Also the ability to change the logos. Either a wider selection or upload your own.

Posted by damag on 12/13/2020 12:23:00 PM (view original):
^^^ @adlorenz

Within the past year or two many of us suspect that revisions have been made to the game without anyone being told.
Two specifically - frequency of injuries (although, given, there have always been owners who complain about injuries); and effect of Medical budget on injury recovery.

What we ask is that any such changes are announced, so that we will understand our level playing field.

I've jumped back into the game after a few years off. What do you mean by the effect of medical budget on injury recovery? What changed?

Posted by mhulshult on 12/14/2020 10:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by damag on 12/13/2020 12:23:00 PM (view original):
^^^ @adlorenz

Within the past year or two many of us suspect that revisions have been made to the game without anyone being told.
Two specifically - frequency of injuries (although, given, there have always been owners who complain about injuries); and effect of Medical budget on injury recovery.

What we ask is that any such changes are announced, so that we will understand our level playing field.

I've jumped back into the game after a few years off. What do you mean by the effect of medical budget on injury recovery? What changed?

Back in the day if you had a player go down with an injury and you had 20 million in medical, you could level them on the 60 day DL longer then they were supposed to be on it and they would gain ratings boosts higher then they had before they were injured.

Recently a bunch of us are noticing with players (under 30) with medical budgets over 20 million with high makeup that after going down for an injury, we can leave them on the DL as long as we want and they will never return to their pre-injury ratings.

Oh! I just thought of one (because it just happened) on some pages you can't scroll up or down, but when you click on some of the larger dropdown menus like 'world ----> news' you can't see all of the options at the bottom. There needs to be a way to see all the options to click on regardless of which screen you are on.


I'm not describing this well but if you go to draft history for a single team, then try to go to world ----- > news ------- > international signings it is impossible to do without going to another page because it doesn't fit.

Posted by mhulshult on 12/14/2020 10:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by damag on 12/13/2020 12:23:00 PM (view original):
^^^ @adlorenz

Within the past year or two many of us suspect that revisions have been made to the game without anyone being told.
Two specifically - frequency of injuries (although, given, there have always been owners who complain about injuries); and effect of Medical budget on injury recovery.

What we ask is that any such changes are announced, so that we will understand our level playing field.

I've jumped back into the game after a few years off. What do you mean by the effect of medical budget on injury recovery? What changed?

Here is recent example from this season on one of my teams.
Player Profile: Yorvit Guerrero - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

Fix free agency.

1. Six-year minor league free agents don't demand multi-year, seven-figure contracts. They sign with any team that offers them a major league contract.

2. The utility infielder or backup catcher who is good enough to go from making a million dollars to demanding a multi-year, $4 million contract is rare. These guys do exist, if they're buried behind an all-star in their current organization, but if that's the case, they're usually traded before they hit free agency. They're the exception, not the rule.

3. Allow actual NEGOTIATIONS. Players don't hold out all season because you're offering them $3 million and they're demanding $5 million, especially if they're getting no other offers; or because they want a four-year deal and you're offering two.

4. Allow NEGOTIATIONS with pending arbitration eligible players.

5. Unsigned free agents' skills deteriorate too quickly. A guy who holds out, even for a full season doesn't go from being a capable major league player to being worthless.

ALSO, a drag and drop function for ranking draft classes, rule 5 draft would be great!

I have played this game for a long time now, almost since the beginning of HBD. The only feature of this game that makes me consider quitting is the long-term injury frequency coupled with the broken medical recovery system. As pointed out by others, essentially almost all long-term injuries to your star players or prospects is a death sentence, even if you devote $20M to Medical (which I have done in about 98% of my almost 300 seasons). The only hope for any reasonable recovery is if you have get a super long-term injury that carries over into the next season. I have now lost too many franchise cornerstones or prospects to count. It quite literally disincentivizes retention, particularly for newer owners in a world. Quite frankly, this is a bad business practice for a product designed to engender long-term commitment to a franchise. Please fix this!

Unbalance the schedule with more games vs. division teams. The only difference in schedules in a league is what division you play in intereague. I have both benefited and been crushed by this but seems like someone often wins 90+ games and comes in last while some sub .500 team makes the playoffs winning a bad division- but they've both played the same 10 games vs everyone in the league, just one team has 3 other good teams in their division while the other has 3 shlubs. Make actually beating the teams in your division count more towards winning it.

Posted by lvnwrth on 12/15/2020 9:36:00 AM (view original):
Fix free agency.

1. Six-year minor league free agents don't demand multi-year, seven-figure contracts. They sign with any team that offers them a major league contract.

2. The utility infielder or backup catcher who is good enough to go from making a million dollars to demanding a multi-year, $4 million contract is rare. These guys do exist, if they're buried behind an all-star in their current organization, but if that's the case, they're usually traded before they hit free agency. They're the exception, not the rule.

3. Allow actual NEGOTIATIONS. Players don't hold out all season because you're offering them $3 million and they're demanding $5 million, especially if they're getting no other offers; or because they want a four-year deal and you're offering two.

4. Allow NEGOTIATIONS with pending arbitration eligible players.

5. Unsigned free agents' skills deteriorate too quickly. A guy who holds out, even for a full season doesn't go from being a capable major league player to being worthless.

ALSO, a drag and drop function for ranking draft classes, rule 5 draft would be great!

Especially #3. "I know the season's half over and I haven't been signed yet, but pay me $3.5 mil or I'm going to continue sitting on my couch eating chocolate chip cookie dough."

Posted by mlhutch on 12/15/2020 11:04:00 AM (view original):
I have played this game for a long time now, almost since the beginning of HBD. The only feature of this game that makes me consider quitting is the long-term injury frequency coupled with the broken medical recovery system. As pointed out by others, essentially almost all long-term injuries to your star players or prospects is a death sentence, even if you devote $20M to Medical (which I have done in about 98% of my almost 300 seasons). The only hope for any reasonable recovery is if you have get a super long-term injury that carries over into the next season. I have now lost too many franchise cornerstones or prospects to count. It quite literally disincentivizes retention, particularly for newer owners in a world. Quite frankly, this is a bad business practice for a product designed to engender long-term commitment to a franchise. Please fix this!

Agreed -- had six of my top guys go down with major early season injuries. I seriously contemplated leaving the World. I ultimately stayed, but knowing that I have five guys in the MLB that are stunted due to previous major injuries is a thorn in psyche of the organization. I feel like I'm at about negative 5 wins just due to the stunted growth of the top players. This game takes a lot of time and effort to build a winner and when a stud player goes down with a major injury, the missed time is bad enough, but as an owner, i would rather have a player have a major injury near the end of the season. Despite the player possibly missing a playoff run and missing time the following season, at least the player will have a chance to recover from the injury. The way it works now, the player sits all season then gets one recovery right before the season ends and might get another one during the season rollover. As an owner, I should not be hoping that all major injuries only happen near the end of the season. If anything, it should be the opposite.

I know this might not be a quick fix, but fixing the injury recovery mechanic would be at the top of my list for a 'quality of life' fix.

One more suggestion,

Allow us to target FA's sooner.

Posted by friarboy on 12/15/2020 4:10:00 PM (view original):
Unbalance the schedule with more games vs. division teams. The only difference in schedules in a league is what division you play in intereague. I have both benefited and been crushed by this but seems like someone often wins 90+ games and comes in last while some sub .500 team makes the playoffs winning a bad division- but they've both played the same 10 games vs everyone in the league, just one team has 3 other good teams in their division while the other has 3 shlubs. Make actually beating the teams in your division count more towards winning it.

I like this idea in theory. I love the unbalanced schedule in real life. However, if you play more division games, then you have to worry about your divisional rival drawing more games against lower-level opponents. In order to avoid this, the math has to work out to where you still play the non-division teams in an equal and balanced manner.

So, instead of having ten division games, you have eighteen division games (6 games against each division rival) and play the other non-division teams eight times each. As long as you keep the 12 interleague games, it should workout.

Thanks for asking, adlorenz! We definitely appreciate you taking the time to listen and consider some ideas. First of all, HBD is a fantastic game as is, and most of what I'm about to suggest is nit picking. But here it goes.

Here are a few off the top of my head:
1. Update ballparks
2. Make arbitration rulings less random. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for winning/losing a case
3. Ability to opt into receiving sitemail/email when trade chats are sent to you
4. World chat is a mess. Can this be fixed to create threads (similar to the message boards) instead of one season-long word scrabble?
5. Capping future season salary far below current season salary. I get the intent behind this, but it really can hinder options for well-intentioned owners
6. Add a withdraw and return button on the coach hiring pages
7. More flexibility in bullpen usage. I'm not sure how this would work, but if my best SUA is 60 vL and 90 vR, I don't want him entering in the late innings of a close game if three left-handed bats are due up
8. Expand player records to list more than just the top 5 in each category (top 10? 20?)
9. Show which owners voted for which players in HOF/Awards voting
10. Reshuffle playoff seeds after each round so top record plays worst record. I've seen too many should-be ALCS matchups in the ALDS
11. Show how many other teams (but not necessarily which ones) are bidding on a free agent
12. Change listed position on HOF ballot to primary position played
13. Increase time of free agency/decrease time of Spring Training
14. The "prepare for regular season" cycles should count as rest days for players. They're currently placeholder days in which they don't recover from fatigue
15. More time between budget day and arbitration day

A few ideas that have already been suggested that I like:
1. 4th dot
2. Multi-year coach contracts
3. 20-pitch min. for starters
4. 6-year minor league free agents demanding multi-year ML contracts
5. Ease up on career-threatening injuries, especially to high-health rating players and especially if they don't ever return to their previous ratings. Injury recoveries now are so dependent on the timing of the injury
6. Get a notification when a trade is rejected/accepted

"Change listed position on HOF ballot to primary position played." is an incredibly good suggestion by NickKappel.
Also, the suggestion by McGirktheJer to allow targeting of FA's immediately after rollover is a really good one.