From the Review: is this true on the retail version?

[jbmagic]

From the Review: is this true on the retail version? [quote] By far the biggest problem I have with Bowl Bound College Football is how the games unfold. There doesn’t seem to be a good correlation between the offensive play, the defensive play, and the result. Here are some examples: 1. An inside run against pass defense for a gain of 0 yards 2. An inside run against dime deep zone for a gain of 1 yard 3. A completed streak pass for 3 yards 4. An inside run against dime middle zone for a gain of 0 yards 5. A 56-yard TD run off tackle to a side with 4 people run blitzing 6. A short curl route completed for 63 yards 7. A deep corner route completed for 4 yards 8. A deep post route completed for 2 yards This is done with two evenly matched teams with mostly orange (average) players. The play by play is also sometimes incorrect, such as “for a small gain” actually being a two-yard loss. My first season, I lost three games in overtime: one fumble, one interception, and one blocked 22-yard field goal. I’m not sure if this is extremely bad luck or the game is cheating, but either way it is very frustrating. I also went down early 21-0 to a really bad team (at least worse than mine) because of a 77-yard TD pass when I was in deep zone, a fumble return, and a 65-yard run when I was in run defense. When I run a smash mouth (run oriented) offense with good linemen and running backs against a bad defense, I expect to get better than 30 rushes for 12 yards. The game provides more realistic play results when it quickly sims them without user input, however. I would tend to believe the results of the plays better if I could see the players running around, even if it was just a simple overhead view with circles walking too and fro (and that’s all I’d expect). I can’t believe the results of each play otherwise, because from my experience it just doesn’t make sense. The strange thing is that I haven’t seen other people complaining about this on the official message boards, so maybe it’s just me and my sucky play calling, but since you’re stuck reading my review, I’m going to make my complaints, darn it. The simulated results are seemingly realistic; I just get way too frustrated calling the plays myself, to the point of wanting to quit the game. That’s never good.[/quote]

[Mad Cow]

There is some truth to that. I just cannot quite understand how to coach defense and I am having some issues rushing, though I have been able to pass well. I just cannot find the logic and results for specific defensive plays, so I normally tend to just use zones with the occasional man defense here and there. I have not seen anything positive for blitzing. This is in my limited experience. I have only coached a handful of games with version 1.01

[jbergey_2005]

I agree, blitzing does not work. I have had a lot of success running to the outside, in fact I had the NCAA leader in Rusing through 8 games with the Gophers. I tend to have to best luck on defense matching up against there offense, such as eye, pro-set I play my normal def, usally a normal man on 1st down, then depending on what they get and what formation they come out in I will either play my base def - and protect against the run, or go to a nickel man pass def. I get the occasional Third and 15 completion against a Deep Zone but nothing I get alarmed about. It just reminds me of the real life Gophers.

[Moss84]

I agree with a lot of things in this review. I have the same problems/concerns when I do my own play calling. I wish there were more plays to exploit weaker defensive players. My major gripe is, if I have a blue RB, running behind a blue T and green G against a brown DE and DT, I should see consistent gains, especially if I am a stronger team against a weaker team. It is frustrating, I get better results stats wise simming games than I do calling my own plays.

[gopokes]

maybe it's the play caller.lol

[Arlie Rahn]

It's always tough to make broad generalizations off a few plays from a few games. There are a large number of factors in any one play. Again, in verison 1.01 (and the demo), injuries and suspensions play a huge role. We also have hot routes in the game now (which would explain the 2 and 4-yard gains on long plays). In the end, I will look back at this like every other piece of valid criticism, but I would advise people to try the game themselves and understand this is not a simple "playcalling sim". There are times when you are going to run a Dime-prevent defense and the opponent will get a big gain, times when you call a long passing play and a hot route is chosen for a short gain, and times with you call a play to stop the run and the opponent gets a big gain. Now, I will certainly agree that these shouldn't be the norm if everything else is equal (and I don't think they are). Still, coaches, injuries, individual plays by players and other aspects could turn what looked like a smart playcall into a big play for your opponent. That's the way college football sometimes goes. But, like I said, I will and see if I can find any issues with the playcalling that are systemic to cause these types of things to happen on a normal basis.

[hitmanwa]

I'm not trying to rationalize everything in that review but they aren't far fetched at all. 0yds. on a Pass Def. Call...who made the tackle? A D-Lineman or a Safety? There's a big difference there. If I got massive yards on a Blitz ALL the time then yeah, something is up but it does happen in RL sometimes. Crappy tacklers or some back have a knack for getting by over aggresive defenders. Anyhow, just my thoughts.

[JaguarUSF]

I just picked what I felt were the most inconsistent plays to highlight. Like I mentioned in the review, I'd just like to see _how_ the game derives some of its results. It's much easier to accept the results of a football game like, say, Madden, if you see players running around and getting tackled. And, overall, I like the game except for what I feel are some erroneous play results. But that's just me.

[BYU 14]

Arlie, I think you should get the information on Hot routes and check downs out there to these reviewers. The review quoted here gives the impression that play results are arbitrary, when nothing could be further from the truth.... Maybe in an update an addition to the PBP to advise the user of this so people can see when it happens. Example: "The defense is showing blitz, Jones checks off, here's the snap and he hits Tight End on the hot route......He threw that to the spot vacated by the blitzing Linebacker.....gain of 8 on the play" or "Jones looking deep, he is under heavy pressure and he will have to dump off the ball to Peterson out of the backfield....A heads up play to salvage a gain of 4" Obviously to program that is a lot harder than I make it sound, but that may help to explain those type of things better.....even just to say the QB has to go to a secondary Receiver or something to that effect would make it seem logical in the PBP.

[JaguarUSF]

I'm sure that there's more going on under the hood that the user does not see and which is why when I say I'm getting unrealistic results you say I'm not...I most likely am not, but I'm not getting enough information on why I'm getting stopped for short gains against deep pass defense or completing 3 yard streak routes.

[pstrickert]

I think JaguarUSF makes a good point. We rely on the play-by-play to help us visualize the action on the field. Sometimes, the pbp defies logic (or so it seems). I'd prefer more detailed pbp.

[Mad Cow]

When the defense is running a deep or medium zone, and the offense runs the ball up them middle, I dont see how the safety is going to make a tackle at the LOS. These are the kind of things that confuse me and make me wonder just how the hell to call defesive plays. I really would like a playcalling guide from someone to better explain when to blitz and how it works, things like that. figuring it out on my own isnt working too well.

[Arlie Rahn]

Hot routes are going to be part of 1.02. I think one of the aspects I will look at more for the full update is more info in the PBP.

[BYU 14]

[QUOTE=Arlie Rahn]Hot routes are going to be part of 1.02. I think one of the aspects I will look at more for the full update is more info in the PBP.[/QUOTE] Good call Arlie :) The updated list of fixes looks great BTW!

[BYU 14]

[QUOTE=Mad Cow]When the defense is running a deep or medium zone, and the offense runs the ball up them middle, I dont see how the safety is going to make a tackle at the LOS. These are the kind of things that confuse me and make me wonder just how the hell to call defesive plays. I really would like a playcalling guide from someone to better explain when to blitz and how it works, things like that. figuring it out on my own isnt working too well.[/QUOTE] Should be pretty uncommon, but alignment could have an effect too, I.E. if you are running a 46 look where the safety is kicked down. Should not happen out of most other alignments with no blitz though, as the Safety would not be relied upon for primary run support in a passing situation, in fact it probably should only happen in blitz situations or when he is down by alignment (46, goaline) as even in a normal or run defense the Safety should usually always take 2 "read" steps backwards.

[Druez]

[QUOTE=JaguarUSF]I'm sure that there's more going on under the hood that the user does not see and which is why when I say I'm getting unrealistic results you say I'm not...I most likely am not, but I'm not getting enough information on why I'm getting stopped for short gains against deep pass defense or completing 3 yard streak routes.[/QUOTE] Jaguar, I agree this is one of the things the beta team tried to do was find all these situations where the text didn't match the result. As Arlie has mentioned to us in the beta this is due to the fact that there are checkdowns. It reads the text for the route called, but in fact the receiver broke off his route and there was a "hot read". Arlie correct me if I'm wrong, but these hot reads will be displayed and tightened up over the coming weeks so they will make sense in the pbp.

[coachcbj]

Arlie, It really comes down to more info in the PBP. If he runs a streak and its say complete for 2 yards. That just looks funny. It needs to be more like, he sees the blitz and calls an audible, a hit his receiver for 2 yards on his hot route. Or something of that nature. For those of us, that have been playing the heck out of the demo, or have bought the retail version. We know why the PBP says 2 yards on a streak. but it would be nice for the game to actually tell you. The PBP needs to feel alot more a like a radio broadcast. Action PC football does an excellent job with this. PBP should be broken up more, example. The QB comes up to the line.... He reads the blitz...... He checks to his hot route and hits the WR for a gain of two! Great job on the blitz read from the QB. Or The defense is in a deep zone... The QB drops to pass... Oh its a blown coverage! The WR is wide open! Touchdown! The defense looked confused on that one! More detail.... (Only one mans opinion).... Keep the great job Arlie!

[JTV3]

[QUOTE=Mad Cow]There is some truth to that. I just cannot quite understand how to coach defense and I am having some issues rushing, though I have been able to pass well. I just cannot find the logic and results for specific defensive plays, so I normally tend to just use zones with the occasional man defense here and there. I have not seen anything positive for blitzing. This is in my limited experience. I have only coached a handful of games with version 1.01[/QUOTE] Just adding my two cents. I've played through 2.5 seasons (each season with a different team and a different version of the program) and I call every play on both sides of the ball and I've found blitzing to be very successful. I don't feel like it has as much of an effect when I'm on offense but I've also had relatively good qb's even on my bad teams. My suspicion is that the effect of blitzing is greatly dependent on the quality of QB and quality of blitzing players as you would expect in real life. In terms of running the ball, I've felt like some teams get 4 yards every time they run inside and others get nothing when going against my defense even when teh quality of players "appears" similar. I've just chalked that up to poor advanced scouting. My biggest 'issue' with playing through the games is that maybe 20% of the time I feel the person credited with the tackle had almost no chance of making the tackle given the offense/defense play call (non-blitzing LB's sacking the QB, non-blitzing safeties making a tackle of a RB for no gain on the opposite side of the field, things like taht). It sometimes bothers me when I just needed a yard or something but I don't feel like it makes the game unplayable. (Of course the one that really gets me is when I somehow end up running a different defense than the one I called and they get a big play!) I dont' know how all that logic works and I'd assume it is extremely complicated, but based on Arlie seeming to be an active participant on the board I assume (and hope) he takes this only as constructive criticism from folks trying to help make the game better. Keep up the good work!