Posted by MikeT23 on 1/11/2016 1:31:00 PM (view original):
One could argue that injuries are far more frequent, and devastating, in MLB. 

i get it, i am just saying does this game need to be that realistic?

Posted by esf0242 on 1/11/2016 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/11/2016 1:31:00 PM (view original):
One could argue that injuries are far more frequent, and devastating, in MLB. 

i get it, i am just saying does this game need to be that realistic?

The goal is to sim real life as much as reasonably possible.  So, yes.

The challenge of having depth to compensate for injuries, or making trades to deal with injuries, is part of the appeal of the game.

No one likes injuries when they happen to them, I couldn't care less about YOUR injuries, but they are part of the strategy.  I'm currently griping about them in Mantle but I also planned for them so I think I'll be able to weather the storm.   Some owners can't.

In my opinion, based on the number of my psycho sports gaming friends who have not stuck at this game (but will play Strat-O-Matic or fantasy until and after they get divorced for it) this is a niche game, and demand won't radically increase with advertising.  

If I'm right, the steady state for this game with the current number of worlds is probably at a couple hundred or so empty slots, and a number of very slow rollovers.  I see only 3 ways to deal with delayed rollovers-- sims, adjustable size worlds, and merger/contraction.  In a perfect world you could do all three.

I can see sims being non-terrible as long as sims can't trade.  Adjustable size worlds are probably hard to program but I would think they would work better than mergers.  3 into 2 and 4 into 3 mergers are probably better than what we have now, but I suspect that there would be more attrition with that option than with the other two. 

The key, as I see it, is that private worlds could have any or all of these options available to them.  Stuck at 25 for 2 weeks? A private world could find a volunteer to leave and roll as a 24-team league, or add 7 sims and roll today, or just wait it out.  Public worlds would probably have to have hard and fast rules, something like, "After 4 weeks, if you have 25-31 owners you fill with sims, if you have 21-24 owners you become a 24-team league, and if you have 20 you sit around waiting to merge with another world."  You'd also want to cap the number of sims at around 7, if for no other reason than a commish could scare off the other 31 owners and make a private world in which he's the only human into a profit machine.

All this is easier said than done; the programming for mergers seems somewhat labor intensive, and a decent sim or floating world size would be even harder.  But I'd like to see one or all of these made available.

I hear you dedelman, its not for everyone. But there are many people that do not even know what simulation baseball is. Even fantasy players look at me dumbfounded when I tell them about simulation baseball.  With the rise of phone applications that deal with numbers and stats, there are more people that would understand and love this game.  A huge advertisement scheme may not be appropriate but no advertisement scheme will bring no new players which means less leagues filled.  Go to YouTube and type in Whatifsports and you get gobbs of Ryan Fowler fantasy projections?!?!? Thats great if your a fantasy player but does little for the person that may like to play this game or for the players that already play this game.  There was one hardball player(I forget his name) that put his strategy on YouTube which was enjoyable to listen to.

IN my opinion a 24 team league is less realistic to baseball today and not my cup of tea, but maybe would work if started fresh at season 1.

I love the idea of smaller worlds.  You can get a core group of owners in a smaller world and really have some more rivalries going.

One question, thrown out there as a hypothetical for brainstorming:

Let's say you contract a world from 32 to 24.  What happens to all the players from the 8 teams that have been contracted?  Do they (a) just go away, (b) become "released" free agents available to be signed at the ML minimum of $327k, or do you have (c) a disbursal draft, where the players get distributed in a manner similar to Rule 5 (without the R5 restrictions)?

Since it's been my idea, and floated for about 2 years with no sign that WifS care one bit about it, I'd be inclined to put them all into FA with appropriate salary demands.   Early on talent level will be much higher because you've released 175-200 BL players into the wild but, eventually, talent level would return to current "norms".    That way, you'd keep the "history" alive.   Great players would get to continue their careers.    

That said, the world wouldn't end if 6 year pros were just deleted.

FWIW, I don't think it would be a programming nightmare.   You'd just have 4 templates and plug the teams into the appropriate one. 

2 divisions of 7, 2 wild cards
3 divisions of 4, 1 wild card
2 divisions of 5, 2 wild cards

Of course, if 8 of 28 for playoffs seems to small, 2 and 3 in each division qualifies and plays the opposite in the other division.  2/3 and 3/2.   1s get bye.

Posted by tecwrg on 1/11/2016 2:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by esf0242 on 1/11/2016 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/11/2016 1:31:00 PM (view original):
One could argue that injuries are far more frequent, and devastating, in MLB. 

i get it, i am just saying does this game need to be that realistic?

The goal is to sim real life as much as reasonably possible.  So, yes.

The challenge of having depth to compensate for injuries, or making trades to deal with injuries, is part of the appeal of the game.

Since the game is using baseball rules from 2011 for Free Agency, the Amateur draft, and the Internationals, the game is not realistic for serious fans.

I love the game and will continue to play but I can't ask my baseball friends to join a SIM using 5 year old rules.

Commish plays the biggest factor in determining success of individual leagues IMO. Fair rules, enforcement of rules, and new owner screening will determine whether a league remains healthy or not. Not every league has that luxury though. (I would assume) it takes a big initial time commitment and a number of seasons to get the league stocked with good owners. 

I also think it's hard for HBD to compete in a culture that's always running toward instant gratification(maybe not the best wording, shorter time horizons, IDK?). HBD takes a tremendous amount of patience. But if you take a look at the popularity of traditional fantasy, you make a mistake it only affects your current season. And now there is daily fantasy where you make a mistake and it only affects one day/week. (Who wants to set up an innings/quarter/period/play/down/possession fantasy site with me, lol?)

I enjoy HBD because I enjoy the process, I like a taking on a challenging rebuild. I assume most younger players to the game (have been conditioned to?) expect to contend from the get go. 

I agree with brianplath, the Commish is the biggest factor, an active fair commish who recruits brings an attitude that makes other owners want to help with recruitment. Aside from the leagues blessed to have waiting-lists, it takes multiple owners per league to recruit and find owners every season. HBD is not on it's proverbial deathbed but it is what it is and we the users cannot change it because there is no answer that would improve it to all, aside from an influx of new owners.


*edited for off topic

Posted by ttnorm on 1/12/2016 12:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 1/11/2016 2:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by esf0242 on 1/11/2016 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/11/2016 1:31:00 PM (view original):
One could argue that injuries are far more frequent, and devastating, in MLB. 

i get it, i am just saying does this game need to be that realistic?

The goal is to sim real life as much as reasonably possible.  So, yes.

The challenge of having depth to compensate for injuries, or making trades to deal with injuries, is part of the appeal of the game.

Since the game is using baseball rules from 2011 for Free Agency, the Amateur draft, and the Internationals, the game is not realistic for serious fans.

I love the game and will continue to play but I can't ask my baseball friends to join a SIM using 5 year old rules.

Yes, implementing the Qualifying Offer and changing the playoff structure to correlate with MLB would be a good start.

Posted by chisox378 on 1/13/2016 2:21:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ttnorm on 1/12/2016 12:19:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tecwrg on 1/11/2016 2:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by esf0242 on 1/11/2016 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/11/2016 1:31:00 PM (view original):
One could argue that injuries are far more frequent, and devastating, in MLB. 

i get it, i am just saying does this game need to be that realistic?

The goal is to sim real life as much as reasonably possible.  So, yes.

The challenge of having depth to compensate for injuries, or making trades to deal with injuries, is part of the appeal of the game.

Since the game is using baseball rules from 2011 for Free Agency, the Amateur draft, and the Internationals, the game is not realistic for serious fans.

I love the game and will continue to play but I can't ask my baseball friends to join a SIM using 5 year old rules.

Yes, implementing the Qualifying Offer and changing the playoff structure to correlate with MLB would be a good start.

You can't correlate the playoff structure with MLB. MLB is 2 leagues with 3 divisions each; HBD is 2 leagues with 4 divisions. If you implement the smaller world proposals that have been floated, you're even further away from the MLB setup.

I think WIS should take a hard look at the idea of contracting/ downsizing leagues. If I remember correctly, there are options for different sized leagues on the SimLeague baseball side, so they do implement it there. Bottom line is, it would be a good business move on their end. Would they rather have several 32 team leagues sitting idle for long stretches, or several 24 team leagues rolling over at a quicker pace? Obviously, some quick math would reveal that you'd need 24-team leagues to get 4 seasons finished in the time period that 32 team leagues complete 3 seasons for a stand-alone league to generate equal money. However, with multiple leagues running concurrently, and available openings lessened, you'd have less idle days where the revenue clock isn't running.

also... we have 7 openings in World Bench (8 originally). The biggest reason we had that many openings IMO is due to an owner last season destroying his franchise in a way that damaged the world, but I bet the 8 guys who left would say that the slow response from admin was either the #1 reason they left or a close 2nd. There was a clear majority of owners who wanted the guy kicked out, and admin was very, very slow to act - probably at least 3 weeks, after the commish was (rightly, IMO) slow to take it to admin b/c he wanted to make sure it absolutely had to be done before such a big decision as kicking out a paying owner who wanted to be in the league.

I wonder how often slow admin response to issues is a factor in other worlds that are a) seeing more teams abandoned mid-season, b) losing more owners than usual, and/or c) having a hard time filling up their leagues at rollover...?