FBCB2 discussion: Full version now available

[britrock88]

Granted.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by ezpkns34

I've only played about 10 or so seasons all toll, but it seems like there's too much parity (at least in my game)

I've seen multiple 16 seeds beat 1 seeds in the NCAA tourney and multiple double digit seeds make the final 4

At the start of the game, I turned on to allow conference prestige changes & limited conference movement (also players can't declare for the draft til after their 2nd season). Would 1 or more of these settings be a potential reason for the parity?

I mean, it's not like game-breaking or anything, just not as realistic as it would be if the big underdog stories didn't happen so frequently

If you didn't have conference prestige changes and controlled conference movement yourself and if players could declare for the draft later...you'd probably see fewer upsets.

Game is defo upset happy more than real life, but...it's not OOTP comeback code in the playoffs random. Good teams still win more often than not, but if your league enables randomness, you'll probably see more results that seem less right to you as a result.

[ezpkns34]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

If you didn't have conference prestige changes and controlled conference movement yourself and if players could declare for the draft later...you'd probably see fewer upsets.

Game is defo upset happy more than real life, but...it's not OOTP comeback code in the playoffs random. Good teams still win more often than not, but if your league enables randomness, you'll probably see more results that seem less right to you as a result.

Thanks. Yeh, I didn't presume there was some kind of upset code built in, just assumed that either my settings &/or default files were set up so as to make the upsets more often & pronounced than they would typically be

Starting a new game without automatic conference movement & no conference prestige changes as well as new csvs w/ altered prestiges for conferences & teams (mostly flattening out the prestiges a little instead of so many teams, including small name ones, being in the 50-75 range)

Here's the one I'll be going with in case anyone wanted to look it over & throw out suggestions for changes

[bryce]

For the in-game stats screen, it'd be a nice addition to see the +/- for each player in addition to what's currently presented...

[BishopMVP]

Got the urge to dive back in to this, and quickly remembered why I would take extended breaks - it sims gamedays sloooooooowly. Now, I know I have a slower laptop, but are there any tricks to cut that speed down, or is it just the price to pay for a game with 350 teams? Even with no other programs open, it maxes out at 25% of CPU usage - it that some setting on my end because it's being run through administrator mode?

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by Jeff W

Is there any way to play this game with custom DPI?

I tried disabling custom DPI settings for that application, turning off XP-style DPI scaling, etc, but nothing works except completely disabling high DPI.

Should have mentioned this before but if you are using 125% you can download this and use the contents to replace the smaller versions inside the images/screens folders.

http://www.fbbgames.com/FbcbLargeImages.zip

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Got the urge to dive back in to this, and quickly remembered why I would take extended breaks - it sims gamedays sloooooooowly. Now, I know I have a slower laptop, but are there any tricks to cut that speed down, or is it just the price to pay for a game with 350 teams? Even with no other programs open, it maxes out at 25% of CPU usage - it that some setting on my end because it's being run through administrator mode?

Game speed is almost entirely going to be based on the CPU and it can only use 1 core so it maxes at 25% if you have a quad core.

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by Radii

ping: HR

and anyone else who is interested:

FBCB-FOFC.com • View topic - FBCB's broken recruiting + early departure problem

Discussion on how early leavers work in this version of the game, would be curious to hear thoughts from people.

I'd definitely say that changes are warranted and would be a point of focus in future work on the college side. For recruiting I do think that the lower prestige schools are too talented and some of the 3* talent should be holding out longer. I do like seeing the discussion on the topic.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by HeavyReign

Game speed is almost entirely going to be based on the CPU and it can only use 1 core so it maxes at 25% if you have a quad core.

Thanks for the response. It's not the worst thing because I can just do other stuff on the internet while waiting for a month to sim (and it changes to Orange when it stops simming, so I don't have to keep checking), but it does prevent me from getting completely engrossed like I do in a Civ5 or FBB. Ooc, are there benefits when you are coding to only allowing it to run on one core?

Originally Posted by HeavyReign

I'd definitely say that changes are warranted and would be a point of focus in future work on the college side. For recruiting I do think that the lower prestige schools are too talented and some of the 3* talent should be holding out longer. I do like seeing the discussion on the topic.

I like the idea of having 2 separate "signing periods" - one in November, and one that extends from April-May, with almost all the 4*/5* talent and a solid number of 3* committing during the early one, but leaving a number of 3* who don't have a power conference/team with prestige over 65ish offer, and the occasional top 100 stud who was debating between 2 teams or something (currently there are 4 undecided Top 100 recruits according to ESPN) - although I suppose the recruits who don't qualify academically until Dec/Jan 1 can fill this gap. Teams can't go offer more scholarships than they have available, but can continue recruiting players from Dec-March even if they have 0 available. Then either have the EE's declare before the end of March, or keep them the day after the NCAA title game and add in an extra recruiting session on April 15.

It shouldn't be as simple as Kentucky coming in and offering a recruit last-minute who I've been visiting and calling every month because you don't want to completely screw over the mid-majors and I imagine it would feel like a crapshoot if you were recruiting as a non-power school, but if they've been calling him too and Kentucky is up above me on his "preferred schools" list, just with no scholarship offer I'd know what I was up against (i.e. hoping they didn't have many early entrants), while also letting me know I should probably have a backup plan of some 2* whose best offer is a 20 prestige school. Maybe you'd actually have to add in a couple extra recruiting stages at the end to properly map the trickle-down effect.

One other thing that might take too much work/CPU power, but I'd love is if the Fog of War on a recruit slowly got lifted as you spend more time/money on him. I don't know if this is better done by dynamically changing the ratings you see, or by having a simple FOF-interview style "This recruit appears to be slightly/solidly/significantly better/worse than his scouted ratings." on his card from an assistant. Even if Kentucky has much better scouting than me, I should have a better idea on a player I've been following for 8 months than if they show up in mid-April for a first look. (This could also be a backdoor way to reflect some of the growth/stagnation of recruits. Anthony Davis was a 6'5 player whose best offer was Cleveland State until the summer before his senior year, and on the flip side there are players like UMass's own Lawrence Carrier who was rated above LeBron James as a 14 year old and just never got any better.)

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Ooc, are there benefits when you are coding to only allowing it to run on one core?

It is a limitation of VB6

[dawgfan]

I've been playing again for the last month or two, and I think the inability to "over-recruit" to account for expected early entry losses is my biggest pet peeve. I just had a season where I had 4 early entrants on top of my Seniors and despite cutting the max number of walk-ons prior to the season to bump up the amount of scholarships I could offer, I still ended up with a roster the following season with only 8 scholarship players.

I think the ideal would be to offer additional rides and pay some kind of consequences at the end of the season if you don't have the expected number of spots. Next best would be to re-jigger things such that there were still quality prospects available at the end of the season so you aren't scrambling trying to fill open spots with 1 or 2 star recruits.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

I've been playing again for the last month or two, and I think the inability to "over-recruit" to account for expected early entry losses is my biggest pet peeve. I just had a season where I had 4 early entrants on top of my Seniors and despite cutting the max number of walk-ons prior to the season to bump up the amount of scholarships I could offer, I still ended up with a roster the following season with only 8 scholarship players.

I think the ideal would be to offer additional rides and pay some kind of consequences at the end of the season if you don't have the expected number of spots. Next best would be to re-jigger things such that there were still quality prospects available at the end of the season so you aren't scrambling trying to fill open spots with 1 or 2 star recruits.

I'm not a huge fan of the over-recruiting idea. It just seems too hard to implement from an AI perspective, and would lead either to a lot of solid recruits getting dumped back on the market in April or a ton of transfers. We all know some pushing out the door happens, but it's not an every year thing, and really shouldn't be one in the game. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of 2 separate signing periods with a couple extra recruiting stages getting added right at the end of the season.

I haven't played with a high-prestige team in awhile, but from what I recall I do think the leaving AI could stand to factor in playing time a little more. I know you have your Marvin Williams who leave without ever starting, but they're rare, and the times in game I can remember getting screwed was when my 2 post guys would both leave EE or otherwise, their SR backup would graduate, and then the FR that played 4 minutes a game and I was counting on to start declared as well. But honestly in your case Dawgfan, when you lose 4 EE's plus multiple contributing seniors you should take a step back. The Kentucky/Calipari machine is a huge aberration, and even there he's been forced to play walk-on point guards a significant amount the past couple years.

One other idea I had - when recruiting, would it be possible to have a customizable region? I'm playing as VMI right now, and my natural recruiting area is VA, NC, MD, WV, with some of Eastern KY/TN and even southern OH less than 200miles away - which are spread out across East/Southeast/Midwest. When I play as a lesser New England team, I love to check the New England states and New York first - I'm not really interested in expanding to Maryland or even PA/NJ at first. Maybe this could be a distance thing - show every recruit within 300 miles or something.

[dawgfan]

I guess my point is this - coaches usually have a good handle on who is likely to leave early, and it's not terribly common that you'd see a big program so low on scholarship players.

Whether it's allowing over-recruiting, or setting it up so that there are still quality recruits available when the EE guys declare, the current set-up doesn't reflect reality.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

I'm not a huge fan of the over-recruiting idea. It just seems too hard to implement from an AI perspective, and would lead either to a lot of solid recruits getting dumped back on the market in April or a ton of transfers. We all know some pushing out the door happens, but it's not an every year thing, and really shouldn't be one in the game. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of 2 separate signing periods with a couple extra recruiting stages getting added right at the end of the season.

I haven't played with a high-prestige team in awhile, but from what I recall I do think the leaving AI could stand to factor in playing time a little more. I know you have your Marvin Williams who leave without ever starting, but they're rare, and the times in game I can remember getting screwed was when my 2 post guys would both leave EE or otherwise, their SR backup would graduate, and then the FR that played 4 minutes a game and I was counting on to start declared as well. But honestly in your case Dawgfan, when you lose 4 EE's plus multiple contributing seniors you should take a step back. The Kentucky/Calipari machine is a huge aberration, and even there he's been forced to play walk-on point guards a significant amount the past couple years.

One other idea I had - when recruiting, would it be possible to have a customizable region? I'm playing as VMI right now, and my natural recruiting area is VA, NC, MD, WV, with some of Eastern KY/TN and even southern OH less than 200miles away - which are spread out across East/Southeast/Midwest. When I play as a lesser New England team, I love to check the New England states and New York first - I'm not really interested in expanding to Maryland or even PA/NJ at first. Maybe this could be a distance thing - show every recruit within 300 miles or something.

You can already sort by distance if you want if you don't separate by region and then you can see all of the players closest to you by position, rating and so forth. I use it a lot.

[OldGiants]

Yes, distance is what I use most often, too. When I'm down to under $1000 in monthly recruiting, I'll sort by distance and then go to the last kid I can scout and use the 'Previous' button to go back until I find someone I want to scout. That way I use almost all my monthly budget every month.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

You can already sort by distance if you want if you don't separate by region and then you can see all of the players closest to you by position, rating and so forth. I use it a lot.

I know it's one of the drop-downs and I use it sometimes, but especially when I'm a small school and looking for those diamonds in the rough I'd like to be able to set that distance cut off and then be able to sort by rankings and player stats, etc.


Been playing as a good team again, and am getting hit every year with the early departures. It just adds another challenge, but I do think too many underclassmen are declaring - I've probably had 5 2nd round picks and 3 undrafted guys leave early in the past few years. I haven't done the exact count, but it seems like 30 players in the youngest grade declare (I'm playing Soph), and around 20 more Juniors, for about 50 total. Last year the NBA had 34 early entrants, only 8 of which were freshmen. Of those 8, 5 went in the lottery, Archie Goodwin late 1st, and Ricky Ledo/Grant Jerrett in the 2nd round, which imo is as it should be. Of the 9 Sophomores that declared, 6 went in the lottery, Shane Larkin went 20th, Tony Mitchell early 2nd, and Myck Kabongo undrafted. If a guy is a lottery/top 20 lock, he should almost always go (with the occasional Marcus Smart/Tim Duncan sticking around), but it should be rare and a surprise when someone projected to go in the 2nd round declares. Right now, even if a guy is projected to go late in the 2nd round I know there's an 80%+ chance he's leaving.

[bryce]

Those April draft declarations were always a buzz kill, but the following may have been the biggest buzz kill ever:

I had taken over Longwood as a starting head coach, worked my way up the ladder to Alabama A&M, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and finally USC. I had never had any tourney success to speak of (maybe a first round win, don't think I ever even made sweet 16 except for a time or two.) But finally in my 2nd year at USC (and like 40th overall in the career) I made the title game. I was up by 7 with 1:30 left in the game and this is how it played out:

They foul me and I make both, up 9.
They hit a 3, up 6.
They foul me and I make both, up 8.
They hit a 3, up 5.
They foul me and I make both, up 7.
They hit a 3, up 4.
They foul me and I make one, up 5.
They hit a 3, up 2.
They foul me and I make both, up 4.
They hit a 3, up 1.
They foul me and I make one, up 2.
They hit a 3 at the buzzer and I lose by 1.

You talk about a buzz kill! That's six 3-pointers in a row! I ended the season so I can't go back and see what those guys 3PS %s were, or the team's, but let's assume they were average at 33% on 3s. The odds of hitting 6 in a row are .015%, or 1-in-a-6500ish. But I guess if you have 320 teams playing 30ish games a year, it's going to happen once every couple of seasons on average. It just seems like the AI went into "Team B must win this so let's make sure that happens" mode all of a sudden.

After the season my alma mater Texas offered me a job, but I haven't resumed the career since that game... (I've started a career in FBB pro game instead, hah.)

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Last year the NBA had 34 early entrants, only 8 of which were freshmen. Of those 8, 5 went in the lottery, Archie Goodwin late 1st, and Ricky Ledo/Grant Jerrett in the 2nd round, which imo is as it should be. Of the 9 Sophomores that declared, 6 went in the lottery, Shane Larkin went 20th, Tony Mitchell early 2nd, and Myck Kabongo undrafted. If a guy is a lottery/top 20 lock, he should almost always go (with the occasional Marcus Smart/Tim Duncan sticking around), but it should be rare and a surprise when someone projected to go in the 2nd round declares. Right now, even if a guy is projected to go late in the 2nd round I know there's an 80%+ chance he's leaving.

A rough recount shows the last 3 years all in the 45-50 range. Maybe people have better sources but that is about what I shoot for here.

[Scoobz0202]

Hey HR, Check your PMs if you get time please

[Balldog]

I think early entries are pretty on point. Ever year players leave early and don't get drafted...they end up in Europe. That's why you need FBB

[britrock88]

Okey doke. Here's an update of conference alignments that's accurate as of all the moves announced to date. I've adjusted conference prestiges as realignments and conference KenPom ratings suggest, and checked the two important details of 1) the number of conference games played and 2) the tournament formats (number of teams and format).

I'm leaving this for collegesportsfanms to play-test as he starts his interactive dynasty. Please poke around and let me know anything that's inaccurate. Enjoy!

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by britrock88

Okey doke. Here's an update of conference alignments that's accurate as of all the moves announced to date. I've adjusted conference prestiges as realignments and conference KenPom ratings suggest, and checked the two important details of 1) the number of conference games played and 2) the tournament formats (number of teams and format).

I'm leaving this for collegesportsfanms to play-test as he starts his interactive dynasty. Please poke around and let me know anything that's inaccurate. Enjoy!

Excellent! Thanks BR

[britrock88]

BTW, the prestige is a (weighted?) average of KenPom pythagorean ratings over the last decade... but it's a season out of date. Think I'll wait until April to adjust those again.

[Radii]

Question for HR:

Our online league is looking at using manual editing to try to work around some of our concerns with players leaving early. The idea is to edit a player to be a Senior so their scholarship is freed up earlier so that it can be used in a more realistic way.

Technically, that works. I can edit a freshman to be a senior before recruiting starts, or after training camps, and in both cases the extra scholarship shows up and can be used and it all works fine.

My question is are there potential side effects of that that we may not be thinking of outside of the functional process here? The only thing I can think of specifically is wondering if there is a significant advantage on the court if a guy is edited from a freshman to a senior? Will that have an impact on his play/consistency/anything that we might want to think about?

[Young Drachma]

Replying to this here, mostly for the purposes of people who don't tinker as much as I do and waiting for HR to confirm what I think I know about the engine...

I've played several hundred seasons of this game in solo play and you know I love to experiment.

- The easiest way to free up a scholarship is to simply convert the player from a scholarship player to a walkon. I do this all of the time when I inherit a new team in my solo leagues and want to keep a guy, but prefer to take him off scholarship. To me, it's precisely like the real life way this works.

-Another alternative way to free up scholarships is to click the "declare for draft" button in the editor. The player declares early, they're released off the roster at the end of the year and you get the scholarship immediately. I use this a lot too.

Posting this for people who might think about wanting to do this in their own solo games, but hadn't figured out how yet.

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

-Another alternative way to free up scholarships is to click the "declare for draft" button in the editor. The player declares early, they're released off the roster at the end of the year and you get the scholarship immediately. I use this a lot too.

Ooh, nice. Good find, YD, and nice feature, HR!

[jbergey22]

Isnt making your player declare kind of liking "gaming" the game?

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Isnt making your player declare kind of liking "gaming" the game?

When you've simmed as many seasons as I have and play with as many permutations as I do...it ceases to be useful to be like "gee, I wonder if this will offend someone (else's) sense of what's fair."

Especially when I tend to play with making players play 4 years before declaring, letting the occasional big star leave early almost always functions as a challenge.

So gaming it or not, just figured people ought to know it's an option as a real workaround to the way the real life college recruiting situation works. Since we can't overrecruit in FBCB, we can't cut scholarships like real life -- in FBCB they're given for four years, but in real life that's not the case -- and we can't greyshirt or start recruiting guys when they're 14.

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by Radii

My question is are there potential side effects of that that we may not be thinking of outside of the functional process here? The only thing I can think of specifically is wondering if there is a significant advantage on the court if a guy is edited from a freshman to a senior? Will that have an impact on his play/consistency/anything that we might want to think about?

It shouldn't matter. There is no code that says they would play better because they are listed as a SR rather than FR.

[Emmett13]

Originally Posted by OldGiants

Here is the ini file for height:
;This file allows you to set the height distribution for created players by position.
;The number on the left is height in inches
;The number on the right is divided by the total of the numbers for each section to determine the % chance of that height being generated
;Default total per section is 10000 so there is a 575/10000 (5.75%) chance of a C being generated with height of 78 inches (6'6")
[C]
60=0
61=0
62=0
63=0
64=0
65=0
66=0
67=0
68=0
69=0
70=0
71=0
72=0
73=0
74=0
75=0
76=0
77=0
78=575
79=1600
80=3000
81=2000
.
.
.
.

So 77 inches is a big chunk of the PF range. Any thoughts on a fix? At lower levels of college ball, there a goodly number of 6'5" PFs and even Cs, so the height distribution is likely reflecting reality.

How do you access this?

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Emmett13

How do you access this?

This is in your main install dir for the game. For me that's:

D:\Program Files (x86)\GDS\Fast Break College Basketball 2010

filename Height.ini

[Balldog]

I have been meaning to do some deep dive into recruiting sites and come up with some more accurate height variations. Right now I am working on tweaking the name files.

[OldGiants]

Originally Posted by Balldog

I have been meaning to do some deep dive into recruiting sites and come up with some more accurate height variations. Right now I am working on tweaking the name files.

One of the issues with doing that is that real players grow. David Robinson is, of course, the prototypical example going 6'7" as a recruit to 7'1". So you will under-height the players if you go by recruiting heights, IMO.

[Balldog]

It would be interesting to know if he was considered a PF or C coming out of high school

[OldGiants]

Originally Posted by Balldog

It would be interesting to know if he was considered a PF or C coming out of high school

Navy wanted him as a C since 6'7" is the tallest you can be and still be admitted to the Naval Academy. Cadets need to fit on submarines.

[Balldog]

Still at 6'7" is out of realm of possibility for a C

[OldGiants]

Originally Posted by Balldog

Still at 6'7" is out of realm of possibility for a C

Any taller is out of the realm of possibility for the Naval Academy.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Balldog

Still at 6'7" is out of realm of possibility for a C

It's unusual but not out of the realm of possibility IMO.

[Balldog]

Yeah meant is not.

[HeavyReign]

I threw together a league file for the current season for anyone that hasn't already done it. There are a couple conference tourneys that aren't exact right now.

http://www.fbbgames.com/fbca13-14.zip

[EVEN8184]

I just simmed a season with those files installed and got a Run Time Error 9 on March 3rd.

[dawgfan]

On the off-chance that someone remembers or has a link, and so I don't have to search the 61 pages of this thread, does anyone have a real tournaments mod for FBCB2?

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by EVEN8184

I just simmed a season with those files installed and got a Run Time Error 9 on March 3rd.

What version of the game are you using?

[EVEN8184]

2.4.3 but I re-installed everything and it seems to be working fine now.

[Lathum]

Playing as Harvard. Lost the first game of the season then won my next 27. Finished the season ranked 12. RPI is 43. 2-1 vs top 50. 7-0 vs 50-100.

5 seed in tournament. Ugh.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Playing as Harvard. Lost the first game of the season then won my next 27. Finished the season ranked 12. RPI is 43. 2-1 vs top 50. 7-0 vs 50-100.

5 seed in tournament. Ugh.

The RPI dragged you down. As a 5-seed, you're essentially somewhere in the 20-24 range of teams in the tournament, so you're about where I'd expect given the gap between your poll ranking and your RPI.

With an Ivy League schedule, you need to line up a tough non-conference slate to keep your RPI from being mediocre.

[Emmett13]

Would game logs ever be possible in the player card?

Also, I truly think this is my favorite computer game ever. If it had a 3D engine and a bit of fine tuning, it would be not be a net positive on my life. And I mean in that a good way.

[Scoobz0202]

Probably a small and stupid request, but as I get further along in a career I like to take a quick glance at my ppg and op. ppg in the history section. Under history and the coach screen would it be possible to make those sections sortable. Once you get 20-30+ seasons its harder to determine where this teams stacks up to your past teams at just a glance. I may be the only one that gives a shit tho.

e: also +1 on the game logs on player cards. Thats something Ive always wanted

[dawgfan]

A little nitpick request:

I was playing my latest career last night and had a guy get injured early in the season. I got an e-mail letting me know if he didn't play the rest of the season, he'd be eligible for a medical redshirt year. No problem - he was going to be out 320+ days, so he wasn't going to play again that season.

What I forgot is that the game doesn't automatically apply the redshirt - when I moved to the next season and checked his status, he had progressed a year and hadn't gotten his redshirt. Then it dawned on me that what I was supposed to do was check his status at the end of the season and see that he was indeed eligible for that redshirt and apply it.

No big deal in this particular case as he's likely to leave early for the draft, but what I'd like to see is an e-mail reminder at the end of the season if I have a player eligible for a redshirt, because otherwise I'm liable to forget to manually do it.

Also, I don't think I've ever spent as much time playing a text sim as this one (and probably 2nd only to the Civ series overall in my game playing) - this is a fantastic game and I look forward to FBCB3.

[Lathum]

you know what would be a cool feature? A coaching tree. Would be neat to see after 40 years of a dynasty how my coaching tree spread out.