Not sure who else may be having this issue but my “Days Remaining” countdown got screwed up last big update. Fixing it would be a nice.

Posted by jpccr on 3/17/2021 11:45:00 AM (view original):
The glove rating standards for CF should be lowered/adjusted in game play. In no universe does a CF need to have a better glove than a 2B.

The game does have an unrealistic amount of average errors in CF. However, there is a possibility that it is an error scoring issue. Sometimes I see the +/- play because the CF made it to the ball as a (+) play due to range, but then couldn't hang on to it as (-), but I think the (-) play is scored as an error instead of a negative play. I think in real life, they would just give the batter a hit and call it a day.

Posted by tlowster on 1/8/2021 6:39:00 PM (view original):
I think at times suggestions get put on this thread not for the overall betterment of the game, but with the intention of removing obstacles in the owners way that prevent him from running his blueprint in the most effective way possible.

I see a lot of great suggestions on here, but i also see some that would just make things easier for the owner to win his way. I will give you an example. Somebody posted that advanced scouting should be expanded to where players NOT in your Organization should be just as fuzzy as the scouting ratings for draft and intl prospects. I really liked this idea, but I think I liked it more due to how it would affect trading as opposed to the overall betterment of the game. Some folks really like the trading aspect of the game so this suggestion may not improve the game. It can be argued that it balances the scouting options and makes it more difficult for veteran owners to fleece new owners, but I just don't know if it would improve the game. It would To me, but that is just an opinion. To me, and I know this will probably be a minority opinion, I don't think it is realistic or fun to watch the same owner sift through the previous season's draft or intl every season, find the best players under the age of 22, and trade for those players. I argue that it is somewhat frustrating as an owner that I build it from the ground up and I have to deal with fuzzy ratings, but other owners can just look at the players that they spent no money scouting in intl or the draft and immediately have a good idea what type of mlb player they are going to be. However, as stated above, this may not be an overall betterment of the game.

I think the priority for this thread should be quality of life fixes and fixes to things that are inconsistent. By inconsistent, I don't mean talent pools because in real life, talent pools are inconsistent.

I think consistent injury recovery should be the #1 priority and then quick fixes like below
Adding a "withdraw and return" button to the coaching screens;
Increase the number of players that can be placed on trade block;
Fix the problem with draft boards getting reset when settings are changed;
Increase effectiveness of LHS and RHS. Instead of being used only to get out the best same arm hitter, they could be used in situations where the opponent add four straight lefties going;
Fourth dot on player card;
Adding number of options left to FA filter;
There are probably more, but all of these are reiterated from previous posts anyway.

I'd like to expand on this idea a little bit.

Some of the more tenured owners I talk to say that the game's most pressing issue is world policing of trades. I have seen it myself and while I don't think the problem is rampant, I do think that if Admin is trying to expand/grow HBD and pick up more long time users, this needs to be addressed. One of the worst possible experiences that a new HBD player can have is to get fleeced by another owner and then realize that he was fleeced either by figuring it out on his own after a few seasons or by other veteran owners telling him so. Either way, it is a terrible experience and although I don't have data to back it up, I would imagine that some people have quit and never come back because of it.

Often times, the fleecing is a tactical one -- the perpetrating owner prowls the draft page or the IFA page the season after they occurr and finds players in their sophomore year as a pro, but already have splits in the 60s/70s. Since a veteran owner typically doesn't have to spend a dime in advanced scouting to know that the player is going to end up with splits in the 80s or 90s in the next few seasons of development, he can easily send out a bunch of trade offers and hope one of them sticks. Newer or inexperienced owners may not know that they have a hall of fame type of player on their hands and they end up getting fleeced. As referenced above, this may create a situation where the new owner leaves HBD and never comes back and/or bad mouths HBD and WIS to his friends, colleagues and family. This also creates friction within Worlds because if the same owner is using the same tactic year after year and getting away with it, some of the more veteran owners will see it and leave the World.

It just doesn't make sense that the perpetrating owner not only doesn't spend a dime on advanced scouting, but also likely either didn't see the guy on his draft board, or saw him, but his scout's ratings were so fuzzy that he didn't care to draft him. He is simply using the predictable development to his advantage.

I propose one of two suggestions to help with this.

1, Make player development less predictable -- as mentioned above, a player in his second year as a pro that already has splits in the 60s/70s will likely have splits in the 80s/90s once fully developed. If player development was more unique from player to player, this could help prevent perpetuating owners from using the "prowl the draft board/IFA board the very next season" strategy because just because the player's ratings show 60/70 doesn't mean he is going to gain 20-30 points of development in the next few seasons. Maybe some players come into the World with splits in 40s/50s/60s, but still make it to 80s/90s once fully developed or maybe some guys that come into the league with 60/70s in splits, only develop 10 points instead of 20-30. A real life example would be that hyped prospects don't always pan out to be special MLB players. For every Cody Bellinger, Vlad Jr. Fernando Tatis, there are other hyped prospects that only turned into above-average players (i.e. Dansby Swanson; Alex Gordon) or bottom of the roster guys (Ahmed Rosario; Orlando Arcia). However, in HBD, the development is so predictable that perpetrating owners can fleece other owners and this can cause a terrible experience for new users.

2. Use Advanced Scouting more effectively by making current ratings fuzzy for players not on your team and under the age of 25 -- Same idea here, but killing two birds with one stone. This will create a situation where if a perpetrating owner wants to continue the above referenced fleecing strategy, at least he'll have to spend money in advanced scouting to get it done because the current ratings will be fuzzy on those sophmore players. I suppose if the perpetrating owner had a high draft scouting on the guy and saw him in the draft the previous season, he could still use the fleecing strategy, but at least then he has spent some money on something as opposed to not spending a dime on advanced scouting and/or very little in draft scouting and just relying on his experience to know that the player is going to turn into a phenom.

I know that some HBD players won't like this and may fight against it, but if WIS is looking to expand this game and avoid new users from having bad experiences, one of these two strategies might be in order.

I like this, especially the first one.

Point #1 - in Hoops and Gridiron, Work Ethic plays a huge role in development. That *and* potential determine a player's growth. That helps with the more individual nature of player progression.
In HBD, I don't really see an analog to Work Ethic; the closest would be Make Up, but its affects aren't as well known.

What if: Make Up was A. more closely tied with development (like Work Ethic in other games), and B. only known to the owning player?
Maybe a high ADV scouting budget would give a general idea of other player's Make Up, so there was a way to invest in that and make ADV more relevant.

I'm gonna push back on that. You're saying that new owners get fleeced by veteran owners because the vets know the value of prospects. Which is true.
But it completely takes the responsibility away from the new owners.

This game should come with a disclaimer: There is NO immediate gratification.

If you're taking over a team which has been left behind by someone else, it is inevitably in some state of disrepair. If it's a bad team all it has is maybe some prospects in the minors and upcoming draft picks. If it's a good team it's got salary cap anchors.

EVERY bad trade decision I've seen has been because the new guy has a new team and wants to make moves. Who can blame him? How are you going to take human behavior away from the owner? The best move for a new owner with a bad team is FIRST DO NO HARM. But who's sitting there saying, I joined a new game and paid my $25 so I could sit around with my thumb up my butt and eat three 90-loss seasons WHILE I WAIT?

Even if a brand new owner fully understood the value of your second-year player with splits in the 60s who's going to be earning minimum salary for the next seven or eight seasons... I've seen that guy trade that player the next season anyway, saying "I'm tired of losing."

Posted by damag on 3/18/2021 8:19:00 AM (view original):
I'm gonna push back on that. You're saying that new owners get fleeced by veteran owners because the vets know the value of prospects. Which is true.
But it completely takes the responsibility away from the new owners.

This game should come with a disclaimer: There is NO immediate gratification.

If you're taking over a team which has been left behind by someone else, it is inevitably in some state of disrepair. If it's a bad team all it has is maybe some prospects in the minors and upcoming draft picks. If it's a good team it's got salary cap anchors.

EVERY bad trade decision I've seen has been because the new guy has a new team and wants to make moves. Who can blame him? How are you going to take human behavior away from the owner? The best move for a new owner with a bad team is FIRST DO NO HARM. But who's sitting there saying, I joined a new game and paid my $25 so I could sit around with my thumb up my butt and eat three 90-loss seasons WHILE I WAIT?

Even if a brand new owner fully understood the value of your second-year player with splits in the 60s who's going to be earning minimum salary for the next seven or eight seasons... I've seen that guy trade that player the next season anyway, saying "I'm tired of losing."

They did a really smart move with Hoops Dynasty for March madness that I hope they do with HBD. They had a ‘5 seasons for the price of 1’ sale for new and returning owners.

For the sim games, giving a free team or a $1 team makes sense. You play, see some of your hero’s put up numbers, maybe make the playoffs and say ‘that was fun’

in the dynasty games I feel like you need a 5 season MINIMUM to see the fruits of your labour or bare minimum wash the stench of the last owner off of the team.

most of us have gotten fleeced at least once in our first 5 seasons. I still look back and see what I did wrong with those trades because it’s a learning moment.

Again, I feel this is a marketing and promo issue and not a gameplay issue.

Actually I just remembered one I wanted to address. Its probably not a quick fix or an easy fix but I feel it needs to be addressed.

We have a new owner in our world, I think he's been playing for less then 6 months, first season with the team. Last owner did not take good care of the team, even worse care of the minor leagues.

Anyways, the owner gets notification for player retirements.
https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=10924028

Ends up retriing. Now, while this could have been WAY worse (could have been a top 10 pick or a 1st overall pick) I could see that happening if a former owner neglects the team.

The problem is I don't know what the soloution is for this. Should the owner be able to write a ticket to WIS to get the player back on their team? Should the commisioner be able to 'un-retire' the player? I just know if this happened to me in a new world I'd be pretty upset about it.

I love the idea of Makeup playing a role like worth ethic in Hoops/Gridiron Dynasty. My favorite strategy in those games were to target high work ethic/potential guys and let them fly. I would love potential ratings for players, maybe the higher your draft budget the higher percent chance you have at finding potential? Or maybe you could target individual prospects similar to GD/HD to determine their potential? You could do something like every 1 mil of scouting gets you 1 or 2 scouting reports, which in turn tell you potential.

I think the main problem with the owners getting fleeced is they treat this like old Baseball video games, where:

1. Overall Ratings are a much much better predictor of how valuable your player is
2. Salaries/Budgets aren't quite as fixed
3. Player Development isn't quite as fixed.

It's incredibly frustrating for me when I see the same owners fleecing guys for future HOF's, because they're league altering moves. And like Tlowster mentioned, it's often low effort trade offers. Part of that is people probably not quite understanding how valuable a young future HOF'r is, but I think a lot of it is also how the game might not be super intuitive to newer players.

New players get fleeced by automatically assuming that OVR is a meaningful rating. It's not. It's almost useless. It's also the first rating listed on any player's profile.

We were all new owners once. I was smart enough to not get "fleeced". It was easy to look at winning teams, there player ratings, players with good stats etc. and see what created production. The hard part was figuring out the other parts. Player evaluation was the easiest part.

I think those are excellent points brought up by Damag and Hockey. Where I would re-enter the discussion with a retort is at the part where a new owner gets bored waiting around with his thumb up his butt. I would argue that waiting is part of the game. We had a guy on the boards a few years back that only commented on the mundane aspects of HBD -- "guys I logged in today and learned that my scrub player in lowA ball is out with a seven day injury"; "guys, today my scouts notified me how excited they were that they see a 39 overall rated infielder from Venezuela"; "guys, I'm 80 games into the season and im 38-42 and having the time of my life". If waiting is boring, then this game is likely not for you. However, if waiting isn't boring and you just don't understand aspects of the game and somebody takes advantage of you, you can be like me or Hockey and stick around, but use it as a learning experience, but if hockey is anything like me, he remembers the punk owner that fleeced him in his first year and is quick to share his story

While I agree that the game comes with an inferred disclaimer (hence the word Dynasty) and a "bad experience" is a relative term, I don't think any of us want players that are going to complain about the slowness or long term forward thinking the game requires. Those players can leave because there going to be more aggravation than they're worth. My main concern is that HBD owners that, if given time, will enjoy the game for what it is, are scared off or angry enough to leave, it affects the health of the game.

I'll reiterate a point from earlier. The high priced HBD scout might not be spot on when the guy comes out the draft or out of Venezuela, Japan or the Dominican Republic, but he has a decent idea of where he'll be from a talent perspective. The experienced HBD owner can often times be more accurate than the scout was with his original projection.

In real life these hyped prospects are still a gamble due to lack of accurate forecasting of their development. In HBD, the development is so predictable, that experienced owners can prowl. It isn't just about preventing perpetrating owners though. There is a certain practicality to implementing this -- the best scouts in the World in real life are nowhere near as accurate at predicting where a real life player will end up as an HBD owner is at predicting where a system generated HBD player will end up.

Posted by tlowster on 3/18/2021 2:55:00 PM (view original):
I think those are excellent points brought up by Damag and Hockey. Where I would re-enter the discussion with a retort is at the part where a new owner gets bored waiting around with his thumb up his butt. I would argue that waiting is part of the game. We had a guy on the boards a few years back that only commented on the mundane aspects of HBD -- "guys I logged in today and learned that my scrub player in lowA ball is out with a seven day injury"; "guys, today my scouts notified me how excited they were that they see a 39 overall rated infielder from Venezuela"; "guys, I'm 80 games into the season and im 38-42 and having the time of my life". If waiting is boring, then this game is likely not for you. However, if waiting isn't boring and you just don't understand aspects of the game and somebody takes advantage of you, you can be like me or Hockey and stick around, but use it as a learning experience, but if hockey is anything like me, he remembers the punk owner that fleeced him in his first year and is quick to share his story

While I agree that the game comes with an inferred disclaimer (hence the word Dynasty) and a "bad experience" is a relative term, I don't think any of us want players that are going to complain about the slowness or long term forward thinking the game requires. Those players can leave because there going to be more aggravation than they're worth. My main concern is that HBD owners that, if given time, will enjoy the game for what it is, are scared off or angry enough to leave, it affects the health of the game.

I agree. You don’t want owners that can’t be patient. This game is better played over 10-20-50 seasons. If you aren’t excited by a top 10 pick in the draft or an international stud there is nothing I can do to convince you otherwise. Honestly, compared to the other games I think HBD does a lot to keep all users entertained regardless of if their team is rebuilding or is making a playoff push. (As a stats junkie I get as exciting casting my HOF and MVP ballots as I do making the playoffs....... ok maybe not.)

an interesting side effect is, like tlowster said, not only do I remember who fleeced me but I don’t think I have traded with that owner in 40 seasons, partially because I know they will try to fleece me again and partially because I’m not helping someone like that out. I guess the fleecers hope the new owners don’t stick around as long as I do.

I’m going off topic a little bit here but I feel building a good relationship with other owners in terms of trading is so important In HBD. In my league I have been in for 40+ seasons I know my owners to go to first for a fair deal, the ones I can trust and the ones I will outright avoid. I’ve had deals where I say ‘ok. I’m losing on this one but it’s close. Remember this in the future’ or ones where I say ‘the player is more important to my team then you realize. Let me throw in a little extra (to newer or inexperienced owners). It’s one of the things I love about dealing with the same owners season in and season out.

Exactly. You don't always win a trade. It comes down to needs, value, perception.