Fast Break Pro Basketball 2013 Released!

[korme]

Question to HR:

In the process of changing some career imports on some guys. I want to do a world where Sabonis enters the draft as a 19 y/o, etc.

So in the historical DB, his first career stat input is 1995. If I make a fictional line for 1984 to give him a rookie base set, and then another in 1988 to kind of project his potential, then leave it alone to the real numbers from 95 on, will that be wonky? The years skipped from 89-94, will that ruin his ratings or will it kind of work itself out? Don't want to go through the trouble of creating a fictional 10 year career if I don't have to.

Same idea with a Len Bias, if I make a stat line for every 5 years or so, should that be fine?

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by korme

Has anyone figured out a good foreign salary cap % compared to the NBA to make it realistic, as in no NBA player will go over there unless he's absolutely not wanted in the NBA, and only 1-5 guys make the leap over to the NBA every year.

If you only have a single foreign league, I would think no more than a few million cap - probably between 1.5 to 2mil.

[Groundhog]

If you're simming from history with foreign leagues, I usually start them at 1990 with about 70k-80k salary cap and inflation enabled.

[sovereignstar v2]

HR, is there a workaround for people that use a different DPI? If I remember you released a set of images for FBCB2 that helped, but am not sure if you did the same for FBB.

[HeavyReign]

Nothing was done officially on that front. I'll see what I can do.

[Native Son]

HR - is there a way to export all the career stats for every player who ever played in a league, whether active or retired? The CareerStats table in the mdb export is blank, yet I know all the data is available as every player can be found in the archive screen of the active league. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[Native Son]

Oh, and also ...

1. What modifier does the "Era" column in the Yearly Stats file represent?

2. Are there any additional tweaks to the .ini file that affect player generation as there is in FBCB? Like jumpshot, handling, quickness, stamina, etc?

3. What's the debug syntax? I got the file to output yearly league and shot stats by setting debug to "1" but I also get a path/syntax error for some part of that output.

All of the above is to try to tweak the fictional player output and generation a bit as I'm not importing FBCB files much, nor playing with the historical database much either at this time.

Thanks!

[Young Drachma]

I'd like to see a way to expand the FBCB imports that get imported into the pro game. Would be nice to have a deeper pool of players, mostly for those underrated players who can be late bloomers. Or at least a way to export a player along with the file or something.

[Groundhog]

I'd like the option to include foreign players in with the draft classes, without pumping up the overall talent pool.

[yeah826]

I think the game overrates sharp shooters a little too much i see players like steve kerr and brent barry as blue players getting 10 mill dollars a year to score like 13-15 ppg and that's it.

Also it seems that expansion teams are getting number 1 overall pick in the lottery there first year.

[Young Drachma]

Does anyone know how I get the game to read a new nation file? I've added Norway, Norwegian cities and had the nation file to read it supposedly but for some reason I can't get the game to generate them. Is it because it has to be started from a new league rather than existing one?

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Does anyone know how I get the game to read a new nation file? I've added Norway, Norwegian cities and had the nation file to read it supposedly but for some reason I can't get the game to generate them. Is it because it has to be started from a new league rather than existing one?

Hmm I don't think it needs to be a new game, however FBPB loads these files when they application opens, so make sure you've closed down and re-opened if you haven't already.

[Young Drachma]

I figured it out. The Host Country has to be listed for the game to know to generate players from said home country in the draft files or whatever. I didn't have that listed initially but fixed it and we're good now.

[Young Drachma]

I created Egypt, Qatar and Japan as new leagues in my current pro game install. Because why not? They're based loosely on the real leagues in those countries, though I'm sure the Egypt one is the Soccer league structure rather than the basketball league one. I discovered this after, but you can amend it if it offended your sense of purity.

Name files are also included for each.

You install the league files into the Public Documents/GDS/Fast Break Pro Basketball 3/League Files folder with the other CSVs.

The other files go into the game directory C:\Program Files (x86)\GDS\Fast Break Pro Basketball 3:

Country.CSV files go into the HomeTowns folder
Country.TXT files go into the Nations folder
Language.txt files go into the Names folder. The two last name files are named _last because of this upload, but remove that _last nomenclature when you save it before loading the game or else, it won't read it.

You should be good otherwise.

[Young Drachma]

Here's North Korea & South Korea cities and an omnibus Korean names file.

The league is comprised of the current Korean basketball league teams with the two top North Korean soccer teams added to it, to make it a 12-team league.

[APC]

My teams are always really good at home and mediocre to terrible on the road. Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

[bryce]

Hey HR - do you have a matrix or some such that will tell me the possible number of games acceptable (in the schedule maker) for the number of teams chosen in the league during setup.

So for example, if you want 12 teams, you can have the schedule be x, y, z number of games. At 14 teams, q, r, s , t number of games are possible choices. Etc etc.

Thanks.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by APC

My teams are always really good at home and mediocre to terrible on the road. Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

I don't know if the issue is as much with the home advantage as it is with the general parity of leagues in single-player. Teams don't really tank/rebuild like they do now, which makes homecourt advantage a bigger factor than it would be otherwise.

[albionmoonlight]

My playoff performance is significantly worse than my regular season performance. Is that just a function of playing better teams, or is there some sort of hidden "clutch" factor or something that I am missing?

[nol]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

My playoff performance is significantly worse than my regular season performance. Is that just a function of playing better teams, or is there some sort of hidden "clutch" factor or something that I am missing?

It's been a while since I've played, but it's most likely the former. Especially if your teams tend to be rather balanced/deep and you run into some of the big-time blue/blue stars who can individually dominate.

[APC]

Originally Posted by nol

It's been a while since I've played, but it's most likely the former. Especially if your teams tend to be rather balanced/deep and you run into some of the big-time blue/blue stars who can individually dominate.

My teams tend to "choke" in the playoffs as well. With Jordan as my star, I had three straight seasons of getting the No. 1 seed in the West. I lost in the first round twice and in the conference championship the other time.

I did manage to win it all as a sixth seed two years later -- the only title I've won in 17 seasons.

My unscientific analysis: You need a point guard with a high handling and perimeter defense rating to have playoff success in this game.

[bryce]

I created my own league with the D-League team logos, but where do I put these images? I tried putting them in C:\Program Files (x86)\GDS\Fast Break Pro Basketball 3\images\logos but when I do that I get RTE 481 Invalid Picture.

Then I tried C:\Users\Public\Documents\GDS\Fast Break Pro Basketball 3\leaguedata\NBL\customlogos but got the same RTE.

I resized them all to 125x125 and saved them as .gif. Is there a different folder I should put them in, or am I still doing something wrong on the format of each image?

Thanks much.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by APC

My teams are always really good at home and mediocre to terrible on the road. Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

This is reflective of basketball in actuality IIRC.

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by bryce

I created my own league with the D-League team logos, but where do I put these images? I tried putting them in C:\Program Files (x86)\GDS\Fast Break Pro Basketball 3\images\logos but when I do that I get RTE 481 Invalid Picture.

If you want to send me a link to the logos I'll run some tests.

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by Native Son

1)HR - is there a way to export all the career stats for every player who ever played in a league, whether active or retired? The CareerStats table in the mdb export is blank, yet I know all the data is available as every player can be found in the archive screen of the active league. Any thoughts?

2) What modifier does the "Era" column in the Yearly Stats file represent?

3) Are there any additional tweaks to the .ini file that affect player generation as there is in FBCB? Like jumpshot, handling, quickness, stamina, etc?

4) What's the debug syntax? I got the file to output yearly league and shot stats by setting debug to "1" but I also get a path/syntax error for some part of that output.

Thanks!

1) I'll likely add an option to export that data to its own mdb file.

2) It is used only for creating historical players.

3) There is not a section for adjusting the attributes of generated players at this time

4) Probably best to leave that set to 0. It does generate some extra reports but it would crash if you didn't have the correct folders present.

I'd like to see a way to expand the FBCB imports that get imported into the pro game. Would be nice to have a deeper pool of players, mostly for those underrated players who can be late bloomers. Or at least a way to export a player along with the file or something.

This has been part of the plan in some form. I just haven't got to it.

I'd like the option to include foreign players in with the draft classes, without pumping up the overall talent pool.

Do you mean combining additional foreign players with the FBCB classes?

I think the game overrates sharp shooters a little too much i see players like steve kerr and brent barry as blue players getting 10 mill dollars a year to score like 13-15 ppg and that's it.

Noted. Better player valuation will help the AI as well.

Also it seems that expansion teams are getting number 1 overall pick in the lottery there first year.

I just tested this 3 times and got #1, #2, and #4 for my expansion team. When there is no lottery they would get the #1 pick.

My teams are always really good at home and mediocre to terrible on the road. Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

If you are using lower leagues as well, the home advantage there is definately too powerful. At the highest levels the overall home winning rates are fine but I do suspect it will need to be adjusted once teams are more willing to tank the season.

Hey HR - do you have a matrix or some such that will tell me the possible number of games acceptable (in the schedule maker) for the number of teams chosen in the league during setup.

Hey HR - do you have a matrix or some such that will tell me the possible number of games acceptable (in the schedule maker) for the number of teams chosen in the league during setup.

It depends on the the number of teams as well as how the teams are distributed. I may be able to add something that tells you if the current setting would be possible based on the current configuration of the league.

My playoff performance is significantly worse than my regular season performance. Is that just a function of playing better teams, or is there some sort of hidden "clutch" factor or something that I am missing?

There is no hidden clutch factor. It is most likely randomness and parity coming together.

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

HR, is there a workaround for people that use a different DPI? If I remember you released a set of images for FBCB2 that helped, but am not sure if you did the same for FBB.

If you are still interested send me a PM and I can most likely get it to work for you. Let me know if you are using 125% or 150%.

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by korme

Question to HR:

In the process of changing some career imports on some guys. I want to do a world where Sabonis enters the draft as a 19 y/o, etc.

So in the historical DB, his first career stat input is 1995. If I make a fictional line for 1984 to give him a rookie base set, and then another in 1988 to kind of project his potential, then leave it alone to the real numbers from 95 on, will that be wonky? The years skipped from 89-94, will that ruin his ratings or will it kind of work itself out? Don't want to go through the trouble of creating a fictional 10 year career if I don't have to.

Same idea with a Len Bias, if I make a stat line for every 5 years or so, should that be fine?

The more years the better is the general rule but it might work. Basically the game is going to check the current year and the years around it when it generates the player. It will also check all future years to help determine the overall potential. If it only finds one season in the current time period it should just base the current abilities off of that season alone.

[HeavyReign]

Originally Posted by korme

Also, anxiously awaiting the coach update, HR

The update itself is partially done. I'm going to try and pack as much as I can into it before posting.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by HeavyReign

Do you mean combining additional foreign players with the FBCB classes?

Yes, but only if it's possible while also maintaining the current talent pool levels.

Another one: Adjusted FBCB draft classes for smaller leagues. If you use FBCB classes with smaller league sizes, every team is an all-star squad.

[Hiddenfield]

There is a bug, when offering a player a contract and it doesnt show any other offers of other teams and even though my offer is the only offer, when i proceed one day the player signs for another team!
Generally signing free agents ist laboriously.

Apart from that, i'm in year 2050 and imo second round draft picks are useless. There was never one really good player in the second round.
Also, if i look at the top players over the years, 9 out of 10 palyers were top 10 Draft picks. Late Rounders or even second round steals are very rare or not exisiting.
Scouting needs more depth as well.
As a consequence, the AI overvalues useless second draft picks and it's kind of an exploit when i'm tradin my 2nd round draft picks away for decent players.


In addition it would be nice if there were trades on draft day itself.

[yeah826]

Originally Posted by Hiddenfield

Apart from that, i'm in year 2050 and imo second round draft picks are useless. There was never one really good player in the second round.
Also, if i look at the top players over the years, 9 out of 10 palyers were top 10 Draft picks. Late Rounders or even second round steals are very rare or not exisiting.
Scouting needs more depth as well.
As a consequence, the AI overvalues useless second draft picks and it's kind of an exploit when i'm tradin my 2nd round draft picks away for decent players.


In addition it would be nice if there were trades on draft day itself.

Are you using FBCB draft picks or the games generated draft picks because if you get players from the college game you can get some second round steals. I had some people would were drafted in the second round make multiple all star games.

[nol]

Originally Posted by Hiddenfield

Also, if i look at the top players over the years, 9 out of 10 palyers were top 10 Draft picks. Late Rounders or even second round steals are very rare or not exisiting.

That's just basketball. There have been five MVPs given out in NBA history to players who weren't drafted in the top 10 (Steve Nash, Karl Malone, and Kobe), and an impartial computer probably would have given Nash's and Malone's MVPs to guys like Jordan, Shaq or Duncan. This year, either 9 or 10 (depending on where you rank Tony Parker) of the top 10 players were chosen in the top 10.

[Hiddenfield]

Originally Posted by nol

That's just baskeplayeThere have been five MVPs given out in NBA history to players who weren't drafted in the top 10 (Steve Nash, Karl Malone, and Kobe), and an impartial computer probably would have given Nash's and Malone's MVPs to guys like Jordan, Shaq or Duncan. This year, either 9 or 10 (depending on where you rank Tony Parker) of the top 10 players were chosen in the top 10.

still i never saw a second rounder in fbb becoming at least a green/green player.
but anyway, given the fact that pretty much all second round picks are becoming orange/orange kind of players, second round picks are overvalued.

i was able to trade for the blue/blue scoring leader of an ai team by giving them one first round pick and all 2nd rounders plus an average player.
no team in the world would do that, expecially given the fact that i won the league 3 years in a row and my projected draft picks were just useless.
it's too easy to trade for franchise players (even with highest trade difficulty in league options)

i' not playing with imports btw.

[djsatu]

Is this game worth it for someone who has never played this series before? I like basketball and text sim games, but know absolutely nothing in regards to setting up plays, defenses etc in basketball. I downloaded the demo but am fairly lost already not knowing what to really do. Also when I click on a player, I have the attribute setting at 1-100 and the blue lines aren't even inside the boxes they are supposed to be? My demo screen is not at full screen, so don't know if this has something to do with it? Appreciate any help or direction on this thanks!

[Comey]

In a word: Yes.

[yeah826]

Originally Posted by djsatu

Is this game worth it for someone who has never played this series before? I like basketball and text sim games, but know absolutely nothing in regards to setting up plays, defenses etc in basketball. I downloaded the demo but am fairly lost already not knowing what to really do. Also when I click on a player, I have the attribute setting at 1-100 and the blue lines aren't even inside the boxes they are supposed to be? My demo screen is not at full screen, so don't know if this has something to do with it? Appreciate any help or direction on this thanks!

First set the ratings from 1-100 to A - F some players have ratings higher than 100 which explains the value higher than the blue bar. The game is not full screen so its not that. If you have any questions just ask the game is very fun.

[djsatu]

Originally Posted by yeah826

First set the ratings from 1-100 to A - F some players have ratings higher than 100 which explains the value higher than the blue bar. The game is not full screen so its not that. If you have any questions just ask the game is very fun.

Thanks for the tip. Im gonna take the plunge and purchase the game. Is there a guide or a complete page faq online anywhere that explains what each screen, game planning, option setting, and just general tips on how to play the game that aren't in the help menu inside the demo?

[yeah826]

Just the help menu is really all you need my word of advice just because you have a team full of blue level players doesn't mean they are going to win all the championships you have to find players that work well with each other.

[djsatu]

Originally Posted by yeah826

First set the ratings from 1-100 to A - F some players have ratings higher than 100 which explains the value higher than the blue bar. The game is not full screen so its not that. If you have any questions just ask the game is very fun.

I took your advice and changed this, but its still showing the blue bars down hanging below there allocated boxes? My resolution is 1680x1050, do I need to make it smaller?Also the buttons on the top of the screen are scattered and doubled as well. There is also a big white border around the front screen itself. Looks very wierd and I don't know how else to explain the situation, but i'd love to get this fixed before actually playing the game

Here are pics of my issues:

Front Screen



Player Screen

[korme]

Yes, that is very bizarre looking. Hopefully someone can help you out.

[yeah826]

Try this

Right-click on the desktop and go to personalize. Click Display in the lower left corner. Go to Set Custom Text Size (DPI) and make sure the "Use Windows XP style DPI scaling" box is unchecked.

[djsatu]

Originally Posted by yeah826

Try this

Right-click on the desktop and go to personalize. Click Display in the lower left corner. Go to Set Custom Text Size (DPI) and make sure the "Use Windows XP style DPI scaling" box is unchecked.

I tried this and set to it to 150%, as thats the only way the box unchecked itself, but it didn't work and its just bigger than before.

[djsatu]

Just fixed my problem and can finally play the game! Did the DPI scaling down to 100% with the "Use Windows XP style DPI scaling" box still checked and it worked.

[djsatu]

I just noticed my game is 3.0.18 and there was an 3.0.22 update released. How do I go about updating my game to this without losing my mod updates and roster update?

[bryce]

On the Efficiency stats, what do VA and EWA stand for and what do they mean? I tried googling but didn't see those highlighted anywhere unless they have other acronyms...

Thanks.

[whomario]

VA is "Value Added" (based on PER and with the adage "over a league average replacement player") while EWA is "Estimated Wins Added", which is pretty much the same metric but based on wins rather than the obscure number that VA gives you.

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by djsatu

I just noticed my game is 3.0.18 and there was an 3.0.22 update released. How do I go about updating my game to this without losing my mod updates and roster update?

I'll leave this to the group, but I don't know that you need to do more than copy your default league files into a folder under the leaguefiles directory.

[yeah826]

The mods shouldn't be affected

[bryce]

Came across what I think is a bug. Going into a 3rd year of a custom league and on the first day of the regular season several teams are carrying more than the 15 max, some up to 20. Looks like the active roster is right at 13, though.

I haven't noticed this in prior seasons...

Edit to add that I simmed a few days just for giggles, and teams did start making all of their cuts during the first week of the season, but some still had more than the max for their first games...

One more edit: And nevermind. I exited the game without saving (after doing that sim for giggles), opened it back up and now back on day 1 of the regular season, and all is well and cuts were made. I have no clue what just happened but it appears right now..

[Hiddenfield]

Since "20 years" the team cohesion is stuck at "bad". Even though i didnt change any core player of my team for 5 years or so, it was bad all the time.
It think it might be a bug.
In the first years of my league it worked normal though.