Ive put in a few hours, done a draft, played some games and my first impressions are generally really positive.

What I like:

The new dark mode UI is huge upgrade.

The tabs to replace the rotating stats in 2D view are much better.

Financial rework is a big step toward a more realistic game.

Importing Custom Plays (seriously God Bless you for finally adding this).

The new training option to have a coach focus on a player is really cool.

Adding hurries as a stat is terrific.

What I'm disappointed with:

I've ranted about it before, but the defensive strategy section needs love. Even if you are unwilling to add anything for 2022, the "Deep zone" and "Flat" options are still broken. "Deep zone" assigned players frequently just run pointlessly forward on passing, plays not playing deep zone at all. These are problems that existed in 2021, so you can see my old posts for details if your not sick of me complaining about this yet.

I was hoping for expansion of the tag/trait system. but maybe there will be more integrated in future games, or intend them to be more rare.

Not many real improvements to football strategy aspects of the game for offense or defense. I was really hoping to see features that added more strategic depth to the defense as well as the O-line.


All in all it seems like a bunch of nice little improvements add up to make this a much more polished game than 2021 and that is great. but on the whole the football and gameplay play don't seem very much improved though I haven't played enough to judge the engine changes.

I definitely tweaked the flat and deep zone behaviors and movement... was one of the first fixes I put in, but I'll try and revisit to make sure it's working as intended.

Maybe my players are consistently failing some kind of read check? but even a bad player probably wouldn't abandon a deep zone on a pass play and run up the field randomly. Perhaps its only happening with custom plays?

As a *test* you could try exporting your customplays, and re-importing them (make a backup of your league file just in case) and see if that changes anything. I'm more concerned about the flat since that was the part I fixed... deep zone may need more work.

I tried reexporting with no noticeable effect, appreciate the troubleshoot though.

https://youtu.be/HfRdQ67UjBM

In the video link above you will see two plays from tests I ran. I only included these two plays because the issues where obvious and I wanted to keep the video short.
As you can see the Deep zone and flat assignments just aren't working.

Play one: The CBs are assigned "Deep Zone" they both run aimlessly forward as previously described, leaving both WR completely open with a clear path to the endzone (luckily the QB missed the correct read lol).

Play two: Both safetys are assigned "Deep Zone", both OLBs are assigned "Flat". Both OLBs mysteriously shift down, around the d-line and toward the backfield (not to helpful). Both Safeties charge recklessly forward abandoning their "Deep Zone". The QB finds the TE for the touchdown in the completely empty deep middle of the field. Feels bad for Minnesota especially having committed two safeties to deep zone coverage.

Even in tests where the "Flat" assignment kind of looks like its doing what should, like when CBs are given it (it doesnt work at all for safeties and LBS) the CBs drift too far out and never pick up coverage on players past the line of scrimmage.

As a far as "Deep zone" is concerned I understand that it may be challenging to write complex and realistic coverage rules, and that you may not want to add more zone types. but if its going to stay basic at the very least "Deep zone" assigned players need to stay slightly deeper than the deepest eligible receiver. I will refrain from writing a laundry list of things id like to see for defensive play calling and strategy, but I would love it if on some level game could break up deep zones based on the number of them described in the play and location of the player, so cover 2, cover 3, and cover 4 coverages would work correctly. If this still isn't an option, a simple fix to keep deep zone players generally over the top of the nearest deep receivers would make a world of difference.

Wikipedia definition of the flat because people argued with me about this last year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_(gridiron_football)

bumping this so i don't miss it

Bumping because Brooks did. please dont hate me for bumping my own post.