DDS: Pro Basketball 2017

[Gary Gorski]

There was some excellent feedback from the community on the 2016 version and I hope to have even more join in on the next version which I just announced.

New Basketball Simulation : Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2017

That's the full posting in regards to it including a video trailer. For those of you looking for a quick glance at some of the new stuff.

• MATCHUP MAKER – Settle those debates once and for all by pitting your favorite teams from 1976-2015 against each other in exhibition matchups to see who really would be the best of all time
  
• EXPANDED HISTORICAL PLAY – Start in modern times or any year back to 1976 and rewrite basketball history
  
• MORE STATS – The game gets deeper with new stat additions such as lineup tracking so you can see how every lineup you put on the floor shapes up
  
• MORE OPTIONS – Enjoy new game options like injury slider controls, randomizing historical draft classes and much more
  
• MORE CONTROL – Taking the GM seat gets even more realistic with brand new control options for trading, scouting and player interactions.

There's going to be in-depth blog postings on the new stuff and of course if anyone else has things they would like to see added feel free to throw them at me. Almost all of the new features always come from community suggestions from the previous version.

[TroyF]

Sounds good Gary. DDS PB 2016 was one of the hidden gems last year. I look forward to the release of the game.

[korme]

Bad sign when the link listed gives further links to dev diaries talking about improvements in DDPSB 16... seems like an update, not a new game to me.

[Tim Tellean]

Originally Posted by korme

Bad sign when the link listed gives further links to dev diaries talking about improvements in DDPSB 16... seems like an update, not a new game to me.

Actually the link shows the video previewing new 2017 game, featured and at the bottom of the page it says "last year's development diaries before the links.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by korme

Bad sign when the link listed gives further links to dev diaries talking about improvements in DDPSB 16... seems like an update, not a new game to me.

Or the paragraph immediately proceeding the links could be read

"If you’re new to the franchise start off by taking a look at the blog entries detailed some of last season’s fantastic new features of the game"

In other words there are a ton of people out there who don't know anything about the game and here's some links to see some good in depth discussion of some of its features.

[Gary Gorski]

Bringing back the developer diaries as we get close to release time. This one is looking at some of the new in-season features and improvements this year.

DDS: Pro Basketball Sim - New Features For 2017

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Looks very impressive! The modifications to the personality system is a big deal to me and the lineup tracking as well. Might have to consider this a day one buy!

[whomario]

New prospect scouting looks intriguing. Does this indicate that it will be more "blind" and more hit/miss ? Would definitely love that. Definitely going to give this a hard look again, knowing i will rely on (sports) sims for my gaming from February on as i am going abroad.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by whomario

New prospect scouting looks intriguing. Does this indicate that it will be more "blind" and more hit/miss ? Would definitely love that. Definitely going to give this a hard look again, knowing i will rely on (sports) sims for my gaming from February on as i am going abroad.

Yes it will lead to that because you're going to get less information on the pre-draft workout page and rookie cards now unless you had scouting resources devoted to it. In the past your coaching staff always gave you a 1-5 rating on a player and you could see his play style tendencies and a written scouting report for everyone before you worked them out and then got additional ratings info after that. Now if you didn't scout that region you get nothing but stats and the "media" ranking of a player.

You'll learn all the rest after a workout but you might end up finding you wasted workouts on players who didn't end up fitting what you wanted at all forcing you into a situation where you are drafting somewhat blind because the guys you used workout time on weren't what you wanted.

The in season emails also can serve as extra data which could lead you to a big hit (or miss) because your scouts are specifically choosing a couple of players to talk about.

[Comey]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Yes it will lead to that because you're going to get less information on the pre-draft workout page and rookie cards now unless you had scouting resources devoted to it. In the past your coaching staff always gave you a 1-5 rating on a player and you could see his play style tendencies and a written scouting report for everyone before you worked them out and then got additional ratings info after that. Now if you didn't scout that region you get nothing but stats and the "media" ranking of a player.

You'll learn all the rest after a workout but you might end up finding you wasted workouts on players who didn't end up fitting what you wanted at all forcing you into a situation where you are drafting somewhat blind because the guys you used workout time on weren't what you wanted.

The in season emails also can serve as extra data which could lead you to a big hit (or miss) because your scouts are specifically choosing a couple of players to talk about.

Does this tie into DDSCB integration as well, or simply fictional classes? Running this side by side would be very, very intriguing.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by Comey

Does this tie into DDSCB integration as well, or simply fictional classes? Running this side by side would be very, very intriguing.

Yes it should work with the DDSCB classes as well

[Comey]

Intrigued. You'll likely get email over the weekend.

[Gary Gorski]

Ran a simulation of the 16-17 season with the latest beta version. Some unsurprising results (Golden State is awesome, Houston plays zero defense) some surprising (Indy wins the East? Philly and Minnesota playoff bound?)

We Simmed It - 2016-17 Basketball Season Preview

[Capital]

Looking forward to this game. Missed last year's version but ready to play again.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Ran a simulation of the 16-17 season with the latest beta version. Some unsurprising results (Golden State is awesome, Houston plays zero defense) some surprising (Indy wins the East? Philly and Minnesota playoff bound?)

We Simmed It - 2016-17 Basketball Season Preview

You may have to look at regression to the mean if Golden State is ripping off 78 wins(How many wins were the getting in other sims?). That seems like a 1 in 1000 year scenario assuming their mean average is 66-67 wins that Vegas set the line at. Looks like the point per game totals look accurate.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

You may have to look at regression to the mean if Golden State is ripping off 78 wins(How many wins were the getting in other sims?). That seems like a 1 in 1000 year scenario assuming their mean average is 66-67 wins that Vegas set the line at. Looks like the point per game totals look accurate.

Well Vegas set the line knowing a) injuries b) travel c) rest will account for some losses. I set injuries to 0% for the sim as I stated in the blog to make sure something crazy didn't happen and the game doesn't account for travel fatigue/x game in y nights and we don't give a damn tonight or coaches giving out random DNPs for rest as the playoffs creep in.

The latter is something I might look into since its becoming more and more prevalent now though. If you consider a world where nobody gets hurt and everyone plays every game though Golden State is so much better than anyone else that I think they *could* win 78 games. The most interesting thing from the sim I noticed was Durant's improvement in 3P% because everyone else helps him get better shots and doubled way less - an even better version of Durant >>>> Barnes and that team won 73 games

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Well Vegas set the line knowing a) injuries b) travel c) rest will account for some losses. I set injuries to 0% for the sim as I stated in the blog to make sure something crazy didn't happen and the game doesn't account for travel fatigue/x game in y nights and we don't give a damn tonight or coaches giving out random DNPs for rest as the playoffs creep in.

The latter is something I might look into since its becoming more and more prevalent now though. If you consider a world where nobody gets hurt and everyone plays every game though Golden State is so much better than anyone else that I think they *could* win 78 games. The most interesting thing from the sim I noticed was Durant's improvement in 3P% because everyone else helps him get better shots and doubled way less - an even better version of Durant >>>> Barnes and that team won 73 games

Certainly talent wise they could win the 78 games but like you mentioned with travel fatigue, injuries, rest, and keeping your determination level up to NBA competition the entire year just seems like it would be to draining to accomplish. You sort of use the latter in chemistry. Have you ever thought about factoring B2B games 1.25 or 1.50 to fatigue faster or certain effects for them difficult B2Bs? Or maybe instead of a 100 max fatigue for normal rest change it to 95 max for the 2nd end of B2Bs. Im sure if you wanted to code things in you could probably make it simple enough to have an effect.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

To me, and of course this is why you can't please everyone, I don't mind Golden State went 78-4. Seems implausible of course, but they won 73 games last year and they added one of the best players in the game. Any game that Golden State loses this year will be considered an upset barring injury or something seriously going awry.

If it was any other team going 78-4, I would be concerned about the engine, but in basketball good teams win and Golden State is a good team.

Gary, I don't know if you can do this or want to do this, but I would be curious to see what Golden State's record and stats would look like with the different offensive sets in the game like the dribble drive or double post etc. Obviously some of these are less than ideal, but it can show people the effect of the offensive engine and how you need more than talent just to win. Golden State this year just happens to be the perfect storm.

[Brian Swartz]

As a former collaborator I'll just say it's good to see Gary still doing work! I also think this is one of the toughest kinds of things to tune. If Golden State gets up several games on the field again, which I think is likely, they're not going to play as hard. Often times players get bored in that situation, it's just human nature, because the real battle isn't here yet. Last year they pushed to get the 73, this year they aren't going to push as hard. There's so many things that go into it.

I think they will struggle more than some people think, because it always takes time to integrate a major change. Struggle being relative here. Modeling all that stuff ... well, if that's where the game is at then it's become really fantastic, because you're getting to the real fine points at that stage.

.02.

[wustin]

I can understand getting 78 wins. I don't believe they can get 78 wins with Draymond taking more shots and averaging more points than Klay Thompson. And Klay only attempting like four 3-pointers a game at that. Those tendencies need to be tuned. I actually don't think Draymond will average over 10PPG this year irl.

[wustin]

dola

also 5.5 3-pointers made per game times 82 games = 451 3-pointers on the season for Curry lmao

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by wustin

I can understand getting 78 wins. I don't believe they can get 78 wins with Draymond taking more shots and averaging more points than Klay Thompson. And Klay only attempting like four 3-pointers a game at that. Those tendencies need to be tuned. I actually don't think Draymond will average over 10PPG this year irl.

also 5.5 3-pointers made per game times 82 games = 451 3-pointers on the season for Curry lmao

Well first on Curry he did make 402 3P last year in 79 games - an average of 5.1 per game and once again this simulation was run with 0% chance of injury so not only were there not catastrophic injuries that would have had him miss time there were also not minor injuries that would have made performances here and there worse.

Second I don't think anyone really knows exactly how this is going to play out for Golden State and I actually think its going to be Klay who loses out the most.

If you look at last season Draymond surpassed Klay in front court touches per game and Draymond led the team in APG at 7.4 compared to only 2.1 for Klay. Barnes only had 29.2 front court touches per last year and Durant had 53.5 - KD isn't going to get fewer touches so where are those extra 25 or so touches coming from? Green facilitates the offense and also can start the break off of one of his rebounds - the simulation basically is saying that Klay's going to be relegated to 4th in the pecking order in terms of who gets the ball and I think that's how it will play out.

What is interesting though is initially the AI wanted to start Livingston and bring Thompson off the bench. I tweaked the AI so that it wouldn't do that but honestly it may be a better way of using Thompson letting him come off the bench and have to only share the floor with one of Curry or Durant until the final minutes of the game of course.

That right there though is one of my favorite parts of the game - the ability to play "what if" and see how things play out. The game did accurately predict the outcomes of both the ECF and WCF last year and would have nailed the finals too if Green didn't get suspended so I'm very confident that the engine is strong and gives realistic results for the parameters it is working with.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by LastWhiteSoxFanStanding

Gary, I don't know if you can do this or want to do this, but I would be curious to see what Golden State's record and stats would look like with the different offensive sets in the game like the dribble drive or double post etc. Obviously some of these are less than ideal, but it can show people the effect of the offensive engine and how you need more than talent just to win. Golden State this year just happens to be the perfect storm.

I like this idea - maybe I will do a quick what-if blog with this sort of thing

And yes - the Curry and Durant pairing is unreal enough as it is but then you add Thompson and Green too and there's really nothing to compare this team to. Anyone would have scoffed if you said last year's team would break the Bulls record and they took that team, removed an average player and replaced him with a MVP. There's really no model to point to and have expectations for. If this team is healthy they should win every single game because no team has anywhere near the talent level they do. Basketball is so much more reliant on a few players than any other sport - I can't think of one example in any other sport where on paper it seems as unfair as it does with the Warriors.

[wustin]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

Well first on Curry he did make 402 3P last year in 79 games - an average of 5.1 per game and once again this simulation was run with 0% chance of injury so not only were there not catastrophic injuries that would have had him miss time there were also not minor injuries that would have made performances here and there worse.

Second I don't think anyone really knows exactly how this is going to play out for Golden State and I actually think its going to be Klay who loses out the most.

If you look at last season Draymond surpassed Klay in front court touches per game and Draymond led the team in APG at 7.4 compared to only 2.1 for Klay. Barnes only had 29.2 front court touches per last year and Durant had 53.5 - KD isn't going to get fewer touches so where are those extra 25 or so touches coming from? Green facilitates the offense and also can start the break off of one of his rebounds - the simulation basically is saying that Klay's going to be relegated to 4th in the pecking order in terms of who gets the ball and I think that's how it will play out.

What is interesting though is initially the AI wanted to start Livingston and bring Thompson off the bench. I tweaked the AI so that it wouldn't do that but honestly it may be a better way of using Thompson letting him come off the bench and have to only share the floor with one of Curry or Durant until the final minutes of the game of course.

That right there though is one of my favorite parts of the game - the ability to play "what if" and see how things play out. The game did accurately predict the outcomes of both the ECF and WCF last year and would have nailed the finals too if Green didn't get suspended so I'm very confident that the engine is strong and gives realistic results for the parameters it is working with.

Since this isn't the NBA thread I won't derail it

But I'd like to ask: when I was playing around with PB16 a lot earlier this year I noticed when I would go to edit some of the shooting ratings for the players, those default numbers (at the time) matched with the percentages from the shooting statistics on the NBA website. So did you guys just develop algorithms for these percentages?

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by wustin

Since this isn't the NBA thread I won't derail it

But I'd like to ask: when I was playing around with PB16 a lot earlier this year I noticed when I would go to edit some of the shooting ratings for the players, those default numbers (at the time) matched with the percentages from the shooting statistics on the NBA website. So did you guys just develop algorithms for these percentages?

Every rating (that has to do with actual gameplay anyways) its based on a formula I developed from stats. I no longer go through and try to rate each player especially since I wanted a consistent method for doing the historical seasons.

[SlyBelle1]

Hopefully available soon....I like it when sport sims release on or before the actual season starts....as more time goes by, I end up losing interest.....excitement is biggest at the start

[SlyBelle1]

Looks like golden state already got loss number one

[Comey]

Yup. DDSPB is obviously not rooted in reality.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by SlyBelle1

Hopefully available soon....I like it when sport sims release on or before the actual season starts....as more time goes by, I end up losing interest.....excitement is biggest at the start

It will be available very soon

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by Comey

Yup. DDSPB is obviously not rooted in reality.

After watching last night though I may need to improve Kawhi Leonard's ratings though and I did rush to pick up Jonathan Simmons in my fantasy leagues

[Icy]

With the start of the new NBA season, with a good amount of Spanish players to follow besides the Gasol bros and Rubio (Hernangomez, Sergio Rodriguez and Abrines) and the FHBA fantasy league, I'm totally in basketball mood, so excited about this game and WANT IT NOW!!! :P

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by Icy

With the start of the new NBA season, with a good amount of Spanish players to follow besides the Gasol bros and Rubio (Hernangomez, Sergio Rodriguez and Abrines) and the FHBA fantasy league, I'm totally in basketball mood, so excited about this game and WANT IT NOW!!! :P

You mean Hernangomezes (even though Webber kept calling him Hernandez last night)

[Gary Gorski]

For anyone interested we're starting pre-orders today. Save on the game (double the savings if you bought PB16 as a special thanks to those people), beta builds coming soon and once we get up and running on Steam we'll get you a key there as well if you pre-order.

Release date set for Nov 7 if you prefer the wait and see approach

• View topic - PRE-ORDER OFFER FOR DDS: PRO BASKETBALL 2017

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

For anyone interested we're starting pre-orders today. Save on the game (double the savings if you bought PB16 as a special thanks to those people), beta builds coming soon and once we get up and running on Steam we'll get you a key there as well if you pre-order.

Release date set for Nov 7 if you prefer the wait and see approach

• View topic - PRE-ORDER OFFER FOR DDS: PRO BASKETBALL 2017

I know you'll say very soon, but I'll try anyway What date do you believe the first beta build will be available? The small discount not my main draw to pre-ordering, but if early access comes out soon enough, that may entice me.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by SlyBelle1

but if early access comes out soon enough, that may entice me.

How soon will entice you?

[Icy]

Preordered!

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

How soon will entice you?

Today

[korme]

With the recent Chris Hansen news it got me curious: is expanding beyond 30 an option this year?

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by korme

With the recent Chris Hansen news it got me curious: is expanding beyond 30 an option this year?

Expansion was already available from 30 to 32 and remains the same in PB17

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Alright, just got a new touchscreen pc...im ready for this game to drop

[Gary Gorski]

We've put up a beta build for anyone who has pre-ordered and would like to start checking around the game.

• View topic - FirstAccess Files

[korme]

When you expand, the new teams don't get added to the quick bar, so there is no way to access those teams.

Also, expansion still has an overlay from the commisioner toolbar so you are forced to CPU PICK your whole team because you can't see anything.

[Gary Gorski]

Grr - I ended up changing the screen sizes and it threw off some stuff. *Edit* I ran expansion but didn't see anything on the screen of any kind except the draft board window. Can you take and send me a screenshot? I did fix the expansion team not showing up in the team toolbar though

BTW for anyone else its a help if you can post in our FirstAccess Beta forum so I see these quickly. Thanks

[Gary Gorski]

Quick bump to talk about a new developer diary - quick hits on historical play, Matchup Maker and a new surprise feature - the ability to draw your own plays out of timeouts

DDS: Pro Basketball Sim - Historical Replay Feature

EDIT * Also forgot to mention our pre-order deal is still going on this weekend. Game is set to release Monday though so its last call on that.

[SirFozzie]

Wish I had the money, Gary.. but if Disability comes through you'll be the first person I hit

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Wish I had the money, Gary.. but if Disability comes through you'll be the first person I hit

Are you no longer doing game reviews for your site?

[SirFozzie]

Trying to get disability done plus preparing to move to a new place has taken up my time

[Gary Gorski]

Game is now released (playable demo as always) - so if you're a big hoops fan or just sick of everything else that has dominated our lives for the past year and you want to escape then go check it out Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered and who supports the games and the company.

[Gary Gorski]

Time for a bump - some very nice things being written. Take a read!

https://www.an8bitmind.com/index.php...ts-basketball/

Stopping Michael Jordan: The Draft Day Sports Pro Basketball 2017 Review | THE BIG MIKE BLOG

https://www.an8bitmind.com/index.php...2017-reviewed/

[jbergey22]

Will certainly purchase. When will this be on steam? And any idea on when the next college hoops will be released and the ETA on the college fb game?