Asunto: General Talk

Great idea. I feel dumb.

My favorite topic...uncontested free throws.
I shot 14/30 in todays friendly game. I have had this issue the past 2 seasons. Without looking at the season stats, i'd say i might have been around the 70% mark...but it's not a true 70% in the sense of the word. One game i will shoot barely above 50% from the line, followed by a game where i make 30/32 shots. Makes zero sense. Always flip flopping back and forth, no consistency. If a team is good enough to shoot 80%+ in one game, how the heck can they suck soo bad in others? It's not like theres a 7ft tall giant blocking the shot.

Is it a home field advantage issue? A shooting issue? An energy issue? I'd love to resolve this issue....

I think (based on other sports and the fact that stats are just numbers without maximum) the game always compares your players to opponents and that determines what's going to happen. E.g. a player with "20" skills is as likely to score from point against "20" skilled players than "200" skilled against "200" skilled opponents. Thus your free thrown % also depends on the level of your opponents.

I think you may be right. Just seems like a bizarre manner in which to program free throws.

I think there are 2 ways to play this game.

One way is for people who want to win. You need to forget that it's basketball, run pure data analysis, collect the data, run it through some software, figure out the formulas for the game engine. If I wanted to do math, I wouldn't play a basketball manager game. I would just do math.

For example, I don't like the fact that PPM leaves the growth of players height as some mystery. I don't want to compete with other managers on who will be the first to find the correct formula for the growth, or who will guess when they will stop growing. That's not part of a basketball manager game! The same goes for attributes: no-one is sure what blocking is good for. All we have is one vague sentence in the guide, and nobody can be sure of what it means. It reminds me of people arguing about interpretation of the lines from the Bible, whether to accept them literally or not.

The other way to play is for people who want to relax and enjoy. You want your decisions in this game to rely on intuition, on common sense from the basketball that you watch on tv. You also want to get some more information on what is really happening in your team, except for the random outcomes of the games. I don't know if anyone has played football manager, but that game floods you with information. You know which players are on hot streak, you know which players dislike each other. You can ask them to make certain plays more often.

PPM lacks any element of the real sports game, it just gives you chemistry as a number which grows linearly with certain coefficient. You don't even know if hot streaks exist for players. Your free throw percentage somehow depends on the shooting attributes of your opponent... and the list continues. I don't know what PPM plans are on improving the engine, but it doesn't look promising.

I am 2nd.

I finally pulled out a win over [basketball_team=12963]. Been waiting for that all season. Now to see if i can win out in the finals.

Just some random ideas of what i feel could be implemented in the game. Some are things that other sports manager style games use. As PPM's style is a bit slower than most other managerial games, i think there are some things that could be integrated into the game to keep it fresh, more challenging, etc.

1. Salary cap- Promotes planning ahead.
2. An active history of ALL of your seasons, to include W-L, how far you advanced in playoffs. Final season results. In a clean. simple format.
3.Better attribute classifications. IE: Dribbling, 2pt ability, 3pt ability.Dunks, layups, endurance, etc...
4. An "intelligence" attribute. To be used by an appointed team captain. Allows a Captain to properly make the right calls on the court, rink, field.
5. The ability to purchase better player equipment / gear with monies earned.

Nice ideas.

1. Bad idea. The game finances are already self regulating. In essence you already have an unofficial cap - team bankruptcy.

2. Most of it is already available at basketball.powerplaymanag...
Adding a few fields or stats would be nice, even if it's just PRO. But I don't think it's a big deal.

3. -1. These are mostly the same abilities that we have just renamed. I think I much prefer to have more generic attributes that translate into specifics.
What is 2pt vs 3pt? Are you saying a player can shoot from 18 feet but not from 20?
And what use is dunk ability? Anyone 6'2" and over would have that at 99%?

4. That is a good idea. Although I would make it leadership.

5. It sounds good at first and would make the game more interesting. However, it would farther widen the gap between established teams and teams that just started.

1. Good idea. It gives older players more value and rejuvenates the free agency market. your players will hold their value longer. This also helps spread the quality players around the league.


2 Yep, Some of it is available, but not in the sense that i was referring to. I would like to see a simple / clean cut stats page of nothing more than an entire managers history, no other fluff needed. I cant recall what my team did 4 seasons ago, would be nice for short term memory managers like myself. Especially running 4 teams.


3.Yes and no to be specific. Our attributes are very vague. Why not have a specific category for a players individual abilities? At least we know what the cause and effect is on each players strong points and weaker points. As an example, the guide specifically says, Tec is the ability to score at close range, but when you look at a center or PF, that spend the majority of there time on the inside shooting close range shots, the guide lists Tec as having little importance for that players position. Thats a bit too generic and doesn't lead to specifics, it leads to our forums being saturated with redundant posts questioning the brainchild that came up with that conundrum.What is 2pt vs 3 pt? Ida know, lets ask PPM why shooting attribute is used for 3 pt and Tec is used for close range. Apparently there is a difference. To be specific, there is a huge difference in 3pt and 2 pt ability. Hell Shaq couldnt make a free throw with a gun pointed at his head, dare he even think of shooting a 3 pointer. Dunk ability? Its not the ability to actually put the ball through the hoop, its the ability to maneuver and go over or around a player. I'm 6'3"...with moon boots on i might be able to dunk it 9% of the time.

4. Leadership / Captain, i think thats the same thing.

5. Not so sure about that, it works just find in the majority of other basketball manager games. Its an even field, even expense across the board, as well as being an option. That one is debatable, could go either way i reckon.

Like i said, these are just ideas. You never know who reads this stuff. Might get lucky and catch Vlady on a buzz and decides one of our ideas sounds good. It's happened b4...well i cant speak about the buzzed part, but ideas do promote change. Cheers!

Hey guys epic game between skeptimist and coach2live,going to be a great game. Make sure to catch it. One things for sure,it will break 1 of there hearts.

It's the Matrix series..we're both trying to dodge that fatal bullet.

LOL. Then you win. I'm to old for that kind of gymnastics...

O my GOD. GAME 3 OF THE skeptimist VS: coach2live WAS EPIC!!Thank you both of you for rewarding me with such a epic series. It is the best series I have ever seen....Of course it was also the first one to.