It all starts with player building. Then learning the various interactions between the bots. Then player building again. Then watching the interactions between the bots again. Learning from your failures is the most important thing that people can do in a game like this.
Player Building:
There's a lot of tooltips to read in GLB2. It is very important to mouseover everything and really read the information provided.
If you are building all O bots, you might not learn what it takes to build a good D bot. You won't see what skills that they have, you won't understand their interactions with the sim.
Watch the replays and read the PBP results after. Then watch the play again. Where did the play break down? What seemed to cause it? Go back and look at the skill page again and read the tool tips on the O and D until you don't need to do it any more. Did an SA fire? Did someone fail a vision check? Was someone too slow to get in position? How were they moving? Was it a problem early on in the play, or after the play developed? What skills were involved? What was the energy and morale of the relevant players? Were there any relevant player animations during the play?
Once you get a better understanding of the game's interactions you might be ready to start creating those interactions on your own. Rinse and repeat, the more you understand the interactions, you can begin to understand the "math" of player building (Attributes, traits, SP costs, and caps). Unlike in GLB1, you can't "break" a build as easily, but as you begin to understand how your bot is going to be used, you will get a better idea of where you want to take your skills and how to do that more efficiently.
Play selection:
These drive the eventual interactions between the bots. If you know the strengths of your own players, it makes play selection easier. However, learning the weaknesses of your opponents and exploiting them while playing to your strengths is where this becomes a learning experience. Predicting what your opponent will call when you design your playbook and beating them is where a lot of the skill in this game comes. Some of that is weakened by the limitations on the D playcalling that has often resorted to spamming certain plays that "have no weaknesses". Obviously, the best OCs are able to still look at the weaknesses in the D (and in their own O) and find a way to minimize the blitz damage while maximizing the gains.
Again, this isn't a set it and forget it thing if you want to keep improving. You need to watch the plays, this time not as a player-builder, but on a global level to learn what works with the players you have. You can't copy a Romo playbook to a Sunday Funday team and expect success. You need to play with your depth chart and look at the plays over and over to see which ones might work against "X" type of D system.
Conversely, you need to anticipate what an OC is going to run against your D. You might know that your CBs have poor tackling and run stuffing and that the other OC has a great outside running game. Will you keep your Quarter D out of the game against the 0-4WR sets in order to minimize the CBs? Will you find a play that gives you stronger players on the outside? Will you attempt more zones?
I spend more time watching games that I've lost than games that I won. Repeating success is easy, preventing failures is more difficult.
Networking and the Forums:
Okay, so now you aren't a total n00b and you want to get better, but you don't own your own team and you want to get scrims set up to try out what you've learned against tough competition? Great. That's the next set in getting better. Take what you've learned and go read through the forums. Ask questions. Talk to your teammates. Try and get players on multiple teams in order to expand the number of players that you associate with. Send PMs to teams that you want to play against and see if they are okay with you sending a bunch of private scrims to them (if you have access) or maybe they will be willing to send you a scrim or two (if they have deep pockets). Make adjustments based on what you see in the game. Was that play a huge gain because of luck or because there's a hole or a gap?
Stick with it:
It took me 7 seasons of GLB1 before I bought a team, but loyalty and a willingness to learn and then share knowledge eventually got me more and more connected with the people who played the game. Team ownership isn't something that everyone should just jump into unless they are willing to build every single player on the team (or an entire O or an entire D) in order to really dive in. Getting randoms onto your team in rookie is a rough way to start playing this game. You might be doing a great job, but the mess of different builds will make it tough to get through. Some people might bail on you, others might just build something that does you no good. You can try and establish a team that learns together, with the intention of just trying to get better, but it really is tough to do so when not everyone has put in the work to learn the game the way you have by following the above advice.
As such, in order to avoid disappointment, I suggest waiting to own and instead build up your relationships for awhile. Co-ordinate for a couple of teams that you have players on. Don't try and get your player the ball 75% of the time. Be active in the forums and participate in discussions on bugs, suggestions, and strategy. Lurk around in main and chime in when you've got something to add or you just want to add your two cents to a discussion. The FAQ forums are an excellent place to ask your questions. Start discussions about a skill that you think might be effective or ineffective. You might hear some bad information and you might hear some good information. Go back and read the tooltips on the skills and the SAs... that's about as close to "information" that the admins have given us. When someone disagrees with you, it is a potential learning experience for both of you. There are very few "right" answers when it comes to the best way to do something in this game, and the meta is always shifting, so there is plenty of room to argue. Getting involved without committing to a single idea is generally the best way to handle any discussion where you think you are right. But don't get your feelings hurt and don't back away just because someone "corrects" you.
Eventually, success is going to breed more success. If you stick it out, you to can be a top 40 team in your age group.
Player Building:
There's a lot of tooltips to read in GLB2. It is very important to mouseover everything and really read the information provided.
If you are building all O bots, you might not learn what it takes to build a good D bot. You won't see what skills that they have, you won't understand their interactions with the sim.
Watch the replays and read the PBP results after. Then watch the play again. Where did the play break down? What seemed to cause it? Go back and look at the skill page again and read the tool tips on the O and D until you don't need to do it any more. Did an SA fire? Did someone fail a vision check? Was someone too slow to get in position? How were they moving? Was it a problem early on in the play, or after the play developed? What skills were involved? What was the energy and morale of the relevant players? Were there any relevant player animations during the play?
Once you get a better understanding of the game's interactions you might be ready to start creating those interactions on your own. Rinse and repeat, the more you understand the interactions, you can begin to understand the "math" of player building (Attributes, traits, SP costs, and caps). Unlike in GLB1, you can't "break" a build as easily, but as you begin to understand how your bot is going to be used, you will get a better idea of where you want to take your skills and how to do that more efficiently.
Play selection:
These drive the eventual interactions between the bots. If you know the strengths of your own players, it makes play selection easier. However, learning the weaknesses of your opponents and exploiting them while playing to your strengths is where this becomes a learning experience. Predicting what your opponent will call when you design your playbook and beating them is where a lot of the skill in this game comes. Some of that is weakened by the limitations on the D playcalling that has often resorted to spamming certain plays that "have no weaknesses". Obviously, the best OCs are able to still look at the weaknesses in the D (and in their own O) and find a way to minimize the blitz damage while maximizing the gains.
Again, this isn't a set it and forget it thing if you want to keep improving. You need to watch the plays, this time not as a player-builder, but on a global level to learn what works with the players you have. You can't copy a Romo playbook to a Sunday Funday team and expect success. You need to play with your depth chart and look at the plays over and over to see which ones might work against "X" type of D system.
Conversely, you need to anticipate what an OC is going to run against your D. You might know that your CBs have poor tackling and run stuffing and that the other OC has a great outside running game. Will you keep your Quarter D out of the game against the 0-4WR sets in order to minimize the CBs? Will you find a play that gives you stronger players on the outside? Will you attempt more zones?
I spend more time watching games that I've lost than games that I won. Repeating success is easy, preventing failures is more difficult.
Networking and the Forums:
Okay, so now you aren't a total n00b and you want to get better, but you don't own your own team and you want to get scrims set up to try out what you've learned against tough competition? Great. That's the next set in getting better. Take what you've learned and go read through the forums. Ask questions. Talk to your teammates. Try and get players on multiple teams in order to expand the number of players that you associate with. Send PMs to teams that you want to play against and see if they are okay with you sending a bunch of private scrims to them (if you have access) or maybe they will be willing to send you a scrim or two (if they have deep pockets). Make adjustments based on what you see in the game. Was that play a huge gain because of luck or because there's a hole or a gap?
Stick with it:
It took me 7 seasons of GLB1 before I bought a team, but loyalty and a willingness to learn and then share knowledge eventually got me more and more connected with the people who played the game. Team ownership isn't something that everyone should just jump into unless they are willing to build every single player on the team (or an entire O or an entire D) in order to really dive in. Getting randoms onto your team in rookie is a rough way to start playing this game. You might be doing a great job, but the mess of different builds will make it tough to get through. Some people might bail on you, others might just build something that does you no good. You can try and establish a team that learns together, with the intention of just trying to get better, but it really is tough to do so when not everyone has put in the work to learn the game the way you have by following the above advice.
As such, in order to avoid disappointment, I suggest waiting to own and instead build up your relationships for awhile. Co-ordinate for a couple of teams that you have players on. Don't try and get your player the ball 75% of the time. Be active in the forums and participate in discussions on bugs, suggestions, and strategy. Lurk around in main and chime in when you've got something to add or you just want to add your two cents to a discussion. The FAQ forums are an excellent place to ask your questions. Start discussions about a skill that you think might be effective or ineffective. You might hear some bad information and you might hear some good information. Go back and read the tooltips on the skills and the SAs... that's about as close to "information" that the admins have given us. When someone disagrees with you, it is a potential learning experience for both of you. There are very few "right" answers when it comes to the best way to do something in this game, and the meta is always shifting, so there is plenty of room to argue. Getting involved without committing to a single idea is generally the best way to handle any discussion where you think you are right. But don't get your feelings hurt and don't back away just because someone "corrects" you.
Eventually, success is going to breed more success. If you stick it out, you to can be a top 40 team in your age group.
Edited by Time Trial on Jul 7, 2014 05:11:05
