Warrior General Games

I came back to this game almost a year ago now and Ball Hawk has been king for apparently seasons upon seasons with no apparent counter from the offensive side of the ball minus changing up builds completely.

How to address this issue?

A lot of people will suggest to just remove Ball Hawk which would then solve an issue,but would it swing the balance the other way where all the games would be scoring shootouts with scores ranging from 49-35 or something similar? Yes builds would have to adjust as people had created their secondary or coverage dots with Ball Hawk so that altered the way they built (just an assumption as I build for the offense). Would removing Ball Hawk make the offense super OP or would the solution be to reduce the efficiency or boost the efficiency within the offensive side somehow? Have read that a lot of people say that offensively the VA is just not that good or is not effective enough to move up the necessary selections for VA's

Would adding a VA to counter Ball Hawk be the best approach? I suggested in Discord something like a Zonebreaker (name can be changed) where it gets bonuses to combat the defensive approach. Maybe the passes have a lower chance to be deflected and the receiver gets a higher chance to catch the ball for each level applied? Or maybe something like that where there's a boost to some attributes and some SA's as well like look off or pump fake in addition that could lead to a delay for the defender with Ball Hawk

We're looking at a possible long off-season with the holidays incoming so hopefully there can be some good conversation here that Bort, DD, and the rest of the staff can assess this aspect of the current state of the game and help to fix or repair the passing game!

The bonus that provides is unreal. Just get rid of the VA, no need for safeties to travel faster than the ball. Another solution is to make bullet setting more powerful but then maybe recivers can't ctch the balls thrown to them. Only Bort knows the details but something must change. Is ridiculous to have Pro QBs finish the season with 35 scores and 30 picks, just unreal!

Originally posted by Kenshinzen
The bonus that provides is unreal. Just get rid of the VA, no need for safeties to travel faster than the ball. Another solution is to make bullet setting more powerful but then maybe recivers can't ctch the balls thrown to them. Only Bort knows the details but something must change. Is ridiculous to have Pro QBs finish the season with 35 scores and 30 picks, just unreal!

Would that swing the advantage to the offense too much though? I know that it's a hypothetical question with no real way to tell what the sim would be like without it, but it would be cool to see what a game simmed with no ball hawk would be like and if the passing game would be in a better place

With Ball Hawk speed WRs have no use. They fake their coverage and is always a teleporting safety to come from the middle of the field to help. Add to that blitzers coming and tell me how this pass can't be a pick.

I know that teleporting safeties are the big issue, but just wasn't sure if eliminating Ball Hawk would totally make the defense be like a Big 12 defense during the 2008-2014 era where they had defensive pillow fights

I think Ball Hawk keeps the game so that a CB doesn't have to sell his soul to the Speed attribute and it's better off this way.

Otherwise a single 160+ Speed WR wins the game. I just can't DC without it so there's no fixin to be done IMO

Originally posted by dusk883
I think Ball Hawk keeps the game so that a CB doesn't have to sell his soul to the Speed attribute and it's better off this way.

Otherwise a single 160+ Speed WR wins the game. I just can't DC without it so there's no fixin to be done IMO

I respect the defensive POV from you and hopefully others will chime in as well. I just know from someone who builds a LOT of WR's trying to find some good combinations (it's tough) because it does take so many attributes to win a catch roll within each action. I do feel like the movement speed and effect could be lowered some because there isn't a trade off with the VA honestly. I'm going to site SA's but the point is valid here. Jackhammer can be countered by Brace 4 Impact and there's many more examples, but what can a WR/TE/HB/FB do to counter safeties/corners moving that fast due to Ball Hawk?

Honest question about the catching rolls etc, but a speedster WR needs speed/agility to get open and create separation then vision/catching to see and to catch the pass safely not falling into a possible KL rolls (which then brings in needing catching again, carrying, strength along with additional +5% avoid fumble gear) which is how most DB's are built at this point. That's a simple look at the catching roll, but how does the offense counter a VA that can trigger when a player is in zone, whether cover 2 man or not (I could be wrong on that as I have never DC'd)? Maybe possession WR triggers on all catch attempts and features all players going on receivers? Or a VA that works for the QB which increases the chance for a completion? Do you feel that there could be a balance or common ground to make a counter to Ball Hawk?

Cant the WR just take Ball Hawk too? It is open to offence and defence

For WRs gives only vision bonus. Read the BH description to see why doesn'y give speed & the other bonuses except vision to WRs.

"Each level of Ball Hawk gives a +1% bonus to speed, agility and vision from the moment the player sees a pass coming until it is caught or dropped. Applies on offence and defenders in zone coverage"

I did interpret that differently as if it applies to (a) offensive player, and (b) defenders who are in zone.... I haven't tested so happy to go with a more experienced view


Not counter arguing just discussing, happy to be wrong you have more experience, will save me testing it and if that is the case I just learned something today

Originally posted by Mr_Victor
"Each level of Ball Hawk gives a +1% bonus to speed, agility and vision from the moment the player sees a pass coming until it is caught or dropped. Applies on offence and defenders in zone coverage"

I did interpret that differently as if it applies to (a) offensive player, and (b) defenders who are in zone.... I haven't tested so happy to go with a more experienced view


Not counter arguing just discussing, happy to be wrong you have more experience, will save me testing it and if that is the case I just learned something today






Theoretically the receiver and defender get the same bonus. However, Ken is talking about the fact that the bonus only triggers when the ball is in the air and seen by the player. At that point the ball is already coming to the receiver, so a speed/agility bonus doesn't do them any good (other than getting to the catch point sooner, but the ball won't be there any faster so there's no point). The defender, on the other hand, can be out of position, see the ball, and use the speed/agility bonus to teleport to the catch point before the ball arrives to contest the catch.

I had posted in another thread, re: this. Yeah, Ball Hawk is too powerful. So is Zone Focus, and you can't cut that down with bullet. Rather than revamping or eliminating both, making zone defenses complete trash - let's look at the much bigger problem - Interception rates are too high.

It's not like Ball Hawk + Zone Focus got buffed around S80 or so, when all this started happening? So what happened to the pass game? The meta shifted to all but ignoring jump, and taking catching to 80+ on Int build defenders ...

You want to balance the requirements on D, forcing people to consider jumping more heavily, and not just building 80 catching freaks?

Scale down the effect of catch attribute (or diminishing return it at least), on the FIRST interception roll. Not the one in "step 3" after a successful deflect. The first 'roll', that's about jumping underneath the route. The ones where the DB is like 8-10 yards UNDER the route, and somehow it doesn't go over his head. Fix that, I think you fix the Int problem, without upsetting the rest of the balance.

Just my 2 cents. Still praying it happens at some point, but not exactly holding my breath.

I respect your opinion G75, probably you're right about these invisible arms that come out of nowhere and grab the ball.

SmithW explained it perfecly. QB throws the ball where the receiver would be. When the ball is away from his hands and receiver see the ball, can't go faster because will not meet with the ball. The safety can teleport just fine.

IMO ... Adjusting QB bullet/loft would go a long way.

If the passes were higher, the defense would need more Jumping.

It would be nice to get rid of the slider completely, and just dial up the speed of the thrown ball to bullet level, without the bullet trajectory. Maybe even scale up the effect of QB Strength on the velocity

Fwiw... The trade off on Possession vs Speed WRs isn't worth it. This is coming from probably the biggest advocate of Possession WRs in the history of GLB. A major in Jumping with a 0.25 minor in Speed, is amazingly worse than major in Speed and minor in Jumping.

Jumping has got to become more valuable somehow.

Originally posted by TJ Spikes
IMO ... Adjusting QB bullet/loft would go a long way.

If the passes were higher, the defense would need more Jumping.

It would be nice to get rid of the slider completely, and just dial up the speed of the thrown ball to bullet level, without the bullet trajectory. Maybe even scale up the effect of QB Strength on the velocity

Fwiw... The trade off on Possession vs Speed WRs isn't worth it. This is coming from probably the biggest advocate of Possession WRs in the history of GLB. A major in Jumping with a 0.25 minor in Speed, is amazingly worse than major in Speed and minor in Jumping.

Jumping has got to become more valuable somehow.



You speak a lot here! It's almost as if the bullet/loft setting were to be dynamic based on vision/confidence checks where it could fluctuate as needed which is a way off base idea to the game, but to stay on point, jumping I don't feel plays as big of a part in the interactions as it should. And that trade off in bold is amazingly odd how bad of a trade off that it is which I think also ties into the SA's that become favored and not favored also. I'd rather go a little lighter on speed than to cut back on catching with a WR that doesn't get separation