The ability to sim test for games is bad for the health of the league. In order to develop strategies for games, teams simply test a bunch of different possible depth charts, playbooks, etc. and see which has the highest win percentage. In effect, this means that the ability to successfully gameplan relies not on an understanding of the game, football acumen, or in-depth knowledge of both teams' rosters, but instead on how many tests a team can run quickly. Based on my personal experience as well as the reactions of other people I've seen from having this realization, it is fairly disappointing and breaks the verisimilitude of participating in the simulation football league. It places a lot more emphasis on the simulation part, while most people join the league because of the football part.
However, far more than the issues regarding expectations and realism, the far more dangerous issue from sim testing is the ability for teams to know exactly what percent chance of winning they had. Unlike in most sports, winning each game (beyond the often <5% gains made through sim testing) comes down entirely due to luck of the draw. When watching or playing a real football game, even if a heavily favored team loses, we know that it comes down to execution on the field and individual performances. We can identify things that the players did well or poorly that resulted in the surprising outcome. In simulation football, if a heavily favored team loses it's entirely because they got unlucky and an event with a sometimes ~20% chance of occurring happened. There is nothing that the players or the managers on either team could have done differently to prevent this outcome.
When the true probability is known to everyone through sim testing, this results in very negative feelings. We can look to the (sometimes lighthearted but often relatively serious) feud between Honolulu and Crunk last season, where Crunk's ratings consistently placed Honolulu near the bottom of the league due to their poor expected results while their "on-field" performance was great. That was a relatively public example, but the fact is that almost every locker room will have some contingent of people complaining about sim luck after every loss in a game where testing said they were favored. Over the long run I believe these feelings are a real danger to the continued health of the league and peoples' joy in participating in it.
It's human nature to be upset about something that you can't control. Which is easier, to change human nature, or to change the league so that sim testing is unviable, or at least much more difficult?
However, far more than the issues regarding expectations and realism, the far more dangerous issue from sim testing is the ability for teams to know exactly what percent chance of winning they had. Unlike in most sports, winning each game (beyond the often <5% gains made through sim testing) comes down entirely due to luck of the draw. When watching or playing a real football game, even if a heavily favored team loses, we know that it comes down to execution on the field and individual performances. We can identify things that the players did well or poorly that resulted in the surprising outcome. In simulation football, if a heavily favored team loses it's entirely because they got unlucky and an event with a sometimes ~20% chance of occurring happened. There is nothing that the players or the managers on either team could have done differently to prevent this outcome.
When the true probability is known to everyone through sim testing, this results in very negative feelings. We can look to the (sometimes lighthearted but often relatively serious) feud between Honolulu and Crunk last season, where Crunk's ratings consistently placed Honolulu near the bottom of the league due to their poor expected results while their "on-field" performance was great. That was a relatively public example, but the fact is that almost every locker room will have some contingent of people complaining about sim luck after every loss in a game where testing said they were favored. Over the long run I believe these feelings are a real danger to the continued health of the league and peoples' joy in participating in it.
It's human nature to be upset about something that you can't control. Which is easier, to change human nature, or to change the league so that sim testing is unviable, or at least much more difficult?
Code:
443 words