Warrior General Games

I remember in the early seasons where dots would outperform their abilities. I know the game is based on RNG rolls, and I know that we've all seen dots over the times that greatly performed incredibly compared to their builds and even dots that would do the opposite. Do people still believe there might be some truth to this hypothesis that some dots might have superstar or certain abilities ingrained randomly upon creation?

While I won't deny that as a possibility, I think that our lack of knowledge about the sim is really what goes into it.

For instance, I remember early on we had a bunch of WRs who were just carving up the secondary, breaking tackles and juking people out of their shoes. This idea came up then, and Bort made some non-committal noises. Then, like a season and a half later, Bort confirmed that Carrying was a huge factor in breaking tackles and faking defenders. And then we collectively looked at that WR (Cassius Clay, I believe) and went "Oh. You probably have like 70-75 Carrying vs our 50 Carrying."

I've also seen several things that make me think that things are intricately entwined in ways I don't see people talking about. So I think that a WR at 150/85 Speed and Agility might suffer in some ways over a WR with a 140/85 split. Given, the extra Speed is nice, but 85 Agility might not be enough for 150 speed. The extra 10 points in Speed might mean that you need 90 Agility instead.

Again, I'm completely spit-balling here, but that's kinda the point. There's two parts to making a good player (understanding the mechanics of building and understanding the mechanics of the sim), and I think we're far better at the first part than at the second part.

Most of the research I've done since I've been back is looking at Punters, and I can almost guarantee that most people are building their Punters completely wrong. Again, I don't have 100% proof of this, and I won't know for certain until I fully try out some stuff. Also, it's just punting so I don't know how much people care.

But it looks like a massive blind spot that currently exists.

My belief is similar to GP120's. So many variables, and right build, right time, right team, right coordinators, right matchups, fortuitous RNG rolls, etc. create outperformers at any given time. Opposite create underperformers. I had a FS that dominated WL in like S12 or so. Was really one of the first true Zone FS INT builds with massive focus on SPD, AGI, VIS, CAT, massive focus on Zone/Deflect/INT SA and AEQ stacks, and a defensive coordinator that planned accordingly to put him in best system/position to succeed. After a few seasons, everyone had a similar build and OCs adjusted accordingly. The 'stars' back then were usually a newer build and system catching other teams off guard, and taking time (typically at least the dots plateau period, especially in old slow dot development system) to adjust dots to offset. Nowadays, hard to catch anyone by surprise, so the 'stars' don't seem to be as frequent or as separated from the pack as they were in the early days. More small tweaks, good systems/coordinators, and lucky RNG rolls seem to be driving "good" vs. "bad" dots nowadays. Just my thoughts from years of lurking, could be completely wrong.

I don't see it as a thing. Dots and teams have good and bad seasons, both above and below expectations.

RNG is a real son of a b...

Originally posted by Pwned


RNG is a real son of a b...

I think we've all experienced that in one way or another either on here or other games. I definitely know that the game has evolved with coordinators getting more options as well from the early seasons with customized plays

It does make me want to try to experiment with dots that are built in the same way or even try different combinations to a degree like mentioned above

Originally posted by Go Pack 120
While I won't deny that as a possibility, I think that our lack of knowledge about the sim is really what goes into it.

For instance, I remember early on we had a bunch of WRs who were just carving up the secondary, breaking tackles and juking people out of their shoes. This idea came up then, and Bort made some non-committal noises. Then, like a season and a half later, Bort confirmed that Carrying was a huge factor in breaking tackles and faking defenders. And then we collectively looked at that WR (Cassius Clay, I believe) and went "Oh. You probably have like 70-75 Carrying vs our 50 Carrying."

I've also seen several things that make me think that things are intricately entwined in ways I don't see people talking about. So I think that a WR at 150/85 Speed and Agility might suffer in some ways over a WR with a 140/85 split. Given, the extra Speed is nice, but 85 Agility might not be enough for 150 speed. The extra 10 points in Speed might mean that you need 90 Agility instead.

Again, I'm completely spit-balling here, but that's kinda the point. There's two parts to making a good player (understanding the mechanics of building and understanding the mechanics of the sim), and I think we're far better at the first part than at the second part.

I thought this was debunked a long time ago. I vividly remember - and it makes sense - that this is a false equivalence of SPD/AGI. The attribute of speed literally (and very basically) affects the straight line of up and down speed. Point A to point B. Agility literally impacts lateral and any other non-point A to point B straight movement. Agility, if anything, is probably more affected by speed than speed being affected by agility. You can have a dot that has 100 speed and 0 agility, and that dot will go 100 points worth of speed so long as it only travels in a straight line from A to B. The only way or reason that your argument carries weight is when you factor in the lateral movements and the ball carrying movements (think juke, spin, etc) that contribute to the dot's ability to get open and run the ball effectively - but that's not agility affecting speed, that is agility affecting non straight movements.

Except Bort said that a dot with 80 Speed and 100 Agility would accelerate similarly to a dot with 100 Speed and 80 Agility. Because Speed affects acceleration slightly.

Either way, I wasn't using that as an end-all, be-all comparison. You might need more Vision to help catch the ball at higher speeds, or more Catching, or whatever. I wasn't making a definitive statement, I was just pointing out that you could write an encyclopedia with all the stuff we don't know about the sim.

Wanna watch a fun argument? Let's talk about Special Abilities over 10. Or Favored/Penalized Abilities. We'll be here all day with no end result.

I think the attributes do intertwine and work together, but as to how much nobody really knows except Bort and the testers. I would assume that speed works for top end speed and acceleration from a dead stop or to get going while agility works with change of direction and how much speed is lost while moving laterally or doing jukes/spins so they do work together, but again, we don't know the exact numbers for the sweet spot between these and other attributes

Originally posted by jcross
I remember in the early seasons where dots would outperform their abilities. I know the game is based on RNG rolls, and I know that we've all seen dots over the times that greatly performed incredibly compared to their builds and even dots that would do the opposite. Do people still believe there might be some truth to this hypothesis that some dots might have superstar or certain abilities ingrained randomly upon creation?

I'm a believer some dots have the x-factor, some are lemons. Maybe around 2% if I had to guess are one or the other. Based on nothing other than replay watching

don't forget about the avitar boost.

I could see Bort back in the really early days saying "let's give a 1-in-a-100 dot a 5% boost to ____".

If it had been more than that, I think we would have figured it out by now--there was a LOT of study on maximizing dot building back in the day.

I have no proof but I think that there is a very small window whereby the "balance" of the Primary and selected Secondary attributes has an impact. I think a similar scenario is used in the workings of the AIs and how certain math "permutations" have amore desired effect

Originally posted by zz man
I have no proof but I think that there is a very small window whereby the "balance" of the Primary and selected Secondary attributes has an impact. I think a similar scenario is used in the workings of the AIs and how certain math "permutations" have amore desired effect

I could see that too.

Originally posted by Go Pack 120


Wanna watch a fun argument? Let's talk about Special Abilities over 10..

That one Bort even chimed in on and clarified that 11 (or more) is greater (in effect) than 10. Sure, there's almost certainly a diminishing return, but to what degree we don't know, and to pretend that there is universally no use to going over 10 is silly.