Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2021 First Access Available

[SlyBelle1]

Just a heads up that Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2021 First Access began yesterday. If interested, worth checking out. Keep in mind this is NOT the official release, but an opportunity to see an early version with a discount, while being able to provide feedback.

Link to Information about New Version
Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2021 FirstAccess Begins Today! - Wolverine Studios

Link to Discussion Forum
• View forum - DDS: Pro Basketball 2021 FirstAccess

Link to Mod Forum (enhancements for realworld)
• View forum - DDS: Pro Basketball 2021 Mods

Link to Purchase
https://wolverinestudios.onfastspring.com/

Some Screenshots

[MizzouRah]

Looks incredible.

[MizzouRah]

Wow... realworld mod and photos mod really make the game feel alive, thanks slybelle and GM games.

Think I'll start with the Timberwolves since they have the 1st pick.

[Icy]

Congrats on the new UI, looks really good!

I'm more into the College game, but might give this a shoot as well.

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by Icy

Congrats on the new UI, looks really good!

I'm more into the College game, but might give this a shoot as well.

It's worth a shot if you like pro basketball as it offers a different experience. If unsure, could always wait until the full release as they always make a FREE demo available at that time.

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Wow... realworld mod and photos mod really make the game feel alive, thanks slybelle and GM games.

Think I'll start with the Timberwolves since they have the 1st pick.

Thanks....I much prefer a realworld experience vs fictional so having these mods is a must for me Glad you like them, I know Chris from GM Games put a lot of time and effort into all those photos, courts, etc.

[SlyBelle1]

Just some screenshots using the realworld mod and GM Games Photo Pack.......

[spleen1015]

Any idea when this will hit Steam? Do I get a Steam key if I buy from Wolverine?

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Any idea when this will hit Steam? Do I get a Steam key if I buy from Wolverine?

They estimate a FULL release on 11/19/2020 so I would expect Steam keys to be available around then. You do get a Steam key if you participate in First Access as well, here is the info:

Pre-order and receive license key immediately to download and play beta builds. All pre-orders will be eligible to receive complementary Steam key upon final release. Use coupon code PB21FIRST to save 10% on your pre-order.

To learn more about our FirstAccess process and on what to expect please visit All About FirstAccess - Wolverine Studios

Get yourself ready for the deepest, most realistic basketball sim available today. No game gives you a better feeling of being a basketball GM. Enjoy the most exciting draft experience of any sports game and build a basketball dynasty today!

For more details visit Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2021 - Wolverine Studios

[MizzouRah]

The game is much faster this year too when going between screens.

[gmgameschris]

Amazing stuff sly. Here is a video as well to go with the screencaps.



https://youtu.be/2-0XYvFrsSk

DDSPB21 First Look and New Features of Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2021 | Windows PC DDSPB 21

[stevew]

Is this fun? I haven't played a basketball sim since Jump Shot basketball way back in like 2001ish. Is there online multiplayer?

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by stevew

Is this fun? I haven't played a basketball sim since Jump Shot basketball way back in like 2001ish. Is there online multiplayer?

Yes you can do an online league as you would the same with any of these types of games.

As for is it fun - obviously I think so but before you jump in and pre-order let me try and help.

1. Blog post detailed some of the new things this year at Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2021 FirstAccess Begins Today! - Wolverine Studios

2. Screens, trailer, short description at Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2021 - Wolverine Studios

3. Wolverine Studios - YouTube is our YouTube channel which contains weeks and weeks of developer dynasty videos so that you can see for yourself what the game does

4. Twitch is our Twitch channel - we will be continuing the developer dynasties up to the final release. Shows are Tuesday nights (including tonight) from 7:30-8:00 PM Eastern

5. Once the game is fully released (likely 11/19) there will be a free demo. I encourage you to try it out for yourself at that point if you aren't 100% sold by any of the above.

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by stevew

Is this fun? I haven't played a basketball sim since Jump Shot basketball way back in like 2001ish. Is there online multiplayer?

If you enjoy a basketball text simulation that focuses on being the GM/coach, then without a doubt this is a fun and very good game. I have no experience with Jumpshot Basketball so I can't compare it to that.

As Gary mentioned, if your unsure, wait for the demo and give it a try...although if you do wait, you lose out on the discount and an included steam key

[stevew]

Omg was losing my mind looking for the game options screen.

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by stevew

Omg was losing my mind looking for the game options screen.

Although I think you figured it out, just in case not or others have the same question, located under the "hamburger" menu in the upper left-hand corner of the window.

[stevew]

I'm having fun with it but several parts are tedious.

Free Agency, the production thereof, flat out sucks. Only options are advance one day, or advance til the end? How about advance a week, or advance til someone makes a decision on my offer. It's borderline painful clicking advance a day, and then clicking the results screen for NO action at all. like streamline that. Otherwise it's solid

The D-League draft makes me want to eat a pistol.

need a better way to run a trade block. Like how OOTP will offer your guy out to every team so you can get some offers back.

Outside of those couple things, I enjoy the game. But the parts I hate i really hate.

Also my PC should be a monster at processing this stuff and it seems way slower than I'd think it would be at certain points.

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by stevew

I'm having fun with it but several parts are tedious.

Free Agency, the production thereof, flat out sucks. Only options are advance one day, or advance til the end? How about advance a week, or advance til someone makes a decision on my offer. It's borderline painful clicking advance a day, and then clicking the results screen for NO action at all. like streamline that. Otherwise it's solid

The D-League draft makes me want to eat a pistol.

need a better way to run a trade block. Like how OOTP will offer your guy out to every team so you can get some offers back.

Outside of those couple things, I enjoy the game. But the parts I hate i really hate.

Also my PC should be a monster at processing this stuff and it seems way slower than I'd think it would be at certain points.

Since this is still in FIRST ACCESS, might want to post these in the official forums as the developer continues to make enhancements/changes before release.

1) No idea how hard to implement or a reason its not, but seems like a good idea if possible to have more options for controlling the FA period.

2) Curious, what is bad about the d-league draft? If your not controlling a d-league team, then pretty much just watching. But if you are in control of d-league team, you need to be able to draft your teams.

3) You can put your players on the trade block where you will get offers from other teams, but maybe your meaning some specific way to do that. Right now you can go to trade screen and place them on the block and then wait for offers. There is also a get offers button on the trade screen that you can try and get immediate offers for players, if someone else is interested.

4) There are a couple of stages where things can be a little slower, for me in free agency and importing draft pools. I just assumed a lot of stuff going on at those times.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by stevew

I'm having fun with it but several parts are tedious.

Free Agency, the production thereof, flat out sucks. Only options are advance one day, or advance til the end? How about advance a week, or advance til someone makes a decision on my offer. It's borderline painful clicking advance a day, and then clicking the results screen for NO action at all. like streamline that. Otherwise it's solid

The D-League draft makes me want to eat a pistol.

need a better way to run a trade block. Like how OOTP will offer your guy out to every team so you can get some offers back.

Outside of those couple things, I enjoy the game. But the parts I hate i really hate.

Also my PC should be a monster at processing this stuff and it seems way slower than I'd think it would be at certain points.

As slybelle said the game is still in its FirstAccess stage so I am always happy to take feedback to improve what might be unpleasant points in the game.

I can definitely see what I can do about giving you more options in free agency - I sort of like your idea of sim until something happens with a player you bid on.

I'm assuming you don't like the d-league draft because there's nothing for you to do with it. I will see if I can make another option there to skip it

You can do two things with the trade block - one is click the "block icon" and place him on the trade block and you might get offers over the course of the season. The other is you can pull up any team you want, place him in the trade and get an immediate response from that particular team.

Is there anything in particular you find slow? For example if you are processing all of free agency there is a lot going on there - that's every team evaluating its roster, making its offers and then every player examining their offers and making their decisions x the 20 days there are in the game for free agency but if you let me know where the areas are you think it is slow I can at least investigate.

[Gary Gorski]

Just an update for you stevew - today in my build I added in the ability in free agency to advance until one of your bids gets accepted or declined so hopefully that gives another option to move through free agency better

[MizzouRah]

I haven't had time to play much but is there a way to select a player and shop him to all teams with a list of players other teams offer, if any, right then like in OOTP?

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I haven't had time to play much but is there a way to select a player and shop him to all teams with a list of players other teams offer, if any, right then like in OOTP?

Pretty sure the only two methods are the ones Gary described above.


You can do two things with the trade block - one is click the "block icon" and place him on the trade block and you might get offers over the course of the season. The other is you can pull up any team you want, place him in the trade and get an immediate response from that particular team.

[Gary Gorski]

Also in regards to stevew's post in my latest build I have made it so that the d-league draft just gets run instantaneously without going through it if you are not running a team participating in the draft. That should make that a bit less annoying.

On the trade front I mean I am open to thinking about it but I don't really like the idea of clicking a button and getting what all 29 other teams think of your player and whether or not they would offer you a trade in an instant. I don't think the path of least resistance is always the way to go - you're supposed to be a GM. You're supposed to be looking over rosters, seeing who might be a trade fit and then having a "discussion" with another GM about a trade. The way things work now allows that to happen - you can ask a team if they are interested and what they would offer on a player or you can put a player on the block and let other teams offer when and if they want to and I am pretty happy with how that works.

[SlyBelle1]

Nice additions....

[stevew]

Sounds great. I’ll check it out. Only other slight thing I can remember noticing was seemed like a lot of lottery picks had been traded. I know that’s a nightmare to code protections probably. Like the Celts somehow had 2 top 6 picks maybe 2 times in 3 years and none of those picks were their pick. Which is kinda what happened IRL I guess.

Is there any way to make it so a guy gets locked in another position. Like was trying to run a 2 PG set and backup PGs don’t get a ton of minutes. I know I can mess with the matrix myself but I mainly fast sim or maybe you could add a bit more weight to the AI just starting the 5 best guys. Or at least best two guards?

I like the scouts/coaches suggestion of which players we should draft. It’s in orange maybe? I know there’s some place where they break down free agents to look at. Is there a way those players could be colored in the FA pool.

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by stevew

Sounds great. I’ll check it out. Only other slight thing I can remember noticing was seemed like a lot of lottery picks had been traded. I know that’s a nightmare to code protections probably. Like the Celts somehow had 2 top 6 picks maybe 2 times in 3 years and none of those picks were their pick. Which is kinda what happened IRL I guess.

Is there any way to make it so a guy gets locked in another position. Like was trying to run a 2 PG set and backup PGs don’t get a ton of minutes. I know I can mess with the matrix myself but I mainly fast sim or maybe you could add a bit more weight to the AI just starting the 5 best guys. Or at least best two guards?

I like the scouts/coaches suggestion of which players we should draft. It’s in orange maybe? I know there’s some place where they break down free agents to look at. Is there a way those players could be colored in the FA pool.

I like your suggestions about FA being recommended from the staff. Right now, I think you get those in an email. Would be great if on screens where FA is displayed (FA guide in magazines, FA list during FA, player card) if some kind of indicator was added so you could pay special attention. Plus, maybe they should be auto put on your target list during FA. Otherwise, you have to look up the email and remember those players mentioned.

[Gary Gorski]

Originally Posted by stevew

Sounds great. I’ll check it out. Only other slight thing I can remember noticing was seemed like a lot of lottery picks had been traded. I know that’s a nightmare to code protections probably. Like the Celts somehow had 2 top 6 picks maybe 2 times in 3 years and none of those picks were their pick. Which is kinda what happened IRL I guess.

Is there any way to make it so a guy gets locked in another position. Like was trying to run a 2 PG set and backup PGs don’t get a ton of minutes. I know I can mess with the matrix myself but I mainly fast sim or maybe you could add a bit more weight to the AI just starting the 5 best guys. Or at least best two guards?

I like the scouts/coaches suggestion of which players we should draft. It’s in orange maybe? I know there’s some place where they break down free agents to look at. Is there a way those players could be colored in the FA pool.

The changes I mentioned are not in the public beta build yet but will be in the next release which will probably be a day or two.

Yeah pick protections are a whole level deeper to the trade engine so its probably something that I will look at in the future but not now. It's incredibly difficult to make the AI a realistic trading partner taking into account all the restrictions already with the salary matching rules and that sort of thing.

One thing you can do is go to the depth screen and click on the box/cell (not the player name link) of a player and his info comes up at the bottom. There you can choose which positions he is eligible to play. If you designate your other PG as a SG as well and then ask the AI to reset the matrix and depth chart it may put him in as the starting SG. The AI also does consider a "sixth man scorer" when it puts together lineups sometimes (like Ginobili) so its possible it may want to use him in that role.

The draft suggestions are giving you the opinion of your staff on the best player left at each position - I don't know how helpful that would be in free agency because typically by the time players are free agents their ratings are "known" across the league meaning there is no longer a scouting error so just sorting by their overall rating would tell you who is the best.

I appreciate the continued feedback - whether it leads directly to a change like some of your suggestions or at least starts the ball rolling on a discussion that might lead to some other kind of improvement they are very valuable insights and suggestions.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

On the trade front I mean I am open to thinking about it but I don't really like the idea of clicking a button and getting what all 29 other teams think of your player and whether or not they would offer you a trade in an instant. I don't think the path of least resistance is always the way to go - you're supposed to be a GM. You're supposed to be looking over rosters, seeing who might be a trade fit and then having a "discussion" with another GM about a trade. The way things work now allows that to happen - you can ask a team if they are interested and what they would offer on a player or you can put a player on the block and let other teams offer when and if they want to and I am pretty happy with how that works.

Understood... my gaming time is limited so I love being able to shop a player in OOTP and have teams offer me players. I then can go through the list. It's most useful when trying to offload a big contract. Going to each team would be too tedious for me. Maybe with basketball it's not as big of a feature with a lower roster limit.

I'll try the trade block method and see how that goes but I still like the idea of telling teams, player x is available to the highest bidder, let me see your offers.

[korme]

Something tells me I should play a bit longer on 20 before testing out 21.