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Admin
Why was this necessary? Because fatigue impacted the game far more than it should.
In game design, everything is about balance and in game play everything is about making decisions. If the balance is off enough that a blanket piece of advice like "Set all players on Conditioning drills, and set the Substitution settings as high as possible" is true, then important decisions are being taken out of the game, leaving less differentiation between team owners. To look at it another way, the two things that decide a game are owner decisions and random chance; for each decision opportunity lost, random chance plays a bigger part in the outcome.
With that in mind, several changes were made to how fatigue is handled during a game.
In the past, fatigue was straightforward: For every 5 points of fatigue, a player lost 2% from his ratings, so at the default replacement point of 50%, a player was playing at 80% of his maximum.
This seemed reasonable at the time I created it; however, the truth is that usually the next person on the bench is not 20% lower in skills; he is more likely to be 10% lower. Thus, the advice to substitute at 80% came into fashion, as the backup at 90 or 95% energy was likely to perform better than the starter at 80% energy.
This is no longer true. Skill levels no longer fall off at a linear rate. Now, with 90% energy, a player still has 99% of his full ratings rather than 94% under the old system. At 80% energy, he still has 95% of his ratings as opposed to 88% under the old system. A starter at 95% is almost always better than a backup at 100%. Thus, unless your starters and backups have nearly equal skill, substituting out at 80% is counterproductive.
The falloff does get steeper, though. Here are some examples:
At 95%, a player has 99.8% of his skill.
At 90%, a player has 99.0% of his skill.
At 85%, a player has 97.8% of his skill.
At 80%, a player has 95.2% of his skill.
At 75%, a player has 92.4% of his skill.
At 70%, a player has 89.0% of his skill. (About equal to the old 80% level)
At 65%, a player has 85.2% of his skill.
At 60%, a player has 81.1% of his skill.
At 55%, a player has 76.7% of his skill.
At 50%, a player has 72.2% of his skill.
Another important change related to fatigue is that in the old system, players started to recover energy the moment they left a formation. This allowed you to substitute two players back and forth and essentially neither would ever tire because they recovered so quickly. Now, a player has to be off the field for 30-90 seconds (depending on Stamina) before they start to recover energy. (These are "time-of-day" seconds rather than game clock seconds, so in practice this means most players will start recovering after 1 or 2 plays off the field.) Thus, swapping two players or two sets of players back and forth will have a more negative impact as no one really gets time to rest properly, unless they have a high Stamina.
How does this relate to Conditioning? Conditioning still represents the maximum energy level a player could have during a game. In the past there was enough difference between 95% and 100% that some owners would put their whole team on Conditioning drills. Now, that strategy will be less necessary. A player at 100% Conditioning can of course play at his maximum longer, and players with Attitude problems may still need Conditioning on their bad weeks, but it will now be far more productive to make Conditioning decisions on a case by case basis rather than just blanketing everyone in Conditioning and giving up the potential development from other drills.
Chris
[Edited on 9-26-2014 by Admin]
An important note about fatigue, substitutions, and conditioning
September 26, 2014 at 05:20PM View BBCode
In the past, there have been a couple of bits of advice older owners routinely gave to newer owners: Set all players on Conditioning drills, and set the Substitution settings as high as possible to keep your freshest players in the game.Why was this necessary? Because fatigue impacted the game far more than it should.
In game design, everything is about balance and in game play everything is about making decisions. If the balance is off enough that a blanket piece of advice like "Set all players on Conditioning drills, and set the Substitution settings as high as possible" is true, then important decisions are being taken out of the game, leaving less differentiation between team owners. To look at it another way, the two things that decide a game are owner decisions and random chance; for each decision opportunity lost, random chance plays a bigger part in the outcome.
With that in mind, several changes were made to how fatigue is handled during a game.
In the past, fatigue was straightforward: For every 5 points of fatigue, a player lost 2% from his ratings, so at the default replacement point of 50%, a player was playing at 80% of his maximum.
This seemed reasonable at the time I created it; however, the truth is that usually the next person on the bench is not 20% lower in skills; he is more likely to be 10% lower. Thus, the advice to substitute at 80% came into fashion, as the backup at 90 or 95% energy was likely to perform better than the starter at 80% energy.
This is no longer true. Skill levels no longer fall off at a linear rate. Now, with 90% energy, a player still has 99% of his full ratings rather than 94% under the old system. At 80% energy, he still has 95% of his ratings as opposed to 88% under the old system. A starter at 95% is almost always better than a backup at 100%. Thus, unless your starters and backups have nearly equal skill, substituting out at 80% is counterproductive.
The falloff does get steeper, though. Here are some examples:
At 95%, a player has 99.8% of his skill.
At 90%, a player has 99.0% of his skill.
At 85%, a player has 97.8% of his skill.
At 80%, a player has 95.2% of his skill.
At 75%, a player has 92.4% of his skill.
At 70%, a player has 89.0% of his skill. (About equal to the old 80% level)
At 65%, a player has 85.2% of his skill.
At 60%, a player has 81.1% of his skill.
At 55%, a player has 76.7% of his skill.
At 50%, a player has 72.2% of his skill.
Another important change related to fatigue is that in the old system, players started to recover energy the moment they left a formation. This allowed you to substitute two players back and forth and essentially neither would ever tire because they recovered so quickly. Now, a player has to be off the field for 30-90 seconds (depending on Stamina) before they start to recover energy. (These are "time-of-day" seconds rather than game clock seconds, so in practice this means most players will start recovering after 1 or 2 plays off the field.) Thus, swapping two players or two sets of players back and forth will have a more negative impact as no one really gets time to rest properly, unless they have a high Stamina.
How does this relate to Conditioning? Conditioning still represents the maximum energy level a player could have during a game. In the past there was enough difference between 95% and 100% that some owners would put their whole team on Conditioning drills. Now, that strategy will be less necessary. A player at 100% Conditioning can of course play at his maximum longer, and players with Attitude problems may still need Conditioning on their bad weeks, but it will now be far more productive to make Conditioning decisions on a case by case basis rather than just blanketing everyone in Conditioning and giving up the potential development from other drills.
Chris
[Edited on 9-26-2014 by Admin]
dirtdevil
I can see why the slower return to stamina would potentially impact a HB, but it shouldn't have anything to do with a QB. is it possible that the miscounting of time on the field for special teams that was addressed in this thread ( http://www.simdynasty.com/oldforum-viewthread.jsp?tid=394551 ) maybe impacting QBs used as holders or something?
[Edited on 9-26-2014 by dirtdevil]
September 26, 2014 at 05:27PM View BBCode
is it possible that some of these changes are impacting what seems to be going on in this thread? http://www.simdynasty.com/oldforum-viewthread.jsp?tid=394562I can see why the slower return to stamina would potentially impact a HB, but it shouldn't have anything to do with a QB. is it possible that the miscounting of time on the field for special teams that was addressed in this thread ( http://www.simdynasty.com/oldforum-viewthread.jsp?tid=394551 ) maybe impacting QBs used as holders or something?
[Edited on 9-26-2014 by dirtdevil]
Admin
If QB's are used as holders, they are not getting rest (although they won't accumulate as much new fatigue as actually acting as a QB), so if you use your starting QB as a holder and your second string QB's holding abilities are almost as good, you may want to use your second stringer for holding duties. Not that it's a huge impact, but in a close game every bit helps. The people who are going to be affected most are people who use different QB's in different formations.
Chris
September 26, 2014 at 05:46PM View formatted
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The "miscounting" on that thread wasn't happening during the game, it was an error in saving the stats after the game. Nothing in-game was affected.
If QB's are used as holders, they are not getting rest (although they won't accumulate as much new fatigue as actually acting as a QB), so if you use your starting QB as a holder and your second string QB's holding abilities are almost as good, you may want to use your second stringer for holding duties. Not that it's a huge impact, but in a close game every bit helps. The people who are going to be affected most are people who use different QB's in different formations.
Chris
Admin
Chris
September 26, 2014 at 05:47PM View BBCode
The [url=http://rules.simdynasty.com/index.php/Sim_Dynasty_Football_Game_Guide#Conditioning_and_Fatigue]Game Guide entry on this subject[/url] has been updated.Chris
dirtdevil
September 26, 2014 at 05:53PM View BBCode
don't know if this is the best thread for this question, but with regards to the OOP penalty chart, the CB/(F)S at 75% seems a bit high. college corner to pro free safety is a pretty common position change.
Admin
Chris
September 26, 2014 at 07:28PM View BBCode
It will certainly be less of an issue once actual position changes are implemented.Chris
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