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I think increasing the shotblocking is a good move in the current game.

But the game-shape hit to new players I am not so sure. Have you taken into accounts how this can affect other areas of the game where new players are needed other than renting for cup matches? (as division change or rebuilding situation)

Yes, we have take into account the side effects and will keep evaluating these based on the response we get now by announcing it one season early. So thanks a lot for the feedback so far.

As stated in the news item, game shape hits will be higher for high game shape players than low game shape players. Since newly promoted teams buy mostly before or in the week after the game shape reset, it is unlikely that this change will have a large effect on their performance since even if they buy after the game shape hit the change in game shape will not be large. Most of you all know that you rarely get players in 9 game shape after the first week of training (wait for the 'hey my game shape is wrong' comments that are standard every 1st training after the reset ;)).

Regarding NT players, if a player gets sold often then apparently that players isn't worth his price for the team. The players skill sets are probably inefficient for players that get sold 4-5 times in a season. The game shape change will thus also promote the creation of more salary efficient players, which will on its turn decrease the amount of high salary powerhouses which I believe is a good thing as well. For U21 draftees, there are just few teams who buy a draftee for a direct performance increase. For most teams the 18 or 19yo draft talents are not direct starters, but rather long term investments, which makes the game shape quite irrelevant.

From a realism point I also believe the proposed change will be great for BB. More often than not, players will take time to integrate into their new teams, cities, environment etc before they can perform optimally. For this reasons you also can't expect a player that moves 5 times per season to perform at his best at national teams. One 'real life' example is the Dutch National Football team, where the National Coach refused to select big players like Sneijder, Van der Vaart and Van Persie shortly after they got transfered since he believed they 'required time to get use to their new situation'. I'm not saying this always is the case, I'm sure you can find some examples where a player actually benefits from a transfer but overall this would be covered by the player being already in horrible shape at his current team, and thus the hit will be non-existent or minimal.

Regarding the comments about team chemistry on enthusiasm. If you buy players but don't field them, your old teammates will still know where and when to pass exactly like before. The arrival has no influence at all unless he plays. And if he plays, his influence is mostly on every action where he is involved, and just for a small part in the actions where he is not involved. I believe having a hit on Game Shape much better reflects the 'team chemistry' part than a hit on enthusiasm, especially when you consider what areas of BB are affected the most by the enthusiasm.

Last edited by BB-Patrick at 3/13/2013 11:37:46 AM

Hi DerMef,

We may want to make changes to the salary formula if we feel there is a need for it (basically, if the SB change seems to not be sufficient on it's own) as BB-Marin already noted in the season 22 topic.

I have to disagree with your conclusion though, mainly based on historical arguments. The Look Inside dominance is something that has not been there for an extremely long time. I remember a period of multiple seasons where Run and Gun was clearly dominating. If I'm right, the urge for managers to play Run n Gun was much higher than the current urge of playing Look Inside, even in international play, during those season.

Back then, we had the same training and salary system. Yes, for a while some of the top salaries got reduced a bit during equilibrium corrects in offseason, but essentially the training and salary system didn't change between the time of a clear dominance of RnG vs dominance of LI.

Blocks and Look inside is good in this moment
2-3 it is too weak!
Stronger 2-3 will produce fear of playing look inside and low post

I'm not sure if that was ment as a remark or not, but since it was quoted later on I just want to confirm that the change indeed makes 2-3 stronger.

I have to disagree with your conclusion though, mainly based on historical arguments. The Look Inside dominance is something that has not been there for an extremely long time.

When R&G was the preferred tactic back in season 12 I bought 3 talented 18 year olds to train.
Back then, the elastic effect wasn't known yet, but the salary formula had been pretty much figured out and salary calculators started to appear.
I pondered a lot on how to train my players and what kind of team I wanted to build and came to the conclusion that the best way is to play look inside, because it's the most salary efficient way.
Of course, many more people came to that same conclusion and started training their players accordingly.

So, my theory is that as soon as the salary formula was figured out and managers could calculate which is the most efficient way to build a team, more and more managers started to train "look inside players".
Now that these players are all fully trained, we're seeing the look inside dominance in full effect.

You're right, the training and salary system didn't change. What changed was that managers figured them out and adjusted the way they played the game.

If you will increase the strength block skill and players with block 8 or 9 will be more effective in the defence then after two, three seasons when everyone will already have players with block 15 you will be reducing the strength of the block
Maybe increasing strength 2-3 tactics only is better?

In this moment 3-2 or 1-3-1 against Run and Gun is ok
but 2-3 against Look Inside is weak

Last edited by darkonza at 3/13/2013 12:06:30 PM

I actually believe the 2-3 functions fine against LI(it's just as you said, people have 8-9 blocking max). Where it is a little too weak is how much outside offenses and base offenses dominate it, where a 3-2 can hold its own against a LI.

if you look at the nba history the highest i guess a player average in blocks was 4.0 which was done by tree rollins ( i bet not much of you heard of him )

Huh, what?

Mark Eaton - 5.56 per game in 84-85. Tree Rollins' 4.2/gm season in 82-83 barely makes the top 10.

Mark Eaton is also the career average leader with 3.5/gm. Hakeem played longer and had more total blocks, but is third on the career average per game list at 3.09. Manute Bol is second with 3.34.

Last edited by Alec Burke at 3/13/2013 3:03:39 PM

I agree, if the 2-3 was meant to help against LI, it doesn't work
not to mention the litany of fouls perpetrated by the SF

ever though about the points that the SF has the wrong skills for 2-3 and that LI isn't always the same?

you have to differ between a close range LI and a mid range LI. If your Bigs are far more stronger than your guards and your guards can pass exellent, you will have a close range LI. your bigs will take most of the shots near the rim. If your Guards are stronger, the whole play will slide to the mid range. your bigs take low percantage shots and your guards try to score more on their own. and now imagine, you are playing against a mid range LI with a 2-3 zone... yeah, you have the right defense but you defend the wrong players. if you don't believe me, take moutlinhos tool and watch through the games like i did. and you will see how the defense works, where and against what SB is effective and so on. i analized more than 500 games over the last seasons from LI, RnG, Iso, Motion over 3-2 zone, SB, defense to LCD and how the engine decides which player will play.
have fun

Quick thought on forfeiting. I have a team in my league that announced in our forums that he is quitting. He now forfeits every game so everyone that plays him gets a +50 PD. He is in the opposite conference as me so everyone in that conference gets an automatic 50 point lead on everyone in my conference which is a huge advantage come the championship game if the records are the same. Is there anyway other way to deal with forfeiting?