Warrior General Games

QUESTION:

Are players allowed to have more than 1 tag?

For example I would want to use a tag for a particular HB when he is in at HB (let's say speed back) and another when he's in at FB2 to catch passes or run a FB sweep.

About the Bump and Run what are going to be the factors in deciding what can make it effective and what can break it? All that I have seen thus far is strength v strength.

I was thinking about this, and at first I was very excited.

I see the advantage of this: If the rushing QB is in the game you can run different AI, or if the other team puts in a specific HB for pass plays, all that is great. The DC in me was excited.

Then the OC in me started to think how to exploit this. It seems like it'll be pretty easy to exploit. Put in your rushing QB to run a FB dive, etc. Teams will have to be more creative, but I think you can set things up in a way that it is too difficult to make these settings worth much.

Then I began thinking again as a DC. The new inputs for this is going to be ridiculously complicated. I think it's much more than the "if their rushing QB is in the game, run this play where we blitz our safeties." You will have to create a bunch of different inputs and place them all in a pecking order. Think of all the combinations, based on personnel. If your opponent has their rushing qb, their receiving HB, and their blocking FB all in the game, only 1 input will fire, unless you create all of the possible combinations.

In lower levels, a throwing QB has enough strength to actually hold is own at TE. You're simply going to see teams putting in the rushing QB for a lot of other HB or FB run plays, as well as some screens and passes. You'll see the speed HB in the game for FB dives, etc.

So, in essence, a smart OC will be able to get around the tagging system, which means the DC has to be pretty much prepared for everything regardless of tags (unless an upper level QB really can't throw at all), which means the whole tagging system won't really add anything to the game at all.

The more I think about this, the more I realize it's something that will appease all of the people calling for it, but won't really offer a viable solution against well coached teams.

Originally posted by jcrossfield22
About the Bump and Run what are going to be the factors in deciding what can make it effective and what can break it? All that I have seen thus far is strength v strength.

who knows

Originally posted by Deathblade
Originally posted by ijg

Can we clarify on tagging how it gets determined which HB is a power vs combo vs elusive? And more important, will the offense be able to tell which of its players are categorized as which so they can try to counter plan?

For example, two "balanced" backs can look pretty similar. Let's say one has 10 more strength and the other 10 more speed but otherwise are identical. To me, those are not very different and if I were an OC, I would consider them both balanced and use them essentially the same way.

However, if the sim considers the first power and the second elusive, it means I probably need to call different plays for them to counter the D having a custom D queued up. But will I know how the sim is labeling each of my backs or do I have to guess? If only the D knows how my backs are labeled, but I can't tell on O, that is a significant problem as I could be calling plays thinking my balanced back is balanced but he's really "power".

Did ya look at the links?

Yes, you wanna show me where it shows what the offense sees? I only see where the DC can choose which type of player to tag.

My question was how does the OC know that if I anticipate the DC will tag my power back that it's HB Joe and not HB Bob if they both are in the middle of balanced and pure power?

Let's say Joe is 90 strength 80 speed 80 agility 70 carry and Bob is 80 strength 90 speed 70 agility 80 carry. Are both Joe and Bob power? Neither? Just one? If I can't tell, I can't figure out how to set up my HB1 and HB2 charts.

Originally posted by ijg
Originally posted by Deathblade

Originally posted by ijg


Can we clarify on tagging how it gets determined which HB is a power vs combo vs elusive? And more important, will the offense be able to tell which of its players are categorized as which so they can try to counter plan?

For example, two "balanced" backs can look pretty similar. Let's say one has 10 more strength and the other 10 more speed but otherwise are identical. To me, those are not very different and if I were an OC, I would consider them both balanced and use them essentially the same way.

However, if the sim considers the first power and the second elusive, it means I probably need to call different plays for them to counter the D having a custom D queued up. But will I know how the sim is labeling each of my backs or do I have to guess? If only the D knows how my backs are labeled, but I can't tell on O, that is a significant problem as I could be calling plays thinking my balanced back is balanced but he's really "power".

Did ya look at the links?

Yes, you wanna show me where it shows what the offense sees? I only see where the DC can choose which type of player to tag.

My question was how does the OC know that if I anticipate the DC will tag my power back that it's HB Joe and not HB Bob if they both are in the middle of balanced and pure power?

Let's say Joe is 90 strength 80 speed 80 agility 70 carry and Bob is 80 strength 90 speed 70 agility 80 carry. Are both Joe and Bob power? Neither? Just one? If I can't tell, I can't figure out how to set up my HB1 and HB2 charts.

It looks like it will be up to each individual DC to tag your players however they want. You won't know how they're tagging them, and IMO you shouldn't know. That is sort of like asking to be able to see their AI. Anyway, it doesn't sound like it will affect you and your team:

If you have 2 very similar backs that you do the same thing with, the opposing DC likely isn't tagging either of them (or tagging them the same). The reason a DC would tag a guy is if you only run him inside (for example). If you have 2 backs that do everything, the other team won't need to tag them b/c it won't help anything.

The tagging really only helps against teams who only run inside with HB1, only rush with a certain QB, or put HB2 in for all passing situations.

Originally posted by Deathblade
who knows

I think the Bump and Run coverage should implemented after pass coverage is fixed. Just a thought to fix one part of a dynamic before implementing something else making the original problem harder to solve.

Can you say if agility, speed, or other SA's might be involved?

this is going to put alot more work on every DCs and it shouldnt be implemented

I thought everyone was crying for these DC options for a while. And now that they are finished everyone is complaining because they are here?

Originally posted by PING72
QUESTION:

Are players allowed to have more than 1 tag?

For example I would want to use a tag for a particular HB when he is in at HB (let's say speed back) and another when he's in at FB2 to catch passes or run a FB sweep.

That is very important - Bort should be aware of it.

If the offense uses a HB both as a receiving HB and receiving FB, it is not clear that the tagging can handle that. The defense can use a single tag per player, but sometime players need more than one tag.

Originally posted by PING72
There is no pass interference behind the line of scrimmage. You can blow up a halfback while the ball is in the air and it's not a penalty.

http://www.nfl.com/rulebook/passinterference - look at Note 4.

Oh...the fun that could be had. Someone needs to forward to Bort

Originally posted by PING72
Originally posted by ijg

My question was how does the OC know that if I anticipate the DC will tag my power back that it's HB Joe and not HB Bob if they both are in the middle of balanced and pure power?

Let's say Joe is 90 strength 80 speed 80 agility 70 carry and Bob is 80 strength 90 speed 70 agility 80 carry. Are both Joe and Bob power? Neither? Just one? If I can't tell, I can't figure out how to set up my HB1 and HB2 charts.

It looks like it will be up to each individual DC to tag your players however they want. You won't know how they're tagging them, and IMO you shouldn't know.

That is not how I am interpreting it. The screenshot shows the option to tag "power" "speedy" or "balanced". Bort said something in the original tag thread that he would determine somehow how to categorize offensive players based on build type (power vs elusive, blocker vs receiver, etc.).

If I as DC tag "power" back, are you saying I won't know which back this is either? If not, then this isn't very helpful for DCs either. As DC, I don't want to tag "power back" and find out I really tagged the balanced back that Bort deemed more power than balanced. It's easy enough if we can only tag HB1 or HB2 (though that assumes OCs won't flip their depth chart and AI before rosters lock), but if we are going to tag based on sim categorizations, then we need to know how they work.

So again, DB, can you please explain how those "power" "speedy" etc. in the pull down menu are determined and does either the DC or OC know how specific players are categorized?

Originally posted by Bort
Originally posted by PP
I won't pretend for a second to be a fan of tossing 30 screens per game, which most likely is the inspiration behind this, but, if that is anything close to a fair representation of what can happen on screens, that's flat out ridiculous and needs to be shit canned yesterday. I'd much rather see a much harsher repeated play penalty (maybe on screens also treat each screen as the same play...Really, more than 10 screens a game shouldn't come close to working) than CBs deflecting screen passes. What the hell would the purpose of the play even be any more? It'd be one thing if the screen blockers had any real blocking logic/pathing/ability to block before they hit their destination (the CB would have been lvled before even sniffing the HB). Without it, you just can't have this, IMO

Edit, I found it particularly amusing how the FB ran right past the CB that blew up the play...Now that's some funny shit right there.

If your CB is set to cover the HB (like that one was), why shouldn't he be able to go cover him?

He should be able to try, but the FB should have absolutely planted him 3' under the turf before he had a chance, instead of running right past him. Fix that and I 100% buy it. Don't fix it and you just completely ruined the idea of throwing screen passes. Because QBs already throw the ball to the HB at such an unbelievably high % of the time when they aren't the primary target, any decent DC will just put a CB on the HBs and make the play worthless.

As I wrote, it makes all the sense in the world to put in something to limit teams from screening 50 times a game. In real football sense, 5 screens a game is about max a team can pull off. I'd absolutely love seeing a repeat play penalty that worked and greatly penalized a team from running 40+ various screens a game (anything over 10 should be absolute suicide), but this isn't the way to do it...Fix the FB blocking to something that almost makes sense would be very nice (Edit: not trying to be an ass with that statement...I'm sincere in that I understand programming the FBs to block the right guy most of the time must be a programming challenge from hell and most likely ill never be perfect), and really should be done anyway, but that will do nothing to stop the 40+ screen teams then. On the flip side, a real repeat play penalty specific to screens (and one that actually really does bite on other plays ran more than 15 times) would.

Sorry, Bort, but that play is flat out ridiculous.

PS I'd also guess that the LBs in man will do the exact same thing: run past the blockers ignored and explode the play...Again, not a prob if the blockers don't ignore him, but that would take recoding the blocking (again, should be done) and does nothing to stop teams from screening 40+ times

One concern I have with the Bump and Run as it looks now is the running start CBs seem to get at the WRs to engage at the LoS. First of all, it looks silly and rather unrealistic, most CBs looking to bump tend to squat right at the the line. Mechanically, the point of the Bump and Run is to delay routes and make the WR take longer to get upfield. By allowing the CB to attempt to engage a Bump from off the line, it introduces delay in the time between the snap and when the bump starts, which naturally increases the time between the snap and the when the bump ends, and the WR is free to run. This effectively artificially increases the potency of your CB's Bump by a factor of however long it takes him to close and engage. Players assigned to Bump and Run should be locked right on the LoS to avoid this issue.