To have realistic sim AND game

[chipper]

For realistic sim

- Ratings should NOT be tweaked. It's okay for the first few years as Dstats will override players' ratings but as the league develops, players with Dstats will all retire someday. Try the tweaked roster with Dstats removed. Sombody will lead the league in scoring with something like 7 PPG....

For realistic game

- Ratings should be tweaked to prevent each team finishing with 150+ points and 20- rebounds.

conclusion

- Before the game, tweak the ratings of your team and the opposing team only. Leave other teams alone so generated sim results will be more realisitc. After the game, restore the ratings of the opponent and tweak the next team you are playing..

[KnickNut3]

Unfortunate Actual Outcome

Doing so becomes extremely annoying, and something is bound to get messed up anyway with tweaking the rosters so much.

Possible solution

I have found that with DK's rosters, they sim and play well, but after one year everyone loses 20 rating points and they go crazy, and your league is now dead. Perhaps editing the aforementioned ratings right before the season ends, proceeding with player progression and drafts, etc., then before the first game of the season re-adjusting them. Please inform if this works or not. I'm not sure if it has been tried.

[ezail]

what your doin is ryt..
tried and tested!!!

[chipper]

Unfortunate Actual Outcome

Doing so becomes extremely annoying, and something is bound to get messed up anyway with tweaking the rosters so much.

Possible solution

I have found that with DK's rosters, they sim and play well, but after one year everyone loses 20 rating points and they go crazy, and your league is now dead. Perhaps editing the aforementioned ratings right before the season ends, proceeding with player progression and drafts, etc., then before the first game of the season re-adjusting them. Please inform if this works or not. I'm not sure if it has been tried.

I tried your suggested solution but it does not seem to work. Stats are calculated from other ratings (such as FG and inside scoring) and the rating is only used for the AI to pick the starters and effects the trading AI a little bit. There is an editor out there wich allows you to modify a specific team only. Before you load up your season, press alt+tab to move back to desktop, then run that program and change values. you can change FG and 3pt ratings but unfortunately not the inside scoring.

Now, as you have mentioned, there is a high chance that the season will be messed up after so many tweaks, mostly by human error. I have so far tweaked 20+ teams but editing DB is not much of a problem. (there is not that much data-writing being done) However, I sometimes modify different teams or apply the wrong formula, for example, adding 20 and then adding 20 again.
But waste a little more space and have a back up save slot does the job.

[chipper]

Again, I wish few more people will try this method and post how it works.
It seems to work for me, since I get good simulated values without having to tweak any rookies (even with D-stats removed), and also can play realistic games.

[Felipe]

I'm playing my 3rd franchise season using DK's rosters and my games and simulations are simply great.

To whom it my concern, these are the steps I follow to continue the franchise after the season ends. It works GREAT for me and I'm very happy playing a really good simulation game.

First of all, you SHOULD know what are the coeficients for tweaking. If you don't have it, you are out of luck.

When playoffs end, I save the game (I do it in the last playoff tree screen, which shows the Champions). Leave the game and run the Toolkit.
I applies the reverse multipliers to "un-tweak" the ratings. This should be done VERY carefully, even writing in a paper what ratings I un-tweak.
As I know this reverse multiplying may not be exact, after the process and using the Toolkit, I sort the (A-Z icon) the ratings to check if the best and the worst player has the correct rating (i.e., speed 98, FG 97 and so on). If any un-tweaked rating seems affected, I apply a correction formula to tune up it (i.e., faster player is only 90 and worst is 50, I apply a x1.02 modifier).
It's very important ALL the ratings are corrected before continue with the game. It takes a time but it's neccesary.

Once un-tweaked, I load the saved game and continue the franchise with the off-season stuff: Rookie draft, trades, etc. If you did the un-tweaking correctly, you'll see the overall ratings are not crazy (although they could be a bit different, but they are correct within error margins).

The next season starts, and the first time I can save the game, I do it. Exit the game and open Toolkit, then apply the tweaking formulae for every ratings. Do it CAREFULLY again, and don't forget to check who's the best and the worst player on every rating using the Sort icon, and make slight modificacions if necessary.

Take a look at the OVERALL ratings after the un-tweak. You can't re-calculate this rating, but you can overwrite it. I.e., if Kobe falls to 92 overall, you can simply set him at 96. It's not important for playing or simulation, but it's for AI trading.

Now you should have a correct tweaked roster again, ready to play the following season. But if you are (like me) a perfection junkie, maybe you want to edit teams.dbf file and adjust correctly the ADVHOME rating as someone explained here, or tweak ZONEDEFENSE setting all teams to 99 (this improves in-the-paint defense for CPU teams)

Some other finetunning can be done by editing some key players and change a bit his key ratings, but be sure you always can apply the reverse formulae and players won't go higher than 99 and lower than 0: Otherwise you'll mess up the ratings.

Removing DSTATS in franchise mode, used in combination with tweaked rosters, produce messed league leaders, so I don't delete DSTATS.

You can use the editor and check team by team, making some changes to the PRIMACY rating, which is very important, as players with a high primacy will shot much more than others. A good way is to set primacy very high for the superstars, and much lower for the rest of the players of a team.

Finally, you can even change the lineup of CPU teams, players positions, etc., so AI can fit them better in their teams.

If you have time (several hours!), and follow this steps correctly and CAREFULLY, I assure you'll have a very good simulation game.

Regards,

Felipe.

[Malignant]

what formulas do you use? coefficients etc.. ? thanks

[chipper]

I'm playing my 3rd franchise season using DK's rosters and my games and simulations are simply great.

Are you also getting realistic numbers from the rookies? (i.e. players without Dstats)

Try removing dstats for all players and sim thru. I bet you they are wont be so nice.