Suspension option?

I really don't like being in the position of slamming SM here, but there's no way that having accurate historical financial information, which only needs to be loaded once and accessed on a case by case basis upon demand, is going to slow down the sim speeds. This is something that they just never bothered to get to, even though playing historical seasons has been a touted feature of BBM since at least 2k0.

But they found time to do a half baked job on player moods and creating a fake multi-level farm system, a couple of other things that fans kept asking for.

That's what has my nose out of joint. People come to the boards with ideas that may not be bad, but certainly aren't required for a good and accurate playing experience, other people say yeah, that would be so kewl, and next thing we know player moods get implemented while trivial things like more team strategies or really applying the ones we already have just don't happen.

Adding historical rookies was a big deal for this game, and it improves game play a lot, but we now have historical rookies who come into the game making ridiculous amounts of money, developing at random in a fake minor league system, and eventually demanding multi-million dollar contracts or they'll go to free agency... in 1922.

And for the record, injuries, moods, and the proposed suspension idea all slow down sim speed because the game has to keep rolling for them.

Moods add a second level of calculations to performance simulations, one that we really don't need. Every injury and any suspension also makes BBM pick a replacement for every game played by every team missing a starter. When I did a sim with no backup catcher I had no less than four different players get at least one start at that position, so it's obvious the AI doesn't "remember" who it picked last time.

I have to agree with Rand here, BBM has always done a terrible job of giving an in depth close up view of the game. It does do an adequate job of giving you something you can run through quickly. I took a 5 year break before diving into 2k6... and frankly the game has *barely* evolved, and where it has it feels terribly unfinished and/or clunky.

Player moods is probably the easiest example of an unnecessary feature in what should be a straight on statistical sim. Since everyone's ratings are based upon pure statistical results it is completely redundant to apply "moods" on top of those statistics as a modifyer. Eric Gagne gets 45 saves a year because he has the right "attitude"? Fine, the game already predicts his 45 saves based on his statistics... what additional merit is there to adding his "morale" or "mood" into the equation?

The minor league system is a clear example of a necessary feature gone horribly wrong. Most games have a great deal of difficulty getting this right, but BBM is atrocious. I can't understand how you decide to NOT have full teams, and just randomly generate stats without any real simulation, and STILL manage to produce by far the most illogical minor league results I have ever seen. It couldn't have been more simple (http://forum.sportsmogul.com/showthr...threadid=73235), but instead we have a needlessly complicated "system" for something that is essentially just a receptical to hold players until they are ripe for a major league team. The stats generated are and should be mere window dressing.

The historical rookies and players are an example of an idea done half-right. The first couple of seasons the game generally feels about right, but as soon as career peaks, and incoming rookies takeover the game falls apart, let alone once the contracts start to mount up, and that's with Rookies.ini tinkering, revenues jacked up +20%, and salary demands at -30%. Lets not forget the random fictional guy's who take the starch away from the historical players whom we WANT to see.

I like the concept of BBM. I like a game I can jump into and out of quickly without suspending my life, I just wished that the results of what is already there were more statisfying. Suspensions are not a bad thing, but man with all the problems already int he game with features already implemented, the LAST thing this game needs is a new bell or whistle.