Posted by dyoungquist on 5/21/2026 11:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by fireattack on 5/21/2026 7:34:00 PM (view original):
Fix injuries next. It's ruining the game. It seems more and more players have a low health rating to start out, injuries seem to happen more often, destroys player ratings with no way for an owner to compensate for injuries. It's really taking the fun out of building a franchise.

Injuries are part of real life MLB and therefore have to be part of this game if it is to mirror realistically.

Take a look at the Astros this season. Ace SP, closer, and 6 position starters (3B, C, SS, 2B, LF and CF) are all either on the IL, have spent time on the IL or are now out for season. Other SPs and bench players have been or are currently on the IL as well. No HBD team has ever come close to this many injuries.

There is a minor tweaks to injuries they should do. No player should recover above a 100 rating, which I recently saw again.

Overall, injuries in HBD mirror real life MLB fairly well. If you don't like that, then maybe this isn't a good game for you.

First of all, I said fix it, not remove injuries. The injuries in this game(or the game itself) are nowhere near real life. Also in real life, there is no salary cap, I would be able to see every prospect available, and a host of other "real life MLB" items that aren't part of this game.

Posted by fireattack on 5/21/2026 7:34:00 PM (view original):
Fix injuries next. It's ruining the game. It seems more and more players have a low health rating to start out, injuries seem to happen more often, destroys player ratings with no way for an owner to compensate for injuries. It's really taking the fun out of building a franchise.

I disagree with there being an injury problem. I looked at the MLB IL list this morning, https://www.espn.com/mlb/injuries, Arizona has 14 players on the IL and 8 of those are on the 60 day IL. The Dodgers have 15 players on the IL and 10 of those are on the 60. I think the most I've ever had on the injury list at the same time is like 4.

Posted by t2bott on 5/24/2026 9:18:00 AM (view original):

Posted by fireattack on 5/21/2026 7:34:00 PM (view original):
Fix injuries next. It's ruining the game. It seems more and more players have a low health rating to start out, injuries seem to happen more often, destroys player ratings with no way for an owner to compensate for injuries. It's really taking the fun out of building a franchise.

I disagree with there being an injury problem. I looked at the MLB IL list this morning, https://www.espn.com/mlb/injuries, Arizona has 14 players on the IL and 8 of those are on the 60 day IL. The Dodgers have 15 players on the IL and 10 of those are on the 60. I think the most I've ever had on the injury list at the same time is like 4.

Again, this is not MLB. Do all of those players lose attributes, or become lesser players, even if they only land on the 15 day IL for something minor like inflammation? Are you saying an MLB player will never fully recover from a sprained ankle and never be the same player they were previously? Because that's what happens here. A serious long term injury and the player is likely done or a shell of his previous self. Plus their health level drops with each injury so the next injury and next ratings drop will be imminent. There are fewer and fewer top level prospects available in each world and many of those will have a health rating below 70, have multiple stints on the IL, and never make it anywhere near their projections.
For example, a recent draft prospect list(with a 20 HS Scouting spend) had 157 players with a health rating of 70 or greater. Only 18 of those 157 had an overall rating of 70 or higher. Meaning your top draft picks are likely going to have a sub 70 health rating, get hurt, and have a major ratings drop. It's bad enough that the number of overall top prospects has been greatly reduced over the years(both draft and IFA), but when you are finally able to score one, you can't have him destroyed by injuries.

Posted by t2bott on 5/24/2026 9:18:00 AM (view original):

Posted by fireattack on 5/21/2026 7:34:00 PM (view original):
Fix injuries next. It's ruining the game. It seems more and more players have a low health rating to start out, injuries seem to happen more often, destroys player ratings with no way for an owner to compensate for injuries. It's really taking the fun out of building a franchise.

I disagree with there being an injury problem. I looked at the MLB IL list this morning, https://www.espn.com/mlb/injuries, Arizona has 14 players on the IL and 8 of those are on the 60 day IL. The Dodgers have 15 players on the IL and 10 of those are on the 60. I think the most I've ever had on the injury list at the same time is like 4.

I tracked it a couple of seasons ago, and real MLB has about TEN TIMES the number of injuries that HBD does. The only thing wrong with injuries is the way the injury recover system varies depending on when in a season the player gets injured.

The fact that there are injuries and that we can do something about them is one of the great features of this game. Don't change it.

Injuries never heal anymore. The is enough to quit playing over. Always the best players getting injured and never recover. A lot of players are ruined by this. That isn't why we play this game.

Below, in italics, is what it reads in the players guide. Look at the language in bold. This language in bold is not true on any injuries over 60 days.

Injuries are an unfortunate occurrence, but just like in real life they do happen in Hardball Dynasty. A player's likelihood of getting injured is based on his health rating. When a player is injured, the time he will be out is based on the severity of the injury, the player's makeup rating and the medical staff.
When a player is injured and placed on the disabled list, you may see a hit to his ratings. These ratings will gradually come back as he heals, but the rate and level of recovery is based on the medical staff.

There appears to be a systemic issue regarding long-term, early-season injuries. Currently, any player who sustains a significant injury prior to the All-Star Break permanently loses attributes, at best failing to fully recover and at worst returning significantly diminished.

This outcome occurs 100% of the time, which deviates heavily from real-world sports physics. In reality, player recovery is variable: some athletes return at full strength, some decline, some improve, and others are forced into retirement. No real-world scenario guarantees a degraded recovery for every single early-season injury.

Furthermore, this deterministic outcome completely bypasses core game mechanics. The 100% decline rate occurs regardless of a team's maximum medical budget (20 million) or a player's maximum makeup rating (99). While lower medical budgets or poor makeup ratings scale the severity of the decline, a high budget and elite makeup fail to ever prevent it. The system should be adjusted to introduce realistic, variance-based recovery outcomes.

To illustrate how the current system breaks down, consider three scenarios involving an identical player (99 Makeup Rating) on a team with a maximum medical budget (20 million) sustaining the exact same 250-day injury at different points in the year:

Scenario 1: Early-Season Injury (Day 20)

• The Timeline: The player is injured on Day 20, meaning they are out for the remainder of the season. They sit on the DL from Day 20 to Day 161 with zero attribute recovery. On Day 161, they receive just one hardcoded recovery bump.
• The Postseason & Rollover: Following Day 161, the player has roughly 100 days remaining on the injury. No recovery bumps occur during the 40 days of the postseason. During the offseason rollover, the game simulates 110 days. The player may or may not receive a recovery bump during season roll.
• The Deficit: Because the 110 simulated offseason days exceed the remaining 60 days of the injury, the player is automatically removed from the DL at the start of the next season. Because they only received one recovery bump on Day 161, and maybe another during season roll, they permanently lose 4 to 7 points across multiple vital categories. They cannot be placed back on the DL to trigger future checks. If the player is young enough, he might gain some of this back over the course of 5 seasons with good coaching and some luck that avoids further injury, but keep in mind that the health rating also took a hit so now this player is slightly more prone to injury.

Scenario 2: Late-Season Injury (Day 150)

• The Timeline: The player is injured on Day 150. Just 11 days later, on Day 161, they receive the standard recovery bump. At this point, ~240 days remain on the injury.
• The Postseason & Rollover: No recovery occurs during the 40-day postseason. During the 110-day offseason rollover, the player likely receives a second recovery bump.
• The Deficit: At the start of the next season, the player still has 90 days remaining on their injury (240 minus 40 postseason days and 110 offseason days). Because the injury is still active, they are eligible for the DL in the new season, allowing them to receive additional recovery bumps. This player finishes much closer to a full recovery than the Day 20 player. However, it is likely that the player still falls short of full recovery.

Scenario 3: Postseason Injury (World Series)

• The Timeline: The player is injured during the World Series. They miss the Day 161 recovery check entirely because the regular season has already concluded.
• The Rollover: During the 110-day offseason rollover, the player remains injured and receives a recovery bump.
• The Deficit: The player enters the following season with approximately 140 days remaining on their injury (250 days minus the 110-day offseason). Because they remain on the DL for a significant portion of the new season, they will likely trigger up to four additional recovery bumps, allowing them to fall just short of a 100% full recovery.

Conclusion
Under the current mechanics, an early-season injury (Scenario 1) severely punishes a player because they spend months on the DL without triggering incremental recovery bumps. Conversely, a late-season or postseason injury (Scenarios 2 and 3) allows the injury duration to bleed into the following season, granting the player more DL time in a new calendar year and, consequently, more recovery opportunities.

The system creates an unintended paradox: the earlier a player gets injured in a season, the worse their permanent attribute degradation will be. The system should be adjusted to introduce realistic, variance-based recovery outcomes that reward high medical budgets and player makeup.

Finally, in my opinion, if possible, WIS should shutoff all injuries that are over two months long until an injury recovery fix can be successfully implemented.

Great analysis, tlowster. If I may sum up, the issue is not that injuries are within this game, it's that the mechanic for recovery is not what we are led to believe and/or expect.

Posted by damag on 6/10/2026 7:57:00 AM (view original):
Great analysis, tlowster. If I may sum up, the issue is not that injuries are within this game, it's that the mechanic for recovery is not what we are led to believe and/or expect.

That's mostly right, Damag. I'd add that super short term injuries (6 weeks or less) and super long term injuries (350+ day or full year injuries like torn acl and shoulder aneurism) seem to recover fine. However, they dont recover fine because the player's guide is accurate, they recover fine because short term injuries have little impact on ratings hits and the above referenced year long injuries are so long that they are nearly guaranteed to have year over year DL stints that significantly increase the probability of reaching full recovery.

For all other injuries not referenced above, you're exactly right -- recovery is broken and it is not working the way it reads in the player's guide.

The long term answer isn't to shut off injuries. The answer is to fix recovery. I'd like to write, "period, full stop", but since, according to Admin, there has been so much effort put into fixing injury recovery and nothing has worked well enough to pass their testing, nothing has been done. If thats truly the case, and we all understand that recovery on long term injuries are the problem, my suggestion would to temporarily shut off any injury over 6 weeks. This is assuming two things, 1. It is as easy as turning a switch from on to off; 2. These would be turned back on once the recovery aspect is fixed.

Posted by tlowster on 6/10/2026 2:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by damag on 6/10/2026 7:57:00 AM (view original):
Great analysis, tlowster. If I may sum up, the issue is not that injuries are within this game, it's that the mechanic for recovery is not what we are led to believe and/or expect.

That's mostly right, Damag. I'd add that super short term injuries (6 weeks or less) and super long term injuries (350+ day or full year injuries like torn acl and shoulder aneurism) seem to recover fine. However, they dont recover fine because the player's guide is accurate, they recover fine because short term injuries have little impact on ratings hits and the above referenced year long injuries are so long that they are nearly guaranteed to have year over year DL stints that significantly increase the probability of reaching full recovery.

For all other injuries not referenced above, you're exactly right -- recovery is broken and it is not working the way it reads in the player's guide.

The long term answer isn't to shut off injuries. The answer is to fix recovery. I'd like to write, "period, full stop", but since, according to Admin, there has been so much effort put into fixing injury recovery and nothing has worked well enough to pass their testing, nothing has been done. If thats truly the case, and we all understand that recovery on long term injuries are the problem, my suggestion would to temporarily shut off any injury over 6 weeks. This is assuming two things, 1. It is as easy as turning a switch from on to off; 2. These would be turned back on once the recovery aspect is fixed.

Assuming Admin is reading this... a simple (maybe) partial fix would be to give all injuries that extend into the off-season a recovery cycle for every 36 HBD days or so that injury goes past the end of the season, rounded up. This would ameliorate the very worst aspect, while they work on a more substantial fix.