New Software vs. Old Software (640 views)

[eric]

Links

Rosters - Every team's rosters
Injuries - Who is hurt and how long are they out? Note that injuries are reset after the playoffs end
Free Agents - Who can you pick up?
Draft - Next year’s class
Potential Free Agents - Who is in the final year of their contract?
Standings - Check the playoff/tanking race
League Leaders - Top 10 individuals in statistical categories
Weekly-Monthly Awards - Players and rookies of the week and month
Team Stats - Sortable team statistics on offense and defense
Historical Team Performance - How has your team done throughout the years?


Your Team

Players - A list of all the guys on your squad. Their ages, heights and weights and ratings are there.
Ratings: The new software does not combine attributes into grades. It also has one less attribute (Drive Defense) and two new ones (Foul Shooting, Stamina) so it is not possible to simply apply the current attribute to grade scheme.


The Season

Training Camp -

Season- The season alternates between 10 and 5 days sims. Sometimes we'll get a 15 day sim. This is referred to as a double sim.
Key dates
Day 100 - The trade deadline. We stop the previous sim at Day 99 and you cannot make a trade once the next sim has been run.
Day 120 - The season ends. The draft lotto is conducted after.

Playoffs: Best of seven series to determine the winner. We sim the first three games, take a break to optionally fix depth charts, then finish the series.


The Offseason

Retirings:

Resignings:

Draft: The draft starts after the playoffs. It is strongly recommended to submit a list of players if you are not going to be around. All first-rounders get four year deals (removing the 4th year is permitted). You can choose to have your second rounders have two or three year deals (limit one per season).

Free Agency: The software breaks the FA period into 30 days. Under certain circumstances if you are outbid on a player the player will inform you without signing for the other team. We could just as easily ignore this and divide FA into three periods: days 1-10, 11-20, 21-30.


Depth Chart


Scoring Focus: Outside / Balanced / Inside as before. This doesn't mean they mean the same thing, but it's the same options. We don't have first/second/third options anymore but pick up to three focal points - same difference, we'll just keep having people pick three.

Press: There's still a full court press option. It goes from 0 to 10 but that's easy enough: 0 never, 3 sometimes, 5 normal, 8 often, 10 always.

Trapping: This is gone.

Pace: Also on the 0-10 scale, also easy to map to very slow - very fast, if we want to let very fast come back, or we can just cap it at 8.

Motion, Three Point Usage, Primary Defense, Secondary Defense: imo a bunch of gobbledygook that we should force to a default level for everyone. The defense options are man, help, half trap, and zone, and each option is set from 0 to 10. Both options can be the same, they don't have to add up to anything.

Crash Boards: Available on offense and defense, from 0 to 10 but again we could mimic the never to always scale quite easily.


Depth Chart Mechanics


Gone are first string, second string, third string. Instead you give every player legal positions and a desired number of minutes played, and you also put five players as starters. We can very easily stick with the 1st/2nd/3rd and just translate that into a predetermined number of MP.


Improving Players/Points Dispersal


Inside Scoring
Best for:
The skinny:
Overall grade:

Jump Shot

Foul Shooting

Three Point Shot

Handling

Quickness

Passing

Stealing

Shot Blocking

Post Defense

Perimeter Defense

Drive Defense

Offensive Rebounding

Defensive Rebounding

Strength

Jumping

Stamina

[eric]

2poor andrewluck ANK1990 ayyoe Lazy Pete Delap kn88 FectaDEEZ gbgalla24 General Sherman @dumptime Jerry West lip MistleTacoe Majic MJ Odin tyler 3001 SPL SugarShaun Heebs Trofie victorj24 Cinco de Wardo KwYawnza Face-in Bruns Mad King

Rather than have everything piecemeal in the new drafts thread, I decided to centralize the information we gather on the new software in a For the New Guys style thread. For now almost all of it is gray, as we find out stuff I will update the OP with green meaning the software works the same or can be made to work the same, red meaning the software cannot be made to work the same or the item no longer exists, and orange for new stuff.

The purpose of the rest of the thread is to discover and talk about changes, or request what information we should (or shouldn't) gather. To be clear, no decision has been made to necessarily move to new software. We're gathering information so we can make an informed decision.

.

For example, last night I looked at Free Agency, and it can work very differently but doesn't necessarily have to. Bids are entered like before, but now a player can notify you if you are outbid without signing for the higher bid. I don't know if they always do this, I can look into it more if we decide to use this ability. If not, we can definitely just run Free Agency as before. It runs on 30 days in the software but it ran on 5 days in the old software and we still had three bidding periods, we could just divide it into 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 instead of 1-2, 3-4, 5.

[eric]

An elaboration on the ratings section.

Right now players have 15 attributes that the software uses to calculate 5 ratings: Inside Scoring, Outside Scoring, Handling, Defense, Rebounding.

In the new software, 14 attributes are the same, Drive Defense is dead (good riddance), and Foul Shooting and Stamina are added. The software does not calculate ratings, it simply displays the attributes with three possible levels of granularity. Because there are new attributes, we can't apply the old software's attribute to rating calculations, but we can invent a new one if GMs desire, and there are no limits on what we can invent.

For example, we could try to mimic the old system as closely as possible by just adding Foul Shooting to Outside Scoring and Stamina to Defense, because Defense is the WOAT grade anyway so who cares.

Or we could make a new system that gives more information, something like
Inside Scoring = Inside Scoring and Strength
Outside Scoring = Jump Shot, Three Shot, Foul Shot
Handling = Passing and Handling
Defense = Perimeter Defense, Post Defense, Shot Blocking, Stealing
Rebounding = Offensive Rebounding, Defensive Rebounding
Athleticism = Quickness, Jumping, Stamina

The point of this is to make the htmls we click on here on the website more like the ones we click on now, to sacrifice the precision of information available for convenience (and some people are against too much precision).

[Majic]

I like that added wrinkle to the Free Agency

[Citizen Cane]

big issue with 3.0 was too many attributes. made keeping track of everything of a hassle

[Lazy Pete]

I like the idea of blending attributes into grades because it gives the commissioner more freedom to bust/beast players with similar grade sets. If we had 15 attributes and the draft master sets all of them, then the commissioner has a lot less wiggle room.

[Lazy Pete]

Granted, none of us really knows what attributes might be better than others in the new software

[Deleted]

I know some of these words

[Odin]

I said what what in the butt

[KwYawnza]

is THERE anyway to change the color coding for "grades"

I can't tell the difference between the blue/purples etc

[SPL]

I played around for a little bit last night and I am interested to see how much of a factor stamina plays into this version. Depth of your team might be much bigger factor. Looking through, I think there are a lot of things we can incorporate into our league that we already do.

However, I think it would be easier if everyone had a version of the software. You can download the league file, and then upload to a web page your depth chart that the commisioner can download, put into his game file and then load into the game. It would free up some time for the commisioner. It would also allow us to play with some of the other options that this version has rather than dumbing it down.

[eric]

A quick note - there is an actual preseason feature in the software, but I can't figure out how to make it output and I don't think it's worth pursuing. For those who don't know, how we do "preseason" now is that the commissioner just sims the actual season with recommended DCs, posts it, then goes back to the day 1 save and we run the season as normal. The actual preseason is only 5-6 games long, players can get injuries in it that carry over to the regular season, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. My feeling is:

turn off injuries
run preseason
save
turn on injuries
run "preseason"
reload
day 1 and go

[eric]

Depth chart stuff. There's a lot.

First of all there are the options.

You no longer set first string, second string, third string. Instead you set "legal positions" for each player and a desired amount of playing time in minutes from 0 to 48. The software keeps track and lets you know when you've hit 240, but you're perfectly capable of going over. You also set five guys as starters, one at each position.

You no longer pick first option, second option, third option. Instead you just pick three focal points.

Focus is the same.

You still set pace, but on a scale of 0 to 10.

In addition, you can set three point usage, motion, and crash boards (all 0 to 10).

Defense is dramatically different. You pick two defenses from man, help, half trap, zone (but you can pick the same one twice) and how often you use them from 0 to 10. You can also set both to 10, both to 0. There's a whole lot of heavyreigning going on. Finally, you can set full court press and crash boards from 0 to 10.

.

Okay. So most of that is unnecessary. My vote is that
-everyone plays the same defense, motion, and three point usage.
-stick with the current DC format and set it to the #s we already have for PT.
-set pace, focus, and (maybe) crash boards offense and defense.

Keep it simple. Prevent people from tanking via DC, as we already do.

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The second thing is that in addition to the commissioner password that keeps people from getting into the nuts and bolts, there can be a password for each team. I don't think this will be useful for our purposes, but it's there.

The third thing is that anyone with the file, even a locked down version, can export an individual team's file. This could be useful - a GM could set their own DC and game plan, export, and the commish would just load 'em up. Here's the problem - the individual team could also sign/cut players and make trades with other "human-controlled" GMs. We obviously could tell people not to do this, but the potential for shenanigans is extremely high. There are many mechanisms for sending in these .exp files: email, dropbox or other shared cloud, and the software also supports an ftp server. Bottom line I think this is more trouble than it's worth, especially when there's a 100% chance some (many) [most] GMs are going to screw up their DCs anyway.

A lot of the most heavyreignish stuff has been taken out of the DC process, so it's more likely I can macro it up, but until I try I can't be sure, and it will definitely require clicking which means resolution checks which are a hassle for myself and the commish.

[Odin]

i don't even want to move to this software if we aren't going to take advantage of the options it offers.

[Lazy Pete]

Feb 9, 2017 14:54:10 GMT -6 Odin said:

i don't even want to move to this software if we aren't going to take advantage of the options it offers.

The main impetus for moving isn't that we want new features/options, it's that we want a better simulation engine

[Odin]

Feb 9, 2017 14:55:21 GMT -6 Lazy Pete said:

Feb 9, 2017 14:54:10 GMT -6 Odin said:

i don't even want to move to this software if we aren't going to take advantage of the options it offers.

The main impetus for moving isn't that we want new features/options, it's that we want a better simulation engine

I do not like the idea of dumbing down depth charts just to do it. We aren't stupid people, it isn't necessary.

[Face-in]

eric please read this league's rules/formats and report back on what we can steal.

fbb3.theobwl.com/kb/index.php?title=OBWL_Knowledge_Base

I'm too lazy to do it.

[Odin]

yah, steal all we can. it's the nature of sim leagues.

[IanBoyd]

I wonder if any other sim leagues ever stumbled on one of our forums and stole some of our ideas.

[Odin]

Feb 9, 2017 16:21:40 GMT -6 IanBoyd said:

I wonder if any other sim leagues ever stumbled on one of our forums and stole some of our ideas.

the league i stole box score rewards from had several rules posts that were word for word exactly the same as ours.

[IanBoyd]

what, things like the dbl rule or the bankz rule for tanking?

[Odin]

no like the older ones such as

lolwrongtmbsl.proboards.com/thread/15/free-agent-player-salaries

[eric]

Feb 9, 2017 14:57:30 GMT -6 Odin said:

Feb 9, 2017 14:55:21 GMT -6 Lazy Pete said:

The main impetus for moving isn't that we want new features/options, it's that we want a better simulation engine

I do not like the idea of dumbing down depth charts just to do it. We aren't stupid people, it isn't necessary.

it's not about stupidity, it's about keeping things manageable for both GMs and the commissioner.

[Odin]

Feb 9, 2017 18:23:15 GMT -6 eric said:

Feb 9, 2017 14:57:30 GMT -6 Odin said:

I do not like the idea of dumbing down depth charts just to do it. We aren't stupid people, it isn't necessary.

it's not about stupidity, it's about keeping things manageable for both GMs and the commissioner.

that's fine but let's not sacrifice things that don't need to be. not letting us choose defense or 3pt usage wouldn't save a huge amount of time. not using the financials system would save everyone a ton of time.

[20s Navidad]

I don't see why everyone would have to play the same defense or 3 point usage. Part of the fun is being able to set that to what you want.

[eric]

Feb 9, 2017 18:48:50 GMT -6 Odin said:

that's fine but let's not sacrifice things that don't need to be. not letting us choose defense or 3pt usage wouldn't save a huge amount of time. not using the financials system would save everyone a ton of time.

Feb 10, 2017 9:21:22 GMT -6 20s Navidad said:

I don't see why everyone would have to play the same defense or 3 point usage. Part of the fun is being able to set that to what you want.

Letting people set 3 point usage to 0 is blatant tanking, we all know that taking more threes is better. If we're going to let that slide we may as well get rid of all the other tanking rules. We may as well literally sever and boil our own penises.

The defense one is more for ease of use given that we don't know yet which options are manifestly worse. All I hear about the new software is that it's too much, this seems like a very easy area for us to cut that overload down imo.

[20s Navidad]

Not knowing what is better or worse is the point. Allows people to experiment and we can actually have some differentiation from team to team in the league.

[Odin]

Feb 10, 2017 10:11:43 GMT -6 eric said:

Feb 9, 2017 18:48:50 GMT -6 Odin said:

that's fine but let's not sacrifice things that don't need to be. not letting us choose defense or 3pt usage wouldn't save a huge amount of time. not using the financials system would save everyone a ton of time.

Feb 10, 2017 9:21:22 GMT -6 20s Navidad said:

I don't see why everyone would have to play the same defense or 3 point usage. Part of the fun is being able to set that to what you want.

Letting people set 3 point usage to 0 is blatant tanking, we all know that taking more threes is better. If we're going to let that slide we may as well get rid of all the other tanking rules. We may as well literally sever and boil our own penises.

The defense one is more for ease of use given that we don't know yet which options are manifestly worse. All I hear about the new software is that it's too much, this seems like a very easy area for us to cut that overload down imo.

considering it is software none of us knows very well i would rather err on the side of freedom. we don't know which settings actually cheese the system and which do not, so why even limit it before we're sure? the league isn't going to be perfect from day one and you shouldn't expect it to be. throughout tmbsl we have adapted and changed rules as problems were identified, there's no reason to change that. let's not assume there will be problems before there actually are problems.

and if 0 3s is actually an issue with tanking and not just the preferred offense of ian or someone with xman at sf, then we can do something about it. for only tanking teams, much like we do now.

[Deleted]

I would have liked 0 threes with my cheese teams

[Delap]

Feb 10, 2017 10:11:43 GMT -6 eric said:

Feb 9, 2017 18:48:50 GMT -6 Odin said:

that's fine but let's not sacrifice things that don't need to be. not letting us choose defense or 3pt usage wouldn't save a huge amount of time. not using the financials system would save everyone a ton of time.

Feb 10, 2017 9:21:22 GMT -6 20s Navidad said:

I don't see why everyone would have to play the same defense or 3 point usage. Part of the fun is being able to set that to what you want.

Letting people set 3 point usage to 0 is blatant tanking, we all know that taking more threes is better. If we're going to let that slide we may as well get rid of all the other tanking rules. We may as well literally sever and boil our own penises.

The defense one is more for ease of use given that we don't know yet which options are manifestly worse. All I hear about the new software is that it's too much, this seems like a very easy area for us to cut that overload down imo.

Wheel solves blatant tanking.