Warrior General Games

Originally posted by TxSteve
the solution to balancing the passing game is not ever going to be "add more zone plays"

everyone except GE (including people who've tried it at high levels) says zone is broken. The answer to current passing defense is not 'more zones'.

more hybrid plays. The lurks have done wonders for pass defense.

Is it going to depend on each player recognizing that a receiver is entering the area of the field he is reponsible for -- and then rely on the defender to pick up that player...cover him across his area of the field...and then release that player to become someone elses problem?

Originally posted by bhall43
more hybrid plays. The lurks have done wonders for pass defense.

It might be because my team has no pass defense skills, but I don't like them honestly.

Originally posted by bhall43
more hybrid plays. The lurks have done wonders for pass defense.

which one exactly? Looking at your vet team last 4 games --

Qtr Cover 1 LB Lurk: run 43 times by you - 49% completion / 8.3 per attempt / 17 per catch

335 C1 Lurk Under Fire: 23 times - 65% completion / no sacks / 10.3 per attempt / 15.7 per catch

326 C1 Double Lurk: 4 times / 50% completion 8 per attempt / 16 per catch

The best of those 3 for you...I guess has to be Qtr Cover 1 LB Lurk. All told in Vet it is giving up 50% completion / 7.88 per attempt / 15.75 per catch (used 143 times)

Originally posted by TxSteve
I think everyone would have to agree: a team running the same simple playbook for every single game...and winning far and away most of them....is bad for the game.

I said for many seasons - many pass plays just don't have defensive counters.

Teams that ran GL sweep / GL rollout were terrible for the game.

Back when Queen City spammed counters for a few seasons and dominated - that was bad for the game.

Xars running a 5 play passing book for multiple seasons is bad for the game (several other teams besides xars who do this)

The fact that most all passing offenses (including my rookie team) are essentially 'forced' to run the same 5-8 plays in order to put points on the board is bad for the game.


I've yet to see the 'diversity' bonus occur from what I can observe. I don't think that is going to be the answer.

To Steve's point, Default has ran the same playbook for 3-4 seasons now, granted its not 5 plays, its 18, but none the less I haven't changed. Now maybe I have setup myself up to not have to by running 18 plays and that is much harder to defend than 5 but I do agree with Steve, the ability to just set and leave for so long does make the game a bit boring. I am ok with it as is, because I am spending my time elsewhere in the game but how ever it sits, the point of a football MMORPG is the RP part of it for me, and I am not 'playing' in my eyes.

If all the new lurk plays were tagged as short and medium zones rather than short and medium man plays, pass defense would step up a notch and a half. Unfortunately you have to do ax good every down plays just to use the lurks specifically or play them in super moderation because of their tags.

Originally posted by TxSteve
Is it going to depend on each player recognizing that a receiver is entering the area of the field he is reponsible for -- and then rely on the defender to pick up that player...cover him across his area of the field...and then release that player to become someone elses problem?




I'm going to assume this is addressed to my earlier comment. .... and no. NOT ZONE.

Lets say the formation is 2-1-8. 2 Defensive Ends, 1 LB, 3 Safeties, 5 CBs.

The 3 safeties and 1 CB go into deep 4th zones.
The LB man covers the HB or WR 5
the other 4 CBs man cover all the remaining WRs/TEs.

I really don't know where you keep getting that I'm suggesting a zone play. Is Cover 2 Man a zone play? It's basically the exact same except taking 2 pass rushers out for 2 more deep zone guys.

I'm not really suggesting it, but your confusion was confusing me. Like I wasn't explaining it properly. The biggest downside to this play would be how easy it would be to run against and the hit to energy your DBs take. Also probably wouldn't work against LZ anyway because of their quickness and route running.

Originally posted by TxSteve


Anything that sends the message to a brand new player:
- WR Posts / drive / cross / drive / post are the plays that work



I think there are others that work. The key is finding the right balance/mix. 3WR works best because of TRIPS, I think. Combining a TRIPS formation with SB/SG pulls the Defenders in ways other formations don't.

{After looking at 2TE..}

Well... maybe there isn't.

I just went through the Singleback Big (2TE) passing plays for this season. Look at these shit numbers. If you don't want 3WR spam, then improve Passing in other formations.

Double Crosses - YPA 4.64
Double Slants - YPA 2.29
Double TE Middle - YPA 4.21
Flanker Drag - YPA 3.24
Iso HB Under - YPA 4.61
Middle Ins - YPA 2.86
Quick Outs - YPA 1.91
Short Hooks - YPA 3.46
Strong Overload - YPA 4.50
TE Clearout - YPA 5.57
TE Drive - YPA 6.85
Weak Overload - YPA 2.48

Quite frankly, all of those f*****g suck. Except maybe one - TE Drive. Unless it's teams running them without great builds.

Ok so someone needs to find some non-3WR Passing plays that a playbook and players can be built around. Guess I'll get around to doing it eventually if no one else does.

Originally posted by TxSteve
which one exactly? Looking at your vet team last 4 games --

Qtr Cover 1 LB Lurk: run 43 times by you - 49% completion / 8.3 per attempt / 17 per catch

335 C1 Lurk Under Fire: 23 times - 65% completion / no sacks / 10.3 per attempt / 15.7 per catch

326 C1 Double Lurk: 4 times / 50% completion 8 per attempt / 16 per catch

The best of those 3 for you...I guess has to be Qtr Cover 1 LB Lurk. All told in Vet it is giving up 50% completion / 7.88 per attempt / 15.75 per catch (used 143 times)

For 1 I wouldn't look at my vet team for any specific looks as to how good the lurks can be.

For 2 those were specific plays I tried against Logzilla so that is only against 3 WR formation and it failed. I could have told you that Qtr Cover 1 LB lurk was going to be the best of the 3 though against them. But it works differently depending on which hash mark you are on. Sometimes you get an extra man on WR3 and sometimes you get an extra man on the TE.

I am unsure whether Lurk Under Fire can be a good play or not. My blitz LB is still going through chem problems. Logzilla's WR3 was too quick though so it was a failure against him. I do wonder if FSM could make good use of the play however with Unguided Missle.

I was misunderstanding you - sorry.


In my head I was seeing something like zone cover 2 sink -- where everyone is in zone --- somehow I missed the clearly worded "man coverage" when reading. Sorry!

Originally posted by Xars
(edited quote to save space)

Ok so someone needs to find some non-3WR Passing plays that a playbook and players can be built around. Guess I'll get around to doing it eventually if no one else does.


Now we're on the same page I think.

You run a small, small playbook because those are the plays that work the best (nothing wrong with that).

People who run other plays...are generally wasting their time.

There is currently really no defense to consistently stuff those 5 plays (as you are aware...difficult to stop all of them though some defenses can slow down some).

Result: everyone who pays attention runs the same exact playbook (or close to it). No one good runs the other plays. Games come down to RNG and the somewhat slight (~20%?) impact that specific player builds have. Game starts to get not very fun. New players wonder why their offense can't compete. New players are eventually told they are running wrong passing plays -- only 5 of the 60 are decent. New player says "well that isn't fun...I want to run my own offense" -- new player moves on to one of the other football sims out there....GLB2 devolves into the same 5 or 10 agents debating on the forums and trying to find fun trolling anyone out there is gullible.

Originally posted by Xars
I think there are others that work. The key is finding the right balance/mix. 3WR works best because of TRIPS, I think. Combining a TRIPS formation with SB/SG pulls the Defenders in ways other formations don't.

{After looking at 2TE..}

Well... maybe there isn't.

I just went through the Singleback Big (2TE) passing plays for this season. Look at these shit numbers. If you don't want 3WR spam, then improve Passing in other formations.

Double Crosses - YPA 4.64
Double Slants - YPA 2.29
Double TE Middle - YPA 4.21
Flanker Drag - YPA 3.24
Iso HB Under - YPA 4.61
Middle Ins - YPA 2.86
Quick Outs - YPA 1.91
Short Hooks - YPA 3.46
Strong Overload - YPA 4.50
TE Clearout - YPA 5.57
TE Drive - YPA 6.85
Weak Overload - YPA 2.48

Quite frankly, all of those f*****g suck. Except maybe one - TE Drive. Unless it's teams running them without great builds.

Ok so someone needs to find some non-3WR Passing plays that a playbook and players can be built around. Guess I'll get around to doing it eventually if no one else does.


the unfortunate part about 2 TE is that you constantly get to the point where you are holding in your most valuable receiving options and sometimes hit a point where you are holding in both TE's.

Originally posted by bhall43
For 1 I wouldn't look at my vet team for any specific looks as to how good the lurks can be.

For 2 those were specific plays I tried against Logzilla so that is only against 3 WR formation and it failed. I could have told you that Qtr Cover 1 LB lurk was going to be the best of the 3 though against them. But it works differently depending on which hash mark you are on. Sometimes you get an extra man on WR3 and sometimes you get an extra man on the TE.

I am unsure whether Lurk Under Fire can be a good play or not. My blitz LB is still going through chem problems. Logzilla's WR3 was too quick though so it was a failure against him. I do wonder if FSM could make good use of the play however with Unguided Missle.

Ok - so are you willing to share: which team can I scout that will show me that the lurk plays have "done wonders for pass D" this season?

Originally posted by TxSteve
I was misunderstanding you - sorry.


In my head I was seeing something like zone cover 2 sink -- where everyone is in zone --- somehow I missed the clearly worded "man coverage" when reading. Sorry!

All good! I wouldn't mind a new Quarters formation with 2 downlineman though. It's so easy to sell out defensively against the run, it's harder to do so against the pass because most of the plays still have some run stopping element to them. Quarters is the closes you get, but I kinda want a 3 safeties formation

There are so many arguments/debates happening in this thread. Good to see activity, though sad that its just the same folks

But... to what Steve and Xars are hitting on, the reason people run 3 WR so exclusively is that they have success... The issue with all the other passing formations are that they are 'too' easy to stop by defenses and 3 WR is the last strong hold for any successful passing game. I know this won't sound so popular, but hear me out. Lessen the failure rates on the other passing formations, essentially give a small passing bump, some how some way (pathing,logic,???) and you will see more passing teams doing unique things and game planning more because they 'can' use 5WR or 2TE. Frankly the talent in this game is not the offense, its the defense...