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As I’ve been convinced for a long time that SB isn’t underpowered but undertrained (just sort the TL on minimum 13 SB and compare the amount of results with minimum 13 ID), I don’t think you should be too worried about the change in SB being very drastic. Yet, testing needs to determine the magnitude of the change.

Then why make a change? Isn't there a test environment out side of production scrimmages/private league that can be used to simulate changes first?

It may be that your remarks are based on questionable assumptions.

By logical reasoning - as I'm not a tech-dev and thus don't know the GE code - if your guards drive inside during a Look Inside, why do you assume only the direct guard matchup defends? And why do you assume that ID is the most important skill in defending? Maybe that would be the perfect situation for Shot Blocking to step in, right? I mean, the spare times I was able to block players in my real life amateur league is when I stepped in from 3 as a help able to block a smaller guard driving in. It's by far the easiest way to block, having a big man waiting for a small dude to drive into his crowded area.
Yet you only speak about ID and neglect the SB. I'm not saying that's how the Game Engine works, but I could imagine SB is of much higher value than ID in such a situation.

Same goes for the way you talkk about Outside Shooting. To me it seems like the most important thing to shoot from the outside would be to have range, right? I could have a perfect jumpshot but that doens't mean I can shoot from outside the bucket. Yet again, I don't see Jump Range being mentioned even once in your post ;)

brian

Then why make a change? Isn't there a test environment out side of production scrimmages/private league that can be used to simulate changes first?

The game should always support multiple roads to succes. I cannot remember exactly when Charles started his "go-train-SB" campaigns, but I guess that was over 10 seasons back. Still I doubt we saw clear change in global training regimes (yes, I know a few tried). Apparently the majority of the managers doesn't feel a skill like SB is cost effective enough to train. So where does this assumption come from? Is SB itself a problem, are there not enough altered shots? Is it the way SB effects are displayed? Is it because many consider SB a secondary skill and then they feel it has become too far behind to have value to train it? Is it because the salary effects are too high? etc etc. Many questions, few answers. But probably we can improve something in game design if many tactics are being ignored because people don't value the skillsets required for these tactics. As having just a few tactics to choose from doesn't benefit the game I think we should try to make the other tactics more attractive (or the dominant less dominant). We have some ideas how we can do this the best way, and that's what we'll be testing.

Last edited by BB-Patrick at 2/28/2013 12:34:49 PM

As I’ve been convinced for a long time that SB isn’t underpowered but undertrained (just sort the TL on minimum 13 SB and compare the amount of results with minimum 13 ID), I don’t think you should be too worried about the change in SB being very drastic. Yet, testing needs to determine the magnitude of the change.

Then why make a change? Isn't there a test environment out side of production scrimmages/private league that can be used to simulate changes first?

Let's just say that for assisted shots, they added a change that said "Defender X attempted to rotate over but was too late" or something to indicate that a shotblocking opportunity had been missed, maybe one that he would have been able to stop with a few more levels of SB skill. Imagine further that this happened, maybe, 10 times per game. Obviously, without adjusting the actual balance of the engine one iota, suddenly SB would be much more highly valued and perhaps achieve the desired effect with minimal change.

Of course, it may well be that this wouldn't be nearly enough or that this isn't what they were doing or the numbers and idea that I just pulled out of my backside were better left there. But there is change and there is CHANGE and it's just too soon to know what this is going to be.

Build bigs with good outside game and ID/RB/SB high and then buy good LI guards and you'd have a team so cheap you could get in a lot of depth in your team and even a bit more primary skills on all players and still have a lower salary then many LI teams. If you make sure to have good PA on all the players i think you could do real well.

Well, but you and I both know that it'll only be valued once someone wins with that, and who among B3 particpants is going to forego six or seven seasons of being highly competitive for world hono(u)rs to take the time to build two or three such big men? They certainly aren't heavily represented on the TL, so this is something one has to do personally and when given the alternative of just buying more of the same cookies on the TL, nobody's going to take the risk of baking a cake.

Really, though, it's our fault as a userbase. If the game world was full of people training defensive big men such as you propose and outside shooting guards, the teams that are winning the titles now would be playing those offenses instead, because that's what they could get on the TL.

In another return to the topic, I think but am not certain that the game manual used to specify that the "and one" defender on the box and one tactics was the best defender of that type, but now it simply says the fifth defender. Is there any consideration being given to revealing how the "and one" defender is being selected or allowing the user to select this individually?

Let's just say that for assisted shots, they added a change that said "Defender X attempted to rotate over but was too late" or something to indicate that a shotblocking opportunity had been missed, maybe one that he would have been able to stop with a few more levels of SB skill. Imagine further that this happened, maybe, 10 times per game. Obviously, without adjusting the actual balance of the engine one iota, suddenly SB would be much more highly valued and perhaps achieve the desired effect with minimal change.

This would change the whole way we see the game without changing the actual Game Engine.

Everyone that is building for LI is saying how cheap it is to build a team for it and that SB only is expensive. But perhaps they need to look another time on what actually is expensive.

There is one simple truth that many don't understand: You can't play Look inside on the highest level and defend Look inside on the same level.

You can have a big with either:

- 20 IS, 20 ID, 20 RB and 5 SB (Brilliant LI offense, poor LI defense)

- 5 IS, 20 ID, 20 RB and 20 SB (Poor LI offense, brilliant LI defense)

- 14 IS, 14 ID, 14 RB and 14 SB (Decent LI offense, decent LI defense)

First one can play LI, but can't stop it.
Second one can defend LI, but can't play it.
Third can defend and play LI, but not on the highest level.

People complained because they couldn't put 15 SB on first player because of salary concerns.

Of course you can't do it! You want to have Shaq (offense), Howard (defense), Rodman/Love (Rebounding) and Ibaka/Mutombo (SB) all in one player. You just can't!

Is there any consideration being given to revealing how the "and one" defender is being selected

Marin already revealed it. It was a little bit tricky to find out because he wrote alot around the acctual topic, but search and you will find it