djmacb wrote:Well OK, this has gone exactly the way Steve F predicted. Why am I not surprised? The lesson, as usual, is don’t feed the troll.
Yes, I'm the troll and not him. I post and he calls me a conspiracy theorist in as rude of a manner as he can but you're on his side?
MaxPower wrote:Backfire wrote:I hope it is real
Do you though? Kinda seems like you don't. Kinda seems like you're weirdly invested in the idea that normalization exists and don't want to hear otherwise. Like, this man just posted a definitive answer to the "question" you supposedly were posing and somehow you're mad at him for it. He's just trying to give you good news my man, you should be grateful! We gotta take it where we can get it in this world.
Backfire wrote:By the way you're talking here it seems that the notion of using a financially beneficial business model is a fairy tale to you.
1. implement normalization
2. lie about it
3. ...
4. profit???
Backfire wrote:pattern recognition is a skill
Humans are absolute shit at pattern recognition and are always seeing patterns where none exist. You know who thinks they're really good at pattern recognition? Gamblers. Yet somehow the house always wins. Perceiving and tolerating chaos is the more valuable skill to cultivate.
Backfire wrote:I believe tweaks are being made and more specifically, weaker players are being given unfair advantages to keep them as customers. This makes perfect business sense.
You have identified a potential profit motive for Strat intervening in the game results, what you (nor anyone else) have not done is explain how "normalization" - the topic of your original post - would favor new players.
Backfire wrote:I can intuitively know what is going to happen in many cases. For example, I just got swept by one of the weaker teams in the league and missed playoffs due to a wildcard tiebreaker. I expected this to happen and I was right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_biasPalmtana wrote:it would be interesting to hear from some of those who believe that normalization is turned on
Seems like we're already hearing from one of them...
I want to know the rules of the game I'm playing. Simple as that. So far I have seen proof that in the past there has been unknown factors at play and that there are those that believe such things may still be ongoing. I see abnormalities in the results constantly, it's hard to ignore. I also work with video game code so I know it is very easy for errors to be made and there can be a massive amount of problems which can arise. A lot of the time these are unintentional and the company is not aware of their existence. Not saying that is the case here, just pointing it out.
The best case scenario would be to find proof that the game is legit and then we can all be happy. Of course, I don't want to be right, I would love to be wrong on this, but the uncertainty is driving me nuts!
Oddly enough, your comment about gamblers and pattern recognition is surprisingly suitable. I spent about 13 years as a professional poker player (not playing against the house mind you), and I did very well. I was rewarded greatly for my pattern recognition skills as that is a vital element of the game. You're quite right, the majority of players are terrible at pattern recognition and I'm sure I have been guilty at it myself on numerous occasions. However, I would consider my pattern recognition to be very strong, I notice things others miss constantly. A lot of the time these are completely useless details with absolutely no relevance, just interesting discoveries. I am seeing a lot of strange things happening and I have no way to prove anything or convince you, you can choose to believe me or not.
You asked me for proof that normalization exists, can't I ask you to prove that it doesn't? I don't claim to know anything about the game code to speak with confidence about what is going on in this context. All I can say is that myself and others, typically more serious players (not saying good), seem to constantly take issue with this.
Some things I can say, although I don't feel they will contribute anything to the discussion, nor will you believe them,
1. Poorly built teams seem to always, or almost always, get at least 50 wins. I doubt this is a hard rule but it seems to be happening far more than it should IMO. This is a game of small and large edges and one would think that if he stacks enough of these edges it would make for an extremely powerful team, while the opposite would also be true. Answer me this: Do you feel the game is so random that basically any team with whatever settings, lineups, etc the manager chooses should have an extremely high probability of getting 50 wins? I really don't think so but maybe you know something I don't.
2. Backup players seem to perform better than expected, especially the first time or two after filling a position.
3. Heavy HR players seem to drop off later in the season when they're doing well. This is definitely not always the case but it seems common.
4. New players seem to make playoffs more often than I would expect.
5. Teams with strong records seem to eventually get a lot of injuries. Again, not always the case.
6. Here is the big one: Teams that are absolutely crushing a league seem to inevitably go through a very rough period and end up with way less wins than their manager expects. This is of course, easily explainable in many instances but the frequency in which it happens is shocking.
7. Bad teams often sweep the stronger teams in the league deeper in the season.
Take from that what you will. Again, I have no proof of anything, nor do I have any way to get enough data to have a proper sample size. But when you have some of the top players of all time that played thousands of teams state their suspicions I would think that would be enough to convince a person there may be something strange going on.