Important Bug in Summer League **Fixed in Version 6.3**

[Celeval]

First things first - it's already been reported to Solecismic.

Quick version:
There appears to be a reasonably large bug with the Summer League which makes it pretty much useless for a number of positions; including QB, RB, LT, P, LDE and LCB.

Long version:
Essentially, it looks like the experience granted to a summer league player is being granted to the wrong positions.

To be more specific:
Experience gained at a particular position during the season is typically accompanied by experience gains at related positions. For example, a LT would gain experience at a lesser rate for LG, C, RG, and RT. A FL would gain experience at SE, RB, and TE. A
QB just gains experience as a QB.

During the summer league, a similar range of experience gains occur, but they appear to be off one position. i.e. the LT gains nothing at LT, but
gains at LG, C, RG, and RT; with most experience coming at LG... the FL gains at FB, FL, and SE with most at SE... the QB seems to gain at RB. I
would guess that the LT is actually gaining experience at P, and the FL is gaining experience at LT, but that's not provable with data through the game.

How to tell? The easiest explanation is with quarterbacks - this is one specific example, but I've done this with a handful of QBs and various
other positions as well.

Create a new game as the Miami Dolphins. Sim through the first season, and save at season #2 before Free Agency begins. The Dolphins have a 2nd year QB on the roster in Chad Henne. Changing Henne's position to RB shows an experience level of purple (none) at RB, FB, TE, FL and SE.

Test A (control): Without any assignation of a player to summer league, skip free agency, the draft, and late free agency. Convert Henne to RB again. He has the same purple experience for RB, FB, TE, FL and SE.

Test B: Reload. Send Henne to the Summer League. Skip free agency, the draft, and late free agency. QB experience is unchanged (blue). Convert Henne to RB - experience is now blue for RB, purple for FB, TE, FL, and SE; showing a distinct and noticible gain of experience at RB with no gain to QB or any other additional positions.

Test C: Reload. Since Henne is a large QB (230lb), we can rerun Test B, but change him to FB instead of RB. This again shows a blue level of experience at RB, but purple everywhere else (including the new FB position).

This is consistently reproducible for different quarterbacks on different teams; in addition, going back through posted results on the WOOF and IHOF boards, there has not been an instance where a QB has gained in current experience due to the Summer League: 2013, 2014, 2016 in WOOF (2015 result not found); 2017, 2018, 2019 for IHOF.

Different positions show different results: a FL, for instance, seems to pick up FB experience with no explanation; while typically, a highly developed FL has little to no FB experience at all.

I've put together some data based on my own testing, position by position, for where experience seems to be gained for an individual player in the summer league. Bolded positions seem to have a larger experience gain. As it stands, the worst positions to send to summer league are QB, RB, LT, P, LDE, and LCB; as these gain no experience at their primary position. FB, TE, FL, K, and SS all get some lesser amount of experience gain at their primary positions, while the remaining positions get a reasonable boost, comparable to the highest boost they get at another position.

QB:    RB
RB:    FB, TE, SE, LT
FB:    FB, TE, FL
TE:    TE, FL, SE, LT
FL:    FB, FL, SE, LT
SE:    FB, FL, SE, LT
LT:    LG, C, RG, RT, P
LG:    LG, C, RG, RT, P
C :    LG, C, RG, RT, P
RG:    LG, C, RG, RT, P
RT:    LG, C, RG, RT, P
P :    K, LDE
K :    K, LDE
LDE:   LDT, NT, RDT, RDE, SLB, SILB, LCB
LDT:   LDT, NT, RDT, RDE, SLB
NT :   LDT, NT, RDT, RDE, SLB
RDT:   LDT, NT, RDT, RDE, SLB
RDE:   LDT, NT, RDT, RDE, SLB, SILB, LCB
SLB:   LDT, SLB, SILB, MLB, WILB, WLB, LCB, FS
SIL:   SILB, MLB, WILB, WLB, LCB, FS
MLB:   SILB, MLB, WILB, WLB, LCB, FS
WIL:   SILB, MLB, WILB, WLB, LCB, FS
WLB:   LDT, SLB, SILB, MLB, WILB, WLB, LCB, FS
LCB:   RCB, SS, FS
RCB:   RCB, SS, FS
SS :   SILB, LCB, RCB, SS, FS
FS :   RCB, SS, FS

[RedKingGold]

[redacted]

[stevew]

Since summer league doesn't exist anymore it could just be deleted.

[Hammer]

Great job finding this. I'd love to see a new patch, we still have plenty of issues that need to be addressed...

[Subby]

Not sure I am seeing why this is a big deal. You aren't changing the fundamental underlying rating of the player. All summer league does is speed up unmasking.

[Ben E Lou]

Honestly, I don't see this as all *that* important. The speed-up in development during the ensuing season is of much greater importance than the 2-4 (typically) points of current gained by going to summer league. And that part is working. I don't see discovery making any change on who I send to summer league, other than as a tiebreaker if I need one. (And I'm not sure I've ever needed a tiebreaker...)

[Hammer]

Shush dudes, we need a patch

[MIJB#19]

Meh. I'm about to send a QB to summer league to help him gain an extra 5 or so points. Now, I'm actually torn on whether I send the QB or not.

[cuervo72]

You know what this makes me finally realize? That it's hard to find bugs when you're not really sure how something works in the first place.

[Celeval]

Originally Posted by Subby

Not sure I am seeing why this is a big deal. You aren't changing the fundamental underlying rating of the player. All summer league does is speed up unmasking.

Not true. It's experience gain.

[Celeval]

From what I can guess, the "primary position" picks up somewhere between 10-20% of experience by participating in summer league. Secondary around 10%, tertiary less than that.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Celeval

Not true. It's experience gain.

...which, practically speaking, doesn't really help all that much besides speeding up unmasking. I mean, we're usually talking about a guy being something like 41/60 instead of the 45/60 he would have been after summer league.

Also, because of the accelerated development in that season, most (all?) summer guys I've seen are pretty much fully developed by the end of year 2 anyway. Heck, quite a lot of summer league guys reach full development by the end of year 2 preseason, so for them, it's a zero-impact bug.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

...which, practically speaking, doesn't really help all that much besides speeding up unmasking. I mean, we're usually talking about a guy being something like 41/60 instead of the 45/60 he would have been after summer league.

Also, because of the accelerated development in that season, most (all?) summer guys I've seen are pretty much fully developed by the end of year 2 anyway. Heck, quite a lot of summer league guys reach full development by the end of year 2 preseason, so for them, it's a zero-impact bug.

I have to disagree with that, 4 points may not seem like a lot, but we're talking about 16 to 20 games impacted here. The potential impact is about 64 to 80 points of skills you're missing over the course of a season.

[gstelmack]

Ben, then what's the point of Summer League if it being fundamentally broken is not a big deal? Especially given that it was considered a big enough deal that the injury risk was upped slightly to help discourage first-round studs from attending?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

I have to disagree with that, 4 points may not seem like a lot, but we're talking about 16 to 20 games impacted here. The potential impact is about 64 to 80 points of skills you're missing over the course of a season.

...which is virtually meaningless, if that were an accurate calculation, which it isn't if you're using the guys properly. As I've said, that's not the norm. The norm is a guy being nealry (if not fully) developed by the time the regular season starts. Practically speaking, it should rarely be more than a few games.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Ben, then what's the point of Summer League if it being fundamentally broken is not a big deal?

Exactly. It's a dev speed accelerator in a game where dev speed is already quite rapid for the vast majority of players. It's simply not that important even if it's working properly.

Especially given that it was considered a big enough deal that the injury risk was upped slightly to help discourage first-round studs from attending?

Honestly, I think that was mostly a P.R. move to discourage people from doing the unrealistic thing of sending first-rounders to summer league. But really, at least at the injury levels that nearly all MP leagues use, it's not remotely a deterrent. Between FOFL (10), WOOF (10), OSFL (6), and IHOF (8), there have been 34 summer stages x ~32 players (ok..some poeple miss it) since the patch that increased injuries. We're talking roughly 1,000 players with increased summer injuries and, I believe, *ZERO* injuries.

[Fritz]

tertiary is a sexy word

[Subby]

I have never seen an injury in summer league - has anyone?

[Ben E Lou]

I rolled through around 5 or 6 seasons with whatever patch it was that allowed the increase of injuries to 400. I set it to 400, and didn't see a single one in those handful of seasons from any team. That was enough to convince me that the risk is so small that I need not be bothered with even taking it into account in a MP league.

[MIJB#19]

Wild theory: maybe summer league increases a player's injury proneness figure?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Wild theory: maybe summer league increases a player's injury proneness figure?

I had that exact thought, but I was told by Solecismic support at some point that any injuries in summer league should show up immediately, as injuries. (Now, I suppose that could have changed over time...)

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

...which is virtually meaningless, if that were an accurate calculation, which it isn't if you're using the guys properly. As I've said, that's not the norm. The norm is a guy being nealry (if not fully) developed by the time the regular season starts. Practically speaking, it should rarely be more than a few games.

You and I both know what player I intend(ed) to send to Summer League in IHOF and we both know that guy won't be fully developed at the end of his second season. Additionally the 'old' strategy used to be that you send a guy that really needs the development because he's very green and you plan on starting him, hoping to give him an extra experience boost so he gets closer to the red by the end of that second season.

Now whether a 1st round QB should be eliglible for Summer League is a different discussion, but a 30/75ish QB is unlikely to reach that red by the end of the season.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

You and I both know what player I intend(ed) to send to Summer League in IHOF and we both know that guy won't be fully developed at the end of his second season.

...and you and I both know that that particular guy is a big-time oddity. You've said it yourself. I'm speaking about the hundreds of guys who'll develop much better than him--not the outliers. That's why I say it's a low-impact bug, and not a no-impact bug. Just because you perceive it to be significant with regard to this one player doesn't mean that it's significant with regard to the entire universe of players who will be sent to summer league.

[Ben E Lou]

Pre 6-3, usually around half the summer league attendees got 0 points added to current. Just ran a CT2 check on my SP league. 31 players gained 4 or more current. The 32nd gained two. Average gain in current was 6.2.

(For those who are unaware, summer league changes do *not* occur immediately in FA1:1. What happens there is general unmasking of youngsters, apparently completely independent of summer league. Summer league results show up after FA2:5 is completed.)