GWJ2STAR 3.0 - Week 3

Welcome to Week 3!

Hold off playing until we decide if we want to make some adjustments!

=============== Buffalo Bulls (0-1) ===============
Last week, Buffalo lost 52-0 against Georgia (1-0).
This week, the Bulls travel to East Hartford to face the Connecticut Huskies (0-1).

=============== Eastern Michigan Eagles (1-1) ===============
Last week, Eastern Michigan won 31-21 against Purdue (1-1).
This week, the Eagles will host San Diego State (1-1).

=============== Marshall Thundering Herd (0-2) ===============
Last week, Marshall lost 58-17 against West Virginia (1-0).
This week, the Thundering Herd are idle.
In recruiting news, the following Marshall targets have announced their decisions:
- (***) FS Akeem Campbell has committed to Troy

=============== Northern Illinois Huskies (0-1) ===============
Last week, Northern Illinois lost 42-23 against Iowa (1-0).
This week, the Huskies travel to West Point to face the Army Black Knights (0-1).

=============== San Diego State Aztecs (1-1) ===============
Last week, San Diego State won 42-12 against Army (0-1).
This week, the Aztecs travel to Ypsilanti to face the Eastern Michigan Eagles (1-1).

=============== SMU Mustangs (0-2) ===============
Last week, SMU lost 40-30 against TCU (1-0).
This week, the Mustangs will host #24 Texas A&M (2-0).

=============== UTEP Miners (1-1) ===============
Last week, UTEP lost 20-16 against Wisconsin (1-0).
This week, the Miners travel to Reno to face the Nevada Wolf Pack (0-2).

If you can adjust it to where the DL isn't in the backfield before the finish of a 3 step drop and the AI RB isn't god, I'm good.

firesloth wrote:
It was a winnable game, but the margin for error was pretty small. And I erred. A lot.

My game was similar. Part of it is going to be getting used to the behavior of the pass coverage. I threw three INTs, two of which I thought I would have no trouble getting the ball past the defenders. The defenders reacted abruptly. In one of those cases, my WR was a bit slow coming out of his break, so I was operating assuming he'd be better.

So, do we have a consensus of what we do with the settings?

I'm thinking of decreasing CPU Pass Coverage from 75 to 65.

Do we increase Human Rush Defense a bit? Say from 20 to 30?

I'm also going to edit all of Leroy's DL to a height of 4 feet.

LMAO! Oddjob is going to wreck you!

Leroy, Tuesday works for me as well.

I like all the changes proposed. I'm only recruiting hard hitters going forward and changing everyone's name to Tank, Murder, Death, Bloodthirst, and other angry sounding names to change my team's mindset.

Jayhawker wrote:

I'm thinking of decreasing CPU Pass Coverage from 75 to 65.

Do we increase Human Rush Defense a bit? Say from 20 to 30?

I'm also going to edit all of Leroy's DL to a height of 4 feet.

I like absolutely all of these.

Are we happy with run blocking on the human side?

One additional worry that I had - for some reason all of my Dlinemen were immediately pushed to the ground on passing downs. I think it probably has to do with human pass rush...oh, and the fact that Iowa O-linemen are corn-fed beasts. Not sure it's a problem since NIU should be pushed around a bit by the Iowa O-line, but it meant playing a D-lineman sucked.

If you went with the above adjustment to the sliders, I'd be fine with that. We could continue to tune, I suppose, but I also think we'll learn to play with this a bit as the season goes on...

When have you EVER seen an entire O-Line throw down and entire D-line? :p

Leroyog wrote:

When have you EVER seen an entire O-Line throw down and entire D-line? :p

Yes, but it turned out to be a competitive midget toss.

I also boosted CPU FG Power and Accuracy from 50 to 70.

The sliders have been adjusted. Feel free to play.

Ok...take what I said previously about fighting the good fight and keeping our heads up and reverse it.

That game was straight up bullsh*t.

Nevada played better than Wisconsin. It's one thing when the back from a big school, and their back-up, is unstoppable, but it's another thing when your getting torched by guys on your level. And I wouldn't say they went robo-qb on me, because i couldn't get anywhere near the guy. Then throw in the one-handed leaping INT on a screen pass that they returned for a score that sealed the deal, it was ugly.

I also had several wide open guys drop balls that hit them square in the hands. One or two is believable, but it was an epidemic.

When I go into practice mode, my receivers drop about 75% of their passes but in games, they do better.

Holy crap. NIU could easily have lost to Army! I managed to squeak by 28-23.

They had the broken tackles going so well that they even broke my tackles on a fake punt. On 4th-and-7. When I anticipated it!!

Oh, and I lost my star DT for the season to an ACL tear.

I had to pull out everything to win. 55 yard rush on 4th and 1 on the opening drive. Punts going OB at the 1 yard line. 79 yard screen pass.

A win is a win, but I don't expect many this year. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not. It feels a bit like the CPU cheats ala Heisman difficulty. It is fun...ish.

BTW, my team had 19 (!) tackles for a loss in this game and barely won.

Sloth, I just watched your highlights. They must have all taken steroids after I played them last week. I might have to start using the spin move like you did on 2 of your long plays (or at least I'll remember to not dive at you if we ever play!). Good win, I'm happy it is more difficult (and i reserve the right to change my mind the next time I get blown out).

Hopefully Leroy has no answer for my new option offense tomorrow night..

Long live the spin as my antidote to the broken tackles!

The scary thing is I had my big hits and strip ball settings on conservative throughout. I had over 100 yards rushing, but 55 yards was on one 4th-and-1 play. I was also without my starting HB for much of the game, but he should be back next week.

I have mixed feelings. This will definitely be an interesting season, and I like that we're aiming harder. I hope we can get to a place where we don't feel the CPU is overly cheap. I managed to largely hold Army's running attack in check during the second half. They scored their only touchdown of that half with 23 sec left. Still... It was touch and go throughout. There are things I like about that, but also things that feel cheap about that.

I think I feel comfortable where things are when we're playing offense. It's tough, and there are some running plays that are blown up. I'm not sure if we've got the right mix when we're playing defense. But, it could be that's not too far away.

What I suppose we'd all like to see is for a CPU team rated as our equal to give us very tough games and win a good fraction of the time. For teams rated below us (Army is rated lower overall and on defense than NIU), we should beat them much of the time. We should have uphill battles for teams much better than us.

It's the last of these that I think has been the biggest problem over the last few seasons.

Well stated. I'd like to feel like I'm in a game/battle without "cheapness." Also, I'd want to have to play a perfect game to upset an A team on the road, but not feel like I didn't have a chance 20 seconds in. It's a fine line when it's the computer because sometimes they are just on fire from the start (but I guess that sometimes happens in real life as well).

Back when I first got the game, on All-American with thought out sliders, I went 7-6, then 12-1 with SDSU, then 12-1, 12-1, 13-0 with Penn St. (with a national championship the 13-0 year). After that, I couldn't lose on that slider setting and bumped it up to Heisman, and it was back to the cheating/cheap feel.

Hopefully we can tinker enough and then look at the changes for the '12 game and create a realistic setting for our new dynasty from the start. I love having to gameplan and play well to be in games. It makes it more fun and seemingly like a realistic challenge.

It's a fine line when it's the computer because sometimes they are just on fire from the start (but I guess that sometimes happens in real life as well).

That's why I always choose to receive! I always seem to give up first drive TDs against human or CPU alike...so I don't give them that first drive of the game.

11pm EST tonight Airicc?

A&M sends SMU to 0-3. It's too bad, as it was shaping up to be a great one.

It was scoreless fater t the first. A&M finally drove the field and put in a TD to go up 7-0. But Darius Johnson took the ensuing kickoff back 101 yards for a tying TD. After a forced punt, Padron put SMU on top 14-7 with a sweet 28 yard TD pass. But A&M avoided the halftime deficit by mounting a TD drive despite only having :57 seconds to work with.

but the second half was not kind to SMU. they lost HB Zach Line in the first half, and then their LG after that . the running game came to a halt and the passing game became a turnover machne. Not only did Padron throw three picks, but a WR fumbled after a reception that would have given SMU a first down inside the 20.

A&M, on the other hand, kept scoring, and came away with a 34-14 win. Yep, another missed XP.

It was a disappointing loss becasue I felt like I had opportunities to win this game again. I sacked their QB three times, and kept pressure on him. And I forced A&M to punt five times. but then, I punted four times myself. And if you are -4 in turnovers for a game, a 20 point loss is expected.

While I had some missed tackles, their 213 yards on 23 carries were mostly just well blocked long runs. Dorman also threw a 86 yard TD pass that was just blown coverage.

I will admit that once I had a mortal HB, and a back-up at LG, running the ball was a real struggle. But I also lost the use of my Ace - Big formation that I run a lot out of. there some corruption to the playbook there, and it would only load up my DT as my HB. Very weird.

I probably should have stuck with my freshman back-up instead of my sophomore speed back but Andrews had some nice games for me last year when he wasn't injured. But my freshman is a power back like Line.

Leroyog wrote:

11pm EST tonight Airicc?

Yes, I will be there! But I made an error with the time zones. We are currently 6 hours apart if you are in the Eastern Time Zone (I was thinking Michigan = Central). I'll be to my house by 5:30 Hawaiian time (11:30 EST). Does that work for you?

I'll try to leave a bit early from work if there are no problems with the after school program. Thanks!!

I'm going to stick with the option (game 2 of the experiment). So try not to pick off many of my pitches and return them for 6!

OK Leroy, I'm home now and will leave the XBox on...Here we go~!

Justr got home. Gimme a moment in my practice room.

Great game Leroy! EMU wins 24-17 (he could have ran in one at the end but he pulled a Brian Westbrook and fell at the 6-yard line).

I felt behind the whole time and then the CB made a great pick when I was down 10-17 to completely kill my momentum (I took a shot deep after running the whole game).

That was fun, I need to learn how to kick against humans, the lag made it very difficult.

I was worried about the lag going in. I have a couple friends in Hawaii and online gaming is always an adventure with them.

Good game though. Clock management was going to be big with your running attack so I had to make sure to capitalize when I could.

airicc8 wrote:

That was fun, I need to learn how to kick against humans, the lag made it very difficult.

I would suggest playing some pick-up games online. Mainly, I try to hit that front line before the top, and I'm always late and hit the top.

I hate playing random guys online, but you can just leave the headset off and concentrate on what you need to do. So if they cheese their way through the game, it doesn't really matter. But it is a good way to work on technical things before a league game.

Looks like Counselor is the only one left. I never mentioned the league rolling in the other thread, so I will give him until Friday AM to get the game in.

I had a dream that I was hanging out with Counselor and I drank his bottle water and had to buy him a new one. I was so embarrassed.

Jayhawker wrote:

Looks like Counselor is the only one left. I never mentioned the league rolling in the other thread, so I will give him until Friday AM to get the game in.

Yeah, I've done my recruiting, but have yet to play my game. I've been super busy, and it didn't help that I decided to go to Toronto last night to watch the Yanks and Jays. That left me pretty tired today, and I'm really starting to drag.

I have dinner plans tonight, then I'll probably crash, but I'll try to play my game tomorrow morning or after work. Sorry, guys.

Leroyog wrote:

I had a dream that I was hanging out with Counselor and I drank his bottle water and had to buy him a new one. I was so embarrassed.

Jerk!

No problem. This gives us a chance to hash out sliders for next week.

I'm thinking of going from 65 to 60 for CPU Pass coverage and 30 to 35 for USER Rush Defense.

Is there anything else folks would like to see tweaked?

Maybe we could leave USER Rush Defense at 30, but lower CPU RB Ability to 40? Are we getting to the guy, but just not bringing him down?

I can get to the guy but can't bring him down.

Leroyog wrote:

I can get to the guy multiple times with multiple players but can't bring him down.

Fixed that for ya'...