Warrior General Games

Field General Special Ability.

Just a little experiment...

Since this forum seems to be almost entirely comprised of players asking where to put Skill Points when they boost, I thought I might start a topic that would actually involve meaningful discussion among the other QBs...

To preface: There is already what I guess I would call a small QB Club consisting of about 5-6 of us who have high level (25+) QBs today. We bounce ideas, information, theories, etc off each other on a somewhat regular basis. I don't know how much deep thought most of you are putting into QB builds but I thought I would try some topics like this out to try and determine the answer to that little question.

So, the first topic open for debate is the merits of the Field General Special Ability.

There are quite a few people who seem to think Field General is a stellar place to put Skill Points. I am curious -
1. What led you guys to this decision?
2. What benefits you think it yields and why?
3. What is its "sweet spot" in your opinion?
4. Discuss the Risk/Reward aspects of its cost vs not putting Skill Points into it.

To start the discussion, I will give some information from other QBs I have discussed it with in recent days...

"Well, since it is on the far right and has the highest cost, it MUST be very beneficial" (Ouch! Terrible answer)

"Defenders rave about 'Defense General' and 'Defensive Line General' so I expect all of the 'General' SAs are great" (better but still ugh!)

"Look at the INT totals for QBs this year. Adding Morale across the board should reduce those, in theory. And adding Stamina would be a benefit to the entire team for late in games." (This is an answer worth debating IMO)

Anyway, let's see if this topic takes off or not (and it well might not LOL)...

I will give it about 6 hours to potentially garner responses and then will be back with my current thoughts as to why Field General is a complete and utter waste of SPs.

Maybe we can have some advanced discussion here in the QB Club forum then.

It's hard to spend the points there, cause it's not sexy or easily quantified. But it makes the players around you better, which is important when opposing defenses are loaded with demoralizing/intimidating SAs. I like that it pays off late in close games, cause that's where truly gifted QBs shine.

i am of the view that sa's are completely worthless until we get our physical and football skills are either close to or maxed. i have invested points in them and have not really seen any return on that investment. you have to have the foundation in place before you can put paint on the walls. this is my opinion and i am by no means an expert though.

"But it makes the players around you better"

No. It's supposed to make the players around you better. We don't actually have any data to decide whether it works well enough to justify the points. I'd love to see an experiment where somebody makes QBs with nearly identical attributes but one runs his TIGHT SPIRAL up while the other focuses on FIELD GENERAL. They would need to be on the same team and alternate plays.

Somebody who owns a team could do this. I'm not sure how else to run a proper experiment. Even this way has problems but it's the best way I can see.

I think the sweet spot for Field General is 4+1, because then you're only out the 2 points you're forced to put into Turn Shoulder. I wouldn't go beyond that without more data.

This is a great topic.

I have a lvl 17 QB that has the same basic pocket passer build as everyone with 3-3-2-2-3 on the pocket passer tree and have tried very hard to see what stats effect what and I generally think along the lines of squatch66 that it is far more important to concentrate on physical attributes first.I like the idea of hitting the hard cap on Throwing and the soft caps on Vis/Con/Str then move on to your S.A.'s.Just let the 1 pt you get from your Custom gear get you by until then.

I tend to stay away from it. A "boost of stamina and morale" is supposed to give you "better coverage and your receivers catch more balls". Makes no sense. Neither of the things it's suppose to do effect either of the things it's supposed to do. No logic at all. I think it's a waste of SP's.

For QB's that are freaking out about high INT's rates, check out strength. It's a stat usually dumped behind throwing/vision/confidence. But it determines the speeed/power of the pass you throw. Who cares how accurate, and tight the ball is, if it's going 12 mph, a half decent safety is gonna snag that baby. Just something to point out, that gets overlooked a lot. By me as well.

Unless Bort actually released some numbers on SA's im shunning them for a while.

Eh, I was hoping for more responses... I will give my thoughts on each of yours for now, and will summarize my overall thoughts on Field General a bit later (hopefully after more discussion has come about)

Originally posted by markm6770
It's hard to spend the points there, cause it's not sexy or easily quantified. But it makes the players around you better, which is important when opposing defenses are loaded with demoralizing/intimidating SAs. I like that it pays off late in close games, cause that's where truly gifted QBs shine.



How do you know it makes the players around you better? Isn't the stated effect that it "gives the entire offense a morale and stamina boost right before the play"? If your team has high Morale and Stamina, what is the real gain for them here?

Originally posted by squatch66
i am of the view that sa's are completely worthless until we get our physical and football skills are either close to or maxed. i have invested points in them and have not really seen any return on that investment. you have to have the foundation in place before you can put paint on the walls. this is my opinion and i am by no means an expert though.

I disagreea bit. While you do need to work to improve your attributes (or at least, your MAJOR Attributes), it is all about investing the right amount of points in the correct SAs. There are at least 2 for QBs that are HUGELY beneficial with the right amount of points in them, that I know of... likely, there are a few more also.

Originally posted by Dravz
I think the sweet spot for Field General is 4+1, because then you're only out the 2 points you're forced to put into Turn Shoulder. I wouldn't go beyond that without more data.

The cost of adding Turn Shoulder is an interesting sidebar debate here IMO. Given how rarely most of us get hit by pass rushers, this seems one of the least necessary SAs. So I agree that its cost amounts to not much more than wasted points. I am curious (well, for the sake of others mostly) why you think 4+1 is a good investment.

Originally posted by matt8909
This is a great topic.

I have a lvl 17 QB that has the same basic pocket passer build as everyone with 3-3-2-2-3 on the pocket passer tree and have tried very hard to see what stats effect what and I generally think along the lines of squatch66 that it is far more important to concentrate on physical attributes first.I like the idea of hitting the hard cap on Throwing and the soft caps on Vis/Con/Str then move on to your S.A.'s.Just let the 1 pt you get from your Custom gear get you by until then.




The 1 pt from Equipment might as well be none until you put points here. There are certainly "tiers" of sweet spots that cause the activation % or the % gain to increase substantially and hitting these spots (then going beyond) is where we start to reap benefits of the SAs, such as these benefits are.

Again, nobody would greatly dispute the putting points into major Attributes is a good thing. We need the foundation, although I have tested and confirmed that a few SAs benefit players greatly regardless of those players' attributes... one of the best QB SAs is just this type. I would go so far as to say getting it to a sweet spot prior to investing anything into Attributes would be a great move.

Originally posted by Zakelsta
I tend to stay away from it. A "boost of stamina and morale" is supposed to give you "better coverage and your receivers catch more balls". Makes no sense. Neither of the things it's suppose to do effect either of the things it's supposed to do. No logic at all. I think it's a waste of SP's.

For QB's that are freaking out about high INT's rates, check out strength. It's a stat usually dumped behind throwing/vision/confidence. But it determines the speeed/power of the pass you throw. Who cares how accurate, and tight the ball is, if it's going 12 mph, a half decent safety is gonna snag that baby. Just something to point out, that gets overlooked a lot. By me as well.

Hmm, I disagree with your reasoning in the first paragraph but agree with your thoughts in the second.

RE: your first paragraph, I believe Bort is saying the Field General SA gives players a boost to Morale and Stamina prior to each play. Since we know players are more apt to produce a positive result if they have higher Morale and "breath" (in-game Energy) this would result in WRs being more likely to catch passes, among other things...

Originally posted by codine22
Unless Bort actually released some numbers on SA's im shunning them for a while.

To each his own, but there has to be some threshold at which points spent on them is more beneficial than points spent elsewhere. And for at least one particular SA, IMO, that threshold is basically your first possible Skill points to invest (i.e. level 1 through maxing it)