Tutorial Request

[ukSUNSfan]

Hi Wolverine Team,

I’m really enjoying Pro basketball 22 (21 was my first year playing) but find myself wanting more in terms of scouting/upcoming draft players. Currently there is a lack of immersion in this area - up until the combine/workouts, apart from the basic averages for each prospect, we don’t know anything. They don’t feel like a part of the game world, just names and numbers on the screen. (I do have ideas for this area but that’s not why I am writing today)

I’ve seen that the college game and the pro game can be linked but I can’t find any really simple/basic info on how the two mesh together. Not so much the tech side (I’ll probably struggle there too but I’m sure I can find a guide for that) but from a players perspective. So how do I go about playing both games to maximise the linking ability and see the college players in pro game?

I anticipate the team is going to be busy and probably quite small in numbers but could this be done as a short tutorial video/stream that shows how to link the games but mainly shows someone playing them both and how to do this so it works as it is designed? I don’t want to purchase the game and not know how to utilise it properly to improve the Pro basketball experience.

Appreciate you!

[CJacksonCowart]

I'll pass along the note about immersion in scouting to Gary, I think it's a fair point. Would love to hear your ideas, as well!

As for the second part: the game walks you through how to integrate the two from a technical standpoint (those tips are new to this year), so if you follow the prompts in the game, that should help a lot. But we've also got some exciting things planned on the streaming front, so we'll add a tutorial on linking the two leagues to our list of potential videos!

[ukSUNSfan]

I'll pass along the note about immersion in scouting to Gary, I think it's a fair point. Would love to hear your ideas, as well!

As for the second part: the game walks you through how to integrate the two from a technical standpoint (those tips are new to this year), so if you follow the prompts in the game, that should help a lot. But we've also got some exciting things planned on the streaming front, so we'll add a tutorial on linking the two leagues to our list of potential videos!

Thanks for the quick reply. Look forward to the streams.

In no particular order, here’s my thoughts on scouting and how it could be improved to improve the immersion alongside the draft.

The game currently has ‘scouting levels’ - points based on your staff abilities which we can assign to the different categories (quick ranking to deep dive) However, until the workouts, the player doesn’t get any feedback or reports from scouts whatsoever.

I’d use the same idea of points but let the player use points to send scouts to ‘watch’ certain players in the draft list. For example, the scouts could complete 1 report per week and at the end of the week, an inbox item with ‘some’ knowledge about the player scouted.

The knowledge could be progressive/cumulative - the more times the scouts are assigned to the same player, the greater the knowledge level of said player. This could be reported as a % out of 100. For example, I choose to scout player X on the draft list. After 1 report I’ve learnt something about them be it personality, play style, strength or weakness and I can see the scout knowledge of the player listed as 10% maybe. If I scout this player multiple times, the knowledge increases, as does the picture they have built of the player.

The beauty of this would be the player cannot scout all the draft prospects in the season and get full knowledge. I’d even build it so it’s limited to add a fog of war reflecting real life and the uncertainty of the draft. For example, if there’s 40 weeks available, and a player can have 1 report done by scouts per week, that’s a maximum of 40 reports. Does the player get 8 reports on 5 players for detailed knowledge, or do they get 2 reports on 20 players for some knowledge? If the AI is doing the same and held to the same (the AI can’t have visibility of everything, eg current and potential abilities or it defeats the aim - Football Manager seems to fall down on this because the AI appears to know potential that the human can’t know)

In real life the draft is unpredictable, and top 3 picks are not guaranteed to be superstars, and late picks and second round picks can throw up hidden gems. For example, Anthony Bennett, Kwame Brown, Greg Oden and Sam Bowie would be considered busts. Whereas Nikola Jokic (41st pick), Draymond Green (#35), Jimmy Butler (#30), Dennis Rodman (#27), Manu Ginobli (#58), Tony Parker (#28), Rudy Gobert (#27) amongst others (Even mid first rounders like Booker, Nash, Bryant, Stockton) all became superstars.

This doesn’t seem to happen in the game. The players at the top of the draft list with the highest star ratings are going to go early and be good players and I haven’t seen anyone with low star rating, or who is taken later or second round become a good player. More uncertainty, fog of war needed. This could easily link to each team and who they scouted during the season (the AI has to be limited to the same conditions as the player) It would be much more interesting and fun to know that scouts can be wrong more often, that a lack of scouting knowledge from the season could cause you to miss a great player or a player goes under the radar because none of the teams either rated them or scouted them enough and they end up taken late or in round 2 like Jokic but become a future MVP and superstar.

Maybe players developing differently or at different speeds - they go under the radar in the draft because at the time they were seen as a 2 star player. They go in the second round but develop well as a role player and start improving - a few years in they are now rated as a 4 star player or potential 4 star player.

Additionally, I think we should get match reports on players. What I mean is every so often it’d be nice to get a news item saying player X had a monster game this week for Team Y. He scored 33 points and grabbed 15 rebounds on route to a win against Team Z. Little things to bring the players to life and keep it interesting throughout the season.

I think scouting needs to reveal player personalities as well. A big addition to 2022 was the revamped personalities and the importance of fitting players together. We can see player personalities for those in the league but not the draft prospects, even after the workouts. I think draft prospects that we workout or that we have scouted and uncovered this knowledge of, should have known personalities. Why? Because the player is spending more time trying to mesh the personalities so surely the draft pick needs to fit this plan/jigsaw. If I’ve built a team of planners, I don’t want someone who is going to disrupt that, but I don’t know the personality of the drafted player until after I’ve picked them.

I know that’s a lot of info/suggestions. Happy to discuss any in more depth if you want. Played Football Manager for 24 years and seen how that grew and developed over the years. I think there’s things from that game that can be used here in similar ways (like the player comparison idea I suggested and you implemented)

[CJacksonCowart]

Some great ideas in here, thanks for writing all that out. Can't speak to the viability of any particular idea but will be sure to get Gary's thoughts on all this!

[jlemmen43]

Kwame Brown wasn't a bust though

[ukSUNSfan]

Please can you clarify, if I want to link the two games, do I need to play a season of college basketball first, then I can open the pro game, link the two and play season 1 of the pro game? Then back to college for season 2. Is this correct? Thanks

[CJacksonCowart]

More or less. Here's a good breakdown of how it works: https://wolverinestudios.freshdesk.com/ ... basketball

[ukSUNSfan]

Thank you for the guide. I’ve bought the game and think I’ve linked them successfully. I know nothing about college basketball so my first few hours have been looking round the game and playing with the recruiting model.