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jbzomal75

The Rotational Strategy

January 23, 2014 at 07:52PM View BBCode

There's an element to this game I've never liked that I call the 'rotational' strategy. It's when an owner uses mass substitutions at certain positions, mostly the offensive and defensive lines, throughout a game. The problem I have with being allowed to do this is that it's not very realistic. Have you ever seen an NFL team use one personnel package to block for a rush attempt one play then use a totally different personnel package on the next play to block for a pass? Over and over? Not me. Lots of owners use this tactic, even I do, but that doesn't make it right.

I think one solution could be to give some sort of fatigue penalty to the players involved in these maneuvers. Or maybe the solution requires the conditioning model be fixed. I'm not the only owner that believes that the conditioning factor in this game isn't quite right. Those are just a couple of suggestions.

Keep in mind I'm not talking about guys playing out of position per se, that's probably about as rigid as it should be already. I mean the ability to sub out players in accordance with various formations. Any thoughts?
dirtdevil

January 23, 2014 at 09:10PM View BBCode

honestly, the best solution is to enable running plays from shotgun. dialing back the importance of fatigue would also be an idea. that would eliminate the major impetus points behind that strategy.

I think we need to be careful about how any "sub-in" penalties were applied. there is plenty of precedent for nfl coaches using subs in different packages. tom landry used to alternate qbs from play to play. paul brown used to shuttle his guards every play. the 90's cowboys used to rotate their d-linemen all the time. lots of modern and near-modern players on both sides of the ball have made a name for themselves as 3rd down specialists. I think we need to allow for those things to exist as they are completely realistic.

what isn't realistic is changing out the entire o-line between shotgun and I/Pro. not because a team couldn't do it if they wanted to (there's no reason why couldn't, at least on offence) but just because it would take all of about three plays for the defence to realize what was going on and key on the pass or run.
jbzomal75

January 23, 2014 at 11:32PM View BBCode

what isn't realistic is changing out the entire o-line between shotgun and I/Pro. not because a team couldn't do it if they wanted to (there's no reason why couldn't, at least on offence) but just because it would take all of about three plays for the defence to realize what was going on and key on the pass or run.


That's the kind of subbing I'm talking about, the wholesale changes on potentially every other play.
shbo2

January 23, 2014 at 11:52PM View BBCode

Originally posted by dirtdevil
what isn't realistic is changing out the entire o-line between shotgun and I/Pro. not because a team couldn't do it if they wanted to (there's no reason why couldn't, at least on offence) but just because it would take all of about three plays for the defence to realize what was going on and key on the pass or run.
This is the part of the game that drives me batty, teams can go all season only running out of certain formations and it won't get keyed in on. It would be nice to be able to make defensive based on formation along with down & distance.
shbo2

January 23, 2014 at 11:53PM View BBCode

Originally posted by dirtdevil
what isn't realistic is changing out the entire o-line between shotgun and I/Pro. not because a team couldn't do it if they wanted to (there's no reason why couldn't, at least on offence) but just because it would take all of about three plays for the defence to realize what was going on and key on the pass or run.
This is the part of the game that drives me batty, teams can go all season only running out of certain formations and it won't get keyed in on. It would be nice to be able to make defensive based on formation along with down & distance.
dirtdevil

January 24, 2014 at 12:11AM View BBCode

My understanding (and maybe Chris can correct me if I'm mistaken) is that defences are not permitted to key on pass out of shotgun because you can do in that formation is pass. If the D could key on it the entire formation would be useless. That's why I suggest one of the most important steps would be to enable runs there. Then all these c+/A+ olinemen would be obsolete.
shbo2

January 24, 2014 at 12:21AM View BBCode

That makes sense, but it would be useful to key on the run when the QB's under center since there a more than a few teams that never pass in those formations.
dirtdevil

January 24, 2014 at 12:21AM View BBCode

Originally posted by jbzomal75
what isn't realistic is changing out the entire o-line between shotgun and I/Pro. not because a team couldn't do it if they wanted to (there's no reason why couldn't, at least on offence) but just because it would take all of about three plays for the defence to realize what was going on and key on the pass or run.


That's the kind of subbing I'm talking about, the wholesale changes on potentially every other play.

I don't think anyone would disagree with that. The problem with a penalty type solution though is where do we draw the line? How much substitution between plays and between formations is reasonable? Two players? Five? A back a WR and a lineman? Is a consistent QB change alone enough? That's why I think the best way to get rid of it is not to penalize players but to remove the conditions that make it effective.
shbo2

January 24, 2014 at 12:31AM View BBCode

Originally posted by dirtdevil That's why I think the best way to get rid of it is not to penalize players but to remove the conditions that make it effective.


I agree with this, it is much more taxing playing defense than offense ( other than RB or a receiver running a fly pattern every play) fatigue should happen much slower for offensive players than defensive players.
Admin

January 24, 2014 at 04:13AM View BBCode

Originally posted by dirtdevil
My understanding (and maybe Chris can correct me if I'm mistaken) is that defences are not permitted to key on pass out of shotgun because you can do in that formation is pass. If the D could key on it the entire formation would be useless. That's why I suggest one of the most important steps would be to enable runs there. Then all these c+/A+ olinemen would be obsolete.


It does key partially. It changes to a nickel package and if a run defense is in place it switches to a pass defense (although not necessarily a perfect pass defense).

Once I clear the issues making it difficult to add formations and play groups I will be adding draws out of shotgun first thing.

Chris
Hodor

January 24, 2014 at 05:29AM View BBCode

Well, I shamelessly admit that I'm a proud user of the Rotational Strategy.
Unlike many people in here, I really like not only the results, but the whole idea behind it.

Since this is one of the issues I've devoted more time thinking about in the year I've been playing, I can't help but to post my opinions about it.

I think there are TWO different parts on this discussion:
1) The Problem behind this strategy in SimDynasty.
2) The realistic Tactical Advantages of the strategy.

Since I love to bore people to death with long posts, I'll write my opinions on two different posts.

On the first post (this one) I'll basically agree with everyone that there's a problem in Sim Dynasty and it needs to be fixed in order to make it more realistic.

On the second post (below) I guess I'll be fighting a lost battle of "me against the world" when I'll get to the unpopular conclusion that I don't believe that this strategy is unrealistic at all.

So... first the good post:

The problem is conditioning.

Probably in the NFL having 5 linemen is good enough, but definitely not in here.
Because Conditioning.
I think that the drop of performance because conditioning is unrealistic, and there's a really big difference in having 10 linemen against having only 5.
If the players wouldn't suffer such a big penalty on conditioning then playing with 5 linemen would be enough.

I know that the idea behind it was that we should look for players with high stamina and attitude, but to be fair it's a lot easier to find 10 decent linemen with low stamina/attitude than 5 decent linemen with high condition.

Solution 1: players (in general, or only offensive players, or only offensive linemen) should have higher stamina and attitude.
I'm talking about C+ or B- at least. I mean, they're professional football players, we shouldn't be worrying about their stamina; I agree about attitude, those guys can't behave sometimes, but there shouldn't be players with stamina lower than B-.

Solution 2: Conditioning should have less impact on the game.

Personally I'd like option 1 better, since it would be easier to adjust which positions get the stamina bonus as opposed as to control which positions get the conditioning penalty, and it should be easier to implement (instead of adjusting the whole conditioning module, it would only be needed to adjust the minimum stamina what the players are created with).

Anyway, that should fix the NEED of playing with 10 linemen instead of 5.

Now, once said that...
Hodor

January 24, 2014 at 05:29AM View BBCode

Obviously I know that this thing doesn't happen in real life, and I agree that most likely it won't happen, but I wouldn't deal with it in absolutes (that's what siths do).
So I wouldn't say that "there's no way that would happen in real life".

For instance, keep in mind that the Baltimore Ravens for last season's playoffs rearranged their whole offensive line in order to have their best pass blockers at the same time, effectively removing their "run blockers".
That's half of the Rotational Strategy right there.

Considering that football keeps evolving and coordinators keep trying to come up with different solutions to current problems, and the fact that rearranging your offensive line to unbalance it with a bias on pass blocking is already on the menu, it's not impossible to think that in the future something similar to what we do in here will happen in real life.

Why not?

The talent pool is not so different to what we have here, if all of us were trying to build one good offensive line for both pass and run blocking, we would suffer as much as any NFL team to have enough linemen, but when half of the teams decide to look for players ignoring how good are they for pass (or run) blocking, then there are enough players out there to have two different starting lines. The same should happen in real life if teams decided to use this strategy.

You could argue that it would hint the defenses on what to expect, a pass or a run, but that already happens in here to an extent: a shotgun formation automatically triggers a nickel defense, and although it doesn't totally key on a run/pass defense, the offense is more limited than in real life too.
In real life it would be probably even more effective, since at least it would create confusion in the defense (which doesn't happen in here) and NFL offenses actually can run draw plays from the shotgun, so if someone decided to use that system they could make it work, even more effectively than in here.

I could see people and the media and the other teams complaining that it's a gimmick (sp?) or a peewee league trick, like the wildcat and the pistol before, but unlike those, this one is not just one play or one trick, is a whole philosophy more similar to the no huddle offense than to a trick play. So, people complaining doesn't mean that it wouldn't be applied ever.

The roster size is another thing to consider, but I don't think it would be too much of a problem if this would be adopted, since linemen would be less tired so playing on the special team plays sholdn't be that demanding.

Probably it's not worth the trouble because there's not that big of a difference between a player's pass and run blocking skills which means that probably our players should have a more similar level between pass and run blocking, like if a player has A- in pass blocking his run blocking should be no less than B+ and no more than A, or something to that effect.
But that's assuming there's really not much difference in real life between a pass blocker and a run blocker, which I'm not convinced (I know more than a couple of useless pass blockers that are more than decent run blockers in real life, I'm looking at you Vlad Ducasse).
Also this is ignoring the fact that in order for the SimDy Rotational system to work, it means to look for less than estelar linemen, and it's in there where we find players with unbalanced pass and run blocking skills. I'd guess the same happens in real life.

Also in real life, conditioning doesn't seem to be a huge problem, so it wouldn't be such a big advantage like is here, but even then, it would be a pretty solid strategy for a team that managed to apply it effectively. Probably not worth the trouble, but definitely not useless or negative.

So, will we ever see it in real life?
Probably not, or probably not to the extent that we use it in here, but all in all, I think that the only reason why teams don't do this in real life is because the system is unproven and the change of philosophy is too much of a risk to give it a fair shot, but not because it wouldn't work.

And since in here we haven't invested billions of dollars on a team or risking our millions of dollars per year salary job in case that experiment doesn't work AND we've already seen that it actually is a proven system, then we're comfortable giving it a try, which is why I definitely think that this is not unrealistic at all.

Or at least that's the way I see it.




[Edited on 1-24-2014 by Hodor]
jbzomal75

January 24, 2014 at 06:42AM View BBCode

You reminded me of another of my gripes: attitude as it pertains to conditioning and readiness level for playing in games. It's not only an unrealistic aspect of the sim but just silly in general. If a player in real life couldn't start a game because he wasn't physically or mentally 'prepared', i.e. fatigue level being too low, he wouldn't be on that team very long and probably would be out of football altogether after a short time.

One argument might be that a player can still play if the substitution level is set low enough in the depth chart, even though he will be at a diminished capacity. That might actually simulate some NFL players with lower stamina but you don't really hear about players sitting out games in real life because they're still too tired from the previous game. Like I said, if that actually happened those players wouldn't last long in the NFL.
jbzomal75

January 24, 2014 at 07:00AM View BBCode

So, will we ever see it in real life?
Probably not, or probably not to the extent that we use it in here, but all in all, I think that the only reason why teams don't do this in real life is because the system is unproven and the change of philosophy is too much of a risk to give it a fair shot, but not because it wouldn't work.


I'll repeat something I said elsewhere. There's a whole chemistry/cohesion aspect that goes into offensive lines. If you have a whole line for pass blocking and a whole line for run blocking chemistry might not be a factor but if you have parts of one line working with the other I can see potential problems in real life football with such a system.
dirtdevil

January 24, 2014 at 02:37PM View BBCode

Originally posted by Admin
Once I clear the issues making it difficult to add formations and play groups I will be adding draws out of shotgun first thing.

Chris

that would be great. I don't know what the offensive playcall system will look like at that point, but might I suggest that if it looks similar to what we have now that we be given 6 play options rather than 4? it would allow us to use the extra wrinkles more effectively.
jbzomal75

January 24, 2014 at 03:50PM View BBCode

Six would be too much I think. I agree that four isn't enough though so I would like to see five, that would allow us to use both kinds of runs and still put in some passing variety. More than that and I think you dilute the already limited strategic element of the sim by allowing coaches to do too much. The need to sacrifice a little bit as far as play options adds a little more strategy to the sim. With six options you could do almost anything so it would probably come down more to who has the better players in determining the outcome of games more often.
dirtdevil

January 24, 2014 at 03:53PM View BBCode

how would allowing coaches to do more dilute the strategic element? to me that would increase the strategic element. the more options you have the more strategy comes into play.
jbzomal75

January 24, 2014 at 04:41PM View BBCode

The way it is now on offense you get more variety of strategies between owners because we only have four options so we have to make harder choices between which plays are used. Let owners choose every kind of offensive play with six options and everyone will use the same gamut of plays, which I think would create a cookie cutter effect.

With defense there's actually too many options already with the small amount of plays/formations available. There are times on defense when one of the options almost becomes a placeholder for me. If a team runs a lot I don't particularly want to play deep zone on certain down and distances(or even blitz for that matter) so I'm possibly leaving an option blank or putting in blitz anyway just to fill it out.

In both cases I can see six options being more viable with more plays being added but with a discrepancy between offensive and defensive options needing addressed at the same time.
Hodor

January 24, 2014 at 04:46PM View BBCode

Originally posted by dirtdevil
how would allowing coaches to do more dilute the strategic element? to me that would increase the strategic element. the more options you have the more strategy comes into play.


I guess that he means that if we could use all our options in every scenario, we all would have basically the same game plan, "diluting" the strategy.

Still, six doesn't seem too much to me specially if we're gonna get even more options than the ones available right now (i.e. draw plays), and considering percentages and advanced strategies I don't think there's any risk of that.
dirtdevil

January 24, 2014 at 06:17PM View BBCode

Originally posted by Hodor
I guess that he means that if we could use all our options in every scenario, we all would have basically the same game plan, "diluting" the strategy.

Still, six doesn't seem too much to me specially if we're gonna get even more options than the ones available right now (i.e. draw plays), and considering percentages and advanced strategies I don't think there's any risk of that.

well, if chris is even just adding running plays out of shotgun then we would have 14 offensive options. I don't think choosing 6 would result in all that much of a cookie cutter effect. if adds more than just that, then even less so.

as far as the defence goes, I do agree that more options would be nice. even just a 3-4 formation would add a wealth of different choices.
Hodor

January 24, 2014 at 06:51PM View BBCode

The thing is that -IMHO- the defense should be treated totally different than the offense.

The offense controls exactly what to do. You can put all your players 100% focused on the play you want to run.

On the other hand the defense can't do that, otherwise you'll get burned most of the times.

The way I think it should work is something like on one hand, setting your orders per "unit" as opposed to the whole defense. On the other, setting percentage of how much focus they should have to each play.

For example:
Unit:
Def Line
Focus:
40% inside run
30% pass rush
30% outside run

LB
50% shallow zone
30% inside run
20% blitz

S
50% man to man
30% inside run
20% deep zone

CB
70% deep zone
30% outside run

in here, the % wouldn't mean that 70% of the times your CBs will play deep zone ignoring the outside run, or that 30% of the times your CBs won't care about the deep zone because he's totally focused on cover the outside run.

It'd mean that in all plays they'll be 70% focused (aware, ready...) on cover the deep zone while keeping 30% of his "mind" ready to check for a possible outside run.
The more % means that he'll execute that play better.

Breaking it per unit makes it better imho, but I would consider braking it by position/player even.

Anyway, probably all this belong to another thread...
jbzomal75

January 24, 2014 at 07:10PM View BBCode

I guess that he means that if we could use all our options in every scenario, we all would have basically the same game plan, "diluting" the strategy.


Exactly.

Still, six doesn't seem too much to me specially if we're gonna get even more options than the ones available right now (i.e. draw plays), and considering percentages and advanced strategies I don't think there's any risk of that.


Yes. If you add more plays/formations then it should balance out.
jbzomal75

January 24, 2014 at 07:23PM View BBCode

Off the topic of the thread but on topic about plays: I would also like to be able to determine things like which RB runs inside and outside when using a tandem setup. I use two RBs a lot of times but they don't always have the same skill set. Because of that I don't necessarily want the RB that's maybe higher in break tackle and lower in speed to be running outside so being able to determine who runs in certain situations would really help.
Admin

January 25, 2014 at 06:37PM View BBCode

Originally posted by Hodor
The problem is conditioning.

Probably in the NFL having 5 linemen is good enough, but definitely not in here.
Because Conditioning.
I think that the drop of performance because conditioning is unrealistic, and there's a really big difference in having 10 linemen against having only 5.
If the players wouldn't suffer such a big penalty on conditioning then playing with 5 linemen would be enough.

I know that the idea behind it was that we should look for players with high stamina and attitude, but to be fair it's a lot easier to find 10 decent linemen with low stamina/attitude than 5 decent linemen with high condition.

Solution 1: players (in general, or only offensive players, or only offensive linemen) should have higher stamina and attitude.
I'm talking about C+ or B- at least. I mean, they're professional football players, we shouldn't be worrying about their stamina; I agree about attitude, those guys can't behave sometimes, but there shouldn't be players with stamina lower than B-.

Solution 2: Conditioning should have less impact on the game.

Personally I'd like option 1 better, since it would be easier to adjust which positions get the stamina bonus as opposed as to control which positions get the conditioning penalty, and it should be easier to implement (instead of adjusting the whole conditioning module, it would only be needed to adjust the minimum stamina what the players are created with).


There is a middle ground: jbzomal has the suggestion of a cohesive line performing better. Using this suggestion, the longer an OL stays in the game together, the less impact they get from fatigue, making them more effective. Or I can simply reduce fatigue effects just for the OL.

Fatigue is extremely difficult to get right. It is very difficult to measure from watching an NFL game or looking at NFL stats to see exactly who is getting tired when. But there has to be a reason to substitute players other than injury, otherwise a team needs no depth at all except to fulfill an artificial roster limit.

The idea of a player's Conditioning was one of the very first things I came up with in the game. Some football players take their jobs very seriously; others are kids who suddenly have too much money and too much fame and their head isn't where it needs to be, and soon a promising young player is looking for employment because he is more trouble than he is worth. That is something I was trying to capture, something to make these code bits more human and give them another dimension.

I am sure everyone in this discussion has a good handle on it but for the more casual users here are the factors involved:

Conditioning represents how ready a player is to play on Sunday. It is a combination of three factors: How ready he is due to the work he has put in at practice (this is a factor of Attitude), how well he is recovered from an injury (if he came off an injury within the last 4 days), and whether he is suffering from residual fatigue or minor injuries (for WR's and RB's based on how heavily they were used in the last week and (to a lesser extent) the two prior weeks). The Conditioning percentage at game time represents the highest Energy level a player can have during that game. The average player starts a game at 93%-96% Conditioning, but high-Attitude players may start higher. Attitude is not a factor for the postseason, so fore postseason games players are at 100% Conditioning for the Attude (ready-to-play) portion of the Conditioning math but are still subject to reductions due to injury or overuse.

Energy represents how much energy a player has available at any given moment during the game. Depletion of Energy is dependent on position and Stamina; recovery is dependent on Stamina. When Energy drops below the Sub Out setting, the player is subbed out and goes on Rest until he reaches the Sub In setting. If a player's starting Energy (based on his Conditioning) is below the Sub Out setting for the role he is set to start in, he will not start the game but may come in if other players in that role are on rest.

Fatigue is the opposite of Energy. A player with 80% energy has 20% fatigue.

Overuse is suffered by RB's or WR's when either their last game carries or targets are well above the NFL average, or if their average for the last 3 weeks is well above the NFL average. At the end of the game, this is translated into a penalty against the next game's Conditioning; I refer to this element as carry-over fatigue.

Conditioning Drills can be used to pay special attention to a player, either to keep them focused, work on injury rehab, or whatever else is necessary to increase their readiness. This results in a 10% boost to their Conditioning before game time, and may also increase Health and/or Stamina.

Important note for this discussion: Not all players fatigue at the same rate, so if the crux of this discussion is that the OL tires too fast, we can craft a fix specific to the OL. As jbzomal suggests, tying it to how long that line has been in the game together is a possibility.

Chris
jbzomal75

January 25, 2014 at 07:42PM View BBCode

My point about chemistry and cohesion was in a much broader sense than just within each game. More than any other position offensive lines usually stay pretty much the same in the NFL(except for injury) and usually sub out less often for solely strategic purposes than any other position. In other words, it's not so much a stamina issue as a cohesion or 'being on the same page' issue with OLs. That's because of the dynamics of blocking as a unit. Offensive linemen more than any other position have to be in synch with each other to execute the sometimes complex blocking schemes used by offenses nowadays, that's why you don't usually see OLs getting changed around much during a game in the NFL unless there's an injury. When it comes to the sometimes wholesale substitutions in this sim the ones at O-line bug me the most because of the realism factor.

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