Has anyone else noticed that it’s nearly impossible for a player to make his first four free throws in a game? 

I don’t have any A+ free throw shooters, so maybe they’re exempt, but I have several A’s and A-’s, and in the last four seasons (2 in Wooden, 2 in Smith)  I have not seen a single player on my teams or my opponents teams hit four straight free throws to start a game.

Included in the 8/28 update was: “reduced single-game variance on free throw shooting.”   And I remember thinking, “What does that mean, and why was there a need for that?”

Apparently what that means is everyone will miss at least one free throw in their first four attempts – unless those are “end game” attempts, when they’ve been intentionally fouled (more on that in a moment).

It’s particularly annoying when one of my A free throw shooters makes his first two, then gets fouled in the bonus.  Now instead of having an 85% chance at the line, he has a 50% chance to get one point and a 0% chance to get two. 

In the End Game, however, this governor is clearly turned off – at least when a player is intentionally fouled.  My Kentucky team this year converted 28 straight free throws on intentional fouls to close out one game.  26 of those by B range shooters, 2 by C+.  I suppose it’s possible that wasn’t manipulated, but it sure didn’t feel like random chance.

Of course, this goes both ways – I’m not complaining that I’m getting screwed.  I’m complaining that this even exists.  All I can figure is that players are currently set up to be better than their free throw percentage when "fresh" and this governor keeps them from shooting too high a percentage.  Maybe that explains why they do so well when it's intentional foul time, since there's so much standing around that players are less tired.

I'm very curious what others with more insight into the game make of this.

All I want is a 72% free throw shooter to have a 72% chance of making any particular free throw.  

Whoa, just noticed in my 4 games in IBA that the opponent is 24-24 in FT shooting when being intentionally fouled!!!

I took a quick look - in my 10 games so far this season including exhibition, I didn't find a counter-example.

Have you submitted this as a devchat question? Please do. 

I just checked my Knight Providence team which has taken 948 FT attempts in 32 games (29.6 per-game) and only once has a player been perfect from the line with at least four attempts. I did not, however, have time to check if they missed one of the first four shots. Admittedly I have no A+, A or A-  free throw shooters.

Good point. Ticket or dev chat it. I wish I had the time to look into things like this.

I found five minutes to check my d1 team for the last season. Never did a player shoot more then 2 fts a game and hit them all. My shooters are mostly b range, but it seems there is a pattern of high % shooters hit the first 2, then miss the third and hit the fourth. This was a very quick check, but it seems you have a legit point.

In Crum the opposing team just went 8-8 from the line when being intentionally fouled. So in my games the other team is a perfect 32-32. Sent a ticket in, but perhaps they don't understand what I mean, trying to clarify now.

11/3/2010 7:53 PM	stinenavy
I've noticed that when intentionally fouling in my 4 games that the opponent is 24-24 from the line. This is an obvious flaw in the engine.
11/4/2010 10:03 AM	Customer Support
Kevin, Free throws are all treated the same way, regardless of whether the foul was intentional or not. The only difference would be that, when you're intentionally fouling, the other team would insert their better FT shooters into the game and try to get the ball to their best shooters.
11/4/2010 10:10 AM	stinenavy
The problem is that the other team is perfect from the line! In fact on my Crum team the opponent just went 8-8 from the line when being intentionally fouled. So in my games the other team has hit 32 consecutive free throws! This isn't just some random variance, this is a fatal flaw in the game engine that needs to be addressed immediately.

Nice observation and summary, drsnell. I see this topic getting some serious discussion. Good work.

I looked at my first 11 games in Smith and couldn't counter this either

Disturbing

Through 11 games in Smith, 9 non-conf and 2 exhib, I have 2 for 2 being the best percentage any player has shot. 

Seems like after 2 the percentage/skill level kicks in pretty dramatically.

Why do they treat everyythign like its ok until you bug the crap out of them it sucks

Nice work, stinenavy. And compared to the typical effort CS requires to break through and get them to listen, it seems they were pretty open this time. But brip87's point is sound. His implication being (with this as a perfect example) that if stinenavy doesn't follow up (after CS gave a stock answer), the issue would have been lost, at least for now.

I imagine CS develops this habit of quickly dismissing an issue, without giving it a duly diligent investigation, through interaction regarding multiple complaints from users who really do NOT understand properly and cry wolf. I wonder if WIS could (or maybe already has, but I doubt it) develop a list of users to give an automatic benefit of the doubt? In other words, if an issue was raised by someone on the list, CS would know not to give a stock answer. If a user was not on the list, a stock answer would suffice. I'm not sure how easy this would be to develop or maintain (adding deserving users to the list).