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yep, obviously I don't wanna know all the details, but there should be at least very good hints on how the engine works. If you don't have any idea of how it works what can you do? just put the player it seems to work best, there's no tactic (because you have no idea how and on what choosing another player will change the match).
An example: this week I played with a team with very good center. I decided to put my best defending center to defend him but I took another very good center to the position of PF. I really don't know if this is simply stupid and useless or a good tactic. And the dramatic thing is that noone can know (only try to guess)

You seem to overreact a bit. Have you read the "game engine" section in the Rules? It seems a good starting point to me.
Many thinks are quite intuitive, while many others you will have to learn with experience.
To answer your question. If you play man-to-man defense it is always 1vs1 play from players in the same position (C vs C, PF vs PF...). If you chose a zone defense, there will be a contribution from players in the same zone, like in reality.
But be careful. if you played 2-3 defense and your C is your best defender... you get a boost for defending the painted area with 3 players, but your C will help PF and SF more than they help him. So I guess that zone defense is better suited to help your weak spot than to reinforce your best position.

If you could help us out a bit by suggesting where we could improve them

I'll review all the sections for outdated and incorrect items, including why I think they are outdated and incorrect. I won't get into the game engine mechanics at all because they obviously need not be revealed.

I'd say 'Help" forum is full of hints ;)

I'm in this for two days, but I've already had trouble finding in the rules:
1/ how enthusiasm influences play (it's in the news section)
2/ where I can find my team's current enthusiasm level (you hid it pretty deep - at setting orders, I found it by accident when I'd already quit looking)
3/ if injuries lasting only till the end of the game can happen (got help in the forum)

There's probably much more. Check out the popular newbie questions and decide which can be answered in the rules.

PS Another importang miss: how the staff hiring works. I assume you get a new random set of 3 every week (starting which day?) but that's just my impresion after following some discussions.

Last edited by NormalnieJaś at 3/31/2008 12:40:56 PM

If you are interested, I redid the 'Games' section of the rules. However, it is too long to put in a BB-mail. How would I get it to you?

If you accept the input from a newie I'll try to do so. I am biased though, since I come from HT and the dinamics are pretty the same in many aspects (a BB player not coming from the same background might find other things difficult as well).

As a previous summary, the most important thing in these kind of games (I'm convinced about that) is to have clear elements to infer over them. i.e., it is really necessary to know exactly what each skill contributes at, of course no the exact ammount.

One example is jump shot and inside shot (I hope these are the proper names since I have it in spanish). Another important fact is when individual hab. (1 vs 1) are taken into account and when the global hab. plays the key role. Making a paralelism with HT, there I know that the important thing is global team hab. (midfield, attack, defence) and the one who scores is simply chosen random. On the other side you've got special events where only 1 vs 1 hab. and you gotta find the balance between those two. But each time a player scores, you KNOW he did because of the attack ratings (contribution of a set of players that you know as well). How much each player does contribute is another thing, something we should research and find. Of course it is also quite nice to know that a stricker contributes more than a midfielder to this rattings.

Here in BB is very difficult to know that, and the prove is that anyone answered me that basic doubt properly.

In terms of newies, people is completely lost because they don't have a clear explanation of what matters at each point of the match, you gotta base everything in your intuiution on how the match engine works (and this is not nice)

I'll ask in my group how they see that topic and how do they feel about the ammount of info a newie get

by the way, do you play/know how ht works? because I'm talking in here about ht as if it was familiar to everyone in the world :p


Thanks for answering in this thread, it is very useful to get users input and I'm glad you do

Hi, I also came here from HT, but after some months playing, in my opinion BB only apparently resembles HT. I mean that the surface is very similar but the game engine has nothing to do, and this is why people are often claiming about losing a game with better ratings.
I think we all know more or less what is affecting a shot: the individual defense/attack comparison, also the team defense/attack, the quality of the shot (as one assisted shot is taken with no defense or lower defense), experience and stamina should have an effect, the distance to the basket and of course a % of luck.
And I disagree with you, I don´t prefer to know everything and I prefer to use my intuition. You will see that after some time most things will be clearer. I play hattrick, but at this moment it is all so clear and predictable that I spend 5 minute in setting my line-up, hours in the market to buy better players, and of course a comparison with real soccer will lead you to disaster. In BB, anyone with some knowledge of real basketball has a lot of advantage.
Regards.

I agree with ebustelo. I know almost nothing about game engines, the rules, or computers in genereal. I know alot about basketball, having played it for over 20 years years, watched it over thirty, and coached it for a few. My team is pretty good.

I can tell you this much about real basketball- the better all-round you are, the better you are. Two of the greatest of all-time, Jordan and Bird, are great exmples of this. Bird could shoot from anywhere on the court, he had great positioning which helped him be a fantastic rebounder even though he could only jump about six inches off the ground, he could use either hand to shoot and dribble, and he was the best passing forward ever. Jordan was a driver and high flyer, but he worked on his jump shot so that he became a dead-eye from deep as well. Plus he was relentless on defense and had great anticipation.

Why am I saying all this? Well, if you train your players so that they have decent levels in lots of skills, your team will probably do pretty well. Mine has. Also, it is very important to scout your opponent and try to counter his tactics. Some teams play the same tactic every week, making it fairly easy to decide how to play against them. On the other hand, you should try to mix up your tactics so other teams can't peg you.

Lastly, in real basketball, if you ain't in shape and you can't shoot free throws, you're gonna lose. In other words, make sure you train free throws and stamina.

ps- If you have any questions about real basketball tactics or skills or anything, send me a pm. I'll try to help and it might translate to BB.

Hi,

first of all thanks for the input. But I do know a little bit about basketball, I like it and I used to play it. But the problem is that some things are not realistic, for example, a block is 1 vs 1 option (although irl a center is likely to block a shot from the guard, let's say). This is just a not-very-important example, but just one where the intuition fails. I mean, it is nice that intuition is used, but at some extent. Having two abilities which overlap (in intuition and concept) as jump shot and inside shot makes no good at all and should be clarified. Everybody agrees that not everything should be clarified, but my claim is that for a newie everyting is too "hazy", unclear and mixed up.


@ ebustelo: I know it is not like HT, thanks god I understood that from the very begining because I searched into the forum and I was lucky to find a comment on that. But the point is that I should know for example what ability does what exactly and some simple game engine dinamics. I don't know if when a player dive he neeeds inner shot or jump shot to score (I guess the first), but of course there exist many other examples (probably better than this one)

I understand very well what you mean, but in my opinion, as this is just a game, one big part of the game (for me) is to try to find out what is happening inside the game engine. For example, if you want to check whether the inside shot is important for a SG, just check what happens when you use a good player in inside shot as SG. So, we don´t know much about the engine, but the engine is very clearly exposed in each live match, with this fantastic viewer.
Of course the game is not a perfect simulation of basket, and I see the developers changing things to make it better, and as far as I know, this is the best basket simulation I have found.

Anyway, I agree with you that some parts of the engine could be clarified. For example, the offensive flow, which is quite important, I think, for the final score and pretty hard to figure out what is taking place in order to set the number and quality of asistences.

well, it might seem that I'm complaining a lot about that game, but I like it :p

It has a lot of positive things and it is, as you all mention, incredibly realistic as a basketball simulator. But I think it has quite a lot to improve in order to catch the attention of those who might be just occasional players and do not want to make large numbers and studies. This should be a playing option (of course worst than studying the match engine in terms of results).

And for a newbie, who is not yet very into the game, how things are explained is pretty discouraging