Post by rasp30024 on Jul 22, 2022 18:23:55 GMT
Player Ratings
Strength - Key attribute for making tackles, breaking tackles, holding blocks and breaking through blocks
Agility - Key attribute for avoiding other players whether you're chasing them or running from them
Arm - QB key Attribute for getting a ball to a receiver. Higher Arm means more completions.
Intelligence - Key attribute for ball awareness. QB's need high INT to avoid interceptions. DB's need high INT to make interceptions.
Accuracy - QB accuracy with his throws. Increases completion % and lowers interception rate.
Tackling - Defensive attribute for bringing down a ball carrier.
Speed - Key attribute for ALL players. Most important attribute for gaining yards and for chasing down ball carriers.
Hands - Key attribute for making catches, making blocks, and making interceptions.
Pass Blocking - Attribute to make successful pass blocks.
Run Blocking - Attribute to make successful run blocks.
Endurance - Key attribute for all players. Higher endurance players can stay on the field longer.
Kick Distance - For kickers this affects FG % at longer distances. For Punters this affects punt distance.
Kick Accuracy - For kickers this affects FG %. For Punters this affects killing the ball inside the 20.
Overall – Overall rating
General Notes: Speed always wins. This is the most important attribute since if you can't get a hold of someone it doesn't matter what your other attributes are.
Player Personalities
Leadership – Allows player to improve the team’s morale. Motivates players to play better.
Work Ethic – How hard the player works in the offseason to improve.
Competitiveness – How hard the player plays during the game. Affects morale when winning or losing.
Team Player – Plays to win and less for accolades.
Sportsmanship – Players attitude towards the other team. Affects penalties.
Disposition – Temperament of the player, good locker room influencer, also affects penalties.
Values Market Size – How much the player values larger market sizes.
Values Security – How much the player values security of the program.
Values Loyalty – How much the player values their current team.
Values Winning – How much the player values a winning atmosphere.
Values Playing Time – How much the player values more playing time.
Values Close to Home – How much the player values being close to their home town.
Values Money – How much the player values money.
Morale – Affects player temperament and performance. Winning games, winning awards all improve morale. Losing or getting injured can detract from morale. If morale gets low enough the player is more likely to affect the locker room negatively.
Training
Training Camp
Spring camp is the place where your players can prepare for the season. The training camp thus has its own sim/stage at the beginning of the season, after signing day. Improvement wise, training camp is the sim, where your players have the best opportunity to improve.
Regular Season Training
During the regular season your players will train weekly, but due to the amount of other stuff occupying people's minds during a year, gains will be lower here.
Training Schedules
Training schedules are where you can create different training regimens, customized to positions or players. You can create as many training schedules as you want, allowing for a great deal of micromanaging if you so please.
When you take over a new team, all your players will be assigned to a default schedule. If you cannot be bothered to micromanage training, you can either change the settings on the default schedule and leave the players there, or just ignore it, and the players will use it as is. The default schedule (starting from patch 2) will be an all-round schedule, that makes sure players get a decent amount of training across the board, and prevents the most prevalent negative side effects, such as regress and fatigue/whine.
After you have created a schedule, and set its settings (remember to click 'save') you can assign as many players as you want to it.
Observe that a player cannot *not* be on a schedule, so if you delete a schedule that still has players assigned, those players will be moved to a default schedule.
If a player is injured he won’t train - you don’t need to take him of a schedule or create a lighter schedule - the game will just let him sit out that particular training session.
Schedule Settings
A training schedule has four settings you can set.
Position Drills
This aspect focuses on the skills necessary for the players position. So even while QBs and LBs do not have use for the same skills, you can put them on the same schedule, and the game will make sure they train the relevant skills for their position.
Athletic Training
This aspect focuses on developing the athleticism of players, mainly the speed and agility ratings.
Physical Training
This aspect focuses on developing the physical shape of the players, mainly the Strength and Stamina ratings.
Game Tape
Having players watch game tape and do mental reps on plays helps them prepare for upcoming games and develop their intelligence.
How many points should I assign?
The combined total of the 4 aspects you can assign to a schedule is 25 points. However, if you assign too little to a given aspect, your players may regress. If you get close to 25 in total, you run the risk of injuries, and depending on their personality players may start to complain and lose morale (the effects of which may propagate and yield further negative effects). As you will see on the default schedule, the AI is running with a total of 22 points, which will largely avoid negative effects.
Training Emails
After training camp, and each week during the regular season, your coaches will get back to you (in your email) with a summary of the most notable player performances in training organized by training aspect. At the top of the email you may occasionally see a few players highlighted that have either boomed or busted recently.
What determines if a player progresses
Obviously, the training schedule matters. In addition to this, there are a lot of factors, but two things are worth highlighting. The first is that personality matters a lot, and certain of the off-field player traits (listed under 'special' on the player card) can have a big impact. The second is that the player’s current ability in each rating impacts how easy it is to progress. If the player is at a level where simply teaching him the basics will yield a big improvement in his performance (i.e. a newbie LB learning to tackle properly will be able to progress from 50 to 55 in tackling with relative ease). Conversely players who are already close to perfecting a given aspect of their game will have a difficult time improving more. This is especially true for the more bodily ratings (i.e. an Olympic sprinter might need to train for months to shave just a couple of hundred MS of his 40time, similarly getting a WR to increase from 96 to 97 in speed is super difficult).
Game Planning
On the strategy screen you can set playbooks, game plan, formations, and view play analysis.
Setting your run/pass ratio to 100 doesn't guarantee you will throw 100% of the time. It just means max Pass which is normally around a 70/30 split. And getting to a max depends on how the games flows... if you're winning by a lot even with pass on 100 the game still runs the ball more. If you're backed up on the 1-yard line the game runs more. If you're on the 1-yard line the game runs more. If you're behind, in a 2-minute drill, or at an unfavorable down and distance, the game passes more.
Regardless of the pass/run ratio, the game will follow whichever playbook (stock or custom) you have assigned to that scenario. The game uses the pass/run ratio to determine the type of play first. After it knows whether it’s a run or a pass it will use your playbook and select a matching play. The weight determines how much that individual play will be called. If you have Slam Left set as 100 weight, but Slam Right as set to 1 weight, then Slam Left will be called 100 times more often.
*Weight does NOT affect run/pass decisions. The run/pass decision is made before the actual play is called.
Team Staff- Coaches
Hiring/Firing Coaches
You Hire and Fire coaches during the staff signing phase at the beginning of each season. There are two weeks (sims) in this phase.
Public Options / Signing coaches from other teams
As with NFL you can attempt to hire away coordinators from other teams, but (because of the IRL rule that allows teams to block lateral moves, which we assume they will do, as they do in real life) ONLY to be your headcoach.
This means that for ONLY the first coach signing sim, there is a chance to bid on other teams' coordinators - these are listed in the 'public options'. When the first staff signing sim is run, those who have bids will make their decision. If you had a bid for one rejected, you then have the opportunity to sign from your private options in the second sim.
Private options
The 'private options" for every position are staff only you have the chance to sign, and can do so in either staffsigning week 1 or 2.
All you have to do is pick the one you like.
Autofill
If you sim past staffsigning without having filled your staff, the AI will fill the staff for you.
Out of Money?
If you do not have money left on your budget to fill a coaching position, your team will promote one of your position coaches to serve for the season. While they are cheap, this is not recommendable.
Coach Retirement
Most unemployed coaches will get jobs elsewhere. Only the most succesful/reputable unemployed coaches are kept in the leaguefile for next season, where they will appear as private options for the teams they would most like to play for.
Coach Progression
Most coaches start out mediocre (do not let the ½, 1 and 1½ stars mislead you, this is the norm) depending on a range of factors (including but not limited to factors such as , success, intelligence, morale) your coaches will progress and become better.
Coach Attributes
Intelligence – affects for a range of things including scouting, training, and playcalling
Preparation– affects playcalling and strategy
Discipline – Matters for dealing with players with low morale and low work ethic, affects tolerance of players with negative traits
Motivating – Matters for morale and on field performance
Loyalty – Matters for contract extension and for the likelihood he will accept job offers from other teams (if he is a coordinator)
Leadership – matters for on field performance, morale
Charisma – affects chance to sign players and morale
Flexibility – affects efficiency when forced to use other schemes than his preferred one
Coach Offense – affects playcalling, training
Coach Defense– affects playcalling, training
Assess Potential – used for finding high potential players in the draft
Asses Ability – used to generate base knowledge of players in the draft
Scouting– used to generate base knowledge and finding high potential players of/in the draft
Youngsters – affect training on young players
Attention to Detail – affect training of elite players
Development – affects all training
Physical Training – affects Physical and athletic training
Position Training (QB, OL, LB, DB etc) – affects training of the specific position
Game Plans
Game plans reflect what you practice and prepare for a game. Some give a variety of small bonuses in different situations or when players perform specific tasks. Some affect ball distribution and some affect how the game is called.
Each coach will have his own preferences on this, so if you are letting coaches call your games (or playing in a league with custom playbooks/gameplans disabled) be sure to consider this when hiring a coach. A coach's preferences here also affects the kind of plays he will have in his playbook.
Offense
Attitude - Affects playcalling, a little more likely to go for it on 4th down and onside kicks. Also affects penalties.
Focus - Affects success rate of selection AND the inverse.
Tempo - Affects clock consumption.
Passing Preference - Affects success rate for selected range, with minor penalties to the others.
Passing Target - Affects targeting of players and minor bonus to passing.
Primary Receiver - Affects targeting on passes.
Third Down Back - Attempts to insert specified player on third downs.
Running Focus - Minor bonus to run type.
Running Back Role - Small increase in performance for selected role.
Backfield by Committee - Affect distribution of snaps.
Tight End Role - Small increase in performance for selected role.
QB Tuck and Run - Affects likelihood of QB running on failed pass play.
Defense
Attitude - Affects tackling, fumbles, missed tackles, interceptions, penalties.
Focus - Minor bonuses/penalties versus play type.
Primary Coverage - Affects performance of players coverage.
Defensive Line Role - Small increase in performance for selected role.
Linebacker Role - Small increase in performance for selected role.
Wear Player Radio - Give player radio to defender you think best supports both run and pass scenarios and has a decently high intelligence to be able to make improved decisions and inform teammates. Basically helps with recognition of plays to defend passes better, make better tackles, etc.
Match CBs to WRs - Affects play selection, will attempt to have at least as many CB on the field as there are WR. (i.e. selecting 335, nickel and dime plays when offense lines up in shotgun and spread.)
Align Man Coverage - Affects where defenders line up to cover receivers.
Target Player - Allows you to set a defensive focus for extra focus on an offensive player.
End Game Override
- Winning - Allows additional focus when winning in late game
- Losing - Allows additional focus when losing in late game
Trait Guide
AllPurposeRB - Improved receiving
AthBlocker - improved blocker
BadInfluence - bad decisions, penalties
BlockingTE - reduced pass targets, improved blocking
BoxSafety - Improved cover ability, tackling
BullRusher - Harder to block
CoverageLB - Coverage LB
DeepThreat - Targeted more for deep throws
Dualthreat - Running QB
FilmGeek - higher game intelligence
GameManager - better decisions
Gunslinger - throws deep
InjuryProne - injury prone
NoseTackle - AI for nose tackle
OFRedFlags - off-field trouble
Pick1Overall - #1 pick
PossessionWR - Targeted more in passing downs
PowerKicker - huge leg
PowerRunner - More straight line running, less lateral dancing
PressCorner - Improved cover ability
ProBloodline
ReceiveFB - Targeted more in passing downs
ReceivingTE - Targeted more in passing downs
SlotCorner - Better Run Support
SpeedRusher - Harder to block
ZoneCorner - Better Pass support
Legend - Mostly just a flag for someone who has been successful
Note that some of these are shared between PF and CF, not all are completely in use or have drastic effects. Some are more for AI decisions and less for performance. This list is not exhaustive, nor are we going to provide a lot of details on actual effects as these traits are meant to be modifiers of behavior or skills and not replacements for other aspects of a player such as attributes or skills.
Strength - Key attribute for making tackles, breaking tackles, holding blocks and breaking through blocks
Agility - Key attribute for avoiding other players whether you're chasing them or running from them
Arm - QB key Attribute for getting a ball to a receiver. Higher Arm means more completions.
Intelligence - Key attribute for ball awareness. QB's need high INT to avoid interceptions. DB's need high INT to make interceptions.
Accuracy - QB accuracy with his throws. Increases completion % and lowers interception rate.
Tackling - Defensive attribute for bringing down a ball carrier.
Speed - Key attribute for ALL players. Most important attribute for gaining yards and for chasing down ball carriers.
Hands - Key attribute for making catches, making blocks, and making interceptions.
Pass Blocking - Attribute to make successful pass blocks.
Run Blocking - Attribute to make successful run blocks.
Endurance - Key attribute for all players. Higher endurance players can stay on the field longer.
Kick Distance - For kickers this affects FG % at longer distances. For Punters this affects punt distance.
Kick Accuracy - For kickers this affects FG %. For Punters this affects killing the ball inside the 20.
Overall – Overall rating
General Notes: Speed always wins. This is the most important attribute since if you can't get a hold of someone it doesn't matter what your other attributes are.
Player Personalities
Leadership – Allows player to improve the team’s morale. Motivates players to play better.
Work Ethic – How hard the player works in the offseason to improve.
Competitiveness – How hard the player plays during the game. Affects morale when winning or losing.
Team Player – Plays to win and less for accolades.
Sportsmanship – Players attitude towards the other team. Affects penalties.
Disposition – Temperament of the player, good locker room influencer, also affects penalties.
Values Market Size – How much the player values larger market sizes.
Values Security – How much the player values security of the program.
Values Loyalty – How much the player values their current team.
Values Winning – How much the player values a winning atmosphere.
Values Playing Time – How much the player values more playing time.
Values Close to Home – How much the player values being close to their home town.
Values Money – How much the player values money.
Morale – Affects player temperament and performance. Winning games, winning awards all improve morale. Losing or getting injured can detract from morale. If morale gets low enough the player is more likely to affect the locker room negatively.
Training
Training Camp
Spring camp is the place where your players can prepare for the season. The training camp thus has its own sim/stage at the beginning of the season, after signing day. Improvement wise, training camp is the sim, where your players have the best opportunity to improve.
Regular Season Training
During the regular season your players will train weekly, but due to the amount of other stuff occupying people's minds during a year, gains will be lower here.
Training Schedules
Training schedules are where you can create different training regimens, customized to positions or players. You can create as many training schedules as you want, allowing for a great deal of micromanaging if you so please.
When you take over a new team, all your players will be assigned to a default schedule. If you cannot be bothered to micromanage training, you can either change the settings on the default schedule and leave the players there, or just ignore it, and the players will use it as is. The default schedule (starting from patch 2) will be an all-round schedule, that makes sure players get a decent amount of training across the board, and prevents the most prevalent negative side effects, such as regress and fatigue/whine.
After you have created a schedule, and set its settings (remember to click 'save') you can assign as many players as you want to it.
Observe that a player cannot *not* be on a schedule, so if you delete a schedule that still has players assigned, those players will be moved to a default schedule.
If a player is injured he won’t train - you don’t need to take him of a schedule or create a lighter schedule - the game will just let him sit out that particular training session.
Schedule Settings
A training schedule has four settings you can set.
Position Drills
This aspect focuses on the skills necessary for the players position. So even while QBs and LBs do not have use for the same skills, you can put them on the same schedule, and the game will make sure they train the relevant skills for their position.
Athletic Training
This aspect focuses on developing the athleticism of players, mainly the speed and agility ratings.
Physical Training
This aspect focuses on developing the physical shape of the players, mainly the Strength and Stamina ratings.
Game Tape
Having players watch game tape and do mental reps on plays helps them prepare for upcoming games and develop their intelligence.
How many points should I assign?
The combined total of the 4 aspects you can assign to a schedule is 25 points. However, if you assign too little to a given aspect, your players may regress. If you get close to 25 in total, you run the risk of injuries, and depending on their personality players may start to complain and lose morale (the effects of which may propagate and yield further negative effects). As you will see on the default schedule, the AI is running with a total of 22 points, which will largely avoid negative effects.
Training Emails
After training camp, and each week during the regular season, your coaches will get back to you (in your email) with a summary of the most notable player performances in training organized by training aspect. At the top of the email you may occasionally see a few players highlighted that have either boomed or busted recently.
What determines if a player progresses
Obviously, the training schedule matters. In addition to this, there are a lot of factors, but two things are worth highlighting. The first is that personality matters a lot, and certain of the off-field player traits (listed under 'special' on the player card) can have a big impact. The second is that the player’s current ability in each rating impacts how easy it is to progress. If the player is at a level where simply teaching him the basics will yield a big improvement in his performance (i.e. a newbie LB learning to tackle properly will be able to progress from 50 to 55 in tackling with relative ease). Conversely players who are already close to perfecting a given aspect of their game will have a difficult time improving more. This is especially true for the more bodily ratings (i.e. an Olympic sprinter might need to train for months to shave just a couple of hundred MS of his 40time, similarly getting a WR to increase from 96 to 97 in speed is super difficult).
Game Planning
On the strategy screen you can set playbooks, game plan, formations, and view play analysis.
Setting your run/pass ratio to 100 doesn't guarantee you will throw 100% of the time. It just means max Pass which is normally around a 70/30 split. And getting to a max depends on how the games flows... if you're winning by a lot even with pass on 100 the game still runs the ball more. If you're backed up on the 1-yard line the game runs more. If you're on the 1-yard line the game runs more. If you're behind, in a 2-minute drill, or at an unfavorable down and distance, the game passes more.
Regardless of the pass/run ratio, the game will follow whichever playbook (stock or custom) you have assigned to that scenario. The game uses the pass/run ratio to determine the type of play first. After it knows whether it’s a run or a pass it will use your playbook and select a matching play. The weight determines how much that individual play will be called. If you have Slam Left set as 100 weight, but Slam Right as set to 1 weight, then Slam Left will be called 100 times more often.
*Weight does NOT affect run/pass decisions. The run/pass decision is made before the actual play is called.
Team Staff- Coaches
Hiring/Firing Coaches
You Hire and Fire coaches during the staff signing phase at the beginning of each season. There are two weeks (sims) in this phase.
Public Options / Signing coaches from other teams
As with NFL you can attempt to hire away coordinators from other teams, but (because of the IRL rule that allows teams to block lateral moves, which we assume they will do, as they do in real life) ONLY to be your headcoach.
This means that for ONLY the first coach signing sim, there is a chance to bid on other teams' coordinators - these are listed in the 'public options'. When the first staff signing sim is run, those who have bids will make their decision. If you had a bid for one rejected, you then have the opportunity to sign from your private options in the second sim.
Private options
The 'private options" for every position are staff only you have the chance to sign, and can do so in either staffsigning week 1 or 2.
All you have to do is pick the one you like.
Autofill
If you sim past staffsigning without having filled your staff, the AI will fill the staff for you.
Out of Money?
If you do not have money left on your budget to fill a coaching position, your team will promote one of your position coaches to serve for the season. While they are cheap, this is not recommendable.
Coach Retirement
Most unemployed coaches will get jobs elsewhere. Only the most succesful/reputable unemployed coaches are kept in the leaguefile for next season, where they will appear as private options for the teams they would most like to play for.
Coach Progression
Most coaches start out mediocre (do not let the ½, 1 and 1½ stars mislead you, this is the norm) depending on a range of factors (including but not limited to factors such as , success, intelligence, morale) your coaches will progress and become better.
Coach Attributes
Intelligence – affects for a range of things including scouting, training, and playcalling
Preparation– affects playcalling and strategy
Discipline – Matters for dealing with players with low morale and low work ethic, affects tolerance of players with negative traits
Motivating – Matters for morale and on field performance
Loyalty – Matters for contract extension and for the likelihood he will accept job offers from other teams (if he is a coordinator)
Leadership – matters for on field performance, morale
Charisma – affects chance to sign players and morale
Flexibility – affects efficiency when forced to use other schemes than his preferred one
Coach Offense – affects playcalling, training
Coach Defense– affects playcalling, training
Assess Potential – used for finding high potential players in the draft
Asses Ability – used to generate base knowledge of players in the draft
Scouting– used to generate base knowledge and finding high potential players of/in the draft
Youngsters – affect training on young players
Attention to Detail – affect training of elite players
Development – affects all training
Physical Training – affects Physical and athletic training
Position Training (QB, OL, LB, DB etc) – affects training of the specific position
Game Plans
Game plans reflect what you practice and prepare for a game. Some give a variety of small bonuses in different situations or when players perform specific tasks. Some affect ball distribution and some affect how the game is called.
Each coach will have his own preferences on this, so if you are letting coaches call your games (or playing in a league with custom playbooks/gameplans disabled) be sure to consider this when hiring a coach. A coach's preferences here also affects the kind of plays he will have in his playbook.
Offense
Attitude - Affects playcalling, a little more likely to go for it on 4th down and onside kicks. Also affects penalties.
Focus - Affects success rate of selection AND the inverse.
Tempo - Affects clock consumption.
Passing Preference - Affects success rate for selected range, with minor penalties to the others.
Passing Target - Affects targeting of players and minor bonus to passing.
Primary Receiver - Affects targeting on passes.
Third Down Back - Attempts to insert specified player on third downs.
Running Focus - Minor bonus to run type.
Running Back Role - Small increase in performance for selected role.
Backfield by Committee - Affect distribution of snaps.
Tight End Role - Small increase in performance for selected role.
QB Tuck and Run - Affects likelihood of QB running on failed pass play.
Defense
Attitude - Affects tackling, fumbles, missed tackles, interceptions, penalties.
Focus - Minor bonuses/penalties versus play type.
Primary Coverage - Affects performance of players coverage.
Defensive Line Role - Small increase in performance for selected role.
Linebacker Role - Small increase in performance for selected role.
Wear Player Radio - Give player radio to defender you think best supports both run and pass scenarios and has a decently high intelligence to be able to make improved decisions and inform teammates. Basically helps with recognition of plays to defend passes better, make better tackles, etc.
Match CBs to WRs - Affects play selection, will attempt to have at least as many CB on the field as there are WR. (i.e. selecting 335, nickel and dime plays when offense lines up in shotgun and spread.)
Align Man Coverage - Affects where defenders line up to cover receivers.
Target Player - Allows you to set a defensive focus for extra focus on an offensive player.
End Game Override
- Winning - Allows additional focus when winning in late game
- Losing - Allows additional focus when losing in late game
Trait Guide
AllPurposeRB - Improved receiving
AthBlocker - improved blocker
BadInfluence - bad decisions, penalties
BlockingTE - reduced pass targets, improved blocking
BoxSafety - Improved cover ability, tackling
BullRusher - Harder to block
CoverageLB - Coverage LB
DeepThreat - Targeted more for deep throws
Dualthreat - Running QB
FilmGeek - higher game intelligence
GameManager - better decisions
Gunslinger - throws deep
InjuryProne - injury prone
NoseTackle - AI for nose tackle
OFRedFlags - off-field trouble
Pick1Overall - #1 pick
PossessionWR - Targeted more in passing downs
PowerKicker - huge leg
PowerRunner - More straight line running, less lateral dancing
PressCorner - Improved cover ability
ProBloodline
ReceiveFB - Targeted more in passing downs
ReceivingTE - Targeted more in passing downs
SlotCorner - Better Run Support
SpeedRusher - Harder to block
ZoneCorner - Better Pass support
Legend - Mostly just a flag for someone who has been successful
Note that some of these are shared between PF and CF, not all are completely in use or have drastic effects. Some are more for AI decisions and less for performance. This list is not exhaustive, nor are we going to provide a lot of details on actual effects as these traits are meant to be modifiers of behavior or skills and not replacements for other aspects of a player such as attributes or skills.