FOF - Couple Questions

[cuervo72]

Question 1.

How does this happen:

!Possession to Bar Harbor.*
&Offense: Single-Back Formation, Four WR, Strength = Left.
&Defense: 34 Alignment, Dime Personnel, Man-to-Man (Bump & Run), Pass - Aggressive.
1-10-BRH23 (00:20) BRH 12 Gill pass fell incomplete, intended for 89 Nail.
FLR 50 Tuipala hurried the quarterback into a bad throw.
Penalty: FLR - Illegal Use of the Hands by the Defense.


when Kent Gill doesn't know the Single-Back, Four WR formation? I saw this three times in my last FOFL game, and was a bit surprised. Will a QB use that formation, but just not function well in it? I had been under the impression that those formations could appear in the game plan, but just wouldn't be run.

Question 2.

Screen passes. I just ran gameplans in IHOF and FOFL which really upped the screen percentage for my offense (these were both atypical circumstances). The thought here was that I'd see a number of screens to the RB, Brian Westbrook-style. What I saw was 4 for 7 for my BRH game (11 yards, yeehah!), a game in which there was only one targeted pass going to a RB (completed). In the FRM game, we went 6 for 8 on screens (28 yards, woohoo!). My backs were a combined 1 for 4 receiving though. So 5 of these completed screens went elsewhere.

Any idea how is this determined? Can these be pretty much to any eligible receiver (would seem to be the case)? Might it depend on formation?


Apologies if this should be in the strategy forum rather than GD.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

As for no. 1, yes QBs will operate in formations unknown to them, so if they are selected in the gameplan screen, they will run them. In my experience they will however perform better in formations they know.

As for no.2, you cannot select your receiver unless you are doing playcalling. There are such things as TE and flanker screens in the NFL so I imagine they are in FOF as well.

[Daimyo]

As for no. 1, yes QBs will operate in formations unknown to them, so if they are selected in the gameplan screen, they will run them. In my experience they will however perform better in formations they know.

Someone should tell Jim, I don't think he knows that.

During games, if your quarterback is not capable of running a formation, the percentage you entered for that formation will be ignored during play selection.

[wade moore]

Daimyo beat me to it.

[MIJB#19]

Question 2.

Screen passes. I just ran gameplans in IHOF and FOFL which really upped the screen percentage for my offense (these were both atypical circumstances). The thought here was that I'd see a number of screens to the RB, Brian Westbrook-style. What I saw was 4 for 7 for my BRH game (11 yards, yeehah!), a game in which there was only one targeted pass going to a RB (completed). In the FRM game, we went 6 for 8 on screens (28 yards, woohoo!). My backs were a combined 1 for 4 receiving though. So 5 of these completed screens went elsewhere.

Any idea how is this determined? Can these be pretty much to any eligible receiver (would seem to be the case)? Might it depend on formation?


Apologies if this should be in the strategy forum rather than GD.Your IHOF RBs are all very low on route running, aside from 3rd stringer Lenny Roberts, so it doesn't really surprise me that you can't get them to make catches.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Someone should tell Jim, I don't think he knows that.

That is too funny. I did not know the help file said that. I thought I had noticed unknown formations being used. In fact, when I have had a QB who does not know the 4 WR set, but I still want to get all 4 WRs on the field, I put it into my gameplan. I thought I noticed it would get called, but now I am not so sure.

Am I wrong on this or is there a glitch in the game here.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Your IHOF RBs are all very low on route running, aside from 3rd stringer Lenny Roberts, so it doesn't really surprise me that you can't get them to make catches.

Very good point.

[cuervo72]

Your IHOF RBs are all very low on route running, aside from 3rd stringer Lenny Roberts, so it doesn't really surprise me that you can't get them to make catches.

With how matter-of-factly you say that, you probably realize then that FB Danny Wickman was actually the starting RB for that game. Not terribly high, but 38 or so (about what Roberts is). He saw two passes, which was actually less than Beckford (32 RR, 3 targets). FL Heyward was thrown to 4 times, and he has a weak RR (29). I'm guessing these were downfield though. Hancock had 7, but he's a ball hog. TE Waits had *10*.

Now, I'm sure route running plays into it just as it always does. What I'd wonder though is if there is any weighting to certain positions for screen passes, or if pass distribution is determined exactly as it is for longer passes; i.e., are RB given a larger proportion of screens and short passes, but a smaller proportion of deep balls...seems obvious especially for deep balls, but if these screens were going a number of places besides the RB/FB, maybe not so much.

[MIJB#19]

With how matter-of-factly you say that, you probably realize then that FB Danny Wickman was actually the starting RB for that game. Not terribly high, but 38 or so (about what Roberts is). He saw two passes, which was actually less than Beckford (32 RR, 3 targets). FL Heyward was thrown to 4 times, and he has a weak RR (29). I'm guessing these were downfield though. Hancock had 7, but he's a ball hog. TE Waits had *10*.

Now, I'm sure route running plays into it just as it always does. What I'd wonder though is if there is any weighting to certain positions for screen passes, or if pass distribution is determined exactly as it is for longer passes; i.e., are RB given a larger proportion of screens and short passes, but a smaller proportion of deep balls...seems obvious especially for deep balls, but if these screens were going a number of places besides the RB/FB, maybe not so much.First off, I didn't mean to make it sound like your question was stupid or that my answer was ment to sound like "shouldn't you know better by now?" If you were asking for a clearcut: RB's are targeted x times when route-running is y and z times when route-running is a, I don't have an answer to that.

Yep, I realized that FB Wickman was your starter. Keep in mind that with the scouting margin of error, you can't know for sure whether Wickman or Beckford is the better route-runner. In the 30's to me is still low, and apparently the game engine prefers to target your 50's TE and 70's WR. I have had the opposite experience when throwing screen and short a lot. I used to have a RB and/or FB with high route-running, who would get 50+ catches per season (in both the IHOF and GEFL).

In fact, when I lowered screen and short passes, the only effect seemded to be more bad throws and no serious change in the targets distribution between the RB, FB, TE and WRs. For that matter, in the IHOF I purposely scouted for RBs with low route-running, kicked my receptions-record-holding FB off the team in favor of a pure blocker and benched my star receiving TE for a blocking type TE, result, my #2 TE has as many catches as the #1 TE. And coincidentally the running game improved.

[Icy]

As for no. 1, yes QBs will operate in formations unknown to them, so if they are selected in the gameplan screen, they will run them. In my experience they will however perform better in formations they know.


Umm i always thought that the unkown formations couldn't be used, i'll try it.

[yabanci]

Umm i always thought that the unkown formations couldn't be used, i'll try it.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. The FOF help file is a more reliable source of information.

You can test this easily. Use recommend on the formation use screens, which will set values for formations your QB both knows and doesn't know. Sim a season and compile the logs. You will see that only the formations your QB knows were run and the formations you QB doesn't know were ignored.

In fact, I just ran a test with a QB who didn't know any of the weak formations. I set the game plan to run every play out of the three weak formations. The result: every single play during the season, all 887 of them, was run out of I-formation-normal, the first on the list of formations he did know. Zero plays were run out of weak formations.

Obviously, this definitive statement that QBs will run formations they don't know, just not as well as those they do know, is patently false and seems to be made up out of thin air.

All of that being said, there are rare instances where for some fluke reason a QB will run a formation he doesn't know. The original post appears to be an example of this, assuming the information provided is reliable.

[cuervo72]

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. The FOF help file is a more reliable source of information.

You can test this easily. Use recommend on the formation use screens, which will set values for formations your QB both knows and doesn't know. Sim a season and compile the logs. You will see that only the formations your QB knows were run and the formations you QB doesn't know were ignored.

In fact, I just ran a test with a QB who didn't know any of the weak formations. I set the game plan to run every play out of the three weak formations. The result: every single play during the season, all 887 of them, was run out of I-formation-normal, the first on the list of formations he did know. Zero plays were run out of weak formations.

Obviously, this definitive statement that QBs will run formations they don't know, just not as well as those they do know, is patently false and seems to be made up out of thin air.

All of that being said, there are rare instances where for some fluke reason a QB will run a formation he doesn't know. The original post appears to be an example of this, assuming the information provided is reliable.

Feel free to dl the last game file from FOFL if you doubt this, it should be in there. I think my team ran a play from the Weak formation too, which my QB also doesn't know. I'd be curious what the fluke reason is that resulted in this happening 3-4 times.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Well, I did qualify my prior comments in my second post that I wasn't sure anymore. I have now tested it out and noticed that I was incorrect. Unknown formations were not called. My apologies cuervo. However, it does appear that once in awhile an unknow formation is called.

[cuervo72]

I've gone back to my week 1 and week 2 games (the game in the original post was my 5th), and they both had plays where we lined up in a Weak formation (Gill doesn't know any Weak either). So this is definitely happening.

*shurg*

[Raiders Army]

Maybe it's happening in MP but not in SP?