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I've been playing since the 2nd season and the ai in this game is crap and has not improved. In fact, I think it has gotten worst. I play 3 other online games and don't have a problem paying for a supporter pack but I just can’t see any improvements to make me want to pay for this game. Actually, I'm seriously thinking about quitting this game even tho I think this one has the greatest potential.

The one that bothers me the most is the coaching. I have tried the different coaching tactics and I seem to get the opposite result. I've put "strictly follow the depth charts" and didn't have a sub for my trainee last week and he only played for 37 minutes. This week I put "let the coach decide" and he plays the whole game when I'm losing and I have 2 starters sitting on the bench. He finally took him out in overtime.

The 2 games before tonight my sf took 50 and 52 shots. Wouldn’t complain if he had made some shots but he only made 14 and 13 each game in a losing cause. One game last year, one of my players was 0-28 and still shooting ending up with like 10 points in another lose.

I have other examples but I don’t think anybody really wants to hear them.

Don’t take this as me being a sore loser. I seriously don’t care about winning and losing and take nothing away from the teams that I have played. I expected to get demoted last year and somehow made the playoffs. This year I know I’ll get demoted and want to make sure that I get the full training for my younger players.

Well, sorry for the rant but I needed to get it off my chest. I hardly ever post, even in my other online games, but I’m trying to convince myself to stay active and give the game more time but I have a lot of aging veterans and it's going to take some work to get back to being competition in II again and I’m not sure I’m up for the task now.




Last edited by natrap at 9/1/2011 10:38:51 PM

Yeah, I hear you on the coaching / depth charts / substitutions. Definitely frustrating.

If I were you I'd at least log on from time to time to keep the team from going bot. Who knows, maybe you'll feel like playing again in a couple seasons? In the news they said they just hired some developers. Haven't been around as long as you, but this seems like the best chance for some big changes down the road. (half a year from now?) If not... only took you a few seconds / week to log in anyway. Check out the news post on the front page. I've been surprised by the # of minor "cosmetic" changes lately. Nothing to do w/ the game itself, but shows they're active at least...

Completely gutting your roster & starting over in D4 or D5 might get you re-interested too. Just a thought. Since you'll already have a big arena & a good deal of $. That's probably what I'll do whenever I demote.

At this point the only thing you can do about substitutions is to give yourself lots of leeway. Basically expect a screw-up. Like even my last cup game... I had 9 players active & had 1 set to play all 48 minutes. Guess what happens come garbage time? Coach benches him (was starter/backup/reserve) & lets some other guy play all game instead. Despite that other guy having a reserve It's only 14 minutes, but still... it's a regular occurrence.

I can usually get the AI to do what I want, but if you let it on its own it does indeed do horrible things. Jelme has lost so many games from setting his lineup wrong and letting the AI go to town...

It's super frustrating when you have 6 guys dressed, one of the useless scrubs fouls out or gets injured, and then your coach starts randomly switching positions around and screws up your training.

And what really drives me nuts is the fouling, it's so spontaneous and random! I think in another thread it was shikago that said "the other team committed 9 fouls in the first quarter, so obviously the refs were calling it tight. fortunately my guys were playing clean with only 1 foul, until the second quarter started and they assaulted our foes with reckless abandon chalking up 9 fouls of our own. what coach would let that happen!?" something like that.

As a software developer myself, I suspect it's going to be a long time before any significant features are introduced -- if they just hired these guys, it's tough work familiarizing yourself with a codebase, and BB's sounds pretty large. Then on top of that there's the production process of designing and implementing these new features. Maybe there will be surprises, I think some of the hires were part-time or volunteer before? But I'm not holding my breath

When I feel like quitting, I usually blow up my team. I have fun watching the TL and I usually come out slightly better and certainly DIFFERENT. Tanking to D4 and starting over is all the rage these days. Training NT players can be fun but is sort of sluggish on the seratonin payback for me at least. Last season I tanked league pretty hard to do a cup run, I hadn't done that before, it was reasonably exciting. Mainly I'm a fan of huge roster overhauls though, haha.

I doubt anyone thinks you're a sore loser.

Typing from phone so no long post here. I like the general ai, but the sub patterns need better descriptions or a guide page with what they do. There are a couple trouble spots...fouling and late game. I remember an ai change around s10 that was very nice...so they are helping out. About your sf...I was suprised by the volume of shots he took...but it made sense against me. He had by far the best matchup. You should be happy with that game

Thanks guys. After thinking about it all last night, I was worried that people might take my post the wrong way and think that I was trying to convince everyone to quit. It’s just the opposite. I want the game to develop and get better because it’s the one game that I have the highest hopes for.

GM-Jelme, I remember the ai improvements but that is when I think it took a step backward. I understand your point about the matchup and that maybe the reason why our game was so close (for 3 quarters) but the coach would have made some sort of adjustment on offense and/or defense. To me, having Dozer thake that many shot would only happen in an isolation offense and I had selected patient. If it was the best matchup, how do you justify the low shooting percentage? Why wasn’t Dozer subbed out when I have a decent sub on the bench? I believe that I had selected “let the coach decide” but not positive on that. I know that goes back to the coaching thing again. Then you have my game last night. How do you justify 27 turnovers to a “respectable” and “average” defense when I have almost the same personnel against “prominent” and “proficient” defenses in my last 3 league games with only 13, 10 and 9? The last time I remember having 20+ turnovers was when I was using “run and gun” and the other team had “full court press”. That I can completely understand. Was it because he choose CT and I had TIE, which, by the way, I think is the dumbest thing in this game? (I’m not expecting any answers from you, just ranting again.)

I’m going to stop now because I feel a lot better and all of you have convinced me to finish out the season. I’m putting a lot of money into scouting and hope to have a great draft and start over. Maybe by the time I have a respectable team; the new developers will have a chance to make some improvements.

Ps. Don’t think that I’m going to take it easy on anybody. I’m still going to try and win. It’s only fair to the other teams in the league.

I'm gonna go on record and say I'm glad you're sticking around, although it has no effect on my season whatsoever. It's been fun to match wits with you the half-dozen or so times we've played, and I hope to be able to do so again someday.

All the best to you.

Just a fyi, patient acts more like an isolation offense than the iso offenses...at least in shot selection

Glad to hear you are no longer on the edge, hang in there. Subs, strategy and minutes are my biggest pet peeves...