Things the AI of the single player game needs to change.

1. Correctly value expiring contracts.
2. Consider players with bird years in trades with players that dont have bird years and will leave.

Player Creation From Stat Input Suggestions

1. I have a theory that one reason that post players on STB and FBB shoot such low percentages is particially because good rebounders and blockers tend to get A level defense. Im curious to see if the post player defenders were lower if they would shoot better.

2. Post players dont seem as significant in this game. They dont score as much or as consistently. I think that one way to make up for that is giving them more jump shot, partially because scoring post players usually do have a good mid-range jumper and do not actually score most of their points in the paint. Amare, Jermaine Oneal, Tim Duncan, etc. Since FBB and STB tied JS to FT ability, this was problematic, but if FT is separated then a scoring post player should have some short range JS.

3. Also wonder if one reason that post players are blocked so much is possibly because all the shot blocking is really against the other post players and not from post defense against cutters.

4. Scorers - This has been a problem in the past. Scorers with poor shot selection are hard to sim with STB and FBB currently. AI in some generated rosters must be heavily edited to be what people really want to see - a scorer. I am thinking that perhaps the program should consider total points scored when creating the player. Perhaps even giving the player benefit of the doubt that on a better team, the player might have better shot selection.

5. Shooters - Had a big problem with guys like Steve Kerr of the championship Bulls teams. He was shooting so well, the game thought him to be a scorer and he performed like Michael Jordan. So perhaps something should be dont to try and separate shooters from scorers.

6. Defenders - The game seems to use rebounds, steals, blocks and fouls to determine defense in player generation from stats. However, players who lead in steals tend to gamble too much on them and are actually horrible defenders. Some players can get many blocks and rebounds, but dont actually play good defense.

Alternative Solution - Guys like Trenton Hassel, Dennis Rodman, Bruce Bowen all tend to not really see alot of other stats, not many steals, blocks, etc. I was trying to find some stat to indicate defense and one thing I did find is that most defenders that start get horrible stats across the board. So that might be a good flag for the system that these are defensive stoppers. Of course there are the Kobe Bryants and Ron Artests, but there are really not very many good defenders amoung the elite scorers.

Basically, the suggestion is that if a player starts or plays significant minutes without much stat production, that player may be an elite defender. Especially if the player starts.

7. Making pathetic post players too good. Had a problem on a roster I saw with Muresan on it. Seemed to be that the game saw a high shooting percentage and made him into Shaq. Perhaps this can reflect back to seeing the total points scored.

Player Abilities

1. Free Throw - FBCB was perfect in getting that sorted out.

2. Clutch - Kobe, Horry, Reggie Miller - I was thinking that this should be an increased chance to hit 3pters or important shots in the last 2 minutes of 4th quarters. ALSO - Perhaps make them more deadly in the playoffs.

ALSO - those with LOW clutch scores tend to do horribly under such pressure - Keith Van Horn, Peja Stojakovic, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, etc. For very low scores, they cant get it together for most of the game. For Middle to low scores, they cant hit game winning shots, like a penalty for shooting the ball in the last 2 minutes of a 4th quarter. This should only be for playoff games or rivals or teams jockeying for playoff position.

Middle score players dont fold under the pressure, but dont have that "killer instinct" that guys like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant do. Guys like Shaq and Scottie Pippen. They dont fold or underperform, and they sometimes get a shot, but they arent guys that seem to actually do better on clutch shots.

3. Work Ethic - I was thinking this might be a way to go with something that might "Create" a small amount of extra potential. Like a low potential player who works hard to become a defensive stopper even if the potential doesnt seem to be there. Im thinking it might be redundant with potential as its handled in FBCB.

4. Leadership - I think this one is crucial. If the game has "Team Chemistry" types of attributes (which I will suggest later) I was thinking players with this attribute could be a way of mediating bad team chemistry and also a valuable component (or required component) of a contending team. Locker room leaders that are a calming influence like Vlade Divac or others.

Mid scores have no impact on team attitude. Low scores upset team chemistry and need to be compensated with good influences.

5. Stamina - Like FBCB, but I would like to point out some applications to it. One is that it can be used to keep talented rookies acting like rookies. And most importantly, Vets. When veteran players age, they have the skill but not as much stamina (as well as less jumping ability and speed). When I had some bigs that played at top form as starter until they were 39 and immediately retired, that seemed excessive. I was thinking that they can play at that level, but not for extended periods of time. Also like Robert Horry has said many times, the playoffs are easier for him because of the big break between games.

Player Motivations

1. Hometown - Desire to play in the town they when to college in or home town (would necessitate adding hometown to player info). This should be weighted in such a way that it doesnt have the same weight as loyalty or play for a winner, but if a winner is also the players hometown it should have a cumulative effect.

2. To be "The Man". If a team has several elite players, some players may perfer to be the undisputed franchise player. Can help to add a franchise player to a struggling team that has no franchise player. Online leagues tend to evetually have a few team create mega-teams in trades. I think this can help to prevent a team having too many elite players that are happy about that.

3. Market Size - Like hometown, should be a secondary motivation, but if a big market has the room for a player and the cap space it should have added weight. Honestly, if NY had no franchise player and had the cap space to sign a few major players I really doubt they would lose too many of them. The money would be hard to ignore from endorsements. This could also be a factor of how much "nightlife" the city had to offer. Truly, this is not as big of a motivator as it was when Kareem ditched Milwaukee for LA. However, Kobe was offered incentives from Nike just to listen to Isiah Thomas about coming to NY.

4. To be a starter - I think players should consider in free agency if a team if overloaded at their position. Just as Chris Webber right now would prefer to be on a winner, but a winner that he can start on. Other players like Michael Finley were not so concerned about that and would not factor it in so heavily.

Basketball Mechanics

1. The rebounding Problem - Right now STB averages about 8 or 9 more rpg than the NBA. I tried to engineer the game to not do that, and it ended up giving more rebs to guards and SFs. It wont seem to get around that.

2. Small Forwards - FBB and STB dont input SFs from stats very well, many do not score well.

3. Postion problems with Cs and PFs at SF - I have seen leagues where 20-10 centers are put and SF and they dominate. I think the FBCB system of defining positions solves this, but it bears noting.

4. Mega Point Guards from SGs and SFs - a similar problem where SFs and SGs with high passing and handling to simulate real world assists and TOs do very well at their position, but some league allow them to be put at PG were they become ridiculously good. Once again the FBCB system should solve this. I had a work around were I took -20 to handling and passing to any SG or SF moved to PG and it seemed to solve the problem.

5. High assist C and SFs. Its very hard to simulate Wilt Chamberlain the years when he was averaging huge assists. Also very hard to simulate Scotty Pippen and Boris Diaw. Might be better under some FBCB's motion offense.

6. Low Assist PGs - Guys like Eric Snow, Jason Terry, and Gilbert Arenas tend to get shoved to SG in all the leagues I've seen if they are getting accurate assists. Also guys like Mike Bibby had high assists in Memphis, but not so much in the Kings motion offense. I think FBCBs motion offence might cure that, but it bears mentioning.

7. I ran some simulations and compared some information and I think the overall defense in FBCB generated rosters are too high and result in lower overall FG%. Mostly in the post. I think it might be more realistic if post defense is a bit lower. I have seen lots of GMs in many online leagues thinking they can build a team built on defense that wins. It never works out at all. Only high scoring teams win and if that team also has high defense, it wins. Nobody can re-create the success of the Detroit Pistons.

8. PLAYING TIME - One important aspect to rookie development is PT. It is a very important concept that rookies who see no pt ALSO will not be playing 5 on 5 basketball that year. Players must play to develop.

ALSO - some teams want to focus on rookies and its important to give those GMs the feeling that by playing rookies and losing they are still getting something of value for their team.

9. Vet Aging - Skills of vet players should not really decrease at all, but physical attributes do. Speed and Jumping should decrease, however the player should do much better in smaller minutes, which can controlled by a stamina stat.

Also - should be considered that vets will play well when they have rest between games, as Robert Horry has stated many times that he has a hard time in the regular season schedule, but gets much needed rest between games.

Also - Its interesting that for Dikembe Motumbo and Alonzo Mourning managed to really do well after about 2 seasons each of extended bench time they stepped in to be able to handle 30 minutes a game really well. I think that could be simulated by increasing some stamina on a vet after a year of rest after recovering from an injury (on the bench, no more than 15 mpg) Then a year of not going over 20mpg year average as a backup. Then the player is not so banged up to step in as a starter. However the player must not BE a starter, must be a reserve asked to fill in for an injury with his current team.

Game Strategies

If Online coaching is not possible, then perhaps this would be:

1. The excellent depth charts and strategy options of FBCB.

2. Allowing options to sim by quarter. After one quarter of a playoff game is done, the GMs can download a file showing the game and how it went including a play-by-play and may upload a file with a new strategy and depth chart.

3. Contingencies - sort of an if-then type set of contingencies to change strategy. Like "use this lineup if we are getting outscored" or "use this strategy if they are killing us in post play". And most importantly, when to clear the bench in a lost game to avoid injury to starters. But also to show which bench players should be played and how to try and see what each bench player can do.

4. Specific plans for specific games or teams - most online play sims 3 or 4 sim days per real-time day. It would be really nice if we could download the game file and assign specific game plans and depth charts for scheduled games. Especially, in my opinion, this allows specific defensive assignments which I would like more control over. We then upload the file just like the standard STB/FBB depth chart output file.

Playoffs

1 - Championship Swagger - I think Championship teams should get a defensive boost in the 4th quarters of playoff games to simulate thier experience in such situations. The reason I suggest this is because such teams as the Bulls and the Shaq/Kobe Lakers tendency to win games not so much by outscoring but by locking down the defense and then the clutch players take over at the very end. As a team though, the defense when it time to get it done seems a common trait.

Also - This should be something that is a bigger advantage for 2nd time and 3rd time defenders (Culmulative team aging should effect anything after 3 years, especially if vets are properly important to the lineup, a 31 year old is not 34 and not so spry). I think also teams like the Spurs who have had championships, but not consecutively, should have some ammount of swagger because they are always in contention with pretty much the same team (for the last two anyway).

Also - If champion teams trade away too many starters, more than two, the team should lose some of its champ swagger. If 3 starters have been traded, its not the same team anymore. They may still have vets and experience, but they havent been though the playoffs as a team.

2 - Playoff experience - Each players playoff experience is averaged and it adds to improve a bit of defense (not as much as champs) to show how they dont have deer in the headlights syndrome EXCEPT in a game 7.

This should also simulate the need for vets on teams. Seen too many champ teams in the game with players that are all under 30, that just doesnt happen. Vets are necessary for Champs. And when a team of rookies goes out in the 2nd round they will come back next season with experience and do a bit better.

3 - Game 7 experience - Players with lots of game 7 experience as a team tend to keep it together in game 7. Like the Pistons have.

4 - Clutch players - as mentioned above.

5 - Rivalries - The game could take note of previous tough series and recognize that tempers might flare. Teams that constantly meet each other will have rivalries that add some life to the game.

6 - PLAYOFF BRACKETS - we need some up-to-date playoff brackets to post for online leagues. This would be really cool and is a pain to create and update as a GM.

7 - Creation of clutch players - Those who make clutch plays should start to get a rep for it.

The Draft

1. One thing seems needed is some media hype to show players who are a general concensus high pick.

Perhaps there should be a game generated report of who are the most obvious high picks (although NOT all the highest potential players, just the most well known) that comes for game generated news from High school, Europe, and College.

Would really like to see it like it is in FBCB, where you have staff scouts and each month you can send the scout to see specific players. It could be just like FBCB where you really wont have enough time to have your scout look at every player.

Just like in FBCB, you dont really know scores until your scout sees them. Perhaps you can send him again to see the same player and maybe increase the accuracy of the scouting report.

2. Have the game generate key prep games, like the McDonalds All American High School Game. And send scouts to that.

3. Have the option to have players work out. Major draft candidates might only work out for all teams in the Moody Bible institute in Chicago. Candidates might agree to private workouts for individual teams.

This could further enhance existing scouting reports of a player.

4. Also get a read on player personality (or motivations) with workouts.

5. Protected Draft Picks. Ability to trade draft picks that are protected to a certain level as mutually agreeded upon and automatically defaulting to the next available pick.

Free Agency (In-Season)

1. Workouts for old vets - would like to see of Dennis Rodman can jump before snatching him away from Long Beach.

This would be a scout scheduled to view the workout and report just like he would in seeing an FBCB recruitment candidate.

2. 10 - Day contracts - This is crucial.

3. Right now and FAs left in the pool after the season is over get deleted. Would be nice to not let those guys get deleted. Would be nice to some of them join Euro leagues to get PT and develop. Remember that Ben Wallace, Brad Miller and many others did not make it in the NBA when they started out. Would be nice to see that their potentials are still working on them.

Also, Many times players with potential get passed over in the draft and later get deleted. Some have big potential, but wont be under contract long enough to see any benefit and so they get deleted. Would be nice to see some players come back like Ben Wallace once in a while.

Would be nice if we could get box scores for Euro Games with those players so we can see progress and perhaps scout them.

4. Extentions to 10 day contracts. Dont know what the particulars are. If memory serves, you offer a 10-day, then a 10 day extention, then you have to offer a contract for the rest of the season.

Expanded Leagues News

1. MUST make this output to HTML.

2. Game should note rivalries, teams that keep meeting in the playoffs and notify of in league news of such upcoming games.

3. Bubble report, for teams close to getting into the playoffs. Also should show teams statistically eliminated.

4. News from NBDL, Europe, College, and High School. Might even be nice to get box scores (might be reaching with that one, but would be nice).

5. Good place for trade demands to escalate to a public feud.

6. Game could point out major games the best winning teams.

7. Game could pick out players that are now getting more PT and making an impact.

8. Might be nice to have rumors - Rumors of who wants out. Some true, some false.

9. Also might be nice to have a "Trade Block" in the game, where you can shop a player. This can show up in the rumors and other GMs can then choose to explore that.

Offseason Free Agency

1. Would be nice if it was like the real NBA where this is a week or so of courtship with FAs before teams can make offers.

2. During this time, can arrange meetings with GM, Head Coach, Team Stars (for major starter level players), can recruit similar to FBCB.

3. Recruitment courtship would be good to gauge the likely hood of the player to go with your team. Otherwise focus on other players.

4. For lower level players, arrange workouts. Major players would be insulted by this.

5. Make the FA period longer, like recruitment is for FBCB. Allowing teams to narrow focus on specific players at a time rather than the "offer the max to all SFs that score at least 15ppg" that normally happens and sometimes you accidentally get 2 players at a position you only needed one at.

6. All staff members have a "Negotiate" attribute added to them that helps to recruit. Both Head coach and GM have it, so only one needs to be used. This can be used as "recruit" is in FBCB and should be compared against players motivations.

NBDL

1. Guys in the DL usually get paid far less than Euro league, so its usually a place to find undrafted players or very young players that were 2nd round picks that were not signed by their teams. ALSO it has the young players sent down to play by their NBA Teams.

2. NBA Sending down players. Seems like it can be done throughout the year. Was designed to allow young players to get PT. So players should get some kind of partial PT development for being sent down.

3. Allows some shuffling of roster space of the NBA team.

4. Only draft picks can be sent down and they still are paid their rookie contracts (so no cap relief their) and I believe they can only be shuffle back and forth in their first 2 years in the NBA (Could be wrong about that) and no more after that. NO free agent signees can be send down.

5. Definitely need to get some box scores from the DL to monitor progress.

6. Sent down players should become starters for their DL teams. NO WAY the NBA team will partially sponsor the team and not get their send-down the PT that is the whole reason they have the league.

Euro League 2nd round Picks

1. Like Nenad Krstic and others, the Nets picked him years ago but left him in Europe to season a few years before bringing him over. Many teams do that, I think they can keep the rights for 3 years (?) or just release the player.

2. Thats an interesting point also, 2nd round picks DO NOT have to be signed to the team. Good if you dont have roster space or you have traded for lots of 2nds.

3. Would make it nice to get box scores from Europe to keep an eye on your 2nds progress.

4. This is would SERIOUSLY increase the value of 2nds. Then you can pick long term unknown projects and not even have to sign them right now or make roster space. Let them play for 3 years and see if they are getting better OR just let them walk.

5. Also for other 2nd picks you also dont need to sign them and it doesnt count as cutting them. You just never sign them.

Trades

1. The "aggregated" trade loophole. This is the rule loophole that allowed Rasheed Wallace to be traded twice within a week (or a few days, whichever it was). The rule is states that a player cant be a part of a trade with another player with the normal 60 day time limit. So if you trade the player and not other player, the trade CAN be within the 60 day limit. He can be sent with picks and cash, but not any other players. The other side can send multiple players with no problem.

2. Trading protected picks. Lottery protected, top 5 lottery protected, top 3 lottery protected, and #1 lotter protected.

Usually if the pick goes into the protected range and goes back to the team that owned it, then the team it was traded to gets the next years pick and for less protection. So if its top 5 protected this year and it goes 4th, then the team it was traded to gets next season's pick at top 3 protection, then the next year unprotected.

The problem with this can be that the team will then trade the next years pick before anyone knows if the protected pick is good. Might be some ways to do that in the game, where the trading team must get approval to trade its next years pick and the if the protection pulls the pick back then the next available pick goes to the team that had the protected pick.

3. What is a trade exception and can we get them?

4. New trade salary differential percentage.

5. 3 way trades. Should be for online leagues only if necessary. This is very usefull for teams that have cap room and want to profit as a facilitator (and gives them something to do because being a losing team is BORING).

SUMMER LEAGUE

1. This is a chance to invite all your unsigned 2nd round picks, your new draftees, your young bench players, undrafted players, and young free agents to see how they are.

2. Send scouts to observe your players and also to see other players and see who looks good to trade for.

3. Good to see if your recent 2nd round picks are worth signing or waiting especially Euros.

4. Players CAN GET INJURED and may eliminate them from their rookie season or training camp,etc.

5. Good chance to see who you want to invite to your training camp.

Training Camp and Pre-Season Games.

1. Get to invite 2nd round picks that are unsigned, invite any undrafted or unsigned FA to participate and be over roster size limits.

2. Set team priorities for training camp. What types of offensive and defensive schemes are chosen and practiced. The more a scheme is practiced the better the team gets at it (gets a bonus for repetition).

3. Schedule Pre-season games schedule with other teams, some early ones on neutral courts.

4. Gives lots experimentation time with the new roster.

5. Injured players carry into regular season, so teams have incentive to not overplay starters.

6. Teams can have a scale of practice intensity. More intense practice leads to inceased possibility of injuries, however more intense practice gives better team execution of defense and offense.

7. Otherwise, in the model of the pre-season of FBCB.

Team Chemistry

1. Team players attitudes should make up basis of chemistry.

2. Head Coach should have a new attribute (and really for all staff), Respect. This is sort of the strength of the coach and should be based off of winning record and tenure and # of coaching championships and playoff appearances and all-star players coached. So a Greg Popovich can handle an Artest type player where as a Maurice Cheeks just doesnt have the pull.

If the coach has low respect, but the team has a good attitude, then his is in balance.

However if they team has a bad attitude it might be easier to fire a coach and higher one that commands respect.

3. Lame duck coaches. If the coach is in the final year of contract and did not get an extention, the team will be more likely to tune him out. This also means the game would need to allow extentions for staff.

4. Trade demands. Players making trade demands will effect team chemistry.

5. Teams with attitude problems can also try to find players with high leadership. They can be like Avery Johnsons last seasons and spend all day on the bench, but still help the chemistry. This can add value to some players who normally would drop off the map.

6. Clear-the-air meetings. If a player has been really been having a problem, then either the coach or GM or both can use their negotiate skill to try and win over the player. If successful, then the player gets a neutral attitude for 6 months to see if his primary grievance get addressed (losing team, PT, contract extention, etc) or perhaps they agree to trade him if he would be so kind as to play well and not disrupt the team while they hunt for a deal.

This type of meeting can only be done once per season per team.

Database Access

Would love to be able to do many types of stat crunching on the database itself if it could be uploaded.

There are several viewers that are free that can be used to look up many times of stat breakdown.

Patricia's Various Basketball Stuff.

This is an excellent source for information on the NBA collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

All posts I have made where I have said I dont know or am not sure about the precise NBA rules, this is the place to find out for sure.

Way down at the bottom there are links for the NBA CBA.

http://www.nationwide.net/~patricia/

Used that infomation to make workarounds to try and simulate many of the suggestions I have posted into Sim League One, but its a huge pain to manually track all this stuff.

Injuries

1. Would like to see league options to turn off all these suggestions to follow, individually.

2. Indeterminate injury lengths. No more "Out 53 days". More like "Out at least a month", "Out for the season", Out for 3 months" type messages. After half that time, get a team email saying the player is doing well or is not progressing or now needs surgery. And those messages would be like "Might be back a week early", "Is recovering on schedule", "Still troubled by injury, might need surgery".

3. May have career debilitating injuries. Such as Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, and Jay Williams. And would also like to have it so that they may actually recover, as in the case of Grant Hill. Or they might be permanently limited like Penny. Or they might eventually after several years of not even being under contract be able to come back like we all hope Jay Williams might.

4. Diminished capacity after injured time off. Player wont perform at top level until he has had a good month, more or less, to get back into condition. Productivity suffers and may come back in a week, a month, or perhaps not until the next season after a summer off.
4. Nagging Injuries - Like in Total Pro, as players are coming back they can be pushed back into the starting lineup risking further injury or eased back in. Also players might get minor injuries and teams face risk of playing and re-injuring or resting the player or playing him off the bench. Or even spending a whole season limited to 25-30 minutes PT like the 1st year Z got back after repeated foot injuries.

Height and Weight Training

1. Many young draftees are still growing in height or are incorrectly reported before the draft. (Also some teams just plain falsely state height, such as the "7-foot" Hakeem Olajuwan). Would be nice to see some players get that.

2. Weight - Many players definitely gain weight over time and most post player draftees get on weight programs to get an "NBA Body". This can happen for quite a while into a players career.

3. Would be nice to have a weight training program you can put your bigs on that can add a random ammount of mass - between 5 and 25 lbs per year for a max of two years for bigs and 5 to 15 lbs per year for SFs and guards. The mass should add strength decrease speed for guards and SFs.

Multi-Edit Players

1. A screen where you can sort a type of player and edit all of them. When creating a roster I really would like to have this to compare players be able to set certain levels of abilities in a heirarchy.

For example, Jumping ability, I would like to list all SGs and SFs so I can compare who is realistic. This helps me assure the right players end up in the slam dunk contest and not some players the game just really didnt guess right on. And also to be able to set the elite and then set the others realitive to them. Same with Speed, Strength and especially Defensive stats.

2. Would also be nice to sort by positions, teams, etc.

3. Would be nice to also be edit to motivations and other players stats in that way for the same reasons.

Staff

1. Staff should be able to be fired.

2. Staff should be able to be promoted to fill vacancies both in the offseason and also in the event of firing.

3. Should be a pool of open staff players that can be hired mid-season.

4. Staff should have potential and get better with time, just like players.

5. Should have staff like in FBCB. GM, Head Coach, Assistant Coach, Scout.

6. Using scouts as suggested in many other posts on this thread. For scouting players, scouting out other teams favorite strategies, Scouting potential players you might want to trade for, scouting your own players to get a clearer idea of your weaknesses, scout potential FAs for recruiting in the offseason.

If I cant figure out why I keep loosing, it sucks to not be aware that your A- defense small forward has really low perimeter defense, but very high post D. Thats one reason 3pters are killing you. SURELY a team coach can see that about his players or at least a scout can point it out to him, he can see who is fast and who isnt, he can see who is a good post defender vs a good blocker, etc.

7. New attributes:

Respect - This is the coaches credibility and ability to motivate players. Used to offset bad team chemistry.

Negotiate - Used by GMs to recruit FAs, Used by Head Coaches OR GMs in clear-the-air meetings.

Locking Out Exhibition Games on League .Sav Files

I used to endlessly sim exhibition games until I found the right combo to defeat a team.

To avoid this in SLO, we did not release the save file, but that mean many features of FBB/STB couldnt be used.

Would be nice to just be able to toggle off the ability to run exhibition games.

Stats

1. Split stats for each player per year/team.

2. Ability to see teams stats from a given timeframe. After many trades, the team stats mean nothing because that team is no longer your team. So would be nice to see that. Helps to confirm you remedied problems that the team stats page brought to light.

3. Ability to sort per 48 in greater detail and from specific timeframes.

4. Fouls per game more prominent, team pages dont list it and it can be very important.

Waiver Wire

1. Claiming waived players. Team with the worst record and cap room can claims them.

2. Takes 48 hours to clear waivers.

3. Teams should then be able to recruit big players over a period of time like FAs before they make their decisions and should be bid for like FAs. Some teams will still have an MLE or LLE to use, Etc.

Salary Cap and Team Budget

Did not really find the Team Budget system working well in online play and would like to have a toggle to turn it off, salary cap system is fine, but the hard stop at team budget can cause problems.

Buying Out Contracts

More and more popular lately. Apparently it takes the player off the cap. Can be done as a work around, but needs to have some kind of tangible pain for doing it.

I pulled up FBCB and reviewed some things.

On the edit player Screen, I was thinking that my comment about differentiating shooter from a scorer might be handled by the 3pt Usage Stat.

The Fouling attribute is one thing I completely forgot and was a great idea from FBCB.

Stamina is in there, but my suggestions on it were most meant to get a handle on the performance of players nearing retirement.

The coach editing feature and different coaching styles is excellent.

The Neutral exhibition game feature was a very good idea.

The concept of a coaching career, im not sure about for the pro game. Because your sort of the VP of Basketball Ops, GM, AND the Head Coach.

Some of these are more radical that others, This is the most radical:

Honestly, I wanted to try and do all this myself on my own game. But I dont have the time to learn the programming. I just want to play it. All of this information was from the experience of putting together Sim League One, still running since June of '04. I had to leave because the grind was too much for me, but Sativa417 and Grizteam41 have kept it running and improved upon it.

The game as a standalone is very fun, but limited over time (Unlike FBCB). However, the online game is so addictive, its seems to me the only reason leagues tend to fold in 3 seasons is because of the following reason more than anything: Commish burnout. Usually caused by the daily commitment to maintaining the game, league member inactivity, and general upkeep of the site.

So these would be the suggestions for the ultimate low-maintance league:

A server dedicated to hosting league sites, run by Grey Dog.

What would this do?

1. Eliminate all the overhead tech it takes to create a site! Everybody who wants to host a league has to learn what it takes to make a website, finding a host (with no freakin popups or trojans!), learning basic html, finding hosts that are designed to allow ftp upload (I CANNOT tell you how hard it was for me to find a free site that supported FTP, those stupid html upload applets only let you do about 10 files at a time and each individual one had to be selected one by one. It was MADDENING!), learning how to use ftp, learning what to upload. Staying by the thing for 45 minutes every day to make sure it didnt timeout and now Im loosing another 45 minutes to get it back on track, Making sure the bandwidth allowance is adequate (wasnt usually on the early free sites we used), exceeding disk space, using a friends free host who then disappears, getting kicked off because keeping the .sav file on the server violated legal files to have on the server (only web files were allowed), etc.

2. All the pages right now available to upload are static html. If we instead upload a database file directly to a server that is set up to understand that file, we can make dynamic web pages. (The difference being that when you go on Ebay and search for "Fennis Dembo Jersey", there isnt a page already made up that comes up [like it does for FBB]. Instead, a query is run on its database of auctions at that moment available and a page that has never been available is created showing that item). This way, we can REALLY do some searchs of what players between the ages of 21-24 had 15+pts and at least 5 assists and 5 rebounds in February who have a contract uner $5M per season. It would completely automated and completely up to the minute and would greatly appeal to the stat hound in all of us.

3. Control salary cap, through league member activity, not through random owner personalities. Those active on the forums, posting articles on their league, participating in events, those members should be allowed to have a Mark Cuban, while others who barely show up should have the Don Sterlings. Those who are active are the life of the league with editorials, articles, mock drafts constantly reply to the posts of others on the forums (the life of a league is conversation on the forum without exception), they keep the leagues alive and vibrant and as compensation for that valuable content, they get paid with the only currency we have to give - an owner that will pay the luxury tax. We worked out a system to gauge this activity vs. luxury tax and some spreadsheets for Sim League One, and it works very well (but is alot of work, since its not automated.

4. AUTOMATION - SO MUCH could then be automated, the GM can concentrate on other things that learning and admining a website.

5. Consistency - The experience of the league member would not now totally depend on the commitment and web experience of the commish, which affects how the game is impresses new members who dont yet own it.

6. The KILLER application -

The one thing I cannot stand about the playoffs, is the total lack of control in playoff games.

If individual games can be coached live, that ends that frustrating lack of control and NOW you can feel like you truly had some kind of influence.

This game is not about graphics, that is NBA Live's thing. This game is about management and coaching. If we could coach games live through a server portal, then we have the ultimate game.

I really dont care if it was all the same screen you see on STB. I just want to have some control. I would swap coaching games live for graphics any day and I think most of those who know the game would rather keep their team under their control than see spectacular dunks and lose a game 7 with no influence on the outcome other than the depth chart.

I know we may not be anywhere near that type of game right now, but Brian, this is the key to truly busting out. Until leagues stop dying out, the addictive nature will be severely limited by the issues above.

One things that may not be obvious from that post is that I would propose two ways to play the game on a server:

One where 4 days or so are simmed per day in real world, and perhaps coached in the playoffs.

An option should be available for leagues that will can sim many or most regular season games live to gain the familiarity with the team necessary to really do well in the playoffs.

The tradeoff would be that simming a whole season would go by very slowly and really limit trading which is one major attraction of the game. Can you imagine how dead the forum might be after the trade deadline in one of those leagues? Well, also one might point out that league would have more to talk about on individual games.

So simming 4 days would be for those who prefer the trading aspect of games, and the other for those who like to coach them.

Some form of scheduling will have to be set up. A page where all teams can show what hours they would be available for live games. People who cant make it will just be simmed normally. Those who what to coach, but have no live opponent could play the CPU if the other team's GM/Coach is unavailable.

A server would be overwhelmed with alot of live games all the time. So perhaps the home team's CPU would run each game - home game advantage? Or maybe even better yet, the home team gets to decide which CPU runs it.

Another MAJOR advantage to a server based game.

Automate GM decisions. When the player logs on to the website to do his depth chart, we will get reminds of required decisions and WONT let him set the chart until he does them:

Things like power polls, votes on league issues, Making FA bids, Making a draft list in case he gets sidetracked, notifications of league rules changes and general business, Reminder that he is too inactive for his current salary situation, decisions needed on contracts, etc - etc.

I get really fed up of having only 1/3 of one of the most active leagues ever voting on important topics. This would ensure participation and take the "GM herding" part of the commish's job out of the equation.

as i was just confronted with (and not for the first time) :
the possibility to simply copy paste the season stats of an nba player into the new "create player"-section. imagine draftfiles finished in 5 minutes... (without corrections)

(of course you would need something like a reference-site with all the statistics in the right order to use it with fbb, as for example www.basketball-reference.com)

and everything mojojojo suggested.

You work on a FBB new version for 2010 ?

In suggestions, pictures of players for a best presentation

Many many great ideas here....

I think a Euroleague would be great (DDSPB is doing it for their new version and it sounds awesome)...and D-League is a must!!

But basically I'd like to see it be similar to FBCB 2010 with new enhancements that improve the pro game.

Yeah an Euroleague system

Possibility to choose number of team in the league

It would be interesting to be able to submit several bids (different teams) for the same player off the free agency period and the engine will decide.