Strange Late Game Punts?

[Ajaxab]

After the old 3 hail marys followed by a medium length pass on 4th down previous end of game offensive logic, it seems as though the end of game AI has improved. That sequence rarely, if ever, happens anymore.

But I have noticed a few instances where my coach has decided to punt at the end of the game in situations where a punt makes no sense. I've lost the chance to come back in two MP games because of strange punting decisions. In two games, my team was down by less than a TD with under 2:00 to go without any timeouts and the coach decided to punt. The other team received and did the kneel-down for the win. There was no way for us to win by punting short of a fluke fumbled snap, something I actually can't ever recall seeing in FOF. It would seem that even the most poorly rated coaches would not punt in this situation and my coaches are a lot better than poor.

Is this a glitch of some sort? Is there a setting I am missing somewhere about going for it on 4th down? Have others seen something similar? Just curious...

[Ben E Lou]

I think this one is pretty straightforward and simple.

If you're in hurry-up, FOF will *always* go for it on fourth down, no matter what part of the field you're on.
If you're *not* in hurry-up, FOF will not look at the time left at all. It will use the same algorithm that it uses to decide whether to go for it on 4th and {distance} in the middle of the second quarter. So practically speaking, if you're not in hurry-up, it will virtually never go for it unless it's 4th and 2 or less.


Note that the "always" above *might* have some rare exceptions, but I tend to doubt it. I've watched a ton of Solevision, and I've yet to see or hear about a confirmed case of FOF punting when in hurry-up.

[Firefly]

Speaking of end-of-the-half logic, I haven't seen the punting issue, but recently, twice my team has let the clock run out late in the half instead of kicking a FG inside my kicker's range. That is, my coaches have chosen to run a play between the 20-30 -and not even a good play- instead of kicking the FG.

It's a bummer.

And it's the same team with which I had the run-run-run-kick FG inside the 10 late in the half issue last season. This year, this is the new "in" thing. Maybe it's not the game, maybe my coaches are simply into LSD.

[Ben E Lou]

Nah. I think the end-of-first-half logic is using the end-of-game logic to some degree. In other words, if you're leading, you'll run the ball over and over. If you're behind, you'll hurry things up and kick the FG (or score a TD).