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GAMEPLAN HYPERBOWLROSTER BUIULDING VARIANT |
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ROB CROWTHER 11th March 2003 |
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Comments on the things that stood out to me upon the first read through of the new page: CUMULATIVE REDUCTIONS"That's similar to what we want, but instead of having players reduced effectiveness we'd simply keep a count of the reductions and make them less effective with each one, counting in the same way but opposite direction to experience." Perhaps this could be related to potential (if you're going to include potential) - getting reduced (ie. injured) reduces potential more than simply getting older. Abilities decline fairly rapidly once potential reaches zero a la Gameplan Baseball, which assumes the numeric value for player strengths rather than yes/no. MULTIPLE GAMES PER TURN"It would be possible to play more than one game per turn, so as to shorten the season and compress the action." This seems like a good idea, but how many games per turn could be a key issue. Depends to some extent the amount of worthwhile changes you can make between turns as well. Natural breaks seem to be after preseason, before postseason and, perhaps, before the bowl game. Maybe it wouldn't be necessary to have each 'segment' having the same number of games - regular season split 6/6/4 would be OK, you have the start of the season building on preseason, review your options (and have players return from long term injury?) then have the middle of the season and then either start rebuilding (play your rookies more etc - this assumes there is a limited amount of development that goes on for players throughout the season*) or have a playoff push. Nobody is likely to completely lose interest in the playoffs until after the second turn. * - on the basis that for veterans each game does not represent a large addition to their experience, whereas for a rookie/young player it does. GAMEPLAN BASEBALL"And it's not that successful in baseball. The players involved like the game a lot, but there aren't huge numbers of them." Just wondering, now that Gameplan Baseball can be played almost entirely online, if there's been any major push towards the American market? There is an American based Gameplan Baseball coach on the Yahoo! group who says PBM isn't that popular over there, so I don't know how feasible a marketing puch in the states may be, but it could be a source of new players for this version of Gameplan? BIGGER ROSTERS"Under the current rules we don't really need extra offensive linemen" So do we not get an extra lineman on the field for goaline and short yardage formations then? I'd always assumed that we did, and even if we don't, we should. I don't see how this is (or should be) any different from the current situation for WRs, DLs, LBs and DBs where we have 'spare' players that are used occasionally in specific situations. Currently it is possible to carry a spare player at most positions if you like to plan ahead and are expecting a lot of retirements at that position in the near future, and it isn't possible to do this with OL (not that I actually do this, of course, just seems unfair to me that I can't...). FATIGUE"Both fatigue and injuries would have an effect on your play calling." I'd like to turn this back to front somewhat - play calling can have an effect on fatigue. Power running teams tend to do better as the game progresses and the defense wears down, for instance. A related issue is, for instance, teams from Buffalo forced to play games in the Florida heat might suffer in fitness terms compared to the team that lives and practices in the same heat. TRADESNot that interested in them, unless the system could be particularly successful to allow trades for draft picks etc (which would give a purpose to having backups maybe) and this was possible without leaving the system wide open to abuse. I don't use trades in Gameplan Baseball and Slapshot, and I think a competitive free agent market is both more fair and more interesting. PLAY CALLINGGoing back to the multiple games in one turn idea you proposed - will we get game bonuses and game training like in Gameplan Baseball and Slapshot? So there is a possibility within your framework of chosen plays (like that idea by the way, as well as the more specific expanded playbook) to influence play calling for a particular game. INTERACTIVE DRAFTI've done these for various fantasy football leagues over recent years, and it's rare that even with a group of 12 people we can find a couple of hours that all are available. With fantasy leagues (where you are drafting your entire roster) you usually get a sortable preference list plus a number of fixed restrictions (eg. you must have 2 QBs, 3WRs, 1TE etc.) which will determine your pick automatically if you're not available at the draft. Without getting too complicated (it seems you could easily get to the point of needing to define a scripting language for defining draft rules) would it be possible to have the same sort of system? In Gameplan terms would it be possible for me to specify "draft players in this order with the proviso that I want 1 OL, 1 DL and 1 DB out of the draft"? Then the computer picks the highest player off my list that doesn't violate any of my conditions considering what I've already drafted. |
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GROUNDHOG 11th April 2003 |
CUMULATIVE REDUCTIONSI think the idea is to avoid having to convert to numerical ratings for strengths, because all the evidence so far is that the logic-driven system used for Gameplan works better. It's much clearer to the coach, especially a new one, who wants to know whether the team has the ability to run the given play or not. A numerical rating doesn't tell you that: it only means something in relation to the values that other teams have got. And it would be a huge job to convert from one system to another. Keeping a count of reductions and treating them in the opposite way to experience is an alternative to actually removing strengths from the player data. The same way as you know a rookie is less effective than a seven-year veteran with the same strengths, you know a guy with no reductions is more effective than a guy with the same strengths but several reductions. The only difficult thing to judge is whether a player with more strengths and more reductions is more effective than one with fewer strengths and fewer reductions, but that's like a natural question that you expect to have to make a guess at. Is Dan Marino with a dodgy shoulder and a gammy knee still better than a fit Jay Fielder? How dodgy is the shoulder? How gammy is the knee? Can he still throw? Can he still walk? Are the offensive line good enough that he doesn't have to move around? You don't expect a definitive answer: you just live with your decision whether it's right or wrong, and maybe never know which. GAMEPLAN BASEBALLThere used to be quite an impressive number of PBM companies in the States, although fewer than in the UK, and I think they've pretty much disappeared now. Of the ones I saw in action, all but one were paper tigers. They put up a good front but there was no substance behind it. The one I felt really knew what he was doing closed down the instant a better opportunity presented itself. None of our American GMs ever ran the game in worthwhile numbers (the income they generated was usually less than the extra insurance cost for doing business in the States). There were more people playing the game in Germany and Australia than in the USA. Which is a shame, since it was the opportunity to sell the thing in the States that was the reason I went full-time on it in the first place (instead of running it as a hobby, as I originally intended). If there was actually a thriving market for PBM games in the USA then we'd all be making pots of money rather than counting pennies to work out when we can afford the time to invest in one upgrade or another. OFFENSIVE LINEMENMissing the point, I think. You don't need an extra offensive lineman because teams don't rotate players on the offensive line, they don't make situational substitutions and they don't use base formations with six linemen. In nearly all the player positions where we have "extra" positions on the roster they're ones that come into play in the starting lineup of different teams. The exceptions are the third back (except he's a starter in many college teams) and the backup quarterback. In most cases the extra guys play even when they're not in the starting lineup because they're part of a rotation or in frequent situational substitutions. You have a second tight end, for example, because some teams start with two in the lineup, and others have two different guys that play in different situations. Many teams would have one blocking TE and one catching TE. On defence and at wide receiver teams rotate their personnel. At running back they swap them around in different situations. You wouldn't draft a star value lineman for the impact he'd have on the occasions when you send out an extra guy on the line. Not in a system where you're not expected to have star value players in every position in the starting lineup. You don't need to draft ahead of time at any position. There are free agents all over the place, and the conditional free agency rule is generating even more. INTERACTIVE DRAFTI don't think we're going to give away the plan of how we'll do this until we're actually ready to put it into play. But the intention is to get away from scripting and preference lists and do the thing properly with the coaches able to make one pick at a time in turn, in proper draft order, complete with the ability to trade draft picks. I'm told other people can't see how to do it, and that's fine with me. I know that two of the people who thought it couldn't be done changed their minds when I explained what I propose to do. It's not anything complicated, even.
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