Hello everyone,

It has been some time since we have done a full site update so we would like to use this time to do that.

We have recently pushed updates for Hoops Dynasty and Gridiron Dynasty as we continue to bring in quality of life updates and fixes for prominent issues and loopholes within the games. We have also started rolling Q&A forum posts for the games so that the users have an opportunity to interact with the developers and find answers to questions that they would like answered.

We are currently working on an update for HBD that will bolster the AI functionality within the game to be able to competently maintain a franchise. We will use this improved AI to be in charge of teams in HBD worlds. We will allow worlds to roll with these AI managers if they choose to and/or are having issues getting the world to fill. There will be a limit to how many AI controlled teams are allowed in a world but the hope is that this will help worlds roll more frequently and stay more on a “schedule”.

In regards to the future of WIS, we want to be fully transparent with the community. Right now some of our resources are being distributed amongst other parts of the company which leaves us with one CS staff member (Jordan) and one full-time developer (Jacob). We are working diligently behind the scenes to ensure that game updates are happening and are happening in reasonable time frames given the workload needed to update these older games and the time constraints to a limited staff. That being said, we are at a spot where we are really needing the community’s loyalty and support more than ever. We appreciate the tenured users who have stuck with us through the changing of hands the site has been through and the rate of updates that has happened throughout the last several years. We want to focus on updates that the various communities in the games feel would be in the best interest of the games overall. As such I will be creating forum posts/polls (links to be included later) to include a list of possible update options for several of the games. We will use this information to help guide us and prioritize where users believe our efforts can most be focused.

We appreciate your feedback and understand that there are a lot of great ideas on improvements that should or need to happen. With that, please keep any feedback or suggestions appropriate and helpful. When the forum posts go live we will be looking for suggestions for improvements and not for “off topic” posts or rants.

Thank you again from all of us at Whatifsports!
SITE STAFF


GD POLL - https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=541839
HD POLL - https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=541841
HBD POLL - https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=541840

Will you do something to bring more fielding coaches online? It is ridiculous to spend $2 million on the fourth best fielding coach.

Get rid of baseline prestige in HD. It benefits top tier D1 programs the most. And the coaches that get those jobs need those benefits the least to compete. BMX bandits don't need training wheels. Institute the firings update that never happened. Too many mediocre-bad coaches hogging prime D1 jobs. That should be first up.

Thank you for the update. If WIS is potentially interested in divesting itself of the site (or portions of it) please let me know. I have certain parties that would be interested in taking it over.

Cheers

I just want to state, for the record, this site has had my loyalty and support for the 15 years that have gone by since that last major upgrade to WIS Baseball.
It would be nice if, at some point, resources were allocated to upgrading what is currently a fine game, but could be a great one again.

Posted by uglyskunk3 on 3/25/2024 2:44:00 PM (view original):
Get rid of baseline prestige in HD. It benefits top tier D1 programs the most. And the coaches that get those jobs need those benefits the least to compete. BMX bandits don't need training wheels. Institute the firings update that never happened. Too many mediocre-bad coaches hogging prime D1 jobs. That should be first up.

D1 coach here. I'd say keep baseline but implement firing as previously discussed. If you don't like baseline, play D2 or D3.

I'd be open to baseline being altered in some ways but it differentiates D1 from lower divisions. It's fun to reach a top job.

Unfortunately, this sounds like the site is essentially falling apart. I share "Bripat42" point. AI run teams is a hard no for me.

Allowing HBD to update to MLB gameplay such as DH in the NL as options. A ‘setup menu’ for rules to allow private worlds to set parameters while taking some focus off of volunteering commissioners. AI could also be optional in this menu for example.

Posted by biffwellingt on 3/25/2024 3:01:00 PM (view original):
Unfortunately, this sounds like the site is essentially falling apart. I share "Bripat42" point. AI run teams is a hard no for me.

Too many people demand updates, but gripe constantly about the effort it takes.

Are AI-run teams ideal? No. But it helps worlds roll faster, which keeps players more engaged and my attract more HBD users. This generates some revenue and buys them time that will allow them to eventually upgrade things.

If you want to gripe about updates, then have the patience to go with it. Fleeing the site isn't going to accomplish anything.

So in HD we are, as of about 2pm EST-ish, experiencing 500 Server errors intermittantly connecting to the site. We've no idea if WIS has pushed an update, what's wrong, if it's back-end (again), or anything. In fact, we -- the users -- don't even know if WIS is aware of the issue! And this "update" is devoid of really any substantive content.

We have recently pushed updates for Hoops Dynasty and Gridiron Dynasty as we continue to bring in quality of life updates and fixes for prominent issues and loopholes within the games.

Are you referring to past updates or some new update? Is that why we're having 500 Server Errors today? If it was a new update what did it do? Where are the patch notes?

Have settings that allow commissioners in HBD to set budgetary limits. In ULB we have a $25M Prospect Cap, life would be easier if we could have the ability to set that as a max for the world to ensure no one goes over and we don't have to constantly monitor budgets. Also, some worlds want to use IFA Max offers, $15M - $20M, aa seeting for this would be helpful too. Deeper draft prospects, and better injury recovery would be great too. No way a young player shouldn't totally recover from minor, or even major, injuries.

With AI being a hot topic, perhaps you could have worlds designated "AI Free" and worlds designated "AI Friendly"?

I hope that makes sense, I don't at all know dynasty, I just play the hockey sim.

The elephant in the room on hbd is injury recovery. It has been the most broken thing in hbd for a long time. If things get updated in hbd without some sort of injury recovery fix, it is non-starter for me.

I'll spare you the details as to how it is broken. I have discussed it ad nauseum on the forums. It is likely easy to find.

However, as I have stated numerous times in the past on forums, the hbd community cannot ever agree on what needs to be updated so how can Admin even listen to us when each one of us has a differing opinion. The difference is that EVERYONE I have communicated with agrees that injury recovery is broken and needs an extraordinary makeover. The other things mentioned above are minor except the introduction of AI run teams. I'm not sure how'd I feel about that. If they make it to where the AI accepts garbage trades, I'm definitely out.

2 things that I think would be reasonable asks for WIS baseball progressive league commissioners/owners/players...

The very obvious and (what should be) simple fix is to allow commissioners the ability to expand rosters to 26 players as a choice. If guys don't want it in older leagues they don't have to use it, but modern progressive leagues (2020-2023) should have the roster expansion option.

The second would be that it would help immensely if the pitching options were opened up so that managers could use tandem pitchers in whatever spot they want. I've run into it several times where I wanted my 4th and 5th rotation pairs to be tandems, but it can't be accomplished without significant juggling of the pitching staff. It would seem like a relatively simple fix to allow all types rotation spots (single, tandem or A/B) to be used anywhere in the rotation and in any combination. That would make a MAJOR difference to progressive owners, again, with particular focus on the most recent years (2020-2023) where nobody comes close to 200 innings and staffs are at 13 and 14 arms.

Just my 2 cents from a customer that's been playing pretty much exclusively progressive baseball leagues on WIS since September 20, 2005. Hell. I'm happy the site is still here, so thanks to whoever is actually keeping the lights on.