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tworoosters

I give up

September 11, 2011 at 04:48AM View BBCode

I have absolutely no idea why my team is losing, we just blew a 13 point lead to Miami in a game where we generated over 400 yards of offense yet scored 13 points. We are now 3-5 with the 6th best points differential and the 3rd most TDs scored.

Once again my QB throws multiple picks and we lose to a team that is, no offense intended, not even close in talent to ours.

In a 2 minute green zone situation, with one timeout, that calls for 70% passing we run three times out of five and have the clock run out yet five minutes earlier, in our roughly 50/50 run/pass offense, needing only 5 yards or so to move into easy field goal range we throw three straight passes ???

At this point I have to admit I have no idea why things happen in the SIM, again. I will continue to participate in the Gamma league to help Chris out but I must say I would never pay for this level of frustration.
Admin

September 11, 2011 at 05:24AM View BBCode

Three straight passes when the offense is set 50/50 would not be unusual. The green zone plays sound more unusual, although again it's a small enough sample that one pass going the other way would put it within 10% of correct.

I will look at the game and see if I can identify issues that can be addressed.

--Chris
tworoosters

September 11, 2011 at 06:18AM View BBCode

Originally posted by Admin
Three straight passes when the offense is set 50/50 would not be unusual.

--Chris


The problem Chris is that the SIM lacks the ability to assess football situations properly, through no fault of yours, it's just too complex .

In the scenario in question we are down by one with 6 minutes on the clock, 1st and 10 on Miami's 30. The first thing any football coach does in that situation is make sure you get into field goal range, instead we throw a 10 yard pass on 1st, then go deep to the 3 on 2nd and finally, needing on 2-4 yards to get more comfortably into our kicker's range we throw a pass behind the line of scrimmage on 3rd down and actually lose yardage.

That sequence just isn't going to happen in real football but AFE simply sees it as a normal green zone scenario due to time and field position .
redcped

September 11, 2011 at 07:07AM View BBCode

We had an odd scenario that also made sense by settings but not by football standards.

We are set, as by default, to start running the ball with a lead of 1+ inside 300 seconds.

Then we had a situation where we were ahead by less than a TD and were running the regular offense, trying to move the ball, but between 2nd and 3rd down it dropped under 5 minutes to go. So facing 3rd and long, we ran and came up way short.

My feeling is that you don't generally change strategies arbitrarily in the middle of a set of downs just because the clock suddenly says 4:59. If you were throwing on 2nd down just outside 5:00, then you'd still consider it a good play on 3rd and long to try to convert. Instead it was a concession play just to eat a little clock.

It's a small thing, but it does show how hard it is to generate football intuition.
blakjakshalak

September 11, 2011 at 12:23PM View BBCode

This is a level of sophistication that would be extremely difficult to achieve. There are a multitude of special case scenerios in football. Even if you could anticipate all these, hard coding what the teams would do would be counter-productive imo. Wouldn't it result in every team doing escentially the same things? Many games are decided in these types of situations...I often find myself holding my breath and hoping that sim dials up the right play in those key situations.

Perhaps what is called for is the option for each owner to define several custom scenerios (offensive and defensive). They could have a set of 4 play options to run, each weighted like a normal down/distance scenerio. The owner would choose a down, distance, game time and score ("ahead by...", behind by..."). Each owner would decide what these scenerios are and what to do in those situations giving everyone another level of strategic advantage.

Of coarse, there is the possibility of wacky outcomes if someone puts in absurd numbers so pulldown menusareused where necessary. But as much latitude as possible should be left to the owner in building the scenerios.

Thoughts?
Fulla

September 11, 2011 at 01:29PM View BBCode

Originally posted by tworoosters


At this point I have to admit I have no idea why things happen in the SIM, again. I will continue to participate in the Gamma league to help Chris out but I must say I would never pay for this level of frustration.


How many years did you pay for SD baseball before the game was perfect. Tyson made thousands of improvements since we began playing. The football game is improving by leaps & bounds everyday. IMO, the football side is far more complex.
Admin

September 11, 2011 at 02:14PM View BBCode

Originally posted by tworoosters
In the scenario in question we are down by one with 6 minutes on the clock, 1st and 10 on Miami's 30. The first thing any football coach does in that situation is make sure you get into field goal range, instead we throw a 10 yard pass on 1st, then go deep to the 3 on 2nd and finally, needing on 2-4 yards to get more comfortably into our kicker's range we throw a pass behind the line of scrimmage on 3rd down and actually lose yardage.

That sequence just isn't going to happen in real football but AFE simply sees it as a normal green zone scenario due to time and field position .


Actully, though, it may not be regular Green Zone... it may be the new "catch up" setting where you play a hurry up offense and pass more by default. But yes, the game doesn't know when it's a few yards from field goal range, it only knows that it is or it isn't.

--Chris

[Edited on 9-11-2011 by Admin]
Admin

September 11, 2011 at 02:18PM View BBCode

Originally posted by blakjakshalak
This is a level of sophistication that would be extremely difficult to achieve. There are a multitude of special case scenerios in football. Even if you could anticipate all these, hard coding what the teams would do would be counter-productive imo. Wouldn't it result in every team doing escentially the same things? Many games are decided in these types of situations...I often find myself holding my breath and hoping that sim dials up the right play in those key situations.


That's the thing... I'm trying to put as much of the football logic into the owner's hands, because anything I hard-code the owner's going to want to be able to control anyway, and if I don't give a way to control it the gameplay becomes predictable.


Perhaps what is called for is the option for each owner to define several custom scenerios (offensive and defensive). They could have a set of 4 play options to run, each weighted like a normal down/distance scenerio. The owner would choose a down, distance, game time and score ("ahead by...", behind by..."). Each owner would decide what these scenerios are and what to do in those situations giving everyone another level of strategic advantage.


This is what I always promised with the "Advanced settings", although I haven't gotten there yet. And the code is in the game already, what I don't have is the interface, which is the most complicated part.

--Chris
KLKRTR

September 11, 2011 at 04:14PM View formatted

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I think once we get the "advanced settings", you will see a marked improvement in certain teams' play.
lancereisen

September 11, 2011 at 06:42PM View BBCode

08:08 10 7 ARI 1/10 COL 25
1st and 10 for the Arch Arachnids, they huddle and line up in a Pro Set; the Coyotes line up in a 4-3.
Willie Spooge takes the snap, pitches to Spearchucker Jones.
Spooge fumbles the ball at the COL 28.
Morris Holloway recovers the ball for the Coyotes at the COL 31.

http://footballbeta.simdynasty.com/boxscore.jsp?boxscoreid=5039&thid=500
Admin

September 11, 2011 at 08:03PM View BBCode

Originally posted by lancereisen
08:08 10 7 ARI 1/10 COL 25
1st and 10 for the Arch Arachnids, they huddle and line up in a Pro Set; the Coyotes line up in a 4-3.
Willie Spooge takes the snap, pitches to Spearchucker Jones.
Spooge fumbles the ball at the COL 28.
Morris Holloway recovers the ball for the Coyotes at the COL 31.

http://footballbeta.simdynasty.com/boxscore.jsp?boxscoreid=5039&thid=500


Am I handling this wrong? If the QB blows the pitch, isn't it a fumble charged to the QB?

--Chris
tworoosters

September 11, 2011 at 08:27PM View BBCode

If it's a bad pitch then perhaps change the wording, something like:

Willie Spooge takes the snap, Spooge attempts to pitch to Spearchucker Jones . The pitch is bad and the ball is fumbled at the COL28.
Admin

September 11, 2011 at 08:55PM View BBCode

If I change "pitch" to "attempts", you'll know the pitch is going to fail. That's the same reason why the awkward wording happens on the failed handoffs.

But I can probably change the wording on the fumble line to indicate a specif failure so it doesn't look like a bug.

--Chris
lancereisen

September 12, 2011 at 04:12PM View BBCode

Chris, I searched around and found nothing on assigning blame for fumbles. Unlike baseball, that counts and attributes everything, in football, it's like a team error and it is just a fumble.
So it could be worded: Spooge pitches the ball to Jones;
The ball is fumbled.
recovered by....

In todays game I found this nitpick:

Emelianchik fumbles the ball in the end zone.
Greg Emelianchik recovers the ball for the Geese in the end zone.
Touchdown for the Anaheim Geese!

Once the ball breaks the plane, it is a TD and a fumble cannot occur. E can fumble at the 1 and, as ballcarrier, recover and advance the ball for a TD.
I don't think another teammate could recover the ball in the endzone for a TD. The ball would be brought back to the spot of the fumble for the next play [fumblerooski:]. If the opps recovered, it would be a touchback.

http://footballbeta.simdynasty.com/boxscore.jsp?boxscoreid=5051&thid=500
KLKRTR

September 12, 2011 at 04:35PM View BBCode

Is there any way to add a "zone"? If so, it'd be awesome to be able to have a "near FG range".
Admin

September 12, 2011 at 04:41PM View BBCode

Originally posted by lancereisen
Chris, I searched around and found nothing on assigning blame for fumbles. Unlike baseball, that counts and attributes everything, in football, it's like a team error and it is just a fumble.
So it could be worded: Spooge pitches the ball to Jones;
The ball is fumbled.
recovered by....

In todays game I found this nitpick:

Emelianchik fumbles the ball in the end zone.
Greg Emelianchik recovers the ball for the Geese in the end zone.
Touchdown for the Anaheim Geese!

Once the ball breaks the plane, it is a TD and a fumble cannot occur. E can fumble at the 1 and, as ballcarrier, recover and advance the ball for a TD.
I don't think another teammate could recover the ball in the endzone for a TD. The ball would be brought back to the spot of the fumble for the next play [fumblerooski:]. If the opps recovered, it would be a touchback.

http://footballbeta.simdynasty.com/boxscore.jsp?boxscoreid=5051&thid=500


I thought I had eliminated that particular bug. Yes, the plane is already broken so losing the ball isn't actually a fumble, so the fumble line shouldn't be displayed.

--Chris
Admin

September 12, 2011 at 04:47PM View BBCode

Originally posted by KLKRTR
Is there any way to add a "zone"? If so, it'd be awesome to be able to have a "near FG range".


The problem is "near field goal range" is hard to define. I suppose it would be "If the kicker is within 10-15% of one of my kicking settings", but depending on conditions that could be a wide range. And your response would also be dependent on the clock, so you might need both a normal and 2-minute variant of it.

One possibility would be to not use the "catch up" increased passing setting when close to a field goal (I think that's what caused tworooster's issues here), but I think all that logic is checked before the field goal logic is checked, and changing the order of the logic has the potential for causing bugs I'll still be searching for for months.

I'll see if there's something I can do to make this smarter.

--Chris

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