Posted by jack_duck on 10/24/2012 5:07:00 PM (view original):
The two teams I played against ran zone...next time I'll try to go up against press teams.  The assist thing is interesting, but the TO issue is much more interesting to me.  Against a zone I suppose we get the shots off, but maybe they're bad shots (hence the bad shooting %).  Against a press maybe we don't get the shots off at all, and the TO numbers would be more reasonable.  I still don't understand how a freshman PG with bad IQs and ratings dribbles down the court at all.

But maybe that's what Billy G is saying.  So for the T/S/F, how does it decide which one?  Team aggregates?  Or just based on the skills of whoever has the ball that play?  B/c if the latter, then you're saying what REALLY matters is distribution.  Therefore Passing would only factor into scoring %?

Did I understand correctly?

im not sure i am totally on the same page as you as to what you are asking. however, ill try to answer anyway.

the TSF decision is not the first thing that happens in the game - first, it does some litter stuff. i wish i knew where the basketball sim writeup was, let me see if i can find it real quick.

OK, this is roughly it. i have saved on some hard drive somewhere the real knowledge base article, which this is NOT. the real article had like a 10-13 step writeup, this is more consolidated. ill post about your question in my next post, dont want to make this too hard to read, and i want to re-read this myself. also, to note, this is technically the sim league engine description - but i am 99% sure HD started with either the same or very similar engine, and most of the changes to HD over time are NOT sim engine stuff as much as game engine stuff (i call the game engine what ultimately results in your having 12 players on your team with certain ratings - so like, recruit generation, recruiting itself, practice planning, player improvement in the offseason, potential etc etc etc, this is all part of the "game engine", in my terminology). anyway, the simleague engine uses real stats, but i believe there is effectively middleware to convert real players into players with HD style ratings, and THEN the game is simulated. the only significant difference ive ever heard of between the two, from the beginning, is the sim league game has always used assist rate of a player to impact the performance of the rest of his team, where as HD had no similar concept (my theory, largely driven from being a programmer myself, is that in the port of simleague to HD, any reference to real stats had to be taken out - i think most were already represented in the ratings that came out of that middleware process - but there were probably some holdovers, like real life assist rate, and i think when tarek created HD, he just was either lazy about it or unintentionally made a mistake, and when he took out the effect where assists played into teammates scoring, he did not replace the logic with anything. also, just to add, seble has effectively verified to me - albeit never through a direct question/answer - that the HD engine did come from simleague, and i know for sure it uses the same TSF decision (the F is getting fouled, not fouled).

#582	Gameplay	Q.	How does the SimLeague Basketball SimEngine work?
		A.	The SimEngine simulates a game one possession at a time. The following is a high-level view of the decision process involved in every normal possession of a simulated basketball game. Normal possessions pertain to almost 95% of all possessions, but do not cover breakaways, put-backs or late-game situations:  We determine who has the ball by looking at every offensive player’s real-life possession rate. This value looks at his real-life field goal attempts, free throw attempts and turnovers. A player’s chance at having the ball for this possession is exactly relative to the real-life possession rates of the other players. If everyone has the same possession rate, everyone will have a 20% of possessing the ball. We use the composition of the team on the floor and the offensive set to determine how much time has come off the clock by the time this decision is made and the possession is terminated. Now that we have picked a player, we must determine what he will do with the ball. There are three things he can do: turn the ball over (3), shoot (5) or be fouled (4). Every player has a real-life turnover percentage, field goal attempt percentage and times fouled percentage that is relative to his total number of actual possessions. At this point, many factors can adjust those percentages and affect whether we go to step 3, 4 or 5. Generally, we will view the chance that he shoots as the amount remaining after modifications to fouled percentage and turnover percentage. These factors include: the man defending the player, the rest of the defense, the type of offense, the type of defense, a player’s fatigue value, any team under-possession penalty and the player’s over-possession penalty. If a player has committed a turnover, he may have committed a ball-handling mistake, poor pass or offensive foul. The percentage chance that an offensive foul has occurred is relative his actual personal foul rate. This is figured into the chance in the previous section. Ball-handling and passing turnovers each use a fixed percentage of the remaining chance that is based on historical averages for these turnovers. If it is one of these two types of turnovers there is a chance for a steal. This chance is based on the defenders and is relative the steal weighting used in the decision above. If a steal has occurred, there is a chance for a breakaway. Either way, the player who steals the ball is determined after the steal event is known. Each defensive player’s chance for a steal is relative to his contribution to the steal weighting in #2. If no steal has occurred, the ball simply goes to the other team. A player has been fouled. This can be a shooting foul or a personal foul on the floor. This decision is determined using historical averages and the player’s real-life field goal attempt rate. If there is a shooting foul, a player has a chance to make the shot. We determine if it is a two or a three in the same way as we will below and the chance of making it is relative to his real-life shooting percentage, but discounted by a historical percentage. Either way, the foul is assigned to one of the defensive players. Each player’s chance of committing the foul is based on his real-life foul rate and is relative to the weighting used to determine if there is a foul in #2. If it is shooting, the shooter will be able to shoot the appropriate number of shots. If the final free-throw shot is missed, we proceed to rebounding (6). If it is not a shooting foul, we restart the possession. A shot has been attempted. Whether this is a three-point attempt is strictly based on the shooters ratio of three-point attempts to non-three-point field goal attempts. The chance that a player has of making the shot is based on his shooting percentage, the assist rates of his teammates, his defender’s stop percentage (captured by defensive rating) and to a lesser extent the other four player’s stop percentages and the block rates of all five defensive players. If the shot is made, we determine if there was an assist. Assist chances utilize a historical average as a base that is modified by the sum assist rates from the other four offensive players. If there is an assist, every player’s chances are relative to his assist rate compared to the other players. If the shot is missed, we must determine if there was a block. Block chances are relative to the weighting that each player has in the field goal make or miss decision. Either way, if the shot is missed, we must determine who gets the rebound. Every missed field goal attempt in a normal possession is rebounded. Rebounding looks at the real-life offensive and defensive rebounding percentages of all ten players on the court, though the shooter and his defender generally have less of a chance, especially in the case of a three-point attempt. We look at each one-on-one matchup for this situation (shooting team is still considered offense) to determine if one player has a better than average advantage over his opponent. These players will get a boost to their percentages, while their opponents will see their percentages drop. We then look at all ten modified percentages. The chance that an individual player has of getting the rebound is relative to how his percentage compares. If the ball is rebounded by an offensive player, there is a chance for a put-back. Assuming no put-back, the possession restarts. If the ball is rebounded by a defensive player that team begins its possession on offense.

ok jack, so anyway, like i said - the engine description here is shortened. i dont know if WIS took it down or if i just cant find it, but they used to have like a 12 step process. there were steps early on to decide like, if there was a turnover bringing the ball up the court, and if there were turnovers before the player at the TSF decision got the foul. i think the TSF decision was like the 4th or 5th step instead of 2nd or something like that, and determining who had the ball was like 3rd or 4th.

hopefully this sim description answers your question about how it decides the TSF decision from a high level. its a combination of the skills of the offensive player who has the ball, and a bunch of other things, like all the defenders (see that part about how ALL defenders play into the defense of a single guy - HD is definitely that way, even in m2m defense. and even in fcp, there are weightings for more liklihood to be guarded by the guy playing the same %. thats why i always claim matchups in fcp do matter, and not by as much less than they do in man than people think. not sure why i am saying this, honestly, but hopefully its useful to someone hehe).

anyway, this description does not seem to mention team mates being a factor from an offensive standpoint, once a guy has the ball - except possibly from a team's under possession penalty. but the original description i read does include this. and i think seble may have re-written the sim league engine too, and if this info i posted here has replaced the old post, it may be that the sim league description was wrong or misleading - i never played so i havent a damn clue - when it comes to assists and the like playing into team mates' fg%. i really dont know.

so anyway, not totally following your original question, and having posted this - do you still have a question there? i wanted to respond to the "Therefore Passing would only factor into scoring %?" statement you made, but im not confident enough i followed you at this point, so why dont you read that description and see if you still have a question there?

Posted by jack_duck on 10/24/2012 5:30:00 PM (view original):
Also, my freshman phenom for Philadelphia Biblical, Iba, is Donald Freeman.  He plays starting SG but has had a 0 or 1 distribution all year and has only taken 27 shots all season.  So his 28 TO's on the season seem disproportionate to his distribution (given and realized).  How do you explain this?

players can turnover without being the guy to have the ball, as i mentioned or alluded to in my previous couple posts. those steps are NOT mentioned in the abbreviated 6 step sim engine write up that i WAS able to find. on that note, if anyone reading this has the original 12ish step description, could you post it? ive posted it in the forums before, so if you are really interested jack, you might be able to find it - but i post so fricken much, it might be like finding a needle in a haystack.

edit: i would have posted that as either coach_billyg or gillispie

Posted by gillispie1 on 10/27/2012 1:40:00 AM (view original):

Posted by jack_duck on 10/24/2012 5:30:00 PM (view original):
Also, my freshman phenom for Philadelphia Biblical, Iba, is Donald Freeman.  He plays starting SG but has had a 0 or 1 distribution all year and has only taken 27 shots all season.  So his 28 TO's on the season seem disproportionate to his distribution (given and realized).  How do you explain this?

players can turnover without being the guy to have the ball, as i mentioned or alluded to in my previous couple posts. those steps are NOT mentioned in the abbreviated 6 step sim engine write up that i WAS able to find. on that note, if anyone reading this has the original 12ish step description, could you post it? ive posted it in the forums before, so if you are really interested jack, you might be able to find it - but i post so fricken much, it might be like finding a needle in a haystack.

edit: i would have posted that as either coach_billyg or gillispie

Off the top of my head, about the only way I can think of a player giving the ball back to the other team without actually having the ball is by setting an illegal screen or some sort of off the ball offensive foul.  If his guy only has 27 shots, that means his distro is extremely low (as he stated) and he's not handling the ball much at all, which in turn means he's committing a helluva lot of violations trying to screen for his teammates.  I must be missing something here.  Besides what I just mentioned, how can a player be charged with a turnover without having the ball?

Posted by emy1013 on 10/27/2012 1:57:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 10/27/2012 1:40:00 AM (view original):

Posted by jack_duck on 10/24/2012 5:30:00 PM (view original):
Also, my freshman phenom for Philadelphia Biblical, Iba, is Donald Freeman.  He plays starting SG but has had a 0 or 1 distribution all year and has only taken 27 shots all season.  So his 28 TO's on the season seem disproportionate to his distribution (given and realized).  How do you explain this?

players can turnover without being the guy to have the ball, as i mentioned or alluded to in my previous couple posts. those steps are NOT mentioned in the abbreviated 6 step sim engine write up that i WAS able to find. on that note, if anyone reading this has the original 12ish step description, could you post it? ive posted it in the forums before, so if you are really interested jack, you might be able to find it - but i post so fricken much, it might be like finding a needle in a haystack.

edit: i would have posted that as either coach_billyg or gillispie

Off the top of my head, about the only way I can think of a player giving the ball back to the other team without actually having the ball is by setting an illegal screen or some sort of off the ball offensive foul.  If his guy only has 27 shots, that means his distro is extremely low (as he stated) and he's not handling the ball much at all, which in turn means he's committing a helluva lot of violations trying to screen for his teammates.  I must be missing something here.  Besides what I just mentioned, how can a player be charged with a turnover without having the ball?

i guess i wasnt clear, when i said "players can turnover without being teh guy to have the ball" - im specifically referencing being "the guy" who goes into the TSF decision. BEFORE "the guy" is picked for that possession, players can commit turnovers, which from a real life standpoint, would basically correspond to passing the ball around and dribbling and ****, trying to get someone the ball in a good position to shoot - and effectively the player in question is turning the ball over somewhere in that process. HD doesnt really sim that process, they totally half *** it, and that is one of the sim engine's biggest flaws (IMO of course). but they do at least let you turnover the ball without being "the guy" in the TSF decision - or like jack was asking - you'd never see guys with 0 distro turn it over, and they do. anyway, hopefully that clears up what i was saying.

players can definitely get a turnover a game type stats without shooting, like, ever - so jack, i think this situation you have with this player is really quite typical.

Jeff, good to see you a little riled up.

Your initial rant in this thread was one for the ages. I kind of want to print it out and frame it.

Posted by gillispie1 on 10/27/2012 2:06:00 AM (view original):

Posted by emy1013 on 10/27/2012 1:57:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gillispie1 on 10/27/2012 1:40:00 AM (view original):

Posted by jack_duck on 10/24/2012 5:30:00 PM (view original):
Also, my freshman phenom for Philadelphia Biblical, Iba, is Donald Freeman.  He plays starting SG but has had a 0 or 1 distribution all year and has only taken 27 shots all season.  So his 28 TO's on the season seem disproportionate to his distribution (given and realized).  How do you explain this?

players can turnover without being the guy to have the ball, as i mentioned or alluded to in my previous couple posts. those steps are NOT mentioned in the abbreviated 6 step sim engine write up that i WAS able to find. on that note, if anyone reading this has the original 12ish step description, could you post it? ive posted it in the forums before, so if you are really interested jack, you might be able to find it - but i post so fricken much, it might be like finding a needle in a haystack.

edit: i would have posted that as either coach_billyg or gillispie

Off the top of my head, about the only way I can think of a player giving the ball back to the other team without actually having the ball is by setting an illegal screen or some sort of off the ball offensive foul.  If his guy only has 27 shots, that means his distro is extremely low (as he stated) and he's not handling the ball much at all, which in turn means he's committing a helluva lot of violations trying to screen for his teammates.  I must be missing something here.  Besides what I just mentioned, how can a player be charged with a turnover without having the ball?

i guess i wasnt clear, when i said "players can turnover without being teh guy to have the ball" - im specifically referencing being "the guy" who goes into the TSF decision. BEFORE "the guy" is picked for that possession, players can commit turnovers, which from a real life standpoint, would basically correspond to passing the ball around and dribbling and ****, trying to get someone the ball in a good position to shoot - and effectively the player in question is turning the ball over somewhere in that process. HD doesnt really sim that process, they totally half *** it, and that is one of the sim engine's biggest flaws (IMO of course). but they do at least let you turnover the ball without being "the guy" in the TSF decision - or like jack was asking - you'd never see guys with 0 distro turn it over, and they do. anyway, hopefully that clears up what i was saying.

players can definitely get a turnover a game type stats without shooting, like, ever - so jack, i think this situation you have with this player is really quite typical.

This last response of yours (to emy) answers my question, Billy.  I didn't understand that there is a chance for TO's BEFORE "the guy" is picked.  That makes more sense from all perspectives.  Why do you say they totally half *** this, though?

because, who makes a sim engine where the first major decision is, who has the ball? where assists are window dressing? where (for most of the time this game existed), a great point guard doesnt increase the open looks and fg% chance of his team mates? 

dont get me wrong, i really like this game. but i feel you could do a significantly better job making the game more realistic. make passing/assists part of the game. maybe give the offenses a little more of their own flavor. make big men not so woefully incompetent on offense. that kind of stuff.

of course, the business side half assing FAR exceeds the sim side half assing, but if you ask me, the sim is still half assed.

There's a difference between assists being window dressing a PG pass rating not increasing FG%.  It's certainly my experience that pass ratings strongly correlate to FG%.  Although I will admit that is entirely anecdotal.

Posted by isack24 on 10/31/2012 9:16:00 PM (view original):
There's a difference between assists being window dressing a PG pass rating not increasing FG%.  It's certainly my experience that pass ratings strongly correlate to FG%.  Although I will admit that is entirely anecdotal.

im not sure if you were able to make it through my earlier posts (ill assume not) - but what i said is, prior to the new engine, which i have essentially defined as the result of the seble engine re-write project, passing, say of your PG, did NOT correlate to fg% of other members of the team.  i had a number of discussions on the subject with seble via ticket, and we agreed that is was insane that a great pg could not affect his team mates in any way. so now, hes added it, possibly in a variety of ways, but in the absolute minimum sense, a great pg will now increase the fg% of the rest of his team.

Gotcha.  I read the beginning of the thread and didn't continue as it got lengthy.  That makes sense.

Now that's more like it: http://www.whatifsports.com/hd/GameResults/BoxScore.aspx?gid=8853041

http://www.whatifsports.com/hd/GameResults/BoxScore.aspx?gid=8856570

and we get stomped again.

both these losses were due to TO's and horrible shooting % (and relatedly, very few assists).  these two results seem much more in line with what i was expecting from this experiment.