BuzzerBeater Forums

(since i have a little time to kill)
i realize that was at least halfway a joke post, but you mar it with the rest. (unless the straw man starter/backup argument, using the +/- of -2 over 7 minutes, repeating the discredited GS claims, & so on were also tongue in cheek)

ok... instead of arguing into a corner, how about simply giving your opinion on this:
do you think that each game (*not* your games with LMA, just games in general) if simulated 1000 times will always yield more or less the same result each time? If [Team A] is "supposed to" win by 10 points over [Team B], will [Team A] win each of those 1000 games by the expected margin? (give or take a few points). Or do you believe that in at least some of those 1000 simulations, things won't always go as expected?

I'm not trying to get you to say anything [wink emoticon goes here]. Just would like your opinion. If you do think games always play out according to plan, that's fine. (no need for evidence or anything either).

I think the game engine works like this:

1) First it picks the final score
2) Then it assigns stats to the players so that it comes out to that score



I swear I have seen people suggest this somewhere. Obviously it can be as random it wants with an "algorithm" like that! It does seem pretty random!

That just seems too bizarre.

There will always be some randomness involved. Its possible theres some catch-up logic to prevent wild outcomes, such as if player A with an expected 100 PP100 gets unlucky random numbers and winds up going cold, then the computer gives Player B also with the same expected PP100 a slight boost to his make/miss chances.

(ok, have a little more time to kill)

Forgot to set my training like the noobiest (?) of noobs, so I trained Damiano and Selby instead of Rodriguez and Nielsen: instead of arguing with Ortho I shoulda hit the training page.

and all over the worst. BuzzerBeater. argument. ever.

what's weird is that it started with him randomly jumping in & countering the idea of a "purported wildly unpredictable game engine"... which is fine... but he then lays out some completely specious argument with fabricated "facts".

And he was way overly emphatic about everything for some reason. (should have been a giant red flag in retrospect) It's not like he says "I think X because Y...", or "maybe this was the case...". Rather everything he argues is simply stated as fact. And was coming in with a very closed mind.

on a tangent... i don't get why so many people seem more concerned with winning "arguments", evangelizing viewpoints, or saving face than getting at the truth. like even in his joke post, he's refusing to concede anything. what's up with that?
(& i see you Ortho... i know you're lurking!)

(internet lag-out! retry...)

I think the game engine works like this:

1) First it picks the final score
2) Then it assigns stats to the players so that it comes out to that score



I swear I have seen people suggest this somewhere. Obviously it can be as random it wants with an "algorithm" like that! It does seem pretty random!

I'm not sure what to believe. I haven't given it much thought in a while.

It's certainly *felt* like that at times when watching games live though. After my first few seasons, i know i asked publicly if there was something like that happening. (not exactly that, but similar). I was more speculating however.

In terms of starting with an outcome first... i wonder about that in regards to certain foul-outs. There are games you just know that a random guy is going to foul out by halftime for no real reason. & know it in the first few minutes. it's clearly not due to the opposing player, as an even more aggressive backup can often finish out the rest of the game without a single foul.

I'll give you my earlier theory over BB mail if you really want it. Was going to write it out here, but is probably be too long / convoluted for the forums.


@AZ
i know of actual video games doing that... i wonder if they do that here though.

As a computer programmer I will say that writing a basketball simulation is quite possibly easier than writing some sort of basketball-final-score-generator plus a convincing-statistics-generator-that-produces-that-desired-score. I mean even if you were going to ignore the simulation part and just generate statistics and call that the game engine, you'd just... generate statistics and add them up to see what the score came out to. Not start with a final score and work backward??

I don't know if this game has come-from-behind mechanics. I call it "nintendo pity" because NBA Jam on original Nintendo was just blatant about it and that was the first time I experienced it. If you put in the cheat code or game genie or whatever it was that let you see it, it would show the shot % on the scoreboard when you pulled up for a jumper. Halfcourt shots would be 2%, but if you were losing by 20 or 30 Patrick Ewing could nail halfcourters at a 50% clip!!

true. & blah, didn't mean for it to come across like i truly believed the final score came first, & the rest 2nd. just meant that sometimes it felt like something wasn't "right" in my early days. (my original theory didn't involve the engine working backwards either or a fixed final score, FWIW)

Piggybacking on the nintendo pity... is it plausible that they could randomly increase a player's chances of committing fouls by like 900% to start a game? Or could there be an "auto foul-out script"? The way in some games single players can just lose it seems odd to me. I guess that's what i meant by outcome first (was a misuse of the word really). Because that would be basically determining in advance that the player had no chance to stay in the game. But it would still be simulated working forward. (idk, just throwing that out there without much thought. probably a ridiculous notion?)

Hmm, I don't think there's an auto-foul-out script, I've had games where I have a guy pick up 5 in 18 minutes but then wind up playing 40. I think it's one of those "you tend to remember the sucky parts" things.

Well the allstar festivities look as awesome as ever! I have both PFs... sort of deservedly so based on their stats, and beating out two (middling) US NTers. These fans have no patriotism!! I also have the starting PG but I have a hard time remembering that guy is on my team to be honest. Lorenz played ONE GAME for Brian and got 17k votes, haha. Ma Jundi cannot be happy about that.

More excitingly, my backup PF (allstar starter) Gaudin is in the 3pt contest somehow! He's 7-13 from beyond the arc this season so I'll be taking the UNDER for shooting percentage but the OVER for first-round points!

How much LI does the NBBA play again?

Last edited by Peluin at 7/2/2012 6:23:22 AM