Verdict?

[rowech]

What's the verdict on the update?

[Miral]

Well after Map444 being so vocal every day before the release of the patch, coupled with his complete abscence from the forums after the patch, I'd say it must be pretty good. :) I was wondering how people like the new polling system as compared to the prior version, and the original version. After one season I didn't see any .500 teams still in the top 25 which is good, actually saw 3 Big EastTeams finish in the top 25, although none started the season there. I haven't gotten into my second season yet to see if this trend continues or not. Edit: Just cycled through to my second season and the top BigEast/Midmajor is around 40th ranked in the new poll for the second season.

[map444]

[QUOTE=Miral]Well after Map444 being so vocal every day before the release of the patch, coupled with his complete abscence from the forums after the patch, I'd say it must be pretty good. :) I was wondering how people like the new polling system as compared to the prior version, and the original version. After one season I didn't see any .500 teams still in the top 25 which is good, actually saw 3 Big EastTeams finish in the top 25, although none started the season there. I haven't gotten into my second season yet to see if this trend continues or not. Edit: Just cycled through to my second season and the top BigEast/Midmajor is around 40th ranked in the new poll for the second season.[/QUOTE] I don't play the game anymore, and "your welcome" . I was the only one here with nuts enough to open his mouth and push for 1.1's release, everyone else was afraid of angering the guy they paid 35$. ??????? When your all grown up maybe you will learn to stand up for yourself. My work here is finished

[Bobble]

[QUOTE=rowech]What's the verdict on the update?[/QUOTE] My personal verdict: Better, but with a "Whaaa?". Better: Pretty much everything on the change list. I don't think the polls are quite there personally but they're much better (#1 Michigan loses to an unranked team and only falls to #3?). They usually work out pretty well by the end of the season. Whaaa?: Thanks a lot, 1.1, for stomping on all my previous work. Was there a good reason you had to overwrite my intro screen with the default one? Logos gone but luckily the pstats file stayed. Also, why not a little more keyboard/hotkey support? The mouse-o-centric interface ain't doing my carpal tunnel any good. A few other minor grips but they are...well, minor.

[Arlie Rahn]

Sorry about the image files. Because of the different patch versions, demo installs and so forth, I did a complete reinstall of all the graphics to be safe. I purposefully left off the pstats.dat as I knew many people had modded it, but I didn't realize doing a graphics refresh would cause that much grief. Next time, I will let everyone know the files for the update.

[Cooleyvol]

[QUOTE=map444]I don't play the game anymore, and "your welcome" . I was the only one here with nuts enough to open his mouth and push for 1.1's release, everyone else was afraid of angering the guy they paid 35$. ??????? When your all grown up maybe you will learn to stand up for yourself. My work here is finished[/QUOTE] I'm curious. If you don't play the game, then why the interest in the patch? You're welcome? For what?

[srudoff]

[QUOTE=Cooleyvol]I'm curious. If you don't play the game, then why the interest in the patch? You're welcome? For what?[/QUOTE] don't you see? if it weren't for him, there wouldn't be ANY 1.1!!! or possibly would have been released in July or so :rolleyes:

[John Comey]

I've seen one team still in the Top 25 (1-3 Ohio State). But they have the 9th-best SOS, lost to #1 ND (though a loss to South Florida doesn't explain why they're there)... I was a bit confused as to why my PSU team, who is 4-0, was sliding out of the polls despite beating tough teams (ranked Maryland and Nebraska teams, and a Pitt team that was undefeated them when I saw them). I dropped every week in the polls, even after scoring 37 points in the second half to overcome Nebraska at Lincoln. After whipping Wisconsin 51-7, I jumped back in. And I'm ranked #3 in the computer polls (even when I was unranked in the coaches poll, I was ranked sixth in the computer poll). Still, it is an improvement.

[John Comey]

[QUOTE=map444]I don't play the game anymore, and "your welcome" . I was the only one here with nuts enough to open his mouth and push for 1.1's release, everyone else was afraid of angering the guy they paid 35$. ??????? When your all grown up maybe you will learn to stand up for yourself. My work here is finished[/QUOTE] ...yeah, that's it. You forced the patch out of Arlie. You're nuts enough, all right. I think many people here are glad your work here is finished. So, please, if you're not playing the game anymore, see your way out. We don't need any help coaxing more patches out of Arlie.

[scoman]

[QUOTE=map444]I don't play the game anymore, and "your welcome" . I was the only one here with nuts enough to open his mouth and push for 1.1's release, everyone else was afraid of angering the guy they paid 35$. ??????? When your all grown up maybe you will learn to stand up for yourself. My work here is finished[/QUOTE] Could this guys views be any more distorted? Im sure he will not be missed in the grey dog community.

[Miral]

While this is way out of whack of what a normal poll is used to doing (how it is programmed in this case) I made a super team with the editor, so all 22 starters were maxxed out. (it's good to be the king). Started out ranked 22nd in the polls before I fed them steroids and it took me a good portion of the season to climb up to the top 5 despite winning huge each week. Week 3 I beat a no-name 77-0 and dropped 2 spots in one poll! Like I said, its hard to take hard data from this as it was an unrealistic team, but one thing I did notice was the coaches poll was somewhat out of line when compared to the other ones. CPU and Media had me like #5 at one point, while the coaches still had me #21. (I won't mention that my super team lost to unranked colorado during the regular season, after demolishing both Texas and Oklahoma by 50 pts... I didn't mention that. That's what you get for starting 22 freshmen I guess...) [quote=map444] My work here is finished[/quote] It was a noble effort for you to undertake the overseeing of this project, at the expense of your own personal time, despite not even intending to play the game. We are forever grateful. I hereby nominate Map444 for this year's Nobel Prize for Gaming Software.

[aef027]

[QUOTE=map444]I don't play the game anymore, and "your welcome" . I was the only one here with nuts enough to open his mouth and push for 1.1's release, everyone else was afraid of angering the guy they paid 35$. ??????? When your all grown up maybe you will learn to stand up for yourself. My work here is finished[/QUOTE] Boy you can standup on a messageboard. You got my vote for the #1 Heavyweight contender. Come back and collect your toll at the bridge...You got work to do ;)

[John Comey]

Well, this illustrates my verdict on this patch: I have watched every single game this year that my team has played. I am ranked #2 in the media poll, #3 in the coaches poll, as Penn State. The top five in the country, in the GDCS poll are: 1. Iowa (10-0) 2. Penn State (10-0) 3. Georgia (10-0, #1 in both human polls) 4. Oregon State (10-0) 5. Notre Dame (9-0) I have run through the Big Ten undefeated, never really being tested. Of course, that is about to change. In my preseason scheduling, I wanted to revive an old rivalry. So, in two weeks, I will host #5 Notre Dame, who has a victory over then-#1 Michigan behind backup freshman QB Cleveland Sapp. Notre Dame is *stacked*. So I'm a bit worried. Oh, this is such a fun game.

[Cooleyvol]

[QUOTE=John Comey]Well, this illustrates my verdict on this patch: I have watched every single game this year that my team has played. I am ranked #2 in the media poll, #3 in the coaches poll, as Penn State. The top five in the country, in the GDCS poll are: 1. Iowa (10-0) 2. Penn State (10-0) 3. Georgia (10-0, #1 in both human polls) 4. Oregon State (10-0) 5. Notre Dame (9-0) I have run through the Big Ten undefeated, never really being tested. Of course, that is about to change. In my preseason scheduling, I wanted to revive an old rivalry. So, in two weeks, I will host #5 Notre Dame, who has a victory over then-#1 Michigan behind backup freshman QB Cleveland Sapp. Notre Dame is *stacked*. So I'm a bit worried. Oh, this is such a fun game.[/QUOTE] You're not going to practice your recruiting, are you John?

[John Comey]

Well, I have the end-of-season special to write up for GG. Then, maybe if I get around to it, I'll work on that recruiting. ;) -John

[BigDawg]

Recruting is sooo borning when John can just make his own superman roster :D BTW any insites into recruting?? I suck bad at it :eek: GG Michigan

[John Comey]

Dude, that wasn't me! That was Mike! I beat ND, but was kept out of the national title game anyway. Iowa crushed Georgia in the Rose Bowl, and we beat Colorado in the Fiesta. So, the two Big Ten teams who didn't face each other finished undefeated and 1-2 in the polls.

[Miral]

[quote=John Comey]Dude, that wasn't me! That was Mike! [/quote] I have a lot of underclassmen coming back, but I'm wondering if Mark will allow me to bring just a handful of my supermen to play for the Sooners. :D

[Miral]

More poll stuff In playing around with the polls, I chose to mess with North Texas of the SunBelt. Preseason they were predicted to win the conference. After the preseason polls were released, I went into the editor and gave them an SEC quality squad. After 7 games they are 7-0, with the #2 offense and #1 defense in the nation. They've won games over NC State, #23 Maryland, and #21 Pittsburgh, and have outscored their opponents 284-111. Despite this dominance, both the coaches and media polls after 7 games still have them just outside the top 25. The CPU poll has them at #11 which of course makes much more sense. It seems to me that the coaches and media polls are still a little more stubborn in rewarding good schools from lesser conference. I can't imagine after 7 weeks, even a no-name team like North Texas being ignored this much after such a dominant season. We can use real life TCU this past season as an example, and they were nowhere near as dominant a team as this North Texas steroids squad has been. I'll keep an eye on how this plays out the rest of the season and where they finally wind up. Edit: Week 8 was an offweak for them and they jumped up 8 spots in the media poll and 8 in the coaches poll. They even jumped up 9 spots in the cpu poll! Perhaps week 8 is the majic number where things get recalculated? They jumped higher being idle than pummeling their opponents. Interesting.

[SkyDog]

It could be that the Polls aren't set up to handle a team edited to be that good very well, which is fine. I just had a run where my crappy 31-Prestige (non-edited) school started off 8-0, and with our 8th win, we got ranked #25 in the Media Poll. We finished 10-2 in the regular season, and ranked as follows: #15M, #16C, #15GD, #25CPU. Our SOS was #119. That sounds, if anything, a bit high.

[SkyDog]

By the way...I can't wait to see how this team does next year. We return 19 starters from that 10-2 team. :)

[Miral]

Polls revisited Okay, I've completed the test on my "SEC quality" Sun Belt Team, North Texas. Last season I gave them top notch players that would be good enough to start on any major team. Obviously, the team was off the radar until about week 8 when it final cracked the top 25. They did work their way up to #2 in the polls by the end of the season, which is where they should be, so by the end of the season the polls work themselves out, which is fine. Using the playoffs, they went to the championship game. My real test though was to see how this related to the *following* season. Prestige changed from like 21 to 35 for them, but more importantly, they returned another quality "SEC" quality club, almost all starters are green or blue for instance. Despite the great personnel returning on the squad, and that fact that they went to the championship game, unfortunately it made no difference in the preseason polls. :( They didn't receive a single vote from anyone in the media or coaches polls. This just should not be. It would appear the initial preseason polls are putting too much emphasise on team's prestige, and not what a team did last season. (As another example, for the third straight year, the Big East is nowhere near the top 25, although each of the past few years they've placed 2 or 3 teams there by season's end.)

[Druez]

[QUOTE=Miral]Okay, I've completed the test on my "SEC quality" Sun Belt Team, North Texas. Last season I gave them top notch players that would be good enough to start on any major team. Obviously, the team was off the radar until about week 8 when it final cracked the top 25. They did work their way up to #2 in the polls by the end of the season, which is where they should be, so by the end of the season the polls work themselves out, which is fine. Using the playoffs, they went to the championship game. My real test though was to see how this related to the *following* season. Prestige changed from like 21 to 35 for them, but more importantly, they returned another quality "SEC" quality club, almost all starters are green or blue for instance. Despite the great personnel returning on the squad, and that fact that they went to the championship game, unfortunately it made no difference in the preseason polls. :( They didn't receive a single vote from anyone in the media or coaches polls. This just should not be. It would appear the initial preseason polls are putting too much emphasise on team's prestige, and not what a team did last season. (As another example, for the third straight year, the Big East is nowhere near the top 25, although each of the past few years they've placed 2 or 3 teams there by season's end.)[/QUOTE] I did tests like this during the beta process. Since this is not a legitimate test case, I don't think it should apply. (Same thing I felt when I performed the test) I don't believe it is possible for a team with 22 prestige to have a team of this caliber. As long as the team ends up where it needs to be at the end of the season, for our purposes it is working correctly.

[Arlie Rahn]

[QUOTE=Miral]It would appear the initial preseason polls are putting too much emphasise on team's prestige, and not what a team did last season.[/QUOTE] With players leaving early and seniors, performance in the prior season isn't all that valuable on its own. If that was the case Utah (#4 in 04) and Navy (#24) would have been in the top 25 going into this season (Navy didn't even get a vote). What BBCF does is a combo of prestige, incoming recruits, overall talent and potential schedule to determine preseason rankings.

[Miral]

Druez says this isn't a valid test case, I don't see why not. If a team is stacked with returning talent after a superb year (not necessarily this inflated example), why should it get absolutely no recognition at all for it in the preseason poll, even though the chance of another end of year top 25 is almost guaranteed? The point I am trying to make, is that if at the end of the season a team like Pitt or WV usually wind up in the top 25 2 out of every 3 years, why at the beginning of each new year are they down around 40th? Its kind of like groundhog day. Start the season ranked 40th, climb to 20th, start next season at 40, climb to 20th, etc. I hope you see my point, the preseason poll penalizes smaller schools in this way, while the end of season one does not. I feel the preseason poll doesn't take the end result of a team's performance each of the last few seasons strongly enough. I suppose I should stop complaining before Map takes my fanboy licensce away. :)