Explain This New Development Feature To Me Please

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

This actually is a good and helpful explanation.

And I don't want or need to know the exact age, which I assume would be randomized anyway. But without guidance numbers like yours listed on the pulldown menu or an explanation in the manual I'm not sure how we are/were supposed to know that "default is a good choice" when we've been told for several months that the game engine was totally rebuilt.

Anyway based on this I think I'll keep at .9 for both and set the sliders to "older" to get what I thought I was getting before. Thanks again.

Just remember, they play around with these numbers very year, which is a good reason to use default. Remember, this years default may not be the same as last years, which inherently affects every other modifier on that particular setting.

[Syd Thrift]

So… I do feel like as a general rule the defaults have guys developing up to around 25, with anything after that point being either very small or due to talent change randomness. YMMV but I haven’t really seen this change a lot in recent years.

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

Just remember, they play around with these numbers very year, which is a good reason to use default. Remember, this years default may not be the same as last years, which inherently affects every other modifier on that particular setting.

Which would make it endlessly helpful for it to say something like "Default: 24-26" or similar.

[jpeters1734]

another thing I've noticed, and consider this very anecdotal, is that a dev target age of younger will produce more busts. Especially players drafted out of college since they do not have as much time to develop. I haven't played with "very young", but I imagine most college players would be at the end or past their development window by the time they are drafted.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

Which would make it endlessly helpful for it to say something like "Default: 24-26" or similar.

agreed...but it would appear we aren't going to get an answer on that one, so in leiu of not knowing, I think default is likely a wise choice.

[MikeS21]

So, are we saying that we should probably leave all those settings at the default 1.00 settings, or change them?

I think my idea player aging should be fully developed by around age 23-24, hit his peak 27-30, and begin to notice a decline around age 33-34. Would default settings tend to generally produce that kind of player?

I do find some value in players who are aged 35-38, in that they sometimes serve as nice position backups and back of rotation pitchers.

[Syd Thrift]

I think the game by default will push the peak at more like 26-29 because that's reality, so if you want it to extend to 30 you might want to goose the aging down just a touch. Otherwise, if you don't touch the "peak year" modifiers you should still see approximately what you see - rarely do players develop past 25 and even 24+ isn't common, and yeah, players wear down after 33 or so. What you might prefer is that the curve is flatter than the game makes it out to be, which is where you'd play with development and aging.

I have 1.3 and 0.7 (0.6 for pitchers) for two reasons:

a. I think real, actual decline is not as steep as stats might show it to be but selection bias and a couple of other factors push them to look that way.

b. For pitchers especially it's my experience that the injury cycle hits pitchers really, really hard in terms of knocking their abilities down with fictional leagues to the point that I basically never see a SP who was a superstar at 25 still a good pitcher who can last an entire season without some kind of long-term injury at 35. Like, the current dynasty I'm running, those guys literally do not exist.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by jcard

As I noted recently in a separate post, the dynamic between development target age and development speed is less than obvious to me. Normally the target age would imply the rate of progress (since we are talking about players presumably in the process of developing already). What, for example, is the effect of selecting Much Older and pairing it with a high (faster) Development Speed modifier? Does it mean that the gap between current ability and potential closes faster than normal, but the period of time that potential can change (thus restarting this game of cat-and-mouse) is extended? One of any number of hypothetical explanations?

More broadly, the manual itself may be silent or inadequate on this and sundry other topics, but that fact itself speaks volumes. It is through these types of things, not sporadic forum posts, that a company truly communicates with their consumers. Whether selling an appliance or app, there is a certain threshold of customer expectations that is unmet here.

And here we are another year or two later and still no pop ups, in line help or manual updates