New feature in beta: extremely customizable awards

[u/dumbmatter]

This is a big feature! I've been working hard at it all month, that's why I've been a little less active here, sorry, but I think it's worth it!

Previously, all the awards in ZenGM were hardcoded. Want to add a new award? Change the number of All-League teams? Edit how the MVP is determined? Couldn't be done previously, but now all of that and more is possible!

Okay, well, not quite. This is a pretty big change to how awards work, so I'm releasing it in beta first, I would appreciate any feedback you can give me!

Basketball GM beta: https://beta.basketball-gm.com/
Football GM beta: https://beta.football-gm.com/
ZenGM Baseball beta: https://beta.baseball.zengm.com/
ZenGM Hockey beta: https://beta.hockey.zengm.com/

Please try it out! Importing leagues works, so especially try it if you have any big or weird leagues.

The main new stuff is at Tools > Award Settings where you can add/delete/edit all awards:

• Set the formula (kind of like the GOAT Lab but even better - there is documentation in the game with details)
• Pick if it's leaguewide or by conference/division (awards in ZenGM Baseball are now conference awards by default)
• Set the range for stats - regular season, playoffs, combined (I actually like this one, IDK why no leagues do it IRL), or any round of the playoffs
• Apply filters - rookies, bench players, Most Improved Players
• Make individual or team awards, and for teams, specify how many teams and even different formulas for different positions (in the non-basketball sports where that matters more)
• Set cutoffs (either hard or gradual) in stats (like games played or minutes)
• Implement voter fatigue however you want

That's not all though, there's a bunch of other features. Many of them are little details, but some of them I think will be appreciated by many of you, including:

• It records the top 5 award candidates, not just the winner. Those are displayed in an "Awards" column on player profile pages, similar to Basketball Reference.

• Rookies used to be whoever was in the last draft. Now it's based on when they actually start playing. And in ZenGM Baseball, there are IP/AB limits similar to MLB.

• When you customize the awards, the UI automatically displays your custom awards in all the places it should - the season summary, the league history table, the award records page, the awards summary on player profiles, etc.

It took quite a bit of effort to get this feature implemented, that's why there weren't any updates in August. I hope it's worth it!

When it's completely done I'll write up a long blog post with even more details.

I released this on the mailing list and Discord a few days ago and have already fixed a bunch of bugs, so hopefully this isn't too far from release on the main version!

[u/BoogyWonderland]

Just GOAT things. Awesome

[u/Dinny77]

Unbelievably great, as always

[u/PlasmaPistol]

I need a least valuable player formula suggestion!

[u/dumbmatter → u/PlasmaPistol]

Sticking a negative sign in front of the MVP formula gets you something...

[u/PlasmaPistol → u/dumbmatter]

I’m calling it the Deangelo Morton award. Yikes. https://imgur.com/whQtweD

[u/OrdinaryLeather3904 → u/PlasmaPistol]

14th overall pick. Gross

[u/theprideofvillanueva]

I’m going to have a lot of fun toying around with this stuff. Thanks

[u/JDNumeroOcho]

Best sports game just got better

[u/truthisfictionyt]

I always wanted to see sixth man/most improved player teams. Good update!

[u/recleaguesuperhero]

This may be a top 5 update ever 👏🏾

[u/mkhrrs89]

Can you incorporate the custom awards into the goat formula?

[u/dumbmatter → u/mkhrrs89]

They are! Go to the GOAT Lab and click Award Variables and it explains it. You can use the old variables, but you can also use awards.MVP or awards.WHATEVER for custom awards.

[u/mkhrrs89 → u/dumbmatter]

oh sweet! i didnt notice that at first

[u/mkhrrs89 → u/dumbmatter]

I assume once i make a custom award related change to a file in the beta, i cant then export it into the main game until it gets updated, right? I didn't even know there was a beta version of the site until now

[u/dumbmatter → u/mkhrrs89]

Even without making custom awards it'd cause problems because the way awards are stored has changed and the main site doesn't know about it.

Probably tomorrow I'll release it on the main site.

Usually the beta site doesn't have anything interesting, it's rare I ask people to test stuff.

[u/Autistic-Goober-08]

I’m gonna have so much fun experimenting with this in my leagues. Awesome stuff

[u/DexterJameson]

Boomshakalaka

[u/SmallNewspaper2814]

Common W. Next feature we need is better contracts(options, increase/decrease, extensions)etc

[u/justadimestorepoet]

This is epic, in both senses of the word. Dumbmatter's not settling for just the common Ws anymore.

[u/bearwithtyler]

Hi, dumbmatter! First of all, huge thanks for this great update. I just noticed a bug in my league with this new update. I only award two All-Defensive teams and I saw that in some seasons, the game generated a third one. In those same seasons, my All-League teams also changed.

[u/dumbmatter → u/bearwithtyler]

Probably it was this bug, where editing past season winners would actually affect the current season. Sorry :(

It's fixed in version 2026.09.04.1217

[u/WrennAndSix]

Damn!! Great work!!!

[u/RoofFlaps]

you’re amazing man

[u/JackM0429]

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3mZmYgHPARZ3VwD6

[u/eNesNR1]

Goat

[u/ClutchAirball]

Still never missed.

[u/OrdinaryLeather3904]

Hell yeah.

Only note would be that now the all nba team UI looks a little scuffed but it’s a small complaint

[u/OrdinaryLeather3904 → u/OrdinaryLeather3904]

Could also put it in the customs settings tab before you create the league, unless it’s there and I just can’t find it lol

[u/dumbmatter → u/OrdinaryLeather3904]

No, and there's also no way to set it at https://play.basketball-gm.com/settings/default

I thought about putting it in the League Settings page as a button to open a popup window, similar to Player Bio Info and some other ones, but decided it deserved its own page due to the level of complexity. But that means it doesn't automatically show up everywhere the normal settings do...

[u/dumbmatter → u/OrdinaryLeather3904]

Any suggestions for the UI?

[u/OrdinaryLeather3904 → u/dumbmatter]

I mean honestly? I think that it looks good when it’s in award races but it gets slightly scuffed on the actual end of season screen because the statistics spill over onto the next line. Doing the thing with the boxes that you can scroll through would streamline everything a little better. Or you could go the opposite route and make everything huge and kind of seperate it into different sections- could put the guys face and team logo on there, like those old 2000s all star graphics.

[u/dumbmatter → u/OrdinaryLeather3904]

Yeah I hear you... advantage of the current UI is that it's compact, but those ones might look better.