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I don't think I've ever wanted to punch another anonymous internet user in the face. At least before your post.

But...would that be a +5 or just a +1?

Depends on whether he can guess which eye I am shortsighted with. No handouts

I was not disregarding the complaint. I was actually trying to assess the merit of the three suggestions you had in your initial post. I just don't find them reasonable, though I am far from thinking the system is without a flaw.

As for your disaster of a season:

First I want to clearly point out that pre- and post- reform situation are clearly different. While I can see the frustration of +8 on a trainee, I'd like to point out that it happened under the old system and with a level 1 doctor. My very rough guess will be that right now, with a decent doctor this will be a +3, give or take half a week.

Second, while the frequency of the other injuries is unpleasant, I don't see anything that compromises a player in the long run (through loss of stamina and game shape). So at least this is good.

The question is how much of an aberration this (half) season was. As with just about anything that has an arbitrary element, someone will be on the wrong side of the random factor. Even with an injury frequency set at an infinitesimally small %, given a sufficient number of users and a sufficient interval of time, someone will have a season comparable to yours. That's the way uncertainty works, and there is really no easy way around it.

The main question is whether one believes that injury frequency is too high on average (which cannot be assessed from your individual example), and whether a high-level doctor should make you invincible (which I think is a clear No).

I pointed out I am not a native speaker. I used the word 'gripe' as I know it, with its first meaning in the Webster dictionary: "to complain naggingly or constantly; grumble". "To complain constantly" seems to be fitting the bill, and I've never seen this particular use as being derogatory. But then again, this is just me.

I particularly meant long-term problems with the players, not with the team. As in, no-one was on the shelf for 4 weeks, losing 3 levels of stamina and 4 levels of game shape. Or something like that.

Beyond that, being able to field a capable line-up even when you have 1 or 2 injuries is a part of managing your roster. Given that quite a number of these injuries were game only, I'd hazard a guess that you probably haven't had 3 players injured at the same time for more than 1 week.

A downside to such an idea is that a user can know that once they hit the threshold, none of their players will be injured for the rest of the season. That being said, if a user hits the threshold, they have been screwed by the random number generator often enough that the knowledge won't be a big advantage.

I thought the whole point of the cap was to prevent from being screwed by the random number generator too much. I don't like this idea for several reasons:

First, because any system with concurrent positive probability events is self-regulating (i.e. it is increasingly less likely to get a large number of consequent 'successes' - in this case, injuries);

Second, where do you draw the line? Do you control for the number or week total of injuries? How do yo deal with game injuries?

If you control for length, this system gives comparative advantage to teams who get several long injuries. Sure, they lose 1 or 2 players for a long time, but the rest of their squad becomes invincible.

If you control for number, then squads that sustained several short injuries are clearly better off.

If you control for both, well, then you get the worst of both worlds.

Third, it just feels plain artificial and unnecessary. It's a can of worms, and it creates more potential problems than it solves.

If you have doctor level X, we assign an injury in a non-linear way weighted strongly towards shorter injuries between 0 and (10+X)/2 weeks, and then we subtract X/2 weeks from the injury length. So the better your doctor, the higher the odds that when those weeks are subtracted, you'll get an immediately-healed player.

First thing that comes to mind: implement a structure, where a player can play hurt.

Very rough example: put in additional variable, say "health". Injuries affect health, which then recovers towards its maximum value. At your own risk, you can field a player at less than 100%, but he will perform worse and this will slow down his recovery and the benefit he gets from training.

This opens the door for new types of staff like rehab specialists, and whatnot. Thoughts, everyone?

I don't think injuries can make the game any funnier at all.
The less they are into the game, the happier the users will be. Injuries only increase the random ... and now, if you have 2-3 players out in the same time, you can even risk a drop of entusiasm buying their substitutes.

Hi, I'm tending to agree on WFU03 on this one. I think the system as it is now takes to much away from the pleasure of playing. The example of getting your newly bought star injured before the playoff finale illustrates it. I believe it takes alot more away from the game than the satisfaction added from more realism, and my guess is alot of gamers - experiencing injuries like that - would agree. Now, since obviously this could destroy a full season, people might give up on the game. I guess, this is not something you would want to happen - including from a business point of view.

You are asking for a change to the staff system to possibly mend this. One thing you could do is split the role of doctor into 2. Adding a physio - responsible for conditioning - which level would decide what the doctors do now. When a injury happens, the level of your physio will influence it's seriousness (as the doctor does today). The level of your doctor however, would - as suggested - decide how fast a player heals. As an extra you might add that a player can play hurt - with an added risk of re-injury. However, again the level of your physio and/or doctor could help reduce the risk.

Most importantly though you should reduce the chances of getting injuries. Someone mentioned that scrimmages should have a reduced risk. I agree, but perhaps it could be taken further. Why not make it a strategic decision mixed in with the level of effort. For instance you could increase the risk of getting injuries when people play "crunch time". Reduce it when people play "take it easy" or scrimmages.

To sum things up:

- chance of getting an injury should be reduced
- chance of getting an injury depends on effort level
- level of doctor should influence speed of healing
- split doctor into physio and doctor, with physio adapting current doctors role
- make it possible to play hurt (added extra risk of re-injury)

Anyway, back to Pens vs Flyers... :-)