Aihe: USA Rants

Heh. Post away. This area can be used for constructive feedback to improve the game.

I think the game is missing the cheerleaders

When you play it live, the "looking to counter attack" after every rebound kinda gets to me lol. One would think that's self explanatory right?

Watch carefully and they will look to showboat, flip off a spectator or smoke a cigarette.

RANT: Basketball is by far the worst programmed game PPM has to date. Bar none.

Lets talk fouls. I will compare this to soccer, as it seems logical to assume the principals used in determining fouls in soccer have carried over to basketball as well. Concept being, the team that has less skill will foul more often. This is complete rubbish, and not an accurate measure to utilize to determining fouls. I have played sports my entire life, still do at 43, i have been on the better team, and been on the team that really had no business being on the field, with that said, we didn't foul more, in fact it was LESS often. Jr. leagues, high school and college, we never fouled more due to be out classed. In fact, you don't see that in any professional sport, but you do in PPM programming. Makes little sense other the fact PPM couldn't find any "better" way to determine the foul scenario. My suggestion would be to "try harder". As it, it sucks.

Basketball: Since when do CENTERS guard the 3 point line? Seriously, this is lazy programming. I've had more fouls called on centers fouling someone attempting a 3 point shot than i can recall. This is not realistic.

Centers taking 3 point shots!? WTF? Seriously, do you euro lads actually have your centers taking 3 point shots? If so, it's no wonder euro basketball is 2nd rated. Centers DO NOT EVER shoot 3 pointers UNLESS it's a last second ditch effort to beat the clock. YET, my centers seem to think they are shooting guards every game.

CLOSE SHOTS: This one really blows my mind. I really should have gone through my stats before writing this, as the vast majority of my games are set on shot range shots, YET, as today for example, i believe i attempted 26 three pointers. WTF? WHY WHY WHY? If i wanted to shoot 3 pointers, i'd have trained my club to do so, and i'd set it to 3 point range. Apparently it doesn't matter. more half assed programming. (albeit, todays 4-1 set up was unintentional, internet was down prior to the game,no chance to set it) But still, the setting should have applied. I do not care if my team runs out of time to shoot, as long as they stick to the designed game plan, not deviate completely. What is the point of this option if teams do not follow your game plan? #USELESS SETTING

FREE THROWS: This one cracks me up the most. I can have players that shoot far better from three point range than 2 point range, yet, cannot make the majority of uncontested free throws.
Something else that i have also noticed regarding free throws, and maybe this is just me, or maybe not. I have noticed during games in which i am shooting extremely well, pretty much winning at everything, that my team struggles to shoot a measly 50% at the line. YET, in games, such as todays, where im out matched, i have no problem shooting 80% ish from the line. This is every game. So it seems to me that the free throw isn't really programmed to care about your players ability, rather it is programmed to keep games "interesting". Thereby making free throws another useless programmed input. Why bother training players when it doesn't matter? My players shoot just as bad now from the line as they did at the beginning of the 1st season. Logic would dictate that this should be IMPOSSIBLE.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but i've no longer the time to waste on this. PPM focuses their energy on developing nonsense rather than fixing their poor programming. Truth be told, i play 3 other online manager games, have for years, and ALL 3 are better than PPM. The ONLY reason i have stuck this out this long was out of hope that things would change. The only real focus i have witnessed from PPM is their increased drive to generate more funds over focusing on fine tuning and updating the game play. Hockey, holy effing christ....i can't even look at it anymore. It's like watching groundhog day, over and over, with each play. Soccer, wheres the interface? Soo many promises and soo little results.

Haters can hate. My patience have run out.

Basketball engine is weird. while I have been studying it this season, not much have been learned.

Skep, what do you do with your centers that they take so many 3s? My starting C has 321 shots from inside and only ONE 3-point attempt all season. The backup C has 2. Starting PF has 22, backup has 7.

My shooting guards have the most 3-point shots on my team. By far. 219 & 86. They take about as many 2-point shots.

I play a 2-3 most of the time(unless trailing). With Close range shots.
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As far as the weaker team fouling more, I'm pretty sure that this is something that users asked them to increase.
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I generally agree on the free throw percentages. But I don't really follow bball so I'm not sure if this is realistic or not. And I'm not even sure how they should do it if it was off. Although maybe they have stats to back this up? It's possible that they checked stats from several league/age levels to determine how well players shoot free throws. They did something similar in soccer to determine how many goals are scored and how many upsets occur on average.

What I've been assuming is happening is that free throw percentages are based on the shooter only. And our shooters suck. While regular shots are using both the shooter and the defense to determine the outcome. And it's just not weighted correctly.

Realistically we should be seeing much lower shooting percentages from the field because our players suck right now. But this is something that PPM can't really do because no new manager would stick around very long if they're best playes were only hitting 30% of their shots. Some compromises have to be made.

I could be wrong, but I think a lot of your problems will go away as our players get better and are trained properly.

Nice points....