Warrior General Games

Originally posted by Mat McBriar
Originally posted by Critwit

Originally posted by thehazyone


Two things I am pretty sure of:

1) VA's aren't going away, no matter how much people dislike them

2) There will be no wipe

So with that in mind, try and make suggestions that will improve VA's and make them worthwhile.

This is most likely why people, such as myself, do not make suggestions.... You ask " What do you guys want?" and the over whelming response is to remove VA's. There isn't even a close second, yet there is no way Bort will change them.....

So why bother making suggestions? I love this game and will continue to play, but lets not pretend our suggestions are listened to. If Bort valued other individuals opinions he wouldn't be running a rapidly growing company by himself.....

That's a pretty ignorant post Critwit. I'm not going to get into a "fuck your face" argument, but the idea is for constructive suggestions. While removing the VAs seems like a viable idea atm, it's really a step backwards for the game. Certainly I'll agree that certain VAs go against why certain VAs were nerfed/changed but they are a LOT better than last season. And imo with the altering/removal of a couple could achieve some nice parity.

Hazy is here. Not in the Suggestions forum, not in CPL, he's here...in USA Pro. He's asking for constructive suggestions on the game and game mechanics to hand directly to Bort.

Honestly if you feel it's not worth making suggestions, than don't. Bort does read the suggestions forums so if you feel everything is ignored (hell VAs were user suggested), than don't post here.

Hazy's here giving USAPL direct opportunity over others. What more do you want?

i agree with the gist of your post in regards to Critwit, who is another drama queen QQ'er.

On another note....I edited my post above because it was a bit overboard, but I am not pleased that only USAPL is being given the opportunity to voice opinions on this matter. Most of the best agents dont read the USAPL forums because it's always drama queens and trolls. Why should this question be asked only to the league with the most morons in it?

Originally posted by Mat McBriar
If essentially extra SPs are a significant problem with the sim right now, we're in for hell once most people have slow built players.

I think the concept of VA is a good one, but the execution of it has been just terrible. There are some VAs that are simply just too powerful when used and there is no counter for it to keep the game balanced. I like to have VAs, but I'd rather not have them if it's in the state right now. Remove them, fix them and bring them back when it's fixed.

Removing the VAs might seem like a step back, but sometimes you have to go back a step before going forward again. Last season have worn out a lot of people, and one more season like that, GLB will see a lot more people exiting.

Last season's sim was disgusting, this season's sim is different, but I'm not sure if it's any better. 104-79 score between two excellent teams is just not right.

Removal of VAs is my number one suggestion. I have said it a million times before, but as daton (and nearly everybody else on this thread) has pointed out they have been poorly implemented, some are too powerful, some are too useless, and several are without a counter (quick release, clever instincts, special teamer, power tackler etc). They are the single biggest reason season 8 became the year of Islam (see bruiser, tenacious, sure tackler not working), and they are why right now we have such high randomness with special teams, passing, etc. I would really like to see a poll from Bort on this, because I think he would be surprised just how overwhelmingly people would vote to remove VAs now, fix the sim, and add them back later. I also think a good many would vote to remove them immediately given that option (including me), while others might be even more vehemently opposed to mid season sim changes but would still agree that they need to go and come back when the underlying sim logic is correct, where bort wants it, and balanced.

After that, reducing the defensive line vision penalty would be my next suggestion, or reducing some of the buffs of the offensive line, most specifically the Protect special. Ultimately those are just a means to the same end - let the defensive line become useful again.

Cornerbacks in man coverage need to be reworked, and to be honest I think it needs to be a complete overhaul of the method in which man coverage is calculated an executed. Every couple of seasons as cornerbacks get faster we run into the situation we're seeing now with ball hawk, where they either play way way off their man on close aggressive coverage or they react too fast, get miles out of position, and get burned every time. I do not know how Bort has it coded currently, but he has had to adjust it to keep up with the constantly increasing speed of cornerbacks at least 3 times to my knowledge, and I'm sure it's a fundamental flaw in how it's all being done. What a cornerback should do is stick a certain distance away from the receiver determined by the coverage distance, pacing the receiver until he simply cannot keep up anymore. That means yes, if your cornerback's top end speed is less than that of the receiver, you can get burned, but ultimately if the pass rush is unnerfed that is realistic. Not every cornerback can keep up with randy moss, but he doesnt score every time he touches the ball because the defense can still get pressure on the QB and force him to check down.

VA's do not need to go. The handful of them that have people's knickers in a bunch (especially Big Heart and Power Tackler) can be addressed and do not hide anything with regards to the lol of the sim. Meanwhile, many of them are allowing actual player roles to emerge, especially with regards to zone defenders, hard-hitting vs. coverage LBs/Safeties, a tad bit for offensive linemen (but not enough), and the HB positions (scat backs, power backs, etc.)

Blocking dynamics are the #1 problem with the sim right now. Base up 1v1 run blocking is actually fairly reasnable right now, imo. It is possible, in my experience, to build a defensive line that can be stout against the run - holding the line, drawing double teams, breaking blocks and making plays.

Base up 1v1 pass blocking is an abortion. There is simply too much of a exagerrated swing between the defender just running head on and bouncing off a wall, and the defender taking massive exagerrated loops that get nowhere anywhere soon. Pass blockers can "hook and pull" guys far too easily, also.

Blocking assignments on multiple plays are an abortion. There are way, way too many cases of O-linemen, especially G's, either letting people go by or outright ignoring D-linemen in favor of picking up blitzers.

The result is pass rushing that is 90-95% utterly ineffective, meaning it doesn't even put a clock on how long the QB holds onto the ball, whereas the other 5-10% the QB gets sacked, often by a D-linemen that was just turned loose for no good reason. Most pass rushing revolves around fiddling the line shifts and blitzer location in order to glitch the blocking assignments as fast as possible, and most successful passing revolves around avoiding the plays with terrible blocking. It should revolve around building pass rushers and blockers well.

Blocking is pretty much, imo, the #1 issue with getting the sim right/better. Really, all the sound and fury about 8 Special Teams TDs or what-not are fairly trivial balance issues. Blocking is not trivial, and is desparately important to making a football game flow right. It controls the running lanes and the "clock" on passing.

cornerbacks are still over-jumping routes

Originally posted by kurieg
VA's do not need to go. The handful of them that have people's knickers in a bunch (especially Big Heart and Power Tackler) can be addressed and do not hide anything with regards to the lol of the sim. Meanwhile, many of them are allowing actual player roles to emerge, especially with regards to zone defenders, hard-hitting vs. coverage LBs/Safeties, a tad bit for offensive linemen (but not enough), and the HB positions (scat backs, power backs, etc.)

Blocking dynamics are the #1 problem with the sim right now. Base up 1v1 run blocking is actually fairly reasnable right now, imo. It is possible, in my experience, to build a defensive line that can be stout against the run - holding the line, drawing double teams, breaking blocks and making plays.

Base up 1v1 pass blocking is an abortion. There is simply too much of a exagerrated swing between the defender just running head on and bouncing off a wall, and the defender taking massive exagerrated loops that get nowhere anywhere soon. Pass blockers can "hook and pull" guys far too easily, also.

Blocking assignments on multiple plays are an abortion. There are way, way too many cases of O-linemen, especially G's, either letting people go by or outright ignoring D-linemen in favor of picking up blitzers.

The result is pass rushing that is 90-95% utterly ineffective, meaning it doesn't even put a clock on how long the QB holds onto the ball, whereas the other 5-10% the QB gets sacked, often by a D-linemen that was just turned loose for no good reason.

Blocking is pretty much, imo, the #1 issue with getting the sim right/better. Really, all the sound and fury about 8 Special Teams TDs or what-not are fairly trivial balance issues. Blocking is not trivial, and is desparately important to making a football game flow right. It controls the running lanes and the "clock" on passing.

VAs are a good idea in theory, and what you have stated here kurieg is basically that 'some of them work'. The problem is those that don't work, and several that do work exactly as intended, are making the other things on your list impossible to address, like anything else that is wrong with the sim logic. Bort simply *cannot* fix blocking dynamics when they are obscured by some defenders having pass rusher while others don't, some having JTS while others don't, some having pass blocker, some not having pass blocker, etc. It creates too many variables for him to control. It amounts to a debugging job that would take a team of programmers days if not weeks to decode.

Fixing cornerbacks is another thing that VAs obscure. Some have ballhawk, some don't. (and if they all do have ball hawk, that defeats the purpose of having it as a VA ), some receivers have big heart, some receivers have ballhawk, some don't. How can Bort be expected to find a uniform fix for things like this when VAs have warped a sim that was *already riddled with flaws*? Pierre's analogy was a good one. It is like running chemical tests on a constant, but not knowing how the constant works. In a sense, it's actually like running a chemical test on what RESULTS from the first chemical test in which you don't know how the constant works. Maybe adding chemical A to chemical B will give you the solution you want, but then you throw in chemical C and it explodes.

And there are other things that the sim logic in it's native state probably handles perfectly well (like kick returns), and that having extra depth as teams like SDL do would give you an advantage - but a reasonable one - that VA combinations like power tackler and special teamer make go out of control.

Originally posted by Ubasstards
Originally posted by Mat McBriar

Originally posted by Critwit


Originally posted by thehazyone



Two things I am pretty sure of:

1) VA's aren't going away, no matter how much people dislike them

2) There will be no wipe

So with that in mind, try and make suggestions that will improve VA's and make them worthwhile.

This is most likely why people, such as myself, do not make suggestions.... You ask " What do you guys want?" and the over whelming response is to remove VA's. There isn't even a close second, yet there is no way Bort will change them.....

So why bother making suggestions? I love this game and will continue to play, but lets not pretend our suggestions are listened to. If Bort valued other individuals opinions he wouldn't be running a rapidly growing company by himself.....

That's a pretty ignorant post Critwit. I'm not going to get into a "fuck your face" argument, but the idea is for constructive suggestions. While removing the VAs seems like a viable idea atm, it's really a step backwards for the game. Certainly I'll agree that certain VAs go against why certain VAs were nerfed/changed but they are a LOT better than last season. And imo with the altering/removal of a couple could achieve some nice parity.

Hazy is here. Not in the Suggestions forum, not in CPL, he's here...in USA Pro. He's asking for constructive suggestions on the game and game mechanics to hand directly to Bort.

Honestly if you feel it's not worth making suggestions, than don't. Bort does read the suggestions forums so if you feel everything is ignored (hell VAs were user suggested), than don't post here.

Hazy's here giving USAPL direct opportunity over others. What more do you want?

i agree with the gist of your post in regards to Critwit, who is another drama queen QQ'er.

On another note....I edited my post above because it was a bit overboard, but I am not pleased that only USAPL is being given the opportunity to voice opinions on this matter. Most of the best agents dont read the USAPL forums because it's always drama queens and trolls. Why should this question be asked only to the league with the most morons in it?

Because they happen to also own the best teams, coordinators, and players.

Originally posted by rj414

VAs are a good idea in theory, and what you have stated here kurieg is basically that 'some of them work'. The problem is those that don't work, and several that do work exactly as intended, are making the other things on your list impossible to address, like anything else that is wrong with the sim logic. Bort simply *cannot* fix blocking dynamics when they are obscured by some defenders having pass rusher while others don't, some having JTS while others don't, some having pass blocker, some not having pass blocker, etc. It creates too many variables for him to control.



Most of them work. The problem is nothing of what you said.

The biggest problem in GLB really is that the dots do not learn as a game progresses. Any mismatch, any mistake, is never corrected until after the game.

Jump a route 3 times and give up 3 TDs? Guess what, you'll do it again.

Fumble the ball 3 times? Guess what, you'll do it again.

Throw 2 Ints into triple coverage? Guess what, you'll do it again.

GLB, by the nature of it's design, will inherently lend itself to massive stats, scores, and score differentials, even with relatively evenly matched teams. If either team gets a mismatch, either by design or circumstance, and happens to have dialed up that mismatch a lot - boom, big score. The other team will never adjust at all. No double coverage dialed up on the WR eating your lunch. No defense shading more outside after giving up oodles of yards on pitch plays. Whatever.

This nature of the sim is the TRUE thing that obscures/inflates a great deal of the balance issues in GLB. If anything, VAs have helped uncover, not hide problems, as they've allowed the player base to poke at things and create more mismatches at levels where many builds had started asymptotically approaching the same value. Changing the balance of a dynamic doesn't hide the mechanics - it exposes them.

The biggest moron/nobody in the entire game is gonna call us drama queens and 'QQers' (god I love forumnerdspeak - Ubass and kr0n should have each others babies)? Which dumbass signed him again?

So I guess I change my answer.


What I would most like in the sim is feedback (adjusted via individual and team tactics "sliders" or something).

Fumbling a lot? Cover up more.

Throwing a lot of Ints? Start shading towards "Open man" more.

CB getting his lunch eaten? Become less Aggressive.

Etc.

Originally posted by kurieg
Originally posted by rj414


VAs are a good idea in theory, and what you have stated here kurieg is basically that 'some of them work'. The problem is those that don't work, and several that do work exactly as intended, are making the other things on your list impossible to address, like anything else that is wrong with the sim logic. Bort simply *cannot* fix blocking dynamics when they are obscured by some defenders having pass rusher while others don't, some having JTS while others don't, some having pass blocker, some not having pass blocker, etc. It creates too many variables for him to control.



Most of them work. The problem is nothing of what you said.

The biggest problem in GLB really is that the dots do not learn as a game progresses. Any mismatch, any mistake, is never corrected until after the game.

Jump a route 3 times and give up 3 TDs? Guess what, you'll do it again.

Fumble the ball 3 times? Guess what, you'll do it again.

Throw 2 Ints into triple coverage? Guess what, you'll do it again.

GLB, by the nature of it's design, will inherently lend itself to massive stats, scores, and score differentials, even with relatively evenly matched teams. If either team gets a mismatch, either by design or circumstance, and happens to have dialed up that mismatch a lot - boom, big score. The other team will never adjust at all. No double coverage dialed up on the WR eating your lunch. No defense shading more outside after giving up oodles of yards on pitch plays. Whatever.

This nature of the sim is the TRUE thing that obscures/inflates a great deal of the balance issues in GLB. If anything, VAs have helped uncover, not hide problems, as they've allowed the player base to poke at things and create more mismatches at levels where many builds had started asymptotically approaching the same value. Changing the balance of a dynamic doesn't hide the mechanics - it exposes them.



But what you are suggesting from a programming standpoint is impossible kurieg. The nature of GLBs sim is limited by the fact that Bort has to tell a computer what to do, since it can't think for itself. Making players 'learn' sounds good on paper - it is impossible to do in programming. Bort would have to create a separate function for every single thing you mentioned (if I fumble x number of times, hold on to the ball more, if i jump a route three times and get burned, stop jumping routes, if i throw into triple coverage, stop doing that) as well as every other concievable bone headed mistake that you could see repeatedly - that is impossible to code in any simulation. If Madden or any football game didn't have humans controlling the player in real time, they would have the same problems.

Therefore, VAs revealing those problems is pointless - because they also make the problems that much more impossible to fix. Bort's best step is to remove them and code the sim in a way that renders balance. However, if hazy is so adamant that VAs will never go, and bort wont even run a poll, my next best suggestion is to nerf them to where they activate only in a specific situation, and only to a small degree (eg 15 in a VA will give you no more than a 15 percent boost to 2 stats, or no more than a 5-10% boost to 3-5 stats, and no more than a 5% boost to all stats). This way the VAs can still specialize players, but not overpower them in any situation.

Originally posted by islander1

Because they happen to also own the best teams, coordinators, and players.

1) best or worst team doesnt make someone less of a customer
2) Coordinators? you have McBriar in here....LOL
3) players? may be true with my LB on OTR

Originally posted by rj414
The biggest moron/nobody in the entire game is gonna call us drama queens and 'QQers' (god I love forumnerdspeak - Ubass and kr0n should have each others babies)? Which dumbass signed him again?

QQ IMO

Originally posted by kurieg
So I guess I change my answer.


What I would most like in the sim is feedback (adjusted via individual and team tactics "sliders" or something).

Fumbling a lot? Cover up more.

Throwing a lot of Ints? Start shading towards "Open man" more.

CB getting his lunch eaten? Become less Aggressive.

Etc.



Ah, I may have misunderstood you then. If this is your suggestion, this i support 100%. I think any number of additional tactics settings for the player is always, always, ALWAYS preferable to screwing with builds. I actually don't understand why even something like VAs wasn't implemented in the form of more tactics options? What sets real football players apart is probably 30% their physical makeup and 70% how they play - the nice thing about that is, they can change how they play if it's not working. With anything to do with builds, once it's set, you're stuck with it for the season.

Originally posted by Ubasstards
Originally posted by rj414

The biggest moron/nobody in the entire game is gonna call us drama queens and 'QQers' (god I love forumnerdspeak - Ubass and kr0n should have each others babies)? Which dumbass signed him again?

QQ IMO




Go outside, "IMO". You probably haven't in a long time, and fresh air would do you good.