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The idea is that this change would apply not only to LI but any tactic that a team just sets on cruise control and never changes again. If the downside of having it wrong is relevant enough you will only use this feature against teams that are really that predictable that they play the same lineup >95% of the time.

I personally see it as an extra challenge to be less predictable in my lineups like I used to be when I was still playing in the II division and could switch between outside and inside based offences to surprise opponents.

Personally I think it only makes sense to predict the offence of the opponent though and not the defense. If I'm a boring team that plays 100% Run and Gun my opponent would be correct to set a 3-2 (or 1-3-1) line-up and I shouldn't get a boost for predicting that based on my own predictability.

It's also nice to just see some bigger changes to try to improve/stimulate the tactical side of the game. What would be nice is a way to also stimulate the "new" tactics that noone ever plays like the Isolation or Box-and-1 tactics. Do we need more info on how to use them? Or are they broken?

I really don't know the BB's real intention behind this new feature but I interpret it as an attempt to persuade managers from doing the LI/M2M cruise control

The reason is pretty easy to see actually. BBs who can make drastic changes to GE don't have time for BB anymore (Charles...) and others who have time can't change the GE (Marin). They are limited in what they can do (increase/decrease cost of a skill, boost a defense etc.), so they are trying to do something within their "powers" BBs bestowed them. So far I think they've been doing great.

Last edited by Koperboy at 9/24/2013 5:51:22 AM

I honestly cant see what people are so afraid of about this new guessing feature.

(Valid) Dislike for something isn't fear. Nor is criticism.

I don't understand the comparison between the predictions of the tactics and rock/paper/scissors, simply because you will now just play rock if you are very sure your opponent plays scissors (and in some desperate cover your head and brace the impact situations). I wonder if people missed the announcement that you don't HAVE to make predictions, you have the option to do so.

I agree this is not pure blind guess like in rock/paper/scissors.
Nevertheless it drives the game it this direction. I man you will deliberately play your least favourite tactics in games that you might loose, to try to mislead you opponents. This element is still present in the game, but too a lesser extent.

It's clear for me that the guessing is not manadatory, but the point is that if you guess correctly, you get an advantage and if you guess was wrong you will have a small penalty. Facing a stronger opponent, why wouldn't I take more risks anyway. For the underdog this is a no brainer. And for the favourite this is an extra matter of concerns. This will have an impacy in sinle elimination game like PO and tournament. So the side effects would be much worse than what this new option is supposed to cure.

I'm really concerned that the guessing with tactics plus the new guessing option would overshadow strategy and planning.
And will lead to a sort of meta guessing game.

The LI dominance is not good, put peoples are just pinpointing the weakness of other offensive tactics and weakness with Z2-3 or Inside box.
For me it's a clear case were the fix is worse than the problem.

I honestly cant see what people are so afraid of about this new guessing feature. It somehow mimics real life sport where yuo know how a team plays and you prepare for it. Yes you adjust your offense/defense for it, but you can also assign special roles. One can look at this in that way.

Agreed, but for me this is what about setting offensive and defensive tactics is all about. Why duplicates the guess?

Watching EuroBasket 2013 (or the NBA) most coaches noticed the efficiency of Tony Parker for his team. They certainly try to box him or adapt their tactics. But the effective result was somewhat limited.
The players won't become better at defending him just because their coach know that Parker will drive and score a lot.
Spain had a good anti Parker plan, rotating 3 players to guard him, Parker ended the game exhausted but he scored 32pts.
It's the same thing when facing a dominant center, the coach may be aware of the threat but it might not help his players that much.
At any rates, it is not in a few days that your players will learn how to stop Dwight Howard or Parker. Although everybody know how they play.

The reason is pretty easy to see actually. BBs who can make drastic changes to GE don't have time for BB anymore (Charles...) and others who have time can't change the GE (Marin). They are limited in what they can do (increase/decrease cost of a skill, boost a defense etc.), so they are trying to do something within their "powers" BBs bestowed them. So far I think they've been doing great.

I'm afraid this is the true reasoning. How much of a spaghetti mess can the code be?

I feel like I'm kind of repeating myself here but as the worries about the prediction feature continously come down to whether or not some tactics work I will once again try to explain my point of view. I simply cannot agree with the premise that tactical imbalance is a game engine problem. The reasoning is imo flawed as it somewhat contradicts itself. If the input is wrong you cannot blame the process from giving the wrong output, you need to fix the input first.

Too often people are comparing an offense tactic with it's counterpart on defense while teams are only optimized for one of the two. At the inside spectrum people say well teams are optimized to play LI (offense), but its counterpart 2-3 (defense) is broken because nobody finds developing skillsets to fit such tactics efficient enough to try. For outside teams are optimized on OD (defense) but teams basically have low or no JR (offense) so we call outside offense tactics underpowered. This is a reasoning I cannot follow, if you want to judge the process (whether the tactic works) you first need to have adequate input. BB was never designed for each team to be able to run every tactic with maximum efficiency at every moment in time.

I believe managers first optimized player skillsets for salary and then just picked a tactic with it that would utilize these player skillsets best, which ('coincidentally') appeared to be LI. This doesn't mean that tactic is or was overpowered, but if you set a tactic with optimized input against a tactic with 'random' input which do you expect to win?

The prediction feature shouldn't be linked to a specific tactic as well. I believe the change in salary formula along with the last seasons SB changes will show its results in a few seasons from now - not immediately as still most players are trained in the same way, which is impossible to change in a single season. The prediction feature simply helps reducing the dominance of one single tactic, irrelevant of which it is - in season 5 this would have been Run n Gun, in season 24 Look Inside - as the more dominant one tactic is, the higher the incentive to switch to another as your opponent will set defense right too often.
You might compare it with a cartel problem, if you set prices with your competitors there will always be a huge incentive for one of the parties to reduce the price just a tiny bit so that the whole world would buy its products and its competitors will go bankrupt for not selling a single item. There is a clear incentive to switch from the status quo.

Last edited by BB-Patrick at 9/24/2013 11:21:28 AM