoring the WifS history of major overhauls.    It's been done with Gridiron and Clutch Racing.   They couldn't give Gridiron credits away and Clutch Racing was shuttered when people wouldn't come back.   So some drastic engine change, even though I just illustrated that RS is very similar to MLB, is likely to do the same as it did to Gridiron or Clutch.   I don't think WifS wants to go back to ground zero.   So "major overhaul" advocates should probably just give that up.

So now you're down to small improvements.   A quick glance at the Suggestion forums will show you that many of the "great ideas" really aren't.   If/when WifS decides to start attending to their sim games again, they should probably start with the cosmetic things and work their way up.   IMO, the game engine is relatively realistic, with the occassional exception of the 60/0 SB/CS player, so adding a stadium or three, offering the ability to choose team colors, doing something about the mostly useless HOF(I still like team HOF), etc, etc, would be a fine start.

" Is WiS a hot fresh young venture wanting to roll out the hottest and fastest new thing? Maybe at one time it was. It's not now. "

HBD is obvious on plateau, as it has a consistent user base and the interface never changes.  But a plateau does not necessarily have to plateau then decline.  It can plateau and then go up again.  There's no reason why it can't.  It can't because the old guard resists it.  If you use your imagination, the sheer numbers are probably that for every one of you there are 10 of me, but you don't hear from us and we come and go because you guys don't embrace what could be done differently.  I'm sure that if the devs were presented a choice between "make MikeT happy" and "make more money", it would take them 0 seconds to make the obvious choice.  Would the devs rather have 100 people with 10 teams each or 1000 people with 10 teams each?  It sounds like too many of you are over-estimating the importance of the investments you have each made