dev diary #46 Stamina Explanation, Scheduling, and Surprise Feature!

[Rocketcan]

Hello Coaches!

 

Welcome to another Dev Diary for NewSim on SimFBA!

 

Last time, Sub talked about the latest things I have been brewing behind the curtains, along with info about the SimNFL's inaugural rookie draft. This time, I am going to talk about the new Stamina system that Sub alluded to last time, college scheduling, and a surprise feature I have been working on!

 

New Stamina System

 

As many of you know, the previous stamina system was causing problems where some players with exceedingly low stamina would simply not play, or only a play one or two snaps. In order to rectify this, we tweaked the system a bit.

 

First, we decided that any changes to players themselves was out of the question. There simply was just too much data to have to comb through. Plus, what if we made a mistake? There would be effectively zero way to catch it. Therefore, we decided to make some changes under the hood to adapt to the numbers the players had.

 

So what *was* the old system exactly? And what was the problem with it?

 

The nerdy answer:

[spoiler=WARNING: HERE BE NERD SHIT]

Each player's stamina was set as a "Maximum" stamina for the game. Each snap the player participated in would reduce their stamina. Every snap the player did not participate in would increase their stamina (up to their maximum). Every consecutive snap the player participated in, however, would reduce their stamina more than the last play. The same applies to stamina recovery: each consecutive snap the player sits out will increase their stamina more than the last one. If a player dropped below a certain stamina threshold, that player would be deemed "gassed" and would be forced to sit out. Only once their stamina reached above a slightly higher threshold would that player be allowed back onto the field.

 

This system meant several things:

• Players could sit for a play, and while they might not gain back much stamina, it would lessen the impact of the next play's on stamina since it wasn't *consecutive*. Thus, you could get a player a quick breather and that might extend them the rest of the drive or so.
  
• Players should get progressively more tired the as the game goes on. Players should be their freshest in the 1st quarter, and their most tired in the 4th/overtime.
  
• This is where the problem occurred: some players' stamina was just so low that they could never recover once they were "gassed".
  

 

 

 

The short answer:

The old system would take away stamina more and more the player played, but some players would never be able to recover once they were pulled from a game.

 

So, how has it been fixed? Well, now, each player gets a "boost" of 100 stamina from the beginning of the game, and the formulas that determine how much stamina a player loses/gains for each play have been tweaked to fit this new model. So what should happen now is players with stamina in the F and D range should start to get tired in the 4th quarter, and might only play sporadically. C stamina players might also be affected if they are at the bottom of their range, but only if they have been playing constantly.

 

What can you do to help players with poor stamina?

• Remove them from special teams. Any chance they have of resting will reset their "consecutive plays" counter and will mean the next play they participate in won't affect them as much.
  
• Let them play in only role-situations. For example, if you run a Pro-style offense, put a stamina-poor WR at WR3. They simply won't be on the field in some formations, and so they will recover stamina for it.
  

NCAA Scheduling

 

So now let's move on to the next topic, NCAA scheduling! Today, I got ahold of the conference commissioners about setting the conference schedules up. Hopefully, they can accomplish this task within a week or so. Once that is completed and the conference schedule is audited, we will be able to open up 2022 OOC scheduling to everyone! FYI, we will still be operating on the way conferences were structured at the end of the 2021 IRL season, since so there still are so many moving parts to the IRL conferences.

 

So if you want to start hammering out OOC deals, go ahead! We should be able to get an official thread going next week or so.

 

Secret New Feature

 

Before you guys do that, though, I figured you should know about this new feature (I just finished it!). I wanted to wait to tell you until the entirety of this off-season patch is complete, but I figured given the nature of it that I should show you *before* you set up your OOC schedules.

 

And the new feature is...

 

 

 

Home Field Advantage!

 

That's right, it will now matter whether or not you play that imposing team on the road or at home! How does it work? Well, it is all based on your players' Discipline rating (just like with penalties). Players with high enough discipline, simply won't be affected by the crowd noise or the pressure of the big moment. They can cut through the extra stuff and see what they need to do with clarity. On the other hand, players with poor Discipline can be easily affected by playing on the road.

 

How *exactly* does it work, though?

 

 

 

The entire system is on a game-by-game basis and has an element of randomness to it. Players that have low discipline might not be affected one game, but might be massively affected the next. When away players are read in at the beginning of a game, their discipline stat is set aside. If it is greater than a certain threshold, they are unaffected, otherwise, it is used to roll for a malus to all stats (except discipline). The lower the discipline, the higher the maximum malus can be. This is done on the individual player level, so one player with poor discipline might be affected differently than another player with similarly poor discipline, even in the same game.

 

 

 

 

How much can this affect players? Well the less discipline the player has, the more of an effect it *can* be. So moderately disciplined players might be affected, but it usually will be a small effect. Poorly disciplined players, however, could see a malus of up to 10 points on their stats, which is easily enough to drop them a letter grade at most attributes.

 

Some important points to close this out:

• This will NOT affect teams at neutral site games, and this includes bowl games/playoff games and neutral site regular season games (like the Army Navy game, or the Red River Showdown).
  
• For now, this effect will be the same regardless of who the home team is. In the future, it might be affected by things like crowd size or fan support, but for now South Alabama at Alabama will be affected the same as Alabama at South Alabama (given all teams have the same discipline levels).
  

 

 

 

 

That's all there is for this Dev Diary. Please ask questions below, and I will get to them as soon as I can.

 

Until next time,

 

Rocketcan

Edited January 24, 2022 by Rocketcan

[Sarge]

I'm so so happy about the Stamina changes and the addition of HFA!

 

Just so everyone knows, the ELO system Alex and I worked out can and will now incorporate HFA for the ELO ratings.

[subsequent]

HFA is going to be a game changer for sure! So will the new stamina system!