Posted by mrslam34 on 6/6/2020 11:20:00 PM (view original):
One thing I have done before against teams like that is set my starters to fairly fresh and all of my subs to getting tired. It helps prevent you from having players on the floor at tired or very tired.
this is one of the more interesting posts i've read since i started playing again a year ago, i've never heard or tried this idea before. it sounds like there's a rational basis behind it though, i'll have to check it out! i have done something sort of similar for individual backups, but primarily for a different reason... doing it team wide is pretty interesting.
dogg, i don't know whether to say the depth chart is about subbing out or subbing in. the simplest way to think about it is the game goes into every sub opportunity and considers who is eligible to play given their fatigue and foul situation, and then it picks the best 5 man lineup (lowest sum of depth chart positions, tiebreaker left to right column wise). i don't think it really cares who is in or out (although it perhaps tried to avoid subbing guys in and out every 5 seconds). if there is valid 5 man lineup - fatigue/fouls are prohibiting players from playing - then it will loosen up a bit on fatigue. i'm not 100% on this loosening, but i think it sort of tries to find the minimum number of fatigue violators first, and then the minimum sum of positions second - but it perhaps could be a more balanced heuristic.
in short, when you say 'wouldnt the engine just go to whoever is freshest', once everyone is tired - the answer is pretty much yes, but with the caveat that all 'ties', which aren't necessarily ties, go to the starters. meaning, if you think of fatigue as a range - fresh is 100->80, fairly fresh 80->60, getting tired 60->40, and so on - then if everyone is set to fairly fresh, and your starters are 61 while your backups are 79, your starters will go in. this is not desirable, and incidentally is the key downside to how fatigue depth chart works (particularly, for getting tired starters - who will sub in at 61 even with a 90 backup - which is terrible)
so, i think i can see how this approach could help. the key is that you know you are going to to have everyone tired by the end of the half - and therefore, you want to make sure your backups are staying in there longer, giving your starters time to rest up more. mechanically, you are trying to soften up that tie breaker.
if we think through the beginning of the half, i think it helps see why. 5 starters are fresh. they play part way into fairly fresh when a sub opportunity comes along, then sub out. let's just assume hockey style, now all 5 backups are in. 30 seconds later, a sub opportunity comes along - and half your starters are now slightly into the 'fresh' range. well, they all go back in, they are meeting their fatigue condition. some of the backups coming out are barely fatigued - they'll end up sitting even while at 100, wasting the 'total team fatigue potential', if you will. we actually don't want this - but we have no ability to stop it. there is no control whereby we can prevent this from happening, at least in the fatigue style of depth chart.
however, fast forward a bit - the whole team got tired - everyone is fairly fresh (or some pairs of 1/2s at whatever positions). who do you want to play? very possibly, the backups are a better fairly fresh - this is probably true, as backups are almost always less tired. on top of that, the starters are the ones who push themselves to intense fatigue levels, because they are forced back in at the bottom of their listed range, the 'ties' are broad and broken towards the starters, so they'll continue to tire out ahead of the backups for as long as play continues. so, just like earlier - when we had no control - we really would rather the backups play a bit longer to give the starters a chance to freshen up. but now, there is a control - backups on getting tired.
if the game ran long enough, this could work against you, because in a couple words, what this change should do is swap from all tie breakers to the starters, to fairly fresh tie breakers to starters, while lower fatigue tie breakers go to the backups. given enough time, everyone is orange and stuff, you'd be playing your backups more kind of like you suggested. i don't think the fatigue usually gets that bad though, so in most cases, there should be a little evening out of fatigue between backups and starters, which is usually a good thing.
i will say, i set backups to getting tired from time to time to get them more minutes over lower backups (esp in attempted 3 man rotations, 3 key guys over 2 spots), because they tend to just stay in a bit longer over lower backups, and then the starters force them out, letting them rest up. its kind of a similar concept. it can backfire if a starter gets in foul trouble though, so probably the same applies to what mrslam said.