While I believe that 1) HD is a great game and 2) that the owners don't have any plans to add a new patch to the game, I do think that this one feature is desperately needed in the game. As I coach throughout the year, I feel that I get a lot of freedom in designing how I want my offense to look but I don't get even close to that freedom on defense. This causes issues because it reduces the ability for outplay between two players. At the moment, teams really only have four ways to address opposing offenses, 1) by determining the pace of play, 2) by choosing whether to double team a player, 3) to determine where the defense is sits in relation to the opposing offense and 4) through recruitment of specific players to fit certain needs. While this may seem sufficient, my experience has been that when your team is less talented than your opponents, you have almost no chance of overcoming the difference. While I understand that this is a common truth that plays out in NCAA Men's basketball, I still feel that in actual men's basketball, upsets occur far more frequently than our simulated game.
This is why I propose that the game introduces the ability to set defensive matchups. While the game sort of has this already, by virtue of determining which position a player plays which allows the user to determine what position the player will defend, the current system is wonky because it forces a user to adjust their offense which can create weird outcomes. In real basketball, coaches get the opportunity to train players and have scrimmages which allows the coach to see how different possible strategies may work. While I would love to have this feature added to HD, I understand that adding a more intensive practice feature would require a massive update and overhaul that I believe isn't in the interest of the owning company and is unlikely to ever occur. However, I do believe that adding a defensive matchup feature wouldn't be too hard to add, it would add interesting complexity to the game and would allow better players to overcome difficult matchups. As it currently stands, recruitment seems to be the area where players can outplay one another. While HD recruitment is interesting and fun and I am glad that it is a big area where players can outplay one another, I do think that the regular season needs more opportunities for differentiation between players. Let me know what you think but I do believe that adding this simple feature wouldn't be too difficult and would make the regular season far more interesting.

I like the idea for sure.

People aren't unique enough with defensive strategy. There are some plays you can make but overall it's still limited. Your idea would then limit offensive strategy somewhat since you wouldn't be able to line up a scorer on a defensive player. So some trade off!

I would vote for a Transfer Portal. D1's that didn't play guys would lose them, and D2/D3's that stole guys in recruiting would see them develop and leave. I am not ready for the NIL money though.

Posted by upsetcity on 6/26/2024 11:18:00 AM (view original):
I like the idea for sure.

People aren't unique enough with defensive strategy. There are some plays you can make but overall it's still limited. Your idea would then limit offensive strategy somewhat since you wouldn't be able to line up a scorer on a defensive player. So some trade off!

I don't think it limits it as much as puts it on an even field. Some coaches will not adjust their player position from game to game, because I want player X at the PG, because he's a better passer for example. All this would create is strategic a chess match. Currently I either sacrifice where the player is offensively to get the defensive matchup I want or pray he doesn't get abused as the weak matchup. Even that has risk that if I move the player around for defensive matchup, the other coach may also be moving their players to different positions which made my adjustment useless and further hurts my gameplan.

With this idea, I could keep my offensive players where I want them and create the best defensive matchups. It's then up to the other coach to determine if his offensive player is good enough to overcome that or adjust their distribution to accommodate potential defensive gameplanning.

Posted by wildcatfan07 on 6/24/2024 12:04:00 PM (view original):
While I believe that 1) HD is a great game and 2) that the owners don't have any plans to add a new patch to the game, I do think that this one feature is desperately needed in the game. As I coach throughout the year, I feel that I get a lot of freedom in designing how I want my offense to look but I don't get even close to that freedom on defense. This causes issues because it reduces the ability for outplay between two players. At the moment, teams really only have four ways to address opposing offenses, 1) by determining the pace of play, 2) by choosing whether to double team a player, 3) to determine where the defense is sits in relation to the opposing offense and 4) through recruitment of specific players to fit certain needs. While this may seem sufficient, my experience has been that when your team is less talented than your opponents, you have almost no chance of overcoming the difference. While I understand that this is a common truth that plays out in NCAA Men's basketball, I still feel that in actual men's basketball, upsets occur far more frequently than our simulated game.
This is why I propose that the game introduces the ability to set defensive matchups. While the game sort of has this already, by virtue of determining which position a player plays which allows the user to determine what position the player will defend, the current system is wonky because it forces a user to adjust their offense which can create weird outcomes. In real basketball, coaches get the opportunity to train players and have scrimmages which allows the coach to see how different possible strategies may work. While I would love to have this feature added to HD, I understand that adding a more intensive practice feature would require a massive update and overhaul that I believe isn't in the interest of the owning company and is unlikely to ever occur. However, I do believe that adding a defensive matchup feature wouldn't be too hard to add, it would add interesting complexity to the game and would allow better players to overcome difficult matchups. As it currently stands, recruitment seems to be the area where players can outplay one another. While HD recruitment is interesting and fun and I am glad that it is a big area where players can outplay one another, I do think that the regular season needs more opportunities for differentiation between players. Let me know what you think but I do believe that adding this simple feature wouldn't be too difficult and would make the regular season far more interesting.

Just a couple things.

First, you address pace of play on offense, not on defense. Slowdown and uptempo refer to how quickly your guys shoot, not how quickly you let the other team shoot. A press defense might have the effect of "slowing down" an offense I suppose, only because lots of coaches tend to want to slowdown against a press to limit turnovers, because of how the engine works (which is another topic), if that's what you mean. That's kind of correlation though, not causation.

Second, it really isn't true that there is "almost no chance" of a less talented team winning. Upsets happen a lot. There are lots of ways coaches try to help them along, but sometimes they are just luck of the draw too, a matter of whether your team is having a good RNG (random number generation) day or not.

People have suggested matchups a lot in the past. I think it sounds good in theory, in a different, updated game engine. In this version, I think probably it causes unintended consequences for something you can already do - run man and double-team - if lock-down a top scorer is an important tactic for you.