Playing Out Games

[blazertaz13]

I am wondering for those of you that actually coach out your games, how has your experience changed from last year's version? Any suggestions that you might have to improve a player's experience?

I am struggling to get a good flow coaching out games. I do realize that coaching at smaller schools (lower prestidge) that I will get run out of the gym. I have just noticed that when I sim out the games, my team seems to do better. Personally, I enjoy the coaching aspect as much as recruiting, so I am open to suggestions to improve the experience.

Thanks,

[PointGuard]

I'm not sure what you're asking for. Are you experiencing a difference in how games are played out from CB24 to CB25? If so, what's been the difference that you've encountered?

And as to level of success for playing out games vs simming them, I am really not sure that playing out games gives you an advantage (even though I'd like to think it does). While I've not done an extensive test related to this, I've done some limited testing...simming a game, then not saving that, and then playing out the same game. Sometimes the team I was coaching did better in the games I played out and in others my team did worse when I played out the game. But I've not done that enough to PROVE if playing out all games really improves your team's level of success compared to simming all your team's games...or the inverse. Personally, I really do prefer playing out games over simming games and seasons.

The biggest difference in DDSCB between simming and the human controlling things is related to recruiting and the transfer portal. It's pretty clear the human can do better and your team will develop more rapldly if the human does the recruiting and the transfer portal. I've continually encouraged Gary to improve the AI's capabilities related to this aspect of the game, and he's definitely made improvements. His addition (several CB iterations ago) of the recruiting difficulty (easy to brutal) component definitely was a major improvement. But even at "brutal", the human still is able to out-recruit the AI and outperform the AI in the transfer portal...so there's still work to do on this component of the game to make the challenge of the game greater.

[blazertaz13]

Hi Point Guard.

Thanks for the response. I seem to be struggling some this year coaching out my games. My request was part has something changed, so I need to change my habits and part what tips would you share when you coach out your games. Maybe I need to pay more attention to something.

Regarding the differing results between simming and coaching, something tells me that I need to do something different. I was just trying to be a better coach and see what suggestions are out there.

[PointGuard]

I think most everyone probably plays out their games in different manners and I'm not sure what specific actions tend to create a better chance for your team to win. As I said, I don't think when I play out games (which I almost always do rather than simming them) my team generally does better or worse than if I'd simmed the game. For me I play out the games because I like to experience the ebb and flow of the game, feel that it really helps me get to "know" my players better, and it is fun to decides who plays when and how long.

I tend to play a deep bench and sub out players when their EN gets down close to 80...but I have a feeling that maybe my teams would do better if i played my starting 5 more mpg. My mind says having fresher legs on the court than my opponent is a positive, but have no way of proving that within the game. This also gives me a way of getting my subs more experience and slowly improving their skill levels...and keeping some of them happier. I most often send a player to the bench when he picks up his 2nd foul in the first half and/or will if he picks up his 3rd foul early in the 2nd half. It's pretty rare that I have a player foul out.

I usually keep my offensive setting to Auto Switch and Balanced (I not often, but sometimes will move that to Inside or Outside if I want my perimeter players or interior players taking more shots at a particular point in a game), and the pace, offensive freedom, offensive crashing of the boards as I've set for my coach overall.

Defensively I mostly keep my settings to Auto Switch, Auto Switch, and Def Crash Board, Intensity, and Full Court as they come according to what I've preset for my coach. I almost always have a double team on SOME player on the opposing team...sometimes it slows him down, other times he still scorches us. I don't tend to manipulate the speed, def. intensity, my offensive and defensive sets unless things really aren't going well for my team. If I'm losing I sometimes amp up the crashing of the boards, the defensive intensity, and the full court press level to see if that helps (sometimes it does, sometimes not). And most of the time if its close at the end of the game, I will amp up my full-court pressing. Also if it's close at the end of the game and I need to foul, I will slow down the play speed so I can closely watch what's happening and pause action just as a pass is made to a poor foul shooter, then click ON Intentional Foul and restart play so that guy gets fouled....since a real life coach would try to have his team foul a poorer foul shooter (if possible), my justification is my doing this manipulation is not cheating.

If I'm ahead by a little at the end of the game, I might click on "Stall Offense", but I hate doing it since my teams seem to screw it up more than making it work.

Does all this make me a better ingame coach or my team more likely to win? Nah.

Actually I would NOT want to find a way to manipulate the game to my team's advantage if I were to perceive a weakness in how the game has been programmed or take advantage of any programming limitations. I want the AI to be a gifted opponent and present a difficult challenge...and I think Gary's been making steady progress at improving that.

Wrt to your concerns about YOUR ingame coaching efforts, I think that some seasons a team underperforms and other seasons it overperforms and the reasons for this are not always readily apparent.