Hello there fellow ISFLers! The Sim Balance Team is here with a special announcement!
As mentioned previously, the Sim Balance Team has been monitoring aspects of the sim since the S27 transfer keeping tabs on player and team performance, as well as trends within position archetype creation. With close to a full year of actual league data to analyze, we have found key areas within the league and sim that we determined to be in need of rebalancing.
Before getting into detail as to what exactly will be changing, I wanted to make sure we cleared up the timeline for these changes to be implemented as well as what you as players in the ISFL can expect from the Sim Balance Team.
The full changes to be implemented will be announced during the S33 offseason (the one upcoming), with info drops being released periodically. The entire balance patch will go into effect with the start of S34 (late Feb / early March). One of the biggest complaints we received (deservedly so) when the transfer happened was that players and teams did not have enough time to digest the changes and settle on player builds. We wanted to make sure this time around you all would have enough time to look at the changes and work out your potential future builds.
In addition to simply providing info on what will be changing, you will be provided with a few tools to help make your lives a little easier:
1) A functional league file (both ISFL and DSFL) built off of the S33 preseason file with the proposed changes. This will have updated rosters and playbooks. The league file will give you all an opportunity to test out the new changes on an even playing field.
2) A player importer tool featuring all of the changes so you can import new builds for your team and test out strategies. This will also come with a short how-to guide on creating and importing players.
3) An updated player builder tool.
Just to set expectations, the league file and player importer tool creation are very manual processes, so while we are committed to getting them out in a timely fashion, we are unable to guarantee it will happen completely in conjunction with the preseason file's release.
Now, as for what's changing, we will begin posting articles within the Sim Info subforum starting today detailing what's changing and the reasoning behind them. At a later date we will also provide a compendium on the changes as well as supplemental information to help you all fully get the most out of your players and teams.
An important question that we know will be asked is, “how did you decide on these changes?” First, we looked at what within the league itself seemed to be out of balance. For example, were there any positional archetypes that seemed to be over or under-performing in comparison to their peers. From there we dug deeper into the numbers behind the archetypes to isolate what was causing them to perform as such.
Once we had working theories and ideas, we then went to the sim and began compiling data based off of numerous variables - numbers you will see a lot of in these subsequent data releases. The end goal of these changes to archetypes was to make it so players could have more choice in the matter, instead of feeling like they had a “best” option they needed to pick to be successful.
A second area we looked at was general enjoyment of a position overall. During the Season 31 offseason survey, users were asked to list how they perceived their position in terms of importance. Using the results of that survey, we set out with a second goal of bringing more excitement to users who felt that their position was unimportant.
The end goals behind all of these changes are to give players more agency behind their players, to increase variety within the league as far as builds and strategies go, and to hopefully increase overall user enjoyment.
One last important point that we need to clarify is that we are in no way making changes on the scale of the sim transfer. These changes will be fairly wide in scope, but will be more akin to reworking of positions, archetypes, and playbooks, rather than a complete teardown and rebuild.
Stay tuned for more information!
Love, the Sim Balance Team
Pat, Slate, Swanty
As mentioned previously, the Sim Balance Team has been monitoring aspects of the sim since the S27 transfer keeping tabs on player and team performance, as well as trends within position archetype creation. With close to a full year of actual league data to analyze, we have found key areas within the league and sim that we determined to be in need of rebalancing.
Before getting into detail as to what exactly will be changing, I wanted to make sure we cleared up the timeline for these changes to be implemented as well as what you as players in the ISFL can expect from the Sim Balance Team.
The full changes to be implemented will be announced during the S33 offseason (the one upcoming), with info drops being released periodically. The entire balance patch will go into effect with the start of S34 (late Feb / early March). One of the biggest complaints we received (deservedly so) when the transfer happened was that players and teams did not have enough time to digest the changes and settle on player builds. We wanted to make sure this time around you all would have enough time to look at the changes and work out your potential future builds.
In addition to simply providing info on what will be changing, you will be provided with a few tools to help make your lives a little easier:
1) A functional league file (both ISFL and DSFL) built off of the S33 preseason file with the proposed changes. This will have updated rosters and playbooks. The league file will give you all an opportunity to test out the new changes on an even playing field.
2) A player importer tool featuring all of the changes so you can import new builds for your team and test out strategies. This will also come with a short how-to guide on creating and importing players.
3) An updated player builder tool.
Just to set expectations, the league file and player importer tool creation are very manual processes, so while we are committed to getting them out in a timely fashion, we are unable to guarantee it will happen completely in conjunction with the preseason file's release.
Now, as for what's changing, we will begin posting articles within the Sim Info subforum starting today detailing what's changing and the reasoning behind them. At a later date we will also provide a compendium on the changes as well as supplemental information to help you all fully get the most out of your players and teams.
An important question that we know will be asked is, “how did you decide on these changes?” First, we looked at what within the league itself seemed to be out of balance. For example, were there any positional archetypes that seemed to be over or under-performing in comparison to their peers. From there we dug deeper into the numbers behind the archetypes to isolate what was causing them to perform as such.
Once we had working theories and ideas, we then went to the sim and began compiling data based off of numerous variables - numbers you will see a lot of in these subsequent data releases. The end goal of these changes to archetypes was to make it so players could have more choice in the matter, instead of feeling like they had a “best” option they needed to pick to be successful.
A second area we looked at was general enjoyment of a position overall. During the Season 31 offseason survey, users were asked to list how they perceived their position in terms of importance. Using the results of that survey, we set out with a second goal of bringing more excitement to users who felt that their position was unimportant.
The end goals behind all of these changes are to give players more agency behind their players, to increase variety within the league as far as builds and strategies go, and to hopefully increase overall user enjoyment.
One last important point that we need to clarify is that we are in no way making changes on the scale of the sim transfer. These changes will be fairly wide in scope, but will be more akin to reworking of positions, archetypes, and playbooks, rather than a complete teardown and rebuild.
Stay tuned for more information!
Love, the Sim Balance Team
Pat, Slate, Swanty