Warrior General Games

Originally posted by mrm708
His argument is that it's not a ldo choice for defenders, but that if it was less than 100% he would never take it. Mr. Reliable is a much more ldo first SA choice. First step and spin cycle are solid alternatives to showboat depending on what position is being talked about. If you are getting sacked enough for the morale penalty to really accumulate you've probably lost no matter what SAs the defenders have.

Yeah, but I don't think that nerfing Mr. Reliable makes sense either. Given how RNG this game is, Mr. Reliable forces you to choose between having good success at holding on to the football and breaking tackles.

Again, if you take bronze MR in rookie, that means that you can't silver anything else until the last few games of Sophomore.

If you were going to fix Mr. Reliable, this is how I would do it:

Don't touch the activation or the "floor" to carrying aspect of the roll. Instead, just take away a bit of the balance and bonuses that the SA offers.

It should still give you a really solid anti-fumble roll within the first ten or so yards, otherwise powerbacks are going to be completely useless in this game. It is too easy to strip the ball or force the fumble with the number of tacklers that a powerback is expected to break against.

You either need to (1) make powerbacks cause huge morale penalties to anyone who misses a tackle against them, but make them prone to losing the ball after a few hits; or (2) give powerbacks an SA choice that makes them nearly fumble-proof, but at the cost of a solid break tackle SA choice and fewer YPC.

I was simply stating if one were to take it simply because it fires 100% then obviously its not worth its weight as an SA.

Sorry put words into your mouth as I read it the way I thought you were saying it.

Point being is that due to morale spirals prevalent in rookie, it doesn't make any sense NOT to take it.

I think the issue is that even at bronze Mr. Reliable fires on every single running play

Originally posted by Stobie
I was simply stating if one were to take it simply because it fires 100% then obviously its not worth its weight as an SA.

Sorry put words into your mouth as I read it the way I thought you were saying it.

Point being is that due to morale spirals prevalent in rookie, it doesn't make any sense NOT to take it.

Except then you are forced to reset or hold an SA that is ultimately useless after the third season.

Originally posted by Mysterio
I think the issue is that even at bronze Mr. Reliable fires on every single running play

Which it should, tbh.

Originally posted by Time Trial
That instantly makes it untakeable.

Sure your team might get 140 sacks in 30 games in Rookie, but each individual player is spreading that load out.

If Showboat fired less than 100% of the time, I wouldn't take it. Taking it means that you cannot silver your second SA until almost the end of Sophomore. Instead, you are going to see teams taking the SAs that actually lead to more TFLs and sacks.

Right now, there is a trade-off: you take Showboat and the impact of your sacks and TFLs is magnified or you take FS, TV, SC, MH and make it more likely that your team gets the sack/TFL/FF.

How does that 'instantly make it untakeable?'

50%/70%/100% looks reasonable to me(and still overpowered). First of all, it is a passive SA, which means that you don't have to invest on some ability to make it fire. And then it just fires 100% even at bronze. Compare that to Beat Down (the only other morale buff SA available to all defenders). Powered by intimidation, it fires 40%/50%/70% for 3/5, 5/8, and 8/12 additional energy and morale penalty when a revcake is made. Showboat gives 3/3 5/5 8/8 energy and morale boost to every defender on the field so its much more like (33/33 55/55 88/88 energy and morale boost) and since each offensive player loses 5/10/18 morale, the offense loses combined 55/110/198 morale. Not that much difference besides the fire chance and the morale penalty, right?

Originally posted by Mysterio
I think the issue is that even at bronze Mr. Reliable fires on every single running play

Is that an issue when it gives less a bonus at bronze? I guess I don't understand the issue here.

Originally posted by Sean1995
How does that 'instantly make it untakeable?'

50%/70%/100% looks reasonable to me(and still overpowered). First of all, it is a passive SA, which means that you don't have to invest on some ability to make it fire. And then it just fires 100% even at bronze. Compare that to Beat Down (the only other morale buff SA available to all defenders). Powered by intimidation, it fires 40%/50%/70% for 3/5, 5/8, and 8/12 additional energy and morale penalty when a revcake is made. Showboat gives 3/3 5/5 8/8 energy and morale boost to every defender on the field so its much more like (33/33 55/55 88/88 energy and morale boost) and since each offensive player loses 5/10/18 morale, the offense loses combined 55/110/198 morale. Not that much difference besides the fire chance and the morale penalty, right?

I stand by what I've said.

The fumble protection from Mr. Reliable is nice and all, but we're talking about saving you from what, 6-10 more fumbles on a guy with 500+ carries every season? Maybe?

Mr. Reliable is awesome because at gold, you get a huuuge balance buff for breaking tackles. That's an SA that works well in tandem with any other method of tackle breaking on any style of HB.

And showboat is nice when it fires, but by the time you're in Seasoned+, you're looking at 1-3 sacks/TFLs per game with a good showboater anyhow. Assuming good competition. It will help, but it's not overpowered. And most teams are counteracting it's impact with Prime-Time firings (pass heavy offenses), or Pancakes/Beat Downs (run heavy offenses).

Against lesser competition, sure, it's a curb-stomp amplifier.

I'm still infinitely more concerned about 100 intimidation/gold trash talk builds breaking pass offenses if/when used properly.

I think we are running into problems when we want an SA that is useful but not overly powerful at every tier.

As others have said: showboat is AMAZING in rookie when there are assloads of TFL's. But it is dramatically less effective at Journeyman because there just aren't as many sacks or TFL's.


Has there ever been a consideration to give SA's not only Bronze/Silver/Gold --- but perhaps also: Rookie/Soph/Seas/Journeyman/Pro/Vet specific bonuses? Seems like that would be a reasonable way to go on that one.


Here is what I would like to know on Mr. Reliable (I have it Gold)
"Carrying the ball within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage or 1st down"
50% chance
lasts 1.4 seconds

It definitely fires a LOT (understatement possibly).

But how many chances is it getting to fire in that window? Is it getting 8 chances to fire as I approach then pass the line of scrimmage?

Originally posted by TxSteve
I think we are running into problems when we want an SA that is useful but not overly powerful at every tier.

As others have said: showboat is AMAZING in rookie when there are assloads of TFL's. But it is dramatically less effective at Journeyman because there just aren't as many sacks or TFL's.


Has there ever been a consideration to give SA's not only Bronze/Silver/Gold --- but perhaps also: Rookie/Soph/Seas/Journeyman/Pro/Vet specific bonuses? Seems like that would be a reasonable way to go on that one.


Here is what I would like to know on Mr. Reliable (I have it Gold)
"Carrying the ball within 3 yards of the line of scrimmage or 1st down"
50% chance
lasts 1.4 seconds

It definitely fires a LOT (understatement possibly).

But how many chances is it getting to fire in that window? Is it getting 8 chances to fire as I approach then pass the line of scrimmage?

Yeah, it's one of those "can fire every tick" type SAs instead of something like Monster Hit, that either does or doesn't fire at the relevant moment. As long as you meet the requirements, it can fire anytime during the duration those requirements are met.

I think there's a pretty strong argument for taking all the SAs that work like that with multiple chances to fire and significantly reducing their % chance to fire.

I mean, what QB with silver quick read doesn't have it fire on 90%+ of their passing plays? And that's just with modest pass awareness.

Originally posted by Galithor
Yeah, it's one of those "can fire every tick" type SAs instead of something like Monster Hit, that either does or doesn't fire at the relevant moment. As long as you meet the requirements, it can fire anytime during the duration those requirements are met.

If they really wanted to nerf the activation %, they could have a cooldown before it can try again... however, as I've stated, I believe that to be the wrong way to go with this SA.

Seems to me decent options could be:

- chance to fire every other tick or every third tick

- or increase the impact of carry awareness on it - make it a steeper curve so to speak so a 50 carry awareness fires less than half as much as a 100 carry aware

Originally posted by TxSteve
Seems to me decent options could be:

- chance to fire every other tick or every third tick

- or increase the impact of carry awareness on it - make it a steeper curve so to speak so a 50 carry awareness fires less than half as much as a 100 carry aware

Or just half the fire chance. Then you don't need to do anything fancy with the "per tick" frequency. Already have the % chance variable that you can tweak.