Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Benji Zumaya    is my player.  I project him to be able to give me a 3rd c who can fill middle infield spots with enough bat to hit 7th/8th when he starts.

If it wasn't running true to spec, don't you think they would have uncovered it during the 3+ years the code has been live?

They uncover bugs all the time, some are new and some are old. Right now there's a thread in the forum about a possible Medical bug similar to the old Training bug. IIRC, the Training bug took about half a year to show up (as owners ramped up training budgets) and at least another half year for them to verify, isolate and fix after the first reports come in.

Or how about the fact that it is generally accepted to be in working order by its hundreds of players?

The issue is rather subtle - it's not that regular health players are getting too many major injuries, just that low health players don't seem to get as many as you'd expect. Since there aren't that many sub-50 health players to begin with, and many owners understandably shy away from them, most owners won't even be directly exposed to the situation. Unlike the Training bug, for example, it's not something that anyone can easily check out for himself - you've got to invest in acquiring such a player first. As it is, over the past couple of years I've heard several comments from other players that suspect that the algorithm isn't working properly. Perhaps you haven't been listening as closely.

I don't know why you think I'm being naive just because I don't care to buy into your unsupported idea that a significant aspect of the code is "in the wrong place". I actually program for a living, so I know a bit about how bugs get identified, tracked, resolved.

Please tell me that when you programmed for a living that you didn't do it for a nuclear waste disposal company.

First of all, thank you for insulting my ability to do my job, something I take pride in, based solely on the fact that I'm challenging a position you have taken which, as you have admitted, you've got no support for other than how you "feel".

So basically you've never thought about this issue before I mentioned it, did no analysis, conceded that of course it's theoretically possible, then came up with a strong opinion that it just didn't happen.

Sorry, but you don't get to take the high ground here.  After all, I have looked into this before, you have done no analysis, you know my solution is theoretically possible, and you have a strong opinion that it just didn't happen.  The only difference is WIS pays people money to make sure my solution is the one deployed (though obviously we can't know beyond a shadow of a doubt without seeing the code).

LOL. I used to be an EDP auditor, so I know a bit about how truly difficult it is to ensure that a constantly updated system is and remains true to spec. And yes, most of the programmers were incredibly naive about the whole thing.

How long ago was this?  Software development is a young science, and QA/QC systems have undergone a pretty significant facelift even within the past decade.  Unit testing, code reviews, bug tracking, etc. all handled by the programmers themselves with the intent of producing better code in fewer tries.  Of course, I can't speak to the quality of programmers or QA/QC that WIS employs, but on the whole the science has advanced quite a bit, in case it's been a while since you were an EDP auditor.  It can never be perfect obviously but at least there are systems in place now to add discipline to the task.  Also, thank you for the gross generalization of all programmers as naive based solely on the ones that you had contact with.

Now, to the part where you aren't being holier-than-thou:

They uncover bugs all the time, some are new and some are old. Right now there's a thread in the forum about a possible Medical bug similar to the old Training bug. IIRC, the Training bug took about half a year to show up (as owners ramped up training budgets) and at least another half year for them to verify, isolate and fix after the first reports come in.

This is a fair example.  Back then the game was young, the understanding of which systems were working and which were not was less known.  Even then the problem was identified and solved in about a year's time, according to your estimates.  I don't know when HBD launched, but it's been 3 years at least, right?  No real evidence or even low grumblings have surfaced in that time, you're the first I've heard such an argument from.  Apparently there are others who feel as you do, but I guess I've missed them somehow.

The issue is rather subtle - it's not that regular health players are getting too many major injuries, just that low health players don't seem to get as many as you'd expect. Since there aren't that many sub-50 health players to begin with, and many owners understandably shy away from them, most owners won't even be directly exposed to the situation. Unlike the Training bug, for example, it's not something that anyone can easily check out for himself - you've got to invest in acquiring such a player first. As it is, over the past couple of years I've heard several comments from other players that suspect that the algorithm isn't working properly. Perhaps you haven't been listening as closely.

This gets to the heart of the issue.  We both seem to agree that a low health rating, on average, indicates a player will have more injuries over his career.  Severity of injury is determined by random probability and a team's Medical budget.  And so, the way it should work, as we both agree, is that a more frequent exposure to getting injured equates to a greater likelihood of suffering a major injury over a career. 

The fact that there does tend to be a small sampling of the particularly low health players, makes basing assumptions about the inner-workings of the system being out of whack a little dangerous.  If you go look at the 60-day DL in a world, for example, you'll see a fair number of "good health" players on there.  You might start to think the system is out of whack.  But of course, the percentage of "good health" players sitting on the 60-day is going to be much lower than the percentage of "poor health" players sitting on the 60-day, because there are significantly fewer low health players.

If you find players who play an entire career with 30-40 health, there's a really good chance you'll see a 60-day DL appearance if you check their DL History (assuming the owner was actually putting his injured players on the DL).  On the other side of the coin, a large majority of 80-90 health players feature no such trip to the 60-day, even over their entire career.  Sure you may sign a low health guy and he might stay perfectly healthy over a full 5-year contract.  But over his entire career, minors and majors, it's almost a matter of "when", not "if", he'll suffer a 60-day setback.  That is why I believe it is working as intended.

Sorry, but you don't get to take the high ground here.  After all, I have looked into this before, you have done no analysis, you know my solution is theoretically possible, and you have a strong opinion that it just didn't happen. 

If you have "looked into this before" then by all means I'm willing and even eager to hear the results. But so far all you've done is quote system specs. You've further suggested what type of analysis I should do (admittedly valid ideas, btw), but haven't shown any inclination to do so yourself.

To recap. I stated an opinion based on personal observation and presented it as such. You then said that I'm wrong because it's not supposed to work that way. I responded that I agree it's not supposed to work that way, but that doesn't mean that it does indeed work the way it's supposed to. Your response summarizes to if it wasn't working many others would have noticed by now and it would have been fixed long ago. My response boiled down to that it doesn't always work that way (notice a trend?). Your response was to get all prickly and then suggest that I should do some analysis (without sharing any of yours). My response to you is: I really don't care enough about this to waste any more time discussing it with you. You play your way within the context of your understanding, and I'll play mine. Good bye.

By looked into, I meant, as you have meant, performed some cursory observations and tried to spot trends using my own teams/worlds.  Thus the trend I seem to have noticed that low health players are highly likely to have a 60-day DL trip during their career.  I haven't recorded any data and quite frankly, I get the feeling that even if I presented to you some numbers your response would be "well that's great but not a large enough sample size to prove either point".  Which, while true, would be a lot of me spinning my wheels for no result.  I intended to do some Knowledge Base digging, but a) the Search function wasn't working for me at the time and b) ultimately you'd say, "Well yes that's how they think it works but doesn't prove it works that way."

Other than a biting sarcastic comment about the random-number-generator in the sky, presented more for humor than to be confrontational, I never got prickly until you unjustly called me naive and then later insulted everyone in my field as being incapable of grasping the concept that things can slip through the cracks.

You did assert it as personal opinion, and are entitled to it, but I don't understand why you think anyone who doesn't buy your hunch despite their own observations to the contrary is naive.

FYI . . .HBD went GA to the public in June, 2006.  So it's coming up on it's 5th birthday.

Wow, older than I thought. Guess I could have done some rough math using the oldest worlds.

General observation:   Low health players get injured more frequently than high health players.  I've noticed no correlation to severity of injury based on health ratings.   I have noticed that people get bent out of shape when a top prospect/player gets injured but barely recognize that they have 9 TC pitchers on the DL.  So it stands to reason that these same people won't recognize the 34 health guy getting a 98 day injury nearly as easily or often as the 94 health player getting the same injury.  After all, they went after the 94 health player to avoid such things, right?

Exactly, Mike.  That's what I believe is happening here.  Perceptions get warped because a major injury to a high health player feels worse, and you remember them more, even years after the fact.  Meanwhile, when you get snakebit by a low health player you think "Well I knew this day would come" and it doesn't feel as bad.

Posted by iain on 5/12/2011 5:07:00 PM (view original):

Posted by soursurfer on 5/12/2011 4:29:00 PM (view original):

So you've chosen to ignore all facts and believe a conspiracy theory that minor injuries are a combo of Health/Training/Medical while major injuries are determined by the big Random-Number-Generator-in-the-Sky.  Got it.

Just because you think I'm paranoid doesn't mean little men aren't after me.

Why are midgets chasing you??

Proving my observation to myself, I checked my Hamilton DL.  We're 56 games in.   I knew I had a handful of players on the DL.  My starting 3B, a future pitching stud, a decent future bench player and a RP that might be a SuB.   Well, I just checked it.  I've got 13 players on the DL.   That's a ridiculous amount at this point in the season.   But I couldn't tell you a thing about 9 of them.