FanGM

One of the things that frustrated me with baseball sim leagues was the randomness often of the results. That was a driving factor to wanting to use real game stats and build the sim in a way that strived to work players to their numbers (so long as reasonable to do so and those numbers adjusted for supporting cast).

The biggest randomness we have in this sim game to me is the outcome of fairly competitive matchups. If you ran a sim game 10 times, say the somewhat better team might win 6 or 7 out of 10, but the game is only ran once and a solid chance that the lesser team will be the winner as a definite possibility.

I don't mind that so much in the regular season as you tend to get a lot of regular season upsets "every given Sunday" and things tend to even out in the long run. But it's in the playoffs where matchups are usually really close that it turns the outcome really just into a coin flip. One team will win 5 or 6 times out of 10, but the other team would win 4 or 5 times out of 10. So which one of those will pop up when it runs? Either easily could. How do you explain why one team won over the other when fairly closely matched? For me, frustratingly it's kind of the roll of the dice.

It's not just frustrating because my top seeded AFFL team was upset by a lower seed in a playoff upset. I've long been suggesting possible changes to make the outcome more determined and have more of a reason why one team won over the other when the outcome isn't obvious.

The sim does very well in my opinion when one team has superior grades and superior updates. The game pushes those uneven matchups to blowouts usually. When the matchup is a lot closer, though, even if you have the better team I'm not sure the sim results in a one roll of the dice situation reflect you having the better team as much as it should more times than not.

I got to the point where I almost was hesitant to push the run simulation buttons this playoff season because so much was riding on them with passionate work on these rosters all years and the end result often being almost like calling heads or tails. Both quality teams could win, push the button and see what the coin pops up.

I want to build more logical determination of the game winner into the simulation somehow to improve the product and eliminate those frustrations. Not so far that an upset never happens, but to give more of a competitive advantage to the teams with advantages.

The easiest way would be to setup the software to run a scheduled matchup multiple times. My thoughts to keep some upset element would be a quick unseen best of three, and it publishing the game that decided that quick behind-the-scenes series as the real sim game of record. That would throw out some of the 1-out-of-10 type head scratchers that can pop up on one roll of the dice because it's a possibility even if unlikely. No difference would be seen by the players, just that better more logical game outcomes would be published with the winning team showing they've earned that win more within the system. I could also see something like just instituting that simulated game deterination change just for the playoffs where more is on the line and outcomes arguably should be less random.

Another option would be to keep working on the simulated game play and keep pushing the game advantages further on a play-by-play basis in ways that further give the better teams better chances of winning. That's a bit more trial and error and trying to find the balance where it doesn't create 99-0 blowouts while giving more advantages to play results.

However it's generated behind the scenes, I see it more as a product improvement process that needs to happen one way or another to give more meaning to the results. Not any process that our FanGM players will see, but just finding better ways to get better scoreboard results more often when people view new scores posted. If things are perceived as somewhat random in close matchups against quality teams, putting a lot of work or passion into it may decrease because it's just which possible outcome pops up in the one time the matchup considered by the system.

The job of the game simulator, to me, is giving us credible results that give meaning to our team buiding competitions. However that happens in unseen ways to arrive at those published outcomes. Just wanting to get some thought and general feelings on that as I consider updates to that process for the best outcomes.

If anything, I don't actually think there are enough upsets. When you look at the NFL you see that most teams are extremely even and even the "bad" teams will beat the "good" ones every once in a while. For example, KC beat GB in 2011 to end the Packers long winning streak.

I was very pleased with the results of the playoffs this year, despite being one of the teams that got upset (though I pulled an upset of my own, too). It's important to keep it so that any team that makes the playoffs has a chance at winning the championship. Otherwise, what would be the point of even running the playoffs?

Ben C. wrote:If anything, I don't actually think there are enough upsets. When you look at the NFL you see that most teams are extremely even and even the "bad" teams will beat the "good" ones every once in a while. For example, KC beat GB in 2011 to end the Packers long winning streak.

I was very pleased with the results of the playoffs this year, despite being one of the teams that got upset (though I pulled an upset of my own, too). It's important to keep it so that any team that makes the playoffs has a chance at winning the championship. Otherwise, what would be the point of even running the playoffs?

I completely agree. We need more upsets in the regular season. Look at DFFL for example, I believe there were 5 teams with 2 wins (something like that). Given some teams (like myself) sold the farm and are in the rebuild process and likely wouldn't win many games, there are too many teams with not enough wins.

The usual number in the NFL where bad teams start to bunch up is about 4 wins typically; in the DFFL it was 2. That tells me right there the sim needs to give the bad teams a better chance to pull upsets in the regular season.

redsoxfan31x21 wrote:

Ben C. wrote:If anything, I don't actually think there are enough upsets. When you look at the NFL you see that most teams are extremely even and even the "bad" teams will beat the "good" ones every once in a while. For example, KC beat GB in 2011 to end the Packers long winning streak.

I was very pleased with the results of the playoffs this year, despite being one of the teams that got upset (though I pulled an upset of my own, too). It's important to keep it so that any team that makes the playoffs has a chance at winning the championship. Otherwise, what would be the point of even running the playoffs?

I completely agree. We need more upsets in the regular season. Look at DFFL for example, I believe there were 5 teams with 2 wins (something like that). Given some teams (like myself) sold the farm and are in the rebuild process and likely wouldn't win many games, there are too many teams with not enough wins.

The usual number in the NFL where bad teams start to bunch up is about 4 wins typically; in the DFFL it was 2. That tells me right there the sim needs to give the bad teams a better chance to pull upsets in the regular season.

Not when there are alot of teams that just are not any good at all to many teams all selling at the same time is what the problem is.

We definitely get a lot on the extremes, and I think that's understandable. In most sim leagues, often teams usually tend to either go all out to win now or go complete rebuild in the other way. Not a lot of fun in trying to maintain mediocrity. I can see some thinking that's a problem possibly, and some ideas have been thrown out in the past to try to prompt winning or create more gm responsibility for winning more, but I think it's generally okay for sim leagues to have more teams on the extreme than in the middle.

I'm probably a little too sensitive to complaints following losses that teams believe they should have won by the numbers, but it's something I've tried hard to get everyone behind multiple times over many off-seasons but every time I try most seem to be fairly strongly on the other side in support of upsets.

So that's why upsets will sometimes pop up unexpectedly as most don't want to take steps to reduce those possibilities. It's something I don't really like as much as a perfectionist trying to get the best outcomes within the most logical determinations for fairest results, but I get that also and upsets are part of the game in reality.

But I'll probably continue to point future game result complaints back to polls like this where I tried and tried to reduce random upsets but most were against it. The time to reduce that frustration (for those who feel that) is now while something can be done to reduce those less likely outcomes, not after your team suffers a surprising loss that triggers an angry rant.

Too me in the real NFL good teams lose to ok teams all the time. It just takes a lucky fumble or INT or big play to push a lesser team over the top. I really like the excitement at looking at the results every week. I dont want it to be too predictable. I have been upset in the playoffs and have no problem with that. Its part of the game. Think about how many 6 seeds have won the SB IRL... 3 off the top of my head. So that just happens.