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Hi,

I've waited a few weeks before I opened this topic, since I really wanted to get used to the new engine before I made up me opinion. After six games since the changes I feel I can make this very very long post. I like to open a discussion about this, and I hope some other arguments will change my opinion.
I know my team isn't balanced that well, I am an inside based team.

I think the balance in the game is completely lost. So where shall I start.

My opinion is mainly based on my own team perfomaces, I won 11 and lost 1 before the ASB, and only won 1 of all the matches after the ASB. Now losing and winning isn't really a problem to me, since I know that before the ASB inside teams had an advantage. I know the BB's tried to balance things out, but it went too much to the other side now imo.

Lets start with the last minute tactics. For inside based teams, like mine, it's nearly impossible to get a comeback in the last minutes of the game. When I'm 6 points behind, my team always makes fouls and tries 3-point shots. Since I don't have any decent shooters (and since guards are very expensive on the TL comparing to inside players) this tactic just kills me. I can't believe my team tries it all the time, they miss every 3. When they just pass the ball to my starplayers (C/PF) and let them make 2-pointers, I have a larger chance of winning.

Then the games. Starting with this one: (2427466) Ok I played TIE, he played CT. But if you compare his offensive ratings vs my defensive ratings and visa versa I did dominate them. I can live with a loss, and I can understand a small loss. But not a 20 point loss.
This game: (2427434), 14 points, same story, I'll accept a loss, but not a 14 point loss. He even shoots 50% 3's, very nice, but not very realistic.
This game: (2427458), 10 points, hmm kind of a 50-50 game again, I can live with this one. Strange thing: He played the FCP, but I made loads of PF's (and not only in the last minutes of the game). I think I have noticed that more often, that the teams who play vs a FCP make loads of PF's.
There are a few more matches with examples.

Now a small summary, why did I lose all those matches with such a difference? Is it just because I played TIE most of the times? Although I still kept ratings which should be enough to win it, (or at least make a 50-50 game out of it) I still lost most of them. I got the feeling the strength of inside plays just decreased a lot.

Imo it's more easy to boost your Outside ratings than your Inside ratings right now. With prominent guards you will get higher offensive outside ratings than with prominent centers. I made the salary point earlier, you can get an average (high) run n gun outside offense with 2 8k guards, and you will get an average (high) look inside inside offense with 2 15k C's.
The last minute 'foul - 3 point shot' tactic is completely useless for team without decent outside shooters.
When you are an inside focused team, you probably pay more salary costs, and when you want to buy some guards to help your team, you need to pay at least 25% more to get a decent guard. When you are an outside focused team you can pay 'relatively cheap' C's and you pay less overall salary.

So what keeps me from changing my whole team to an outside focused team? Anyone knows?

I hope anyone could give some nice arguments and nice opinions about the changes in the game engine. And I hope someone can change my thoughts about this.
I would appreciate it when nobody just says: 'ah you are losing now, that's why you are complaining.' Because that's not the goal of this post. I'll complain in our 'complaining topic' at the dutch forums.

Funny note: The only game which I won after the ASB is a game against another team who plays look inside. I lost all matches vs motion or run n gun teams.

Cheers!



Last edited by BB-Patrick at 4/8/2008 3:47:12 PM

Ciao Patje, my story is the same that yours but with the difference that I'm use to play outside attack. 2 defeats in the first part of the season, 4/6 games lost after ASB. It means that is not a problem of tactic but I think you've to focus your attention to the "way to play". As Rip said here above now Tied is a certain defeat if your team is similar or a little bit stronger than your opponent. Of course also the defense is really important that's why you should start to play 3-2 or 1-3-1 when you face someone that plays outside, your OD will be increased. You know the skills of Berry and you can see that someone has stopped him; you need to have a good "small" players as I need to have good centers. Today it's more easy to find players with red skills in ID than in OD, maybe because more teams are use to train centers, maybe because it's faster, dunno, anyway it's not impossible to stop teams that have excellent outside players, you can see my 4 games lost. I'm 90% sure that last season I should won at least 2 of these matches, Tieying now is really dangerous.
If you make a simply comparation between centers and guards, you can see that there are a lot of centers that have 0,5% or more in 2 points shoot with skill respectable or strong. At the moment I didn't see a guard with the same %.
My explaination for your games lost is in your TIE and in your defensive tactic ;)

That's a very informative post, so thanks for that. I have a question for you regarding the CT/TIE changes:

under the old system, when you played CT or TiE it would make your ratings go up, but under the new system, it does not.

After the rule change, I was of the impression that CTing or TIEing would no longer affect ratings, but after TIEing my last two games it seems clear to me that TIEing still reduces your team's ratings in Inside Defence and Rebounding. Is this actually the case?

Another question: since under my TIEs my team's outside shooting has become noticably worse despite playing two teams with weak outside defence, does the "other team winning the close coin flips" apply to all on-court events?

I'd be grateful if you could clarify these two points.

First of all, thanks for your great response

What I'd say here is simply to remind you that under the old system, when you played CT or TiE it would make your ratings go up, but under the new system, it does not.

Are you absolutely sure of that? I'm almost sure TiE still makes your ratings go down, and I think ratings still go up when a team plays CT. If we check my opponent in the 1st example. He played vs a bot 2 games ago, same effort level, so he played normal (2427448). Then in his home game I guess he played normal too (ratings higher than away match vs bot) (2427459). Then he plays me in the game mentioned before (2427466) and his ratings are even higher than in his home-game, while he played CT, so somehow this does really affect the ratings.

Good to hear that the engine rewards more balanced things. But still I got the feeling that an unbalanced outside focus team will win vs an unbalanced inside focus team. This match is a great example of that feeling (2427434) (I TiE'd again).

I do know (like I said in the my initial post somewhere) that my team is inbalanced, and I'm trying to fix that, but it's hard with those insane prices bc of the rarity of decent guards. But I just bought one, when he's in shape it should help at least a bit.

If you are down 6 points with 30 seconds left, then if you take 2 point shots every time, you need the other team to miss at least 4 free throws unless you get a steal, or you can't possibly come back to tie.

Yeah true, but if my team shoots 1-20 average or something from the 3 point line there is no way I could have come back, it's still a way bigger chance to keep hitting those 2 pointers and hope for missed FT's than taking 3 pointers which almost guarantees a miss. (in my situation)


@ ned, Oh yeah, I agree with the part that playing TIE since the ASB almost guarantees a loss, unless you are way better. If you check my matches, I did try 3-2 zones, but it's useless since it barely increases my PD (bc of the lack of OD @ guards) and it decreases the rebounding and inside defense. It's just not efficient to play a 3-2 there for my team (yet), didn't even try a 1-3-1 because I think that's a dramatic tactic hehe.


Last edited by BB-Patrick at 4/8/2008 6:14:09 PM

Shot blocking is definitely 100% useless right now.

The only odd thing I've experienced since the changes has been my game on Saturday night.

I'm currently 15-4, tied for tops in the league, so we're fairly decent (at least I'd like to think so). We went up against a brand new team playing their very first game, and we got smoked by 30 points. It was never close. They killed us in the first half from outside, building a twenty-something halftime lead that we never recovered from.

We used a 3-2 defense against their Run and Gun, but my SG is the only good perimeter defender, so I can understand if we get torched from outside. They also destroyed us on the boards with a +26 margin.

I just didn't think a new team would have very many good players, so getting crushed like this was pretty shocking.