Developer Chat

We're introducing player-level foul situation controls that instruct the engine how you'd like a player to be dealt when he picks up fouls.

Just to confirm, since you know that we all turn into attorneys any time you make a change and we like to pierce through every letter of every word of the release notes, how fouls are currently generated on a player by player basis will not change? (wisefella99 - Hall of Famer - 11:32 AM)

No Matlock, how fouls are determined isn't changing at all, only how we deal with players who do pick up fouls. If you choose the 'normal' setting, there will be no change to how substitutions are currently made.

Will you be able to either now or in the futue set your foul situation controls based upon your the score in the game? Perhaps let my star ride the bench w/ 2 fouls in the first half as long as the game is close, but if they get a double digit lead, its time to unleash him and play more aggressively hoping he doesn't pick up a 3rd before the half expires. (taz21 - Hall of Famer - 11:33 AM)

Rails actually made that exact same suggestion - we're looking at - once we introduce this, it won't be that difficult to possibly add more options but I need to think about it more before I can say yes or no.

Is it true that players play differently (Ie: they are more or less aggressive) depending on the number of fouls they have? Will this change have any impact on this logic (if it exists)? (mccabemi - Hall of Famer - 11:35 AM)

Yes, that is true - but it's not just based on fouls, it's also based on the score, time remaining and where the kid is on the depth chart - e.g. I really don't have to be as conservative with my 3rd string PF who picks up 2 quick fouls as I would be with my starter.

Admin, I'm from the school of "two fouls in the first half means bench"...is that how the less aggressive setting would have it? (mapes - Hall of Famer - 11:37 AM)

Right now the normal setting will "normally" (no pun intended) give you that result but it also depends on the score and time remaining. If you went with 'less aggressive', that would likely result in that player being kept on the bench if they pick up 2 fouls in the first half.

what was the problem that this is fixing? was the engine doing things that didnt make sense? (fd343ny - Hall of Famer - 11:40 AM)

I don't think there was a problem there - it just gives coaches more granular control of their players. If you have a deep team, you can be more aggressive or if you have a short bench, you can now be less aggressive than what the engine would normally do. You can also now influence substitutions for big games, e.g. be more aggressive - it's the conference tournament championship, keep my starters in longer.

Is this change reactionary ... too many tickets to CS to look at a game's PBP an explain why a players stayed in the game with 4 fouls? (infinitebob - Hall of Famer - 11:44 AM)

No, it's been on the list for a while. The more control we can provide to coaches, the better.

Thanks for doing the chat. Would be neat if this foul control was rolled out in tandem with some control over who on the other team we would choose to foul given a choice. Is anything like that in the cards, or is the programming complexity prohibitive for that? (kcsundevil - Hall of Famer - 12:05 PM)

Thanks. We've thought about it but in reality, there's not much choice there - you're going to go after the worst free throw shooter on the floor that you can get to given the amount of time remaining and the deficit.

So if I am using the Fatigue setting and set my foul pull setting to Less Agressive, what kind of substitutions will the engine make if my backup is not ready to come in yet? (Weena - Hall of Famer - 12:06 PM)

Both are looked at in tandem when making that decision, but fouls take precedence in situations where we have conflicting gameplanning settings.

Will this change eliminate a player from coming back in the game late in the first half when they have two fouls? That is, if you were to set it to less aggressive. My big men had a tendency to get that third foul when they came back in with two minutes left in the first half. (bretodonnell - Hall of Famer - 12:07 PM)

Yes, if you set it to less aggressive, that would/should be the case - assuming a normal depth chart.

I'd like to get a general perspective on the change. Will the engine take a starter out when he picks up a 2d foul in the first half and sit him for the remainder of the half when the player foul setting is at "normal"? if so, what will happen if it is set at "conservative"? (princep01 - Hall of Famer - 12:12 PM)

Good question - what would happen there is, for example, if you have a player pick up his first foul 30 seconds into the game, under normal, he's left in. Under conservative/less aggressive, he's probably going to get pulled and then brought back in later in the 1st half.

Will this have any impact on end of game intentional foul settings? In other words, will my player who is set to less agressive be less likely to commit the intentional foul? (Weena - Hall of Famer - 12:14 PM)

Just to be clear, when we say 'more aggressive' or 'less aggressive', it has to do with how YOU as the coach deal with fouls for that particular player - NOT how the kid is going to play. Saying you want to be more aggressive may lead to a player being left in after he picks up his 2nd foul in the 1st half, it's not going to make him play more aggressively.

So to answer your question, it has no impact on intentional foul settings.

Will be set up like offensive distribution where we set it one way against a Press and differently against a Zone or will we have to change it game to game? (Weena - Hall of Famer - 12:15 PM)

Yes, just like distribution and 3pt frequency settings, you can save foul trouble settings by player, by defense.

Is there a chance in the future to be allowed to determine who you want on the floor at the end of games. For instance the last 2 minutes. It would be nice to finish games with your strongest free throw shooting team on the floor. If my starting center is a C freethrow shooter and his backup is an A, in real life basketball the starter wouldn't be on the floor in a close game i'm winning. I would have the backup in or any other position where this big of a difference occurs. (chilidawgs - Hall of Famer - 12:16 PM)

This actually already occurs - at least in terms of free throw shooting. Situation-specific depth charts are on the list though.

Just for clarification - the More Aggressive setting is strictly for staying in the game and does not affect a players in-game agressiveness, correct? (Weena - Hall of Famer - 12:18 PM)

Yes, that is correct.

Will the engine take into account the score when making its determination or just the clock? In not, I could see an "if-then" option working out well. For example, if leading by 10 a team could tend to be less aggressive and sit their star longer. If trailing by 10, a coach wouldn't have that luxury and would have to be more aggressive in order to keep his team from getting blown out. (Rails - Hall of Famer - 12:18 PM)

Yes, score is taken into consideration already but I do think that we can possibly add even more coaching control down the road as you have mentioned.

All things being equal (class, knowledge & type of O/D ) are there indeed diffrences in players ( as in RL ) that are just more foul prone and those that are not ? BTW, I have yet to see one, do coaches get 'T'ed up..? (nova71 - Hall of Famer - 12:21 PM)

There's nothing behind the scenes that would impact "foul-proneness". Everything that is considered when determining what happens during a possession, you can see.

As for coach's T's, not going to happen unless there is a counter-balance, can you imagine losing a critical game because of a technical being called on you when you're not really there? Ouch. Only if there is a possible benefit, such as kids may play harder but you have a higher risk of a technical or something of that nature.

It seems change has been coming fast of late -- is there any time table for releasing player potential? (gighul1 - Veteran - 12:22 PM)

We've been rolling out the changes to recruiting in chunks instead of all at once but the largest is last which includes player potential and scouting services coming out together.

is there a plan in the works for you to be able to gameplan to have team call to's to stop a run by opposing team? (antonyj - Hall of Famer - 12:23 PM)

That's a good suggestion. We could certainly incorporate that relatively easy with a 'timeouts should primarily be used for [rest my players] or [stop runs by the other team]' option.

Why do you continue to make non-emergency changes in the middle of seasons. That is a terrible way to do changes! (duuude - Hall of Famer - 12:25 PM)

Duuuuuuude, as you probably have not noticed, all worlds are at different points in their season so we never have an ideal window to make changes. Even with that, it is rare that we make a change that has to go out to all the worlds at once - most engine changes are rolled out by world as the world rolls into their next season. Some changes though must go out to all worlds at once. I'm still working on whether this is one of those changes or not.

Mainly, what will the impact of the new conservative/normal/aggressive weights impact different defensive sets. It would seem that this would impact (in real life) FCP and M2M more than Zone due to the alignment (M2M and FCP tend to align against individual players, zone protects an area). Therefore, how will this affect zone? Will they protect an area more aggressively? Will it not have much affect at all kinda like FCP and double teams? Thoughts. (ermackey - Hall of Famer - 12:27 PM)

Again, it doesn't impact whether the player will be more/less aggressive on the floor - that's already occuring based in the number of fouls, time remaining, etc. It only impacts how you, as the coach, make the decision to either keep him on the floor or sit him whenever he picks up a foul.

As always, thanks for taking the time to post your questions!