This is a topic I feel pretty passionate about this season, as no team was simmed harder this season than the Austin Copperheads. A top 5 team on paper going 5-10-1, while losing games that should in no way ever be a loss if the sim is working as intended. I mean seriously, when a team that just made the Ultimus the previous season is better this season, there's just no actual way they can be this unlucky. That doesn't exist in real sports, it doesn't exist in the PBE for example, and it definitely shouldn't exist here, in a league that arguably has far fewer teams than almost every other major sim league. This feeling of just straight up decking by the sim has started to make me doubt the sim we currently play on entirely, as this isn't the first season this has happened, and sadly, it won't be the last. Everyone remembers Chicago having this same situation happen to them last year. A team everyone expected to make playoffs went 6-10, and lost to a 2-14 Baltimore team in Chicago. Go back to the first season of the new sim, and once again, the Copperheads are the team who was good on paper who was down bad and worst in the conference at 3-13, being at least 3 games under teams with significantly less TPE at the time. To me, this tells me that the sim is straight up picking one good team per season to completely fall apart no matter what. Strats matter very insignificantly, because the sim decided that for this season, you're just going to lose. It's made me wonder if perhaps the sim isn't seeded or something, as realistically, teams like the Butchers and Copperheads should not have overly losing seasons when their team is as close to an Ultimus contender as possible.
I would like to further point out issues with the sim and how it picks things, by pointing towards the playoffs and the teams who have benefited because of the sim. Fellow league user Butters had once mentioned it was easy to tell who would win the championship game because it would always be a team that scored the most points in a game leading up to the championship. Something he enjoys doing is running solo season simulations with real NFL teams, and he has pointed out that it happens every time he runs a season. Well, we take a look at this year, and this theory of his holds true. The New York Silverbacks, who are indeed a really good team, scored the most points in the wildcard week (and in the entirety of the playoffs) in a win over the New Orleans Second Line with 35 points scored. They would then go on to drop a whole 40 points on the Berlin Fire Salamanders, who is arguably the better team this season and playing with a home field advantage. We then take a look at the other previous seasons of the new sim for further proof, because I agree, one result is too small of a sample size. But looking at those, the theory is once again true for both of them. The Yellowknife Wraiths scored the most points leading up to the Ultimus (23 points against the Sarasota Sailfish in a wildcard game), and they ended up beating the Copperheads in the Ultimus. Then before that, the Sarasota Sailfish scored the most points in a game leading up to the Ultimus (47 points against the Colorado Yeti in the NSFC Championship), and they ended up winning it all against NOLA. It's a trend that has been true for three seasons in a row now, and if it happens again, I'd have to say it's overwhelmingly obvious that it's not just a coincidence or complete luck.
In conclusion, this sim is buggin on a stack, yo. It's incredibly flawed, in my opinion, for a league that has so much effort put into it by teams. With the old sim, I feel like while the gameplay was garbage, at least the season felt a lot more exciting. When a big team would get upset, it felt a lot more magical than just "YO LOOK HOW BAD THIS GOOD TEAM IS THIS SEASON LOOOOOL". It feels like the input of the teams strats are a lot less impactful compared to an inherent bias the sim seems to have for whatever teams it's selecting to do certain things that season. I would love to see if we as a league could look into this more, as even if it's not something major enough to cause a sim switch or something, it's definitely something for Wolverine Studios to take a look at so we can get a better sim in the future. And I admit, maybe the previous sim was just as bad if not worse and I am being motivated by the rose tinted glasses (and my team constantly being a victim of the sim), but there has to be something better than whatever these current odds of things happening are. Because as it stands, this sim is easily more frustrating than the previous, and it makes me envy the PBE's sim more and more every season.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
(883 words)
I would like to further point out issues with the sim and how it picks things, by pointing towards the playoffs and the teams who have benefited because of the sim. Fellow league user Butters had once mentioned it was easy to tell who would win the championship game because it would always be a team that scored the most points in a game leading up to the championship. Something he enjoys doing is running solo season simulations with real NFL teams, and he has pointed out that it happens every time he runs a season. Well, we take a look at this year, and this theory of his holds true. The New York Silverbacks, who are indeed a really good team, scored the most points in the wildcard week (and in the entirety of the playoffs) in a win over the New Orleans Second Line with 35 points scored. They would then go on to drop a whole 40 points on the Berlin Fire Salamanders, who is arguably the better team this season and playing with a home field advantage. We then take a look at the other previous seasons of the new sim for further proof, because I agree, one result is too small of a sample size. But looking at those, the theory is once again true for both of them. The Yellowknife Wraiths scored the most points leading up to the Ultimus (23 points against the Sarasota Sailfish in a wildcard game), and they ended up beating the Copperheads in the Ultimus. Then before that, the Sarasota Sailfish scored the most points in a game leading up to the Ultimus (47 points against the Colorado Yeti in the NSFC Championship), and they ended up winning it all against NOLA. It's a trend that has been true for three seasons in a row now, and if it happens again, I'd have to say it's overwhelmingly obvious that it's not just a coincidence or complete luck.
In conclusion, this sim is buggin on a stack, yo. It's incredibly flawed, in my opinion, for a league that has so much effort put into it by teams. With the old sim, I feel like while the gameplay was garbage, at least the season felt a lot more exciting. When a big team would get upset, it felt a lot more magical than just "YO LOOK HOW BAD THIS GOOD TEAM IS THIS SEASON LOOOOOL". It feels like the input of the teams strats are a lot less impactful compared to an inherent bias the sim seems to have for whatever teams it's selecting to do certain things that season. I would love to see if we as a league could look into this more, as even if it's not something major enough to cause a sim switch or something, it's definitely something for Wolverine Studios to take a look at so we can get a better sim in the future. And I admit, maybe the previous sim was just as bad if not worse and I am being motivated by the rose tinted glasses (and my team constantly being a victim of the sim), but there has to be something better than whatever these current odds of things happening are. Because as it stands, this sim is easily more frustrating than the previous, and it makes me envy the PBE's sim more and more every season.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
(883 words)
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