Posted by detlef on 4/14/2011 5:28:00 PM (view original):
What don't  you like about it specifically?

Top end players went down, but everyone else went up by 10-15% without fixing long time holes in the sim.

The sim deals with no reality.  The only thing real is the names of the players and the stats you see.  IRL Olajuwon was the dominant center of his era, in the sim he isn't a top 10 center.  Jason Kidd over the last two seasons has been god-like by all sim accounts, but he wouldn't be in the top 8 PG's I would currently want on my team.  Bird is WAY less valuable than Lebron.  Troy Murphy is preferred to Garnett.  Russell takes a back seat to guys like Howard and Robinson.

I have been saying for the last 5 years that we need to incorporate clutch factor and quickness in the sim (after all speed is used in the baseball sim - why can't we get it?).  Two minutes left in a close game which lineup would you rather have?  Kidd, Kobe, Rodman, Murphy, and with the little Shaq/Wilt combo or Magic, Allen, Bird, Rodman, and Olajuwon....or Stockton, MJ, Pierce, Ho Grant, and Parish.  Seriously how do you quantify and qualify the dominance of guys like MJ, Bird, Magic, Olajuwon, West, Worthy, Isiah, Iverson, Wade, Miller, Kobe, and Hondo without looking at things like quickness and how cltuch they were.

I just lost a game because Gilmore got an offensive rebound with five seconds left and I figure he dribbled out to the three point line to tie it up to go to 2OT.  Gilmore was not a super clutch guy from the three point line...I mean I could be wrong, but I doubt it ( I said that in my Charles Barkley voice).  This could make the sim more of a sim rather than a puzzle of players and a coin toss.

Of course all of this has been mentioned before as with other things and we get no changes.  Ash and I in this thread politely asked for two other stats to be searchable, but we haven't heard anything about that either.  While I am glad to see some normalization of defensive ratings I would like some other things addressed as well.  I guess I just have to remember where we are in the pecking order with WiS.

Posted by detlef on 4/14/2011 5:28:00 PM (view original):
What don't  you like about it specifically?

I am quite sure I firmly spelled this out for you in another thread quite some time ago, but there is some stuff I can add now.

1a)  In lower cap leagues, the severe salary structure severely limits the "What-if?" concept.  "What If" I put together a bunch of scrubs and played it in a league with a bunch of other scrubs?  How un-entertaining!

1b)  But wait... since WIS randomly generates such good rookies, I actually can use some good players!  But again, this is destroying the "What IF?" concept.  "What if some imaginary players played with a couple of good players... and a bunch of scrubs?"  That's the reality in OLs right now. 

2)  Dennis Rodman.  Need I go on?  I guess I do for people like you who don't actually play the sim very much.  Here's the deal... the new salary structure is even more restrictive than before as to what kind of team you can build to be successful.  If you have the option to put Dennis Rodman at PF, there is absolutely no good reason to pick anyone else.  Not only is he the best rebounder in the sim, he's the best deal in it.  For $6.1M, you get almost 2900 minutes of 45% creb%.  You also have almost every other Rodman season available at an outstanding bargain (including a 2400 minute version that is 100% at SF for $5.7M.  Did I mention it has 50%+ creb%?).  So now there is a whole slew of players that it makes no sense to use, since they are only 100% at PF.  Because low-usage board lords are so cheap, that means in order to stay competitive, you need to stack your whole team with good rebounders.  If only you could find a high efg%, low usage point guard who gets a lot of boards, he'd probably be cheap, too.  Right?  Oh yeah, Jason Kidd.  His 08-09 & 09-10 seasons are godly.   With that in mind, you realize you need a TON of boards to stay competitive.  So now there are (literally) hundreds of player seasons that you can't use if you want to be competitive.  And we're just talking about 2 positions.

3)  Partial season problems.  This has always been an issue, at one point a major one.  It's a major issue again.  Because of the salary penalty on high minute players, it's better to build platoons around players who got hurt.  The most obvious example is the Shaq/Wilt one, though a stronger argument can be made for Rodman/Rodman (94-95 & 95-96).  These aren't just two isolated examples, but they are among the strongest.  So now, even more player seasons are eliminated because of the minute penalty.  Why bother getting a 3500 minute version of Bill Russell for $9M+ when you can get more minutes of much better rebounders (the Rodmen combo) for even less money?  Why bother with the 50ppg Wilt for $12M+ when you can get the much higher efg% & lower tov% combo of Wilt/Shaq for a shade over $10M?  My SG bomber duo of 2021min Ellis & 1531min Rice gives me tons of threes and covers my SG needs completely for less than $6M.  Any SG with similar usage & 3s made within even 700 minutes of that total will cost more by itself.

So, without going any further, I know that if I want to be seriously competitive in an OL, I don't need any more than 17.5k minutes because WIS will generate good rookies to cover my fatigue, I need at least one Dennis Rodman, my PG should either be Jason Kidd or Lebron James, my SG should be a platoon of cheap bombers, my C should be Shaq/Wilt or a combination of low-usage board lords, and my SF should be another Rodman or in some cases a Barkley.  Unless some of those guys are my favorite players (Barkley, Shaq & Rice are), what is my motivation for using that team? 

Basically it boils down to the fact that you still have to have 130% creb% to be even moderately competitive, and the most efficient way of doing it severely limits how you get your offense.


Now this is all for lower-cap leagues.  How does this effect higher cap leagues?  Luckily, higher cap leagues are more fun (up until a point) as they are always theme leagues and almost always more restrictive, so not everyone can have a Rodman, which makes it okay to use other players and still have a chance!  But then you pass a certain point where you absolutely have to have 67 Wilt, 92 Rodman, a Lebron & a Jordan (or 2nd lebron).  The 5th guy up for debate - double Rodmen or troy murphy + a Rodman are probably the best options, though.  That's no fun.  Actually, it kind of was the first time.  Hoosiermania & I had a finals match-up with the exact same starting line-up ('67 Wilt, '09 Murphy, '92 Rodman, '90 Jordan & '09 Lebron).



Here's what needs to happen to make the sim environment better without undoing what good was done with the last change...

1) There should be no minute penalty.  If a guy plays 3300 minutes instead of 2800 minutes (with the exact same advanced stats), he shouldn't cost more (dollars per minute) just because he plays more minutes.

2) The extra cost for higher usage should be decreased if not taken out altogether.  97-98 Rodman is really the only thing that needs to be said to support this.  Rebounding is still the absolutely most important stat in the sim, and it can be had extremely cheap if you know how to build your team right (I've pretty much detailed it in this thread).

3) The last blanket cost increase on salaries Seble did needs to go away.  Once that's gone, then go back and increase the rebound factor in the equation for salary.

4) Stop generating such good rookies.  If an owner only drafts 17.5k minutes, he should be punished for it, not rewarded.  Although with the ridiculously high salaries, it's the only thing keeping it interesting.  If the other things go into effect, though, there's no reason for this.


People thought Moses/Rodman/Peja/Allen/Nash was annoying... Rodman & Kidd are worse than any of those other guys ever were.  So is Shaq/Wilt.

And yes, I actually have a Shaq/Wilt, Rodmanx3, Ellis/Rice, & Kidd team.  It is an offense against nature.


edited to add:  I still enjoy the sim, I just think that this salary structure severely restricts the entire point of what the sim is supposed to be.

that's just because the more statistically driven this thing gets, the more it will drill down to obvious examples

Quick update:  It will probably be Monday for the release.  I've run into some delays that I wasn't expecting.

write it in stone

Has he ever once met one of his self imposed deadlines?  It's just amazing that he never learns from this.  He has zero customer service knowledge or ability.  You should always announce that it will take longer than you expect it to.  That way when unexpected delays occur, you can still met expectations.  If they don't come up, you look great by coming in under the deadline.  How he has not learned this is beyond me.

Well the players are out on the SimMatchup but that's the only way to see them. Looks like Monday will in fact be the day.

I could, would like to add A-Lot on players, salaries ect...but i've learned over the years, i might as well go **** into the wind.

You can't win the lottery if you don't buy (or steal or find) a ticket.
WIS won't add stuff if they don't know we want it.  But yeah, I don't stress myself over it.  I've been told to **** off too many times to really care anymore.

After looking over this year's players more closely, I'm making some final tweaks to the new defensive rating logic.  Release will be tomorrow.

Thanks for the update.

Posted by felonius on 4/14/2011 11:17:00 PM (view original):
write it in stone

oops I meant be sure to use a pencil not a pen

Posted by seble on 4/18/2011 12:56:00 PM (view original):
After looking over this year's players more closely, I'm making some final tweaks to the new defensive rating logic.  Release will be tomorrow.

And here it is, as promised! 

Some questions about the release, as I look at the 10-11 player batch...

1) Does it make sense that Dwight Howard, who just won the DPOY, has a def rating of 73?
2) Are you loading players team by team?  I notice the Heat, 'Wolves and others aren't there yet.

Okay, never mind.  So many things are clearly screwy with the player database as of now that I assume it's still under construction. 

Other news of note:  I see that 08-09 Troy Murphy is now a 33 on defense.  Order is restored in the universe.

Posted by longtallbrad on 4/19/2011 1:25:00 PM (view original):
Okay, never mind.  So many things are clearly screwy with the player database as of now that I assume it's still under construction. 

Other news of note:  I see that 08-09 Troy Murphy is now a 33 on defense.  Order is restored in the universe.

Yeah its updating as we speak, 2 mins ago there was only 5 players over 80 defense, now there's 11