Developer Chat

Ok, let's talk about what is coming up both the next release and the future.

One of the largest parts of basketball is matchups, coaches go on and on about creating mismatches. Are there any plans to incorporate matchups into the sim engine? (joshbonds - Hall of Famer - 2:02 PM)

Yes, one of our longer-range goals is to make individual matchups very important to the game. The addition of defensive ratings will be the next big step along these lines.

Jumping ahead a bit - when can expect to see some sort of defensive ratings, individual match-ups playing more of a role, and more position flexibility for certain players without the out of position penalty? (kfunk - Hall of Famer - 2:04 PM)

Jumping ahead a bit - when can expect to see some sort of defensive ratings, individual match-ups playing more of a role, and more position flexibility for certain players without the out of position penalty? (kfunk) The current schedule has defensive ratings coming after the new position scheme, which is the next big thing.

OOPP (Out of Position Penalty) and its effects have been well chronicled in the forums by you (Seble) and a user or two. Can we clarify exactly what has changed once and for all? I assume the OOPP is a forumla of sorts and that formula did not change. But the components of that formula have changed. The result was that the OOPP was affect but not really changed. Is this correct and if not, please elaborate. Thanks. (jakotay - Hall of Famer - 2:06 PM)

In a roundabout way, you're correct. There was not a change to the specific logic to determine out of position penalties, but other SimEngine changes contributed to an increase. The plan is to address that as part of the new position scheme.

What, if anything, in the sim engine has significantly changed? (kfunk - Hall of Famer - 2:08 PM)

With this release, the only change to the SimEngine was the new substitution logic. We'll probably be looking into the foul situation next week to address concerns in that area.

I like that the individual sims are mostly back to being the same basic design, with individual flair. However, there are still a number of nice tools in other sports (i.e. hockey's multi-season leagues, baseball's theme league wizard) that in theory should be easy models to duplicate in all sports. Why hasn't this been done, and when are those tools coming to the NBA sim? (kmakice - Hall of Famer - 2:13 PM)

I like that the individual sims are mostly back to being the same basic design, with individual flair. However, there are still a number of nice tools in other sports (i.e. hockey's multi-season leagues, baseball's theme league wizard) that in theory should be easy models to duplicate in all sports. Why hasn't this been done, and when are those tools coming to the NBA sim? (kmakice) It's possible that some features from other sports will be added to NBA, but only if it makes sense. The theme league wizard is an obvious addition to NBA if theme league participation is strong.

Why are salaries so much higher for front court players. Shouldn't the salary system have the "best" player at each position have about the same salary? (all3 - Hall of Famer - 2:15 PM)

The salary system actually does not factor in position at all. Since in basketball all players have the same set of stats, it is easy to evaluate them in a standard way. The last salary change increased the value of rebounding, so that's probably why front court players may seem higher.

you once said that block credits are generated after a miss has been determined & then assigned to a player based on relative likelihood according to RL stats at that time you stated that a team's RL block #s are used to create a modifier on opp. attmpt chances so should I be concerned that despite fielding 12 blocks a game for my 5 starters I routinely see just 40% expressed in sim stats or can I assume that despite their poor expression in a cosmetic sense they actually have an impact on my opp. FG%? (e-monk - Hall of Famer - 2:18 PM)

Blocks have an effect on opponent FG%, and that is based on the entire defensive team. Each player's real life numbers are compared to the historical average at that position to determine how that player compares to average. Then a cumulative effect of the 5 defenders is applied to the opponent's shooting. That process is separate from the determination that a block happened on a given possession.

Can you give us a sneak peek of how positional flexibility will work? (shine06 - Hall of Famer - 2:23 PM)

The basic idea is to give every player a rating for how well they know each of the five positions. Then penalties will be factored based on those ratings. User Qistat has put in a lot of work developing a method to objectively determine these ratings for all historical players.

What affect will FoxSports have on the hoops sim and the site itself. Is this a partnership or a take over? Along with FoxSports coming in what else is planned to increase usership in the hoops sim? (jakotay - Hall of Famer - 2:26 PM)

It's impossible to say exactly what the Fox deal will mean to the NBA sim. It should mean an increase in players as a new wave of advertising and marketing kick in. It was definitely not a take over. WhatIfSports is in good shape on it's own and the addition of Fox resources should allow us to reach a wider audience and improve the games.

I usually play in $72-million leagues, and miss the time when teams averaged 120 PPG. Are we ever going to return to those times, or are the upcoming releases going to be geared more toward "realistic" NBA basketball (even in the $72-million leagues)??? (bighank35 - Hall of Famer - 2:30 PM)

We're always evaluating the SimEngine so it's certainly possible that those types of results will return. Our main goal is to simulate games with these players to produce a result as close as possible to what would really happen. But it's not impossible that teams filled with Hall of Fame players would average 120PPG. But you always have to realize that the other team is probably filled with similar players.

Is there any possibility of a Tournament of Champions feature in the NBA Sim like there is with baseball? (kfunk - Hall of Famer - 2:31 PM)

That was actually planned at one time, but was discarded. Currently there are no plans to add a Tournament of Champions to NBA.

Why isn't the NBA helping WhatIfSports in the same way MLB and NHL are? (kmakice - Hall of Famer - 2:35 PM)

The partnerships with MLB and NHL came about due to mutual interest from both parties. So far the NBA has not shown an interest in partnering with us. With the Fox purchase, it's probably not as desirable for us now anyway.

Will we ever see a NBA Simleague Live? And/or making coaching a bigger part of the game - defense focusing on inside or perimeter, half court traps, zone defense? (kfunk - Hall of Famer - 2:39 PM)

There are no plans currently to create a SimLeagues Live game for NBA. It was a possibility at one time, but due to a lack of interest in the NFL game, and several other factors, it never happened. We're always looking for ways to add meaningful coaching options to enhance the strategy of the game. We are somewhat limited though, since everything is based on stats. We don't have any way of knowing how quick a player is or how smart, or how well they would perform in a certain offense or defense.

IN the past in the basketball sim game, you had to really make sure you had depth, because anyone who played less than 72 games or so in an 82 game season had a chance to mis time with injuries. One thing I've tried with some success was to draft 3 players who had big numbers but for limited amounts of games, for instance 82-83 Dantley 22 games, 79-80 English 23 games, 84-85 Bernard King, 55 games. How will the new system handle injuries and playing time so that we can better manage the rosters. (reggiedeal - Hall of Famer - 2:42 PM)

There haven't been any changes made to injuries with this release, but there may be in the future.

How will you incorporate defensive ratings? Will it be based upon blocks and steals or more subjective? (shine06 - Hall of Famer - 2:45 PM)

We're still working on a method for defensive ratings, but it's very likely that they will be added in some form. It is difficult to objectively measure defensive ability, but there are ways to at least estimate. Blocks and steals will probably be factored in along with possible factors such as team defensive performance, defensive awards, and some subjective assessment. They won't be perfect, but we hope to make them as accurate as possible given the available information.

Why is there such a fasination with large 4th quarter comebacks? They happen about far too frequently when compared to actual. (all3 - Hall of Famer - 2:47 PM)

There's nothing specifically in the SimEngine that would cause a 4th quarter comeback.

Will we see some increase in fga/game for uptempo offense? (wontaek - Hall of Famer - 2:49 PM)

When running up-tempo, your team should have shorter possessions than normal, but if the other team is playing slow-down or even half-court then it can counteract your up-tempo.

are blocks and steals impacted by touch limit considerations? as defensive stats do you think they ought to be? afterall you can block a shot while helping out on another man's player (ditto steals) (e-monk - Hall of Famer - 2:51 PM)

are blocks and steals impacted by touch limit considerations? as defensive stats do you think they ought to be? afterall you can block a shot while helping out on another man's player (ditto steals) (e-monk) Not sure what exactly you mean by "touch limit considerations", but when a steal happens, the SimEngine looks at each defender's steals per minute and compares all 5 defenders to determine who gets credit for it.

Can you please add the option to eliminate auto refresh during these chats? Or help me to read faster. (jakotay - Hall of Famer - 2:52 PM)

Lol, sorry if it's hard to read. I'll see if that can be added.

in recent open league play I have been running teams with 25-30 apg aggregate at the starting position- they seem to undergenerate assists which is fine as this is a touch limited stat- however I have been seeing teams that draft low (sub 20ppg) aggregate apg number and they are actually overgenerating- is there are parameters at play? (e-monk - Hall of Famer - 2:57 PM)

If a team is built with a realistic composition of players (i.e. realistic totals in each category), then they should perform close to real life. But when a team is not built realistically, they may overperform or underperform their real life stats. If you drafted a team with very low real life assists, that should be reflected with a decrease SimLeague FG%, but they may overgenerate assists. That happens because in a basketball game there will be a certain amount of field goals scored off of assists. Even if you played a game with 5 guys who never had an assist, they would have some if playing together. That's just how the game is.

Any chance we can get a college baseball dynasty " Diamond Dynasty" going in WIS (spd644 - Pro - 2:59 PM)

Let's finish up with a random question. There is a baseball dynasty game in development now, but it's based on professional baseball, not college.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us and thanks for supporting WhatIfSports!