Starting a new thread for the new season.



I saw a lot more sacks in the first preseason game, but I didn't review every game yet.

Here are some observations from the first half of my game when the starters were in.

1) https://beta87.myfootballnow.com/watch/1001#183218
a) RB passing doesn't work well anymore. This one is questionable whether the RB makes the first down in the old passing code, but this pass still comes out too fast.

2) https://beta87.myfootballnow.com/watch/1001#183229
a) The TE is wide open on this play. The QB scans the entire field, but for someone reason throws into triple coverage instead of the wide open TE. QB has 93 FOV and 89 INT, so what the **** is the "actually throw to the open WR" attribute?

3) https://beta87.myfootballnow.com/watch/1001#183250
a) Not sure what happened here.

4) https://beta87.myfootballnow.com/watch/1001#183253
a) Not sure what happened here.

5) https://beta87.myfootballnow.com/watch/1001#183254
a) Not sure what happened here. Shouldn't the QB at least try to run upfield instead of running to the sideline like it's 0.3.9 all over again.

6) https://beta87.myfootballnow.com/watch/1001#183263
a) RB passing doesn't work well anymore.

7) https://beta87.myfootballnow.com/watch/1001#183270
a) More sideways punt returns. Also, can we get the wing blocking on the punt team gunners fixed? They never get blocked. The blockers don't even engage. Basically, the whole physics of the punt game are wrong. The reason that there were so many PR TDs before is that the ball arrived at the PR man too quickly. This allowed the PR man an open lane up field. This is still happening just PR are running to the sideline instead of upfield. For instance, on this punt, the hang time of the punt is only 4 seconds for a punt that traveled 62 yards in the air. For a punter that has 97 Punt Timing, I would expect this number to be closer to 5. If the PR takes off running as soon as he catches the ball, they he easily out runs the coverage team. Only by running sideway does the PR allow the coverage team to catch him. So it really feels like you wrote in a bug instead of fixing the root cause of PR TDs.

It should still happen, just shouldn't be as frequent as before. The QBs are not going to be perfect, but the algorithm for them to make the choice when they do make the right choice is what was improved.



He had pressure in his face and tried to throw to the receiver but wasn't able to get enough on the ball to get it there.

A few observations from the first half of my game.

1) https://mfn1.myfootballnow.com/watch/7339#1325865
a) Zone defenders don't react to the ball fast enough.

2) https://mfn1.myfootballnow.com/watch/7339#1325878
a) No idea what happened here. He doesn't even try to turn upfield.

3) https://mfn1.myfootballnow.com/watch/7339#1325907
a) Short zones are still broken. I know this guy is playing short, but no one is behind him. So he either needs to (A) follow his man OR (B) the Cover 3 behind him needs to actually work like a Cover 3 and each of the deep men take 1/3 of the field. If that were the case, the safety on the right third would pick up this WR and it wouldn't be a TD. OR, preferably, (C) both A and B.

Zone is still pretty busted. I said some of this above, but it will bear repeating.

1) Cover 3 needs to act like a Cover 3 and each deep man take 1/3 of the field. Right now only 75% of the field is covered on most Cover 3 plays.

2) Short zones are AWFUL. Defenders misread their zone assignments almost every time and let players run right by them. If no one is behind the zone defender, he needs to stay with the guy going deep. Otherwise, all Medium passes bust short zones.

3) Zone defenders react too slowly. They continue to move backward away from the ball for several seconds while the ball is in the air. No pro football Adderall taking DB's reaction time is that bad.

I haven't tried to fix anything with zone yet - I'm trying to decide if the M2M/QB updates are sufficient to make a release and get those pushed to the other leagues before working on the zone, or if the QB updates exposes the zone issues even more. Ideally I'd like to have smaller changes from one release to another than we've had up till now. What are your thoughts from that perspective?

I think that's a good plan. These were just things that I had noticed when I was creating a Cover 3 in the other leagues. I can focus on M2M when looking at coverage. First thing about M2M Cover 1 and Cover 2 though. The Cover 1 or Cover 2 guys don't cover their portion of the field. Specifically, in the Cover 2, the players only cover the middle of the field between the hashes. And long passing plays put the WR outside of the cover zone.

One thing that I've been hearing more grumbling about is how bad running and run blocking is, but I haven't really looked closely at it. I have noticed in all leagues a significant decrease in running performance, especially on outside runs, but I don't know how much of it is code related and how much of it is players game planning against it.

I do know my cheater defense held my last opponent to -22 yards, but it's preseason and my opponent's RBs were not good.

Here's what I notice with the outside runs if one chooses to go with WR speed there. Runner is free and clear as he approaches the edge, however, he changes his trajectory to run tight and towards the awaiting defender's tackle near the line instead of running on an outside arc and to the sideline to evade and explode.