I just played a game, 2021 Pro Football, Steelers vs NYG, I was controlling Steelers (the box under team info for CPU/AI control for Steelers was not checked). By the beginning of the 4th quarter it was a blowout (42-14) in favor of the Steelers, but the AI was overriding my package selections and not recognizing my player subs (via package changes). It even made QB change on its own.

So, if I am controlling 1 team, why did the AI take back control in the 4th?

It probably started putting in backups as listed on your package screen.

OK, does that mean even when I have a team under manual control throughout the game, and there were never any AI subs taking place until the 4th quarter, that this is "normal" for the game to treat my coaching/managing decisions this way?

If yes, even if I do exercise manual control over a team, how do I over-ride the AI taking over (seems a ridiculous question if my team is under manual control), but this is apparently what is happening - so again - how do I override it? Thank you.

At the moment, I don't think you can fully control your team even if you've enabled manual playcalling.
There are some decisions that always happen automatically (subbing, spike ball, kneels).
Probably a consequence of the vast majority of players simming games quickly and burning through seasons fast, but that's just a guess. We playcallers are probably in the minority.
I've had times where I wished the QB would be taken out of the game and he wasn't.

Thank you peterk1. Well, in that case, its a design issue, and certainly not very appealing to the supposed "minority". Unless the game owners don't care about the "minority", having this level of control when the team in in fact under manual control is nonsense. "If", you have the box unchecked for no CPU/AI control, then it ought to mean what it says, not some lazy - the game was coded for simmers.

Of course, a game representative did not respond, you a fellow gamer did. So, if in fact this is the case (a major design flaw and oversight because it does not lead to realistic game play.

However, I will reserve my conclusions until after a game rep has elaborated on this.

Sorry, I may have gotten out ahead of my skis. I didn't want to come across as disrespectful, it appears after playing a game under blow-out type conditions that I lost the ability to manual control my team and I am trying to find out if I am missing something in the game, or it is a hard code take over of my control. If its the latter, I believe this is a relevant game play issue that needs to be restored to the manually controlled team.

I welcome any in the community to reply with their comments as peterk1 has, as well as game reps to tackle this issue. When I choose manual control over a team, my expectation is that will remain in effect from quarter 1-4, regardless of game conditions.

What's missing for hardcore playcallers is a personnel display where we can see the players that are on the field for a given play along with fatigue levels. Not sure that's a direction that the game wants to go in and to be honest, I'm not sure it's something even I would use all that often even though I love details.

Pro Strategy Football has this cool feature where you can tell how tired the defense is. And it's a lot of fun trying to get them tired so they're not performing optimally at the end of the half in a close game.

This is all probably one level of detail higher than Draft Day wants to go.

I have not played PSF, put you do have total control over players, play calling and fatigue in the ACTION PC football game. In Second and Ten, while you can't really monitor defensive fatigue values, you do have to actively manage your offensive player usage. However, I guess we should probably limit our discussion to WS FB on this board.

The game takes the package you select which has a depth chart, and then runs it's substitution/late game blowout/etc. logic to determine if it should put in backups. The only way for me to fix you scenario would be to never allow the AI to put in backups which would mean anyone who uses "Play Game" would have to set up multiple packages for any scenario where they want substitutions. So since most of our folks don't really play this way I would have to make it some sort of checkbox for locking package so people who want to micromanage packages can, and those that like the behavior the way it is can leave it unchecked. Unfortunately this is not something that is easy to patch and may not make it into the game until a future version. I'll add it to the list so I don't forget.

Thanks Brooks, I appreciate your reply end of day. The "replacement players" is probably what accounted for Pittsburgh not scoring the entire 4th qtr. Is it only the skill position players the AI will sub out (both offense/defense) or will substitutions also affect other positions?

Yes, providing a checkbox as you describe you be a much appreciated benefit for those of us who don't want the AI arbitrarily make subs on them, at any point during a game - blowout or not. Thanks for listening.