DDS19 - Let Us Know Your Thoughts

[Myles]

Hey guys,

So for all of you who have DDS19 and have been playing it, Jon and I would love to hear all your feedback on the game. Things we should keep in mind when testing/converting, vulnerabilities and exploits we should keep in mind from a MP perspective (getting into commish mode, all 10s strategy, stuff like that), and anything else you think we should know.

We are looking for things here that directly affect a multiplayer league like ours, if you find any bugs or anything like that obviously that should go directly to WS and Gary. But I still have a direct line of communication with Gary, so if you have any small changes, improvements, or exploits that I can take to him, or that Jon and I can plan for when/if we convert over, we'd like to know that.

Just to make a few things clear:

1) I cannot imagine a world in which we are using DDS19 next season. We are simply too far away as far as testing and converting the file go, and we would not feel comfortable rushing this. We are either going to do this right, or not do it at all. There's a possibility that we are ready to go by the 2023-24 season, but rest assured, you all will get plenty of notice when we are ready to move over.

2) Do not hesitate whatsoever to bring any issue to our attention, big or small. I'd rather take the extra time to test something that you thought was maybe an issue, but too small to mention.

3) Our #1 priority, above all else, is the health of the CSL, and how much you all enjoy being in this league. This is one of the reasons we are considering converting, because we do think it will be good for the health of the league overall. If at any time you have any concerns in this matter, please let us know.

[Rizzo]

I haven't had a ton of extensive play wit this engine yet but did the new offensive/defensive schemes/sets replace the old strategies we know and love right now (pace, DI, zone, etc.)?

[Myles]

They did not. We still have the philosophies we are familiar with, and I’m excited to see how they interact (such as trying 1 defensive intensity with the attack defense, or 10 pace with the grind offense).

[Rizzo]

That's definitely going to be interesting to see. I may try to run a test with the Celtics running all 10's for strategies with the SSOL offensive philosophy.

[Cleasby]

I have just had a quick look for 45 mins or so playing with different strategies. Has anyone else noticed turnovers are a huge problem. I have simmed about 20-25 games and teams have had between 20-40 turnovers per game based on certain strategies.

[Rizzo]

We were having this discussion in the FB chat last night and I posted a question to the community on Wolverine Studios forums. I figured it was great insight into the inner workings of the game and wanted to share it all here:

[Stockton12]

I was waiting on the demo ..haven’t checked to see if it’s out yet

[Flaming Homer]

Took me a while to get my thoughts together.
I was able to simulate one season, with using the strategies in the playoffs.

Overall, I would say the game is not completely re-invented but has a lot of smaller helpful features. I think the two most important improvements are the slightly expanded strategy options and better statistics to figure your team out.
I cannot find a one point worse than in DDS3 so far.
Here a list of things I like in DDS19:

GUI
The DDS3 GUI is probably one of the worse I ever saw, it would not surprise me, if some of the features I will list as new are already in the game, but I was never able to find them. It is just bad to read and very confusing to me.
DDS19 is way better and in my opinion more logical structured.



Strategy
Additional to the "Philosophy" we already have in DDS3 there is now a tab to choose an offense pre-set



Even better is the additional defense tab, where you can select a pre-set and give certain players order who to defend



Statistics
The player statistics include now a shot chart, very helpful to see from where every player should work



The lineup tracking is one of my favorites to have a better idea who works with who



There is a new tab ratings progression, after a few seasons also helpful



Overall the amount of the statistics seems a little bit extended



There is a new overview how every coach see's every player, interesting but not sure how helpful



The game provides now a power ranking



Interesting is also a history of all your draft picks and transactions ...



Budget
Probably not very important for multi player, but the budget seems more important (spend too much and you get fired pretty quick). The coaching staff has a own budget and after one season the owner was complaining badly for a little more as planned ... cheak guy!

[bt]

My main problem with Wolverine games has always been about which features actually work, don't work as intended or which ones are just cosmetic fluff.

With all these added features, that has me interested.

[Stockton12]

There’s always been a power ranking I believe ..I like the new features from what you showed

[Rizzo]

Like Flaming Homer said the GUI makes the experience that much more enjoyable. Add in the offensive and defensive philosophies and that is enough to have me sold.

[mgtr81]

1. Most of those features are already in 18.

2. Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't those "new" defense features what the zone sliders do currently?

3. bt nailed it there as we have discussed this many times over the years. Ask most DDS veterans (from the first version) and will give you a very similar answer. I wish it was like the football game, where everything works as intended.

Edit: don't get me wrong, I like the DDSPB series which has provided some really great moments for me, but instead of releasing so many versions I would prefer patches which make things actually work.

[Flaming Homer]

1. Yes it is a compare between DDS3 (CSL) and what we could go to in DDS19.
Except for the extended strategy (offense/defense), the coaching staff budget and the transaction history everything is also in 18

2. It looks a little bit more detailed to me ... if it works? I really don't know.

[Marcos_Beck]

I can’t try right now because of money issues. But I’ll buy it if we decide to switch. Hopefully Gary gives us Fromm CSL some kind of discount.
My company is growing though and hopefully by next year these money issues won’t be a thing anymore.

[Myles]

Hey guys, I want to know what DEAL BREAKERS you have for DDS19. Things that, until it gets fixed, make it so we shouldn't transition to DDS19. I've got 1.5 so far, I'll list them below. Please feel free to comment anything else that needs to get added. I'm going to take these to Gary and let him know we won't transition the league until these things get fixed, and hopefully that will motivate him to get a move on!

Deal Breakers
-Big man shooting 3s (glitch involving shooting preferences and the catch and shoot preference)
-Individual matchups on defense (this is my .5, I don't think it's necessary for this to work for us to transition, but it bugs me that it doesn't work. Especially since this was a huge selling point in transitioning in the first place!)

[andrei]

I'm in the ''lets transition and work through most issues'' camp.

The biggest deal breaker for me is if there are issues with Multiplayer in terms of simming, file problems, thousands of Fake Players etc.

If the above are fine I'm ok.

[Rizzo]

Deal Breakers
-Big man shooting 3s (glitch involving shooting preferences and the catch and shoot preference)
-Individual matchups on defense (this is my .5, I don't think it's necessary for this to work for us to transition, but it bugs me that it doesn't work. Especially since this was a huge selling point in transitioning in the first place!)

Call this blind optimism but I think if the more of us bring up the disparaging percentages of big men 3PA compared to their range% from corner and ATB, Gary will find a way to tweak it. Like Tim said, I've noticed that the NBA mod on WS forums has big men ratings way too high for ATB and corner ranges. If that was normalized, and Gary were to tweak the shot distribution from the corner problem, this would be a non-issue.

As far as individual matchups on defense, I haven't tested it at all myself and feel as if I would need to watch a game play out a couple times with different individual matchups on all of them to see how it effects the outcome.

I'm in the ''lets transition and work through most issues'' camp.

The biggest deal breaker for me is if there are issues with Multiplayer in terms of simming, file problems, thousands of Fake Players etc.

I'm not sure if there has been any issue with multiplayer at all. I know there are tests going on behind the scenes, but as long as there is no issue with that I would also be in the camp of transitioning to the new engine and working through the problems.

[Flaming Homer]

Sign me up for the ''lets transition and work through most issues'' camp too.

I think you will always have some flaws and bugs some GM's will find. But overall the game seems more "clean" compared to DDS3

[bt]

Haven't played and don't have 2019 but the big man glitch in 2018 ruined certain big men beyond repair. Guys who should be 55% shooting 25% because of it.

Absolute deal breaker for me if that's not fixed assuming it's the same issue as the year before.

[Marcos_Beck]

I would transition as well if tests are made before the transition, specially with the big men thing.