Posted by bpielcmc on 2/21/2022 5:04:00 AM (view original):
While losing bottom board EEs definitely sucks, I wanted to add this that it’s not unrealistic from a realism standpoint. UTEP lost a sophomore SF who declared for the draft, hoping to be 55-60 pick but ended up going undrafted. I remember being outraged when this happened.

link for reference: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/sports/college/utep/2015/06/25/former-utep-forward-vince-hunter-not-drafted-by/71945896/

I hate the comparison to real life for the big board and EEs. In HD, a projected top 5 pick staying happens every few seasons. Even sometimes the #1 pick. Has that ever happened in real life?

Playing the "this happens in real life" card is foolish IMO. For example.

How often do injuries happen in real life? A lot.
How often do injuries happen in HD? Rarely.

Why? Because having a player injured in HD feels random and is frustrating. And most importantly it's not FUN. I don't see threads on here about people wanting more injuries or players failing drugs or getting arrested. Users don't ACTUALLY want realism in this game.

Posted by Benis on 2/22/2022 11:15:00 AM (view original):
Playing the "this happens in real life" card is foolish IMO. For example.

How often do injuries happen in real life? A lot.
How often do injuries happen in HD? Rarely.

Why? Because having a player injured in HD feels random and is frustrating. And most importantly it's not FUN. I don't see threads on here about people wanting more injuries or players failing drugs or getting arrested. Users don't ACTUALLY want realism in this game.

i agree, top 5 players returning on 5% odds is too luck-driven success for the beneficiaries, and 100 sophs leaving to get drafted 58th at 5% odds (10% roll on 50% odds of rolling perhaps) is the same story. the issue is you have to draw the line somewhere, i suppose, but i would be personally happy to see no player with 91 to 99% odds of leaving or staying. if its that extreme, just cancel the roll and have em go/stay.

but yeah i have to take the opportunity once more to plug a COVID release, i mean come on, think of all the exciting coaching challenges that result from one of your guys getting COVID and missing 3 games? or when he infects most of the team and you only bring 7 eligible players, 4 of whom are walkons? or when you die of COVID in game and have to start a new ID? you just don't get those experiences in HD.

we should probably also add a feature where occasionally you get hot headed and punch the opposing assistant coach in the face for calling an unnecessary timeout, even though he isn't the one who called it. and then your assistant simAI takes over coaching duties for the rest of the season, and you get to pick up the pieces afterwards. what a creative challenge that would be! these are the kinds of things that give HD character. WE MUST HAVE THEM!

Yeah exactly! I haven't seen a single HD coach throw a chair on the court during the game. Or choke out one his players. So unrealistic!

I mean, imagine if HD was set up from the beginning where no one ranked lower than 100 on the big board left early. Would anyone care or even think about it not being realistic? Of course not.

There are ways to make both injuries and EEs more intelligent in this game, and I’ve talked about them both. They won’t likely do anything with either of them, because they would require significant changes to the game engine, which they are either unable or unwilling to do, short of another big 4.0 level update.

For EEs, if they’re not going to make them more intelligent - and I mean make the tendency to want to leave early a scoutable trait for recruits, then have recruits declare independent of each other, which would result in undrafted FAs as well - then they should leave it alone. It hurts to lose a guy early, especially one down low. It’s supposed to hurt. That’s the game. This is not a college basketball coaching simulation if elite recruits aren’t at risk of jumping ship. If anything, they should leave more often, and in the manner laid out above. But leaving it alone is fine, too. If you coach at D1, you learn the difference between a player who is a 4-year player, and a player who might leave early, and you develop contingencies for the latter, if that matters to you. *That’s the game.*

Injuries are kind of another beast. They could be done more intelligently for sure, but they could also just be removed completely, and that would also improve the game. They happen so infrequently, the only function they serve as it stands is to p!$$ people off. They are not tied to any coaching choice, their occurrence and the consequences they bear are entirely random. The only thing that you could say kind of matters is that durability plays a part in how long it takes a player to recover from injury, but since they happen so infrequently, coaches are rightly told to completely ignore durability anyway.

The way injuries should work is that low durability players should see nagging injuries as the season wears on, and start to play at 75-80% past mid season, especially if they are playing tired in individual games, playing past their stamina thresholds. Catastrophic injuries that take players completely out of games should only result when coaches ignore those nagging injuries (continuing to play guys long minutes at 75-80%). If that can’t be done, injuries should just be tossed completely.

Posted by shoe3 on 2/22/2022 2:33:00 PM (view original):

There are ways to make both injuries and EEs more intelligent in this game, and I’ve talked about them both. They won’t likely do anything with either of them, because they would require significant changes to the game engine, which they are either unable or unwilling to do, short of another big 4.0 level update.

For EEs, if they’re not going to make them more intelligent - and I mean make the tendency to want to leave early a scoutable trait for recruits, then have recruits declare independent of each other, which would result in undrafted FAs as well - then they should leave it alone. It hurts to lose a guy early, especially one down low. It’s supposed to hurt. That’s the game. This is not a college basketball coaching simulation if elite recruits aren’t at risk of jumping ship. If anything, they should leave more often, and in the manner laid out above. But leaving it alone is fine, too. If you coach at D1, you learn the difference between a player who is a 4-year player, and a player who might leave early, and you develop contingencies for the latter, if that matters to you. *That’s the game.*

Injuries are kind of another beast. They could be done more intelligently for sure, but they could also just be removed completely, and that would also improve the game. They happen so infrequently, the only function they serve as it stands is to p!$$ people off. They are not tied to any coaching choice, their occurrence and the consequences they bear are entirely random. The only thing that you could say kind of matters is that durability plays a part in how long it takes a player to recover from injury, but since they happen so infrequently, coaches are rightly told to completely ignore durability anyway.

The way injuries should work is that low durability players should see nagging injuries as the season wears on, and start to play at 75-80% past mid season, especially if they are playing tired in individual games, playing past their stamina thresholds. Catastrophic injuries that take players completely out of games should only result when coaches ignore those nagging injuries (continuing to play guys long minutes at 75-80%). If that can’t be done, injuries should just be tossed completely.

I mostly agree except that recruiting a player with low durability is a coaching choice. It's just that we've been programmed to completely ignore durability during recruiting. I'd be fine with removing injuries from the game, but I also like the idea of being rewarded for having depth.

shoe - "For EEs, if they’re not going to make them more intelligent - and I mean make the tendency to want to leave early a scoutable trait for recruits" - just rambling, but it actually used to work this way. folks were not a fan and it was changed. i was a fan! they didn't decide independently of each other like you are suggesting though.

you know what is interesting though, for a long time you could DEFINITELY have players declare, and not get drafted. which kind of is in line with what you suggested there. i am thinking this got changed? or does this still happen? can players leave early (not for promises, grades, etc - only EE), and not get drafted anymore, or was this removed?

Just to add fuel to the fire here..... I just retained #3 Jr on the board (who also stayed as a Soph around #10 to #15 but I forget the exact). Also kept #31. But I did lose one EE which was #62 Jr.... #3 staying as a Jr should never happen. Period.

Every EE situation is different of course. But it's odd to me that I've kept so many top players, and lost so many low low players (like #80 and beyond) but I don't see a ton of departures from 30 to 70 range. I'm just referring to ME and what I've dealt with so far. Really weird scenarios