Unrealistic Playcalling

[regenerator]

I just had a scenario where a team was down 31-13 in the fourth quarter, they received a punt then proceeded to call three straight running plays, each gaining 1 yard, and subsequently punt. Obviously this is not what we want. Is this something that I need to fix for the team in question as far as their Playbook Strategy, perhaps? What can I do to ensure I never see this again, or if I do its one-in-a-million?

Unfortunately, I have noticed quite a few times where the playcalling is off like this. I decided for one this specific I better go ahead and report immediately.

One point this does bring up again, for me anyway, is a place where I think we should have a feature added -
That being adding in Quarters or Gametime to a team's playbook percentages. We have it separated by down and distancec, and final two mins of each half, maybe we should have 4th quarter entirely as a place to put percentage of run vs pass?

[brooks_piggott]

The AI kicks in at a certain point and runs more so you don't get 3 passing plays in a row and then a short field for the other team. Or it could be just bad luck of the dice roll when selecting a play. Or it could be the aggressiveness of the playbook strategy is too low. Or the Run % for the scenarios were too run heavy. Or it could be multiple combinations of all of this.

[regenerator]

I just really feel like I see this enough to where it is bothering me. No one else seeing this kind of thing??
If not I guess I'll just go about things the hard but most effective way and collect enough statistics to prove that this is happening more than it should. Maybe it'll then just turn out to be a mirage, but I am almost certain there's something not right here...

[regenerator]

Okay here's another one = a team is down 16-7 in the fourth quarter. It is a pass heavy team with a very good QB (though admittedly having a very bad game). On 3rd down and ten from their own 30 yard line, they call an inside run for 3 yards then punt. NO ONE WOULD EVER CALL THAT! Right? Thats a pass 999 out of 1000 times.

[ZootMurph]

I've already mentioned this issue. They don't want to change their game in this regard. However, they do have options available in settings.

In Options, Advanced Settings there is a setting called Playcalling Settings. These two settings limit the amount you can call run or pass plays. The game adjusts based on down, distance, score, time left... but those adjustments are minor and do not alleviate the issue of having these settings. What you need to do is change these settings to 1 in the first box and 100 in the second box. Instead of adjusting your playcalling, this eliminates the unwanted, unneeded, and unwarranted forced playcalling on your team, and allows you to set your playcalling to be anywhere between 1% and 100% pass or run. So, if you want to pass 100% of the time on 3rd and long, you can set it that way and the game will call plays that way. Right now, that 100% setting is adjusted by the aforementioned settings, then readjusted based on situation.

ALL my single player games, except my testing game, are set 1 and 100 in the Playcalling settings. Unfortunately, every multiplayer league is afraid to change these settings, just like the creators of the game are afraid to remove these settings. Because I like to play in multiplayer leagues, this is one of the things in this game that really frustrates me and pushed me to lose interest in the game.

Bad News: They will never ever remove this nor change the default settings.
Good News: They have optional settings for you to make this change yourself.

[brooks_piggott]

Not quite accurate... we make changes to the AI with every release, every update, and every patch. We've never claimed we wouldn't tweak it and look at specific scenarios all of the time. However, we have to balance the asks from the community. For the past few years we've had tons of people complaining about the game not following their settings, so the AI now does follow their settings more. But in this case you're asking for me to break that direction and have the AI do one specific thing 100% of the time regardless of strategy. It's certainly easier from a code perspective to say if losing and 4th quarter and 3rd down and 10 throw 100% of the time. But what about 3rd and 9? or 3rd and 8? Or 3rd and 40 where you don't want to risk the throw? Or what if you have a backup QB in and you don't want to throw at all since he's a running QB?

Right now the code already applies a healthy dose of boost to passing when you're behind, late game and 3rd and long... if you have 3rd and long set to 100 pass in default rather than being the normal 65-70% pass in normal scenarios it gets closer to 85-90 or even higher depending on coach settings, etc. I don't think that particular scenario gets to 100% so there will always be some times the AI chooses run.


On a side note I'm assuming you have 3rd and long set to 100 for pass? If you have it set to 60 or 70 that still leaves quite a bit of room for the AI to pick run, even with situational boosts applied.

[regenerator]

I thank and truly appreciate you both and your long and thoughtful replies.

I def see your points. Brooks, I actually do not have 100%, usually closer to 90 max. I will make that change at least.
THis and the subbing are really the last two major things that I would really prefer to see changed. I understand the complexity inherent in this problem specifically for sure.
I just cant help but wonder - how do the other football sim games do it? We don't need to reinvent the wheel ...

[ZootMurph]

...
I just cant help but wonder - how do the other football sim games do it? We don't need to reinvent the wheel ...

This.

[brooks_piggott]

Pretty sure that Run/Pass sliders are still pretty common across games. I think this is more of a matter of expectations... you expect the game to make perfect decisions (or at least perfect according to your coaching style), where the game was built with more randomness in it to simulate the fact that coaches don't deal in black and white decisions... it's a scale. Most of the time the AI will do what you expect, but you get a bad roll or a bad combination of situations and it may do something different. Identifying these gaps helps me tune the AI, but it will never be perfect, and I kind of prefer it that way.