Posted by shoe3 on 10/22/2022 12:32:00 PM (view original):
“This game needs to attract new coaches and to pretend like there is some sort of voodoo curse against you is just a bad look…”

Leaving the rest aside, the point here, which is being lost, is simply that the luck modifiers, to the extent they exist, should be clear and transparent, and well understood by everyone. Dismissing folks who get frustrated - like OP - by ridiculous losses that *are not actually attributable to coaching decisions* is the bad look here. They have a chance to vastly improve the game and improve user experience with the re-write. I don’t want them to miss it because some folks haven’t experienced it’s effects in the same way (yet).

I will gladly leave the rest aside as well

Posted by shoe3 on 10/22/2022 9:46:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Napoli on 10/22/2022 1:21:00 AM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 10/21/2022 11:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 10/21/2022 8:56:00 PM (view original):
Your losses are of your own making. Either your team isn't good enough to win, or you're not doing enough to maximize your team's chances of winning. Own your losses and try to figure out how you can do better.

Up until a little over 2 years ago I was pretty much in this camp. Then I found myself with teams that had bad luck stuck to them - all 4 I was coaching at the time - for over a year, until I sent a ticket about it. Not just "bad luck sims" though they happened, but also stuff like the best player of an undefeated team going out in the 1st minute of a final four; a FB/P team getting hit with 3 guys on the watch list for grades even though I'm very conservative with minutes, including a guy with a HS GPA of 3.0 who had been getting 8 minutes all season; multiple EEs that would have been off the board before the expansion to 150; and of course recruiting battles, though truth be told, Kentucky was the only place I was getting noticeably hit with bad recruiting luck, and I complain about recruiting luck less than 99% of folks here so...

Anyway, this is all well and good, but frankly it's one of those "if you know, you know" kind of things. That's part of the problem with the luck modifier being as strong as I'm pretty confident it is, especially when there is zero transparency.

You've won 11 nattys and you're complaining the game isn't easy enough.

No, if I wanted an easy game, I'd schedule all sims and play in empty conferences, and stay in D3. I don't do any of those things. And like I said, if the point was to ensure challenge and obstacles for advanced users, there are much better ways than randomly supercharging some teams, some nights. This is a multiplayer game, the difficulty level should depend on the folks you are playing against.

There's more than one way for the game to be easy. You're complaining that the RNG should not apply to your elite stable of teams.

Great teams lay eggs plenty often in real life, and lesser teams catch fire. The possibility of surprises is what makes the games exciting.

You and spoon can't reduce a college basketball matchup to an equation with no variables. I'm grateful WIS doesn't do that.

we used to talk about this a lot, we used to call it an 'upset factor'. admins swore up and down they didn't exist, across many permutations of questions and approaches. this didn't leave me overly convinced, but over time as i got more into things, i don't think there is any upset factor, or whatever else you might want to call it. there could be bugs in the game (particularly around feedback) that could cause sort of similar effects, i suppose, but in general, i don't think there's a pre-game per-game or per-player 'luck factor' being pre-generated to cause wild outcomes, or anything in that arena.

also, i definitely don't think sims get a luck factor, at home or otherwise. there is a general misconception, not a great one but a modest one, about the coaching of sims. a lot of folks think of sims at terrible at everything. its just not true. sims are atrocious recruiters, and are bad at team setup decisions that require flexibility in thinking, like taking a team with 6 listed point guards and figuring who should play SF. however, sims are generally solid coaches, especially early in the season (when human coaches are at their worst), and with some teams who fit sim play style, they are actually moderately better than the average WIS coach. frankly, on average, sims might be at good at coaching as the average coach. its really the recruiting where they are an abomination.

anyway, this gives folks the impression that losing to sims shouldn't happen, because they are so bad... but its not true. sims are pretty decent at coaching teams that already exist, they just can't build one worth a damn. there's really no shame in losing to a decently put together sim team. also, the OPs team is pretty far from good, so i'm not really sure how anyone could reasonably consider this thread an example of... "Dismissing folks who get frustrated - like OP - by ridiculous losses that *are not actually attributable to coaching decisions* is the bad look here." crazy upsets happen in real life, i don't get the mentality of folks who think they shouldn't happen here. especially to mediocre teams.

Posted by Napoli on 10/22/2022 12:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 10/22/2022 9:46:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Napoli on 10/22/2022 1:21:00 AM (view original):

Posted by shoe3 on 10/21/2022 11:01:00 PM (view original):

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 10/21/2022 8:56:00 PM (view original):
Your losses are of your own making. Either your team isn't good enough to win, or you're not doing enough to maximize your team's chances of winning. Own your losses and try to figure out how you can do better.

Up until a little over 2 years ago I was pretty much in this camp. Then I found myself with teams that had bad luck stuck to them - all 4 I was coaching at the time - for over a year, until I sent a ticket about it. Not just "bad luck sims" though they happened, but also stuff like the best player of an undefeated team going out in the 1st minute of a final four; a FB/P team getting hit with 3 guys on the watch list for grades even though I'm very conservative with minutes, including a guy with a HS GPA of 3.0 who had been getting 8 minutes all season; multiple EEs that would have been off the board before the expansion to 150; and of course recruiting battles, though truth be told, Kentucky was the only place I was getting noticeably hit with bad recruiting luck, and I complain about recruiting luck less than 99% of folks here so...

Anyway, this is all well and good, but frankly it's one of those "if you know, you know" kind of things. That's part of the problem with the luck modifier being as strong as I'm pretty confident it is, especially when there is zero transparency.

You've won 11 nattys and you're complaining the game isn't easy enough.

No, if I wanted an easy game, I'd schedule all sims and play in empty conferences, and stay in D3. I don't do any of those things. And like I said, if the point was to ensure challenge and obstacles for advanced users, there are much better ways than randomly supercharging some teams, some nights. This is a multiplayer game, the difficulty level should depend on the folks you are playing against.

There's more than one way for the game to be easy. You're complaining that the RNG should not apply to your elite stable of teams.

Great teams lay eggs plenty often in real life, and lesser teams catch fire. The possibility of surprises is what makes the games exciting.

You and spoon can't reduce a college basketball matchup to an equation with no variables. I'm grateful WIS doesn't do that.

I’m not speaking for OP, but I certainly don’t want a game with “no variables”. Wild luck modifiers just don’t have to be among them. And to the extent that any luck modifiers must exist, they should be explicit - clear and transparent. In a multiplayer game, upsets should primarily be driven by coaching decisions with the teams that exist.

I also just want to point out that the suggestion that I’m “complaining that the RNG should not apply to your elite stable of teams” pretty much flies in the face of the comment that got me started on this - that losses are on you, and you should just learn from them. As I’ve said before, the problem with wild luck results is that you can’t learn much of value from them. I don’t want stale, predictable results. I want results that make sense.

Posted by gillispie on 10/22/2022 6:38:00 PM (view original):
we used to talk about this a lot, we used to call it an 'upset factor'. admins swore up and down they didn't exist, across many permutations of questions and approaches. this didn't leave me overly convinced, but over time as i got more into things, i don't think there is any upset factor, or whatever else you might want to call it. there could be bugs in the game (particularly around feedback) that could cause sort of similar effects, i suppose, but in general, i don't think there's a pre-game per-game or per-player 'luck factor' being pre-generated to cause wild outcomes, or anything in that arena.

also, i definitely don't think sims get a luck factor, at home or otherwise. there is a general misconception, not a great one but a modest one, about the coaching of sims. a lot of folks think of sims at terrible at everything. its just not true. sims are atrocious recruiters, and are bad at team setup decisions that require flexibility in thinking, like taking a team with 6 listed point guards and figuring who should play SF. however, sims are generally solid coaches, especially early in the season (when human coaches are at their worst), and with some teams who fit sim play style, they are actually moderately better than the average WIS coach. frankly, on average, sims might be at good at coaching as the average coach. its really the recruiting where they are an abomination.

anyway, this gives folks the impression that losing to sims shouldn't happen, because they are so bad... but its not true. sims are pretty decent at coaching teams that already exist, they just can't build one worth a damn. there's really no shame in losing to a decently put together sim team. also, the OPs team is pretty far from good, so i'm not really sure how anyone could reasonably consider this thread an example of... "Dismissing folks who get frustrated - like OP - by ridiculous losses that *are not actually attributable to coaching decisions* is the bad look here." crazy upsets happen in real life, i don't get the mentality of folks who think they shouldn't happen here. especially to mediocre teams.

Like I said from the start, I have no issue with the existence of good sims, and the possibility of losing to them. But those results should be attributable to coaching decisions, not to the sims going into god mode, as when they go deep into the NT, which has happened quite a few times now. Looking at OPs team, don’t forget to actually look at the box scores and the opponents. 2 of those 3 non-con sim losses are to bad sims that should have been won handily. It’s not that I personally don’t want sims to beat anyone - but I definitely don’t want sim-coached teams to be able to do things we can’t do, like have frontcourt players with under 60 per and low speed/BH hit a not-marginal number of 3FGs.

As I’ve said before, I don’t expect or even want the devs to confirm anything, primarily because I think that would be pretty bad for the game. What I want is for them to be very clear (and honest) about what RNG modifiers are part of the re-write and how they work. Transparency.

And to be clear, lest anyone think I’m complaining about my own D3 team, I’m not. I don’t expect that team to be good until my players are upperclassmen, which is not this year. I didn’t really even coach them at all this year to be honest.

Every time a coach has complained about a loss being unfair that I've combed over, they've missed glaring mistakes they made with their lineup, tempo, distro, positioning, who or who not to double or whatever else. With that said, using bad luck to explain away upsets is a disservice, preventing one's self from rooting out the problem and improving their team.

Tried out HD myself. Didn't love it in the current state. Switched to HBD and found it fun.

I have had 2 teams win a D1 national title and lose a game to a sim. I lost a game as #1 in the country Illinois on the road to a 55 ATH/DE Air Force team. I've seen some insane upsets in my time here, since that's how the game works.

I will say I'm getting pretty burnt out on HD (I'll keep Kansas in Allen still....but dropping Wooden for the first time since 2014. 8 years, wow). I already wrote a long post recently outlining my problems with the new D1 meta. Moved onto D2 for a while and had a lot of fun. Considering trying to do some HBD and then coming back to HD after everything gets worked out.

I’m blown away to hear cub say that! I have felt the same way, and have had one foot out the door for a long time now. My reason isn’t because of any game flaws or issues tho. Just an old tired topdogg.

But, I had to share my sim story since others are. Sim losses should happen from time to time! There’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever! (Next we’ll start saying that a 16 should never beat a 1 because it’s basically never happens). So…. I believe I was in my 4th/5th season in a rebuild at Dayton. We were a team that was turning the corner and ready for our best season yet. We weren’t talented enough to contend for a title. But making an E8 was at least a possibility. We were ranked, without looking I believe we were heavy Sr as well.

Lost to the conference doormat sim. Shoe was in that conference. He’ll remember! I wrote a thread about it here, kinda laughing it off. The record of that sim at the time, literally……. 0-20!

personally I don’t see a reason to dissect a loss too a sim like that. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to nitpick why “there’s no way X should’ve happened”. Just move on from it

Something I've always thought is that the game makes it difficult to get through a conference schedule undefeated. I am not sure what the mechanism in place is but if you look at teams playing in empty conferences, they seem to more often than not take 1 to 2 bad losses.

Anyone else notice this or have any possible explanations?

“Lost to the conference doormat sim. Shoe was in that conference. He’ll remember! I wrote a thread about it here, kinda laughing it off. The record of that sim at the time, literally……. 0-20!”

That loss was on my mind doggg. It was ridiculous. And I said so at the time. In your case it didn’t ruin your season, but what if it had? You’d worked hard to get that team good and waited a long time. What if the rest of the conference was less strong, you had dropped that game and lost the conference tourney and missed the NT? Now put yourself in the position of someone who doesn’t have a stack of credits to soften the blow, someone who’s still waiting for the first title.

Folks saying you can learn something from every loss, and every loss there was something you did wrong. That’s just ignorant. I wish the sim worked like that. It doesn’t. That’s the point, that’s what I want, a clear and transparent game engine where when upsets happen, they have an explanation that goes beyond “looks like they just had a good luck day” - which is the actual verbatim response I got from CS when I was in doggg’s shoes, so to speak.

Posted by bpielcmc on 10/23/2022 6:09:00 AM (view original):
Something I've always thought is that the game makes it difficult to get through a conference schedule undefeated. I am not sure what the mechanism in place is but if you look at teams playing in empty conferences, they seem to more often than not take 1 to 2 bad losses.

Anyone else notice this or have any possible explanations?

I have noticed the conference schedule thing you mentioned. I’ve had a couple seasons with dominant teams. And I’ll be 15-0 going into the last game and playing a team in the bottom 4 of the conference and lose that last game. Multiple multiple times. Or if I’m tied with a team at 12-3 with the conference title on the line, I’ll lose to the worst team in conference when I feel it’s ridiculous. It drives me nuts, but I think it’s just chance. Part of the game. It just seems too specific if you know what I mean. I don’t think it’s a big deal tho.

What DOES irritate me the most is the CT outcomes!! I always feel like the CT starts all teams at 0-0 because I lose some goofy games sometimes after doing great during the season. In wooden, I am playing for a title tonight. I was in the top 4 of the nation all year long…… but I lost the first game of the CT by the widest margin I lost a game all season. ( it wasn’t a huge margin. But still). Most times I have a great season, it’s a given I’ll lose the CT.

Again, all this is OK! No complaints. Part of the game. Just things I notice as well.

Not for nothing, WIS isn't going to tell you why you lost the game. Saying the other team got lucky is a good way of making you feel as though you did nothing wrong and don't need to make any improvements, and it prevents them from doing your homework for you.

Posted by shoe3 on 10/22/2022 8:12:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gillispie on 10/22/2022 6:38:00 PM (view original):
we used to talk about this a lot, we used to call it an 'upset factor'. admins swore up and down they didn't exist, across many permutations of questions and approaches. this didn't leave me overly convinced, but over time as i got more into things, i don't think there is any upset factor, or whatever else you might want to call it. there could be bugs in the game (particularly around feedback) that could cause sort of similar effects, i suppose, but in general, i don't think there's a pre-game per-game or per-player 'luck factor' being pre-generated to cause wild outcomes, or anything in that arena.

also, i definitely don't think sims get a luck factor, at home or otherwise. there is a general misconception, not a great one but a modest one, about the coaching of sims. a lot of folks think of sims at terrible at everything. its just not true. sims are atrocious recruiters, and are bad at team setup decisions that require flexibility in thinking, like taking a team with 6 listed point guards and figuring who should play SF. however, sims are generally solid coaches, especially early in the season (when human coaches are at their worst), and with some teams who fit sim play style, they are actually moderately better than the average WIS coach. frankly, on average, sims might be at good at coaching as the average coach. its really the recruiting where they are an abomination.

anyway, this gives folks the impression that losing to sims shouldn't happen, because they are so bad... but its not true. sims are pretty decent at coaching teams that already exist, they just can't build one worth a damn. there's really no shame in losing to a decently put together sim team. also, the OPs team is pretty far from good, so i'm not really sure how anyone could reasonably consider this thread an example of... "Dismissing folks who get frustrated - like OP - by ridiculous losses that *are not actually attributable to coaching decisions* is the bad look here." crazy upsets happen in real life, i don't get the mentality of folks who think they shouldn't happen here. especially to mediocre teams.

Like I said from the start, I have no issue with the existence of good sims, and the possibility of losing to them. But those results should be attributable to coaching decisions, not to the sims going into god mode, as when they go deep into the NT, which has happened quite a few times now. Looking at OPs team, don’t forget to actually look at the box scores and the opponents. 2 of those 3 non-con sim losses are to bad sims that should have been won handily. It’s not that I personally don’t want sims to beat anyone - but I definitely don’t want sim-coached teams to be able to do things we can’t do, like have frontcourt players with under 60 per and low speed/BH hit a not-marginal number of 3FGs.

As I’ve said before, I don’t expect or even want the devs to confirm anything, primarily because I think that would be pretty bad for the game. What I want is for them to be very clear (and honest) about what RNG modifiers are part of the re-write and how they work. Transparency.

And to be clear, lest anyone think I’m complaining about my own D3 team, I’m not. I don’t expect that team to be good until my players are upperclassmen, which is not this year. I didn’t really even coach them at all this year to be honest.

ok, that's fair enough. i am all for transparency in the rewrite in terms of luck factors along the lines of what we've been talking about here. even though i don't really think they exist in today's game. also, i know you weren't wanting to eliminate sim wins, not everything in that post of mine was targeting to you, it was kind of a jumbled response to various things... but overall i agree 2/3 of the sim losses from the OP were to pretty junk sims, pretty rough losses. i just don't think the OP has a good team and IMO mediocre teams losing to bad ones isn't a big outlier. the continued losses since then kinda back that up, at least a little. my point wasn't that the OP should lose those games fairly often but more that there's obviously major room for improvement in his team, in numerous areas, and that being the focus is how i would approach and would hope others would approach humbling losses to crap sims.

but anyway. what is this rewrite i keep hearing about?

Posted by bpielcmc on 10/23/2022 6:09:00 AM (view original):
Something I've always thought is that the game makes it difficult to get through a conference schedule undefeated. I am not sure what the mechanism in place is but if you look at teams playing in empty conferences, they seem to more often than not take 1 to 2 bad losses.

Anyone else notice this or have any possible explanations?

i think in part its just that winning 16 games is much harder than 15, and part that there is a real complacency factor that sets in when you are stomping garbage teams.

statistically, if you were like 95% to win every game in conference (or any amount), going 16-0 requires you to hit that 95% every game. there's no permutations, the odds are going to be like 0.95^16 = 44%. which is pretty darn high, but when you want to go 15-1, you have 16 ways to arrange that loss, so its 16 permutations * the odds of each arrangement, so 16 * .95^15 * .05 = 37%.

at really high odds of winning each game, the arrangements won't swamp the higher odds of winning each, but pretty quickly that changes. by 90% to win each game, 16-0 is 19% while 15-1 is 33%. on 14-2 you have like, whatever, way more than 16 permutations. its 120 (16 choose 2). so the odds quickly move to those 16 permutations of the 15-1 and 120 of the 14-2, as you get away from playing super weak slates. by 85% to win each game, its only 7% to go 16-0.

anyway, point being that you really have to be playing a big slate of real gutter teams to have pretty high 16-0 odds. i think that is all that is going on, from the math side, i don't think there's any mechanism encouraging a conference loss. and then a human complacency factor which is hard to avoid. in general i feel like there's a pretty clear trend that you can see to the naked human eye, that teams who come out of good conferences have better NT setups than the ones from the weak conferences, not necessarily that they have more talent but that their team setup more fully utilizes it, and that they come better prepared to game plan. i personally cannot ignore my team all year and turn it on for the NT and coach as well as i would if i checked in at least a few times in the season, i don't think many folks can, and its damn near impossible to work your team setup while comp stomping sims! i think the conference effect you are talking about is basically along those same lines.