Hey guys, just wanted to say that I understand you're all frustrated by the lack of releases for SimLeague Basketball. We as a company are moving toward a model of larger, less frequent releases with the hope that it will allow the games to stabilize more and allow us to package changes better. So you may not see updates for a number of months on any of our games outside of bug fixes and things like that.

SimLeague basketball is a very good game, featuring the most powerful and advanced player draft search and probably the most mathematically sophisticated SimEngine of our SimLeague games. The basic coach settings (e.g. depth chart, advanced defense) work pretty well overall with some room for improvement.

But with that said, I want to hear what you guys think is the biggest deficiency of SimLeague Basketball. This is not the place to point out specific issues with a player record (i.e. defensive rating, position effectiveness). Keep in mind that we're talking about a simulation based on stats, so there are some things that don't necessarily make sense. For example, it's hard to add a bunch of different offensive systems, because there's no basis for us to translate those settings to performance.

Your feedback will help shape upcoming releases, so please be serious. I don't want this thread devolving into insults towards me or the game. I may or may not be actively posting in here, but I will be reading.

Thanks.

1 - defensive assignments - the ability to match up a specific defender on a specific offensive player

2 - variable league sizes

3 - the ability to search on first/last year

4 - late game settings, the ability to pick a specific player to take shots

organic stoppage in play so that there are more opportunities for substitution - some TOs = out of bounds, quarterly scheduled official time outs like in real life - this would help make your substitution patterns more exacting and improve mpg targeting

there is a clear cut salary imbalance between offensive and defensive stats (or correspondingly defensive rating doesnt have sufficient impact while costing significantly more)

players from the 60s/70s have better 3pt shooting statistics than the players of the 80s (and they didnt even shoot 3s)

situational setting and substitutions at the end of games

oh and this is for us (not you) to decide: "SimLeague basketball is a very good game"

variable League sizes - this would be good for the users and WIS

Thanks for the opportunity and explanation, seble.

I agree with most of what's been suggested so far, but of those suggestions I'd put variable league size at the top. Not an infinite variety of choices, but at least an option for theme leagues to run with 16 teams. This would allow a number of theme league variations that aren't as feasible now, and I strongly suspect would result in an overall increase in theme league revenue.

And two technical issues...

- The basis for position efficiency ratings seems opaque and inconsistent. Very possible I just don't understand something that's been explained clearly in the past, but many of the ratings just don't comport with reality and the underlying logic for them seems to vary from player to player. I won't go into specifics here because you're not asking for detail and there's another thread running on this topic, but I hope it can receive some attention.

- Giving each player a relative fast break rating would be a terrific addition to the game, making it much more realistic. I realize there's not a way to generate such ratings from real-life player statistics so it would need to be fundamentally subjective, and that may be the reason why it never happens. But it would be a huge addition to the game. For what it's worth, Strat-O-Matic offers an example of how this can be done fairly simply, with separate player ratings on a 1-5 scale for both play-making and scoring on the break.

Variable league size is high on our list. Good suggestions, keep them coming.

-Delete rookies or make them all equal.

-Decrease "variation" of player abilities from game to game.

-League size variety and price variety.

-Salaries that increase exponentially. ie a 30% rebounder should be worth more than twice a 15% rebounder. (maybe they are already?)

-Give us an idea of how effective defense really is. Doesn't seem to be worth it's price.

***Create a REAL description of this SIM!!!! We need a real breakdown of how this thing works. What is the point of having all these stats to draft when we don't even know how they are incorporated into the game?

Thanks

thank you for this thread, Seble. I will be posting ideas throughout the night, when things get a little less hectic here at the news palace.

Something I think would be extremely helpful to both experienced owners and new owners alike:

Giving us TOV% (turnover percentage) as a viewable, searchable and sortable stat.

I can break out the calculator... I can head over to basketballreference.com (for the players where turnovers were officially kept, anyway)... but as of right now, I can't say that I want to search for a player with 30% usage or higher with 10% or higher ast% who has less than 15% tov%. This is something that would really help people out, since tov% is the most accurate measure of how many times a guy will turn the ball over and how badly he'll hurt (or help) your team out.

It's a simple calculation that you should be able to add in... I know you know what tov% is, but I'm going to list it anyway:

*number of times per 100 possessions a player turned the ball over, using the formula 100 x turnovers/possessions. Possessions are fga + 0.44fta + tov.


That is one of the main things I'm looking for that hasn't already been brought up in this thread or that doesn't have another thread dedicated to it.


I would like to echo monkee on extra sub opportunities and additional opportunal line-up options (as in, clutch line-up for last 2 minutes of game, instead of just having starters in).

I know we have a position effectiveness thread, but it's for specific changes - I'd like to see a system where every player has 2 positions they are 100% effective at (as well as the few guys that were truly flexible and could play 3 or 4 positions). I think this would make the "what if" factor even greater without making things too powerful with certain guys.

Thank you again for making this thread - this is all I've been asking for: a little discussion on things we'd like to change. I'll have more input later.

badja, here is a pretty thorough explanation of how the SimEngine works:

http://www.whatifsports.com/knowledgebase/KB_Article_Details.aspx?kbid=582

Quote: Originally posted by monkee on 5/12/2009organic stoppage in play so that there are more opportunities for substitution - some TOs = out of bounds, quarterly scheduled official time outs like in real life - this would help make your substitution patterns more exacting and improve mpg targeting

This is a fantastic suggestion. Most of them are, but this one tops my list.

The game is way too random and has been ever since I can remember. The sim does what it wants regardless of team composition and given that this has been the case for 5+ years, I'm not confident in the least that you'll be able to rectify whatever the problem is.

The things that I have the most problem with in the sim are simply unexplainable.

Echo variable league size, individual DEF assignments and play stoppages.

I just want to add that YES, you far and away have the best NBA simulation game out there, however you take it for granted and rather easily have the worst customer service out there. Viewing game problems as personal attacks doesn't help either.

hey trevor let's keep this thread about the game itself. I have confidence we can get some good things done to the game as long as we stay on task. We made strides about the same time last year.