Just a quick thought on using hardness.  It is not the suspensions, but the penalties that stop me using it more. Potentially losing 2-3 goals with hardness 10 through penalties alone will not be made up with the extra points cosidering GK and SW combos typically employed.  I use 1% hardness a lot, it is the same number of dice rolls but with 5% more chance.

I suggest along similar lines that there is a "Dark Arts" BRB who reduces PK chance (to 5%) or caps the number of penalties a team can concede (to 1?)  but with an increase in straight red cards if caught making the sly elbow into the ribs of the keeper at corners.  

We don't (yet) have VAR in United so no complication of 20 cameras monitoring the pitch.

Slightly related to this topic is I think if your defense doesn't yield any attacks then there should automatiocally be zero chances of a PK, regardless of the amount of hardness you use. It makes no sense to me how you can give up a PK when their were no attacks.  

Please don't take this personally, but I'm not too keen on the idea. But that doesn't mean I can't be persuaded....

The PK mechanism is specifically designed to make sure that you cannot completely lock down the defense, that there will always be a random chance you'll give up a goal.

The problem with this game is that it actually is rather well designed in its simplicity and I'm concerned this is too big a change.

I know I am in the minority with "locking" down the opposition's attack, but I guess my biggest frustration is if you aren't giving up any attacks then how in the world do you give up a PK?

Well if I get what Dave is saying the fact that you are playing a big defence and nullifying the opposition attack it does not mean they are not attacking. They still are just not getting shots on goal. Most of the action is still taking place in the defensive half so plenty of chances for a PK to be given away!

It may well be however that this potential brb is not so useful in bumping up the use of the hardness tactic if one of the main reasons people are suggesting they don´t use hardness if the fear od giving away penalties rather than seeing players suspended.

I know there's someone out there who's done statistical analysis of how many penalties are actually awarded. We should find that and present that. I think folks will see that there really aren't that many PKs awarded. 

Overall, I like the notion of this BRB (and it wasn't one of my suggestions!). I have been on the receiving end of too many "undeserved" red cards. I would welcome a chance to argue my case.

Rob: My friend Dave Dohm has done that research.  His published results show that EVERY time he plays 0 hardness, he ALWAYS gives up a PK.  ?

But seriously...

I'm not sure I store the data that way (not easily) to correlate PKs to Hardness.

BUT, I think I have all the history player match logs.  Looks like maybe 500k records?  

I can share that with anyone who wants to do some analysis....

I know real football is different than our game, but how often are red cards overturned in real life? I will guess not very often. If that's the case, I think it's the main reason I am not into this BRB idea. It seems unnecessary (sorry, not my intention to offend).

No offence taken Brian.  We're throwing these ideas out to stress test them.  Far better to get constructive or negative feedback now rather than after a BRB is introduced and has upset the balance of the game.

Just played with my data set, the game only stores PKs from PK shoot-outs in team history, but if there's a player history with PKs by game, then it's calculate-able...

...though also considering that it's just a relatively simple mathematic function, these penalty kicks, the observations will probably closely match the function's output with a little bit of random noise.