I completely agree with your top statement.

My point is that a game this glitchy, and at times has a mind of it's own, isn't worth paying to play. I've seen too much nonsense in this thing to justify sticking around, and every time I try to give it another shot...BAM! Into the pan again. And to top it all off, the NBA sim isn't even close to being regularly monitored, so there's no reason to expect that the problems will be fixed, ESPECIALLY given who runs this thing, though I have a feeling that tinmanpb maybe had a bigger hand in dropping this in the toilet than some other person.

If my claim(s) is invalid, then just say so.

Many of your claims are invalid, simply because you really don't understand how the sim works.  And I can't blame you for that, because you haven't played enough of this engine to figure it out.  And I can't blame you for that, because of your feelings towards it for what happens.  So my opinion is that you really should quit giving it a shot, because all it does is make you mad all over again.

As I said, many of your claims are invalid, but for the most part, you're right - it's buggy & sometimes overly random.  The rest of the time it's just really random.  The only way to overcome that is to build really good teams that minimize the chance of randomness effecting the outcome.  For example, if you just draft 35 oreb% & 85 dreb%, you're fine.  You should out rebound quite a few of your opponents, if not most.  But there will be many times where teams with much lower cumulative creb% will out rebound you (by much lower I mean something like 25/75 - rarely do you see teams with less than this).  But against all of those same teams, if you have 50 oreb% & 100 dreb%, you're much less likely to get screwed.  Maybe 3 or 4 times a season, and even then, those teams are probably not far behind you in their cumulative totals.  This turns a frustrating 40-win team into a 60-70 win team.  That's assuming you don't forget the other really important areas (like efg% and having your high usg% guys with a lot of ftas; limit your fouls & try to keep a manageable number of tovs, but rebounds trump turnovers *hands down*).

And here's another thing - the longer the engine remains unchanged, teams get better.  Owners learn what works & what doesn't.  They learn what areas to emphasize, and when they do and succeed at it, others pick up on it.  Go back to my reb% example... 35/85 was high at one time for this incarnation of the sim.  Now you'll (at best) end up with a +1 or +2 differential (average at season's end).  The game evolves because the owners evolve.  Many of those frustrated, like yourself, haven't evolved from an earlier incarnation of the engine.  The rest of us are frustrated because the engine sucks and isn't anywhere close to as realistic as we'd like and we're flat out ignored by our appointed admin.

I'm sorry, but you're way out of your depth with some of the comments that you made.

It's not like I'm angry that this happened, yes it's causing me to stop playing, but I don't go to bed every night wanting to throw my computer out the window, or anything like that, thus I'll do as I damned well please as far as this sim goes. For you to suggest that I don't know how the sim works? Josh, please...what a ridiculous insult. You're so hung up on my record and "lack of success" that you equate it to me not knowing how the game works and what succeeds and what doesn't...you're wrong.

If you think the claim I made in the initial post of this thread is invalid, you're insane and I really have no reason to say another thing to you. If you're fine with a guy getting doubled by good players, going off for 60, then I obviously can't help you. If you aren't fine with it, then good for you.

Take care.

"For you to suggest that I don't know how the sim works? Josh, please...what a ridiculous insult. You're so hung up on my record and "lack of success" that you equate it to me not knowing how the game works and what succeeds and what doesn't...you're wrong."

It's not just your record and lack of success, it's the things you say about the sim in the forum.  You obviously don't know how it works or how to make a team work better.  It's obvious from the things you say.  I'm sorry if you think differently.

An example?  How about from this very thread? 

"Nothing matters but FG% and AST."

What's wrong with this statement?  I've seen teams win 70+ games and the 'ship with barely 50% cumulative ast%.  Know how these teams won?  I bet you don't!  And it wasn't some thrown-together cookie cutter, either.

But you were half right - fg% is the 2nd most important thing in the sim (well, efg% is, but that's close enough). 

I'm not going to waste my time finding more to quote, but your whole "get someone 1000 pts/reb/ast" thing was ridiculous, too.  You can't do it.  Not with Oscar, anyway.  You might get the trip-dub... might... but you'd have to draft such low creb% that in doing so, you'll see your opponents out rebound you so badly that Oscar will still not get 1000.  And even if you do manage to somehow pull off this meaningless feat, if you win more than 10 games, I'll pay for the team.  I still say it's impossible.  I know it's impossible to do and win.  If you think otherwise, well, you're again proving my point.


As far as what else I dispute in the initial claim?  Yeah, it sucks getting blown out by a team you went 7-1 against in the regular season.  Oh wait, you went 7-1?  And then you lost another game to them?  How unrealistic!  You act like you've never seen the underdog surprise a team in the first game and blow them all to pieces.  But you won the next two games, didn't you, and I bet you won the series, too.

Double-teaming anyone and them going off for 60 is ridiculous.  The fact that the sim is messed up and causes double teamed players to outperform is ridiculous.  I am not disputing that.  But it's the way it is right now, so in the future, don't do it.  Thus my statement near the beginning.

If you have no reason to say another thing to me, oh well.  I'll go on with my life... I reckon.  I'll find some way to... manage. 

Enjoy retirement (again)... for however long it lasts (again).  I'm sure you'll come back at some point, build another crazy-*** team that loses and get ****** off all over again and make a thread about how you're done!

Have fun!

I don't like making "retirement" threads and this isn't so much a "retirement" thread as it is a complaint thread. I use the term "retire" here very loosely because I, you, or anyone are always just $9.95 away from bashing our heads in again, so it's more like time off or time away...there's no reason to make a "retirement" thread, and like I said, this is a lot more about DT Malone going off for 60 and me losing at home by 28 against a team less than 100% health across the board, whom I went 7-1 against. There's easily a handful of factors there to be ****** off about. Game 7 this afternoon...unreal...

The FG%/AST comment was obviously a spur of the moment jab that was meant to be a bit sarcastic. They certainly matter in the game, but I am aware that other factors are important to winning, like you and ltb stated. Again, just because my record sucks doesn't mean that I haven't and can't win...I just usually play the game a lot different than the average person because I have multiple interests as far as the game goes.

Now that I've run a season with the Big O, it's pretty clear to me that the Oscar 3000 chase is nearly impossible as you say. You're probably right in this instance and since I don't plan on spending another dime on this thing for a while, I won't put the team into the league to begin with. Yes it would be a low win endeavor, but ironically enough, the stat I had trouble achieving was AST, which is rather laughable, given the quality of shooters I have on my team.

Honestly convince me that this game is worth paying to play.

Because when it fades away and is gone (since that's what WIS is letting it do), there will be nothing like it on the market, so enjoy it now, while you can, because as bad as it's become, it's still better than nothing.

Fair enough. I've played one other online basketball game about 2-4 years ago and I hated it. Though with that said, I'm kind of off of the NBA sim completely, even though I did come back to help fill EBKL, I was never staying for a while. In all seriousness, all these games on this website should be gold mines. Like you said there's virtually nothing else like it on the web, and as a sports fan, these are the kinds of games I've always wanted. Why aren't they gold mines you ask? Poor Advertising/Marketing since day one, arguably inept programmers across the board, combative/arrogant CS people (which some are the admins themselves), and the fact that they don't have a programmer for each game out there. Honestly, somebody out there would work as a programmer for one of these lesser games for pretty close to minimum wage...why wouldn't you at least seek employees so you can properly staff your company? There are a lot of talented people out there looking for jobs in their fields, but instead WIS would rather just stay in their **** and act helpless. Terribly sad. On top of everything, the FOX buyout couldn't have gone worse, and for this I mainly blame TK, because he obviously didn't know what he was getting into, getting bumped off of his very own project....that's classic.

WIS is JaMarcus Russell....maybe all the talent in the world, but no bollocks, drive, or work ethic...just sad and pathetic...perhaps a lot more of the latter.

I'm not going to try and convince you that it's worth paying to play.  If they didn't give discounts for finishing well in the playoffs and GC for winning, I'd have been gone a long time ago.  Out of 57 full seasons, I've bought one six pack and a handful (less than five) teams at full price.  Most I stack discounts from multiple playoff finishes, so I'm usually spending no more than $5 on a team, with the free six-pack thrown in every time I get 7500 GC.  So at that price, to me, it's worth paying for.  No way I'd pay full price with the sim (and the site) in its current state.

Thanks ashamael, for explaining why you continue. I just had a 61 win team lose to a team that was 2-6 against it.
Also a 71 win team went out in 2nd series (3rd Round w/ bye), so I'm frustrated but see that others are too. I guess 5-7 for a team is not TOO bad.