jdavidbakr wrote:
I weakened the passing game (see #2 as well) to try to attack your #3 issue, I noticed that most of the insanely high scores were from teams with heavy passing.
For what it's worth, I led the league in scoring in all three leagues using a run-attack offense.
Here are some ways to -constructively- reduce obscene passing, in my opinion, without making it a total RNG crapshoot:
1) Predictable passing should be punished more. There's a team in L2 who has literally not run the ball at all for two seasons now, with a 100 QB rating on his primary passer each time. This would never work in the NFL because the QB would be crippled by the pass rush and safeties/LBs would never hesitate or need to mug the line.
One potential solution would be to add a 'rushing effectiveness metric' that would determine how focused the defense is on committing to stop the run versus the pass that would be dynamic throughout the game. Every pass would lower the metric, and every time you rush the ball would add points to the rushing effectiveness metric, with the amount of points contingent on the success of the run. The game situation would also adjust the metric, ie if you're up 17 points early in the fourth quarter, the rushing effectiveness metric will be dropping as the defense naturally begins to expect the pass in that situation. The lower the rushing effectiveness metric is, the higher the bonus to the entire defense's rolls when defending the pass, but the more vulnerable they'll become to the run (though to a lesser extent).
2) Make lock-down corners more lock-down. 100-rated CBs--the Shermans and Revis' of the sim--get picked on all the time.
3) Reduce tackle-breaking immediately after the catch or improve safety angles (or both). I score a ton of TDs off intermediate catches where the WR (with 10-20 break tackle skill) breaks the single coverage tackle and scores. Either reducing their ability to do this or having safeties immediately set a path to intercept the player's path downfield would help curb some of the success of passing.
WarEagle wrote:
I may be in the minority, but I do not like this at all.
1. Having players hold out should be way, way, way down the line.
2. There are many, many other things that can be done to improve this game before either of these items are implemented.
#1 for me would be a tie between the ability to create a rule to pull (or put back in) your starters, and the ability to run true "drain clock" or "hurry up" offenses.
If both of these items were implemented it would go a long way to reducing some of the lopsided scores, as least for my teams.
I think items like this should take priority over adding code trying to get our players to refuse to re-sign (or play) for our teams.
+1 to all this, especially the "drain clock" and "hurry up" offenses. I definitely should have remembered to add that in my suggestions, so thanks for bringing it up as a solution!
Chipped wrote:
I don't disagree with your suggestions; I would love to have control over more areas of gameplay myself. At the same time, most casual players won't even touch those options at all, rendering those improvements to a smaller population. Additionally, if the leagues are top heavy with no talent available in the free agent pool, many new/casual players may decide to quit.
The pull starters logic should start with a default 'mercy' setting (after +X score starting in X quarter) that the user can then adjust.