How Game-able is the engine?

[markdub2]

Interested in hearing yalls experiences with player-created playbooks and gameplanning basically being too good at producing offense with non-elite talent. Im talking 35ppg, 55td QB, 2000/22 reciever with no true elite talent (<70 ovr rating)

basically, im wondering if the engines statistical output is balanced around the AI soft-nerfing every offense (and defense for that matter) with random play generation/gameplanning ? And when a human actually makes the play designs/gameplans make sense, the engine is overtuned?

I know some players have produced REALLY insane/impossible results with custom playbooks like 9000+ passing yard seasons, but im assuming thats only achievable with unrealistic/non-immersive exploit-style play calling+gameplanning

[HansMellman]

Is this question exclusive to 9?

[markdub2]

Originally Posted by HansMellman

Is this question exclusive to 9?

Not necessarily, although I know 9 has a pretty different engine from 8 and 7

[Gallifrey]

In my universe, which started in 1965 and is up to 1985 with historical players (and the engine filling in the missing) I have not seen crazy numbers.
In fact, it is weird in a way that Unitas is the first star QB, the Colts the first power house followed by the Packers, Jim Brown is... Jim Brown and the stats are not eye popping, they are just normal.

And with my created offensive playbooks I haven't achieved crazy numbers. It is a bit of a struggle like it should be. So for me it is a good shadow of reality.

[KingZal]

It's a small sample size, but I ran your Greatest Show on Turf playbook for a year and my quarterback's stats improved significantly, especially compared to when I stopped. He threw for 4700 yards with 13.81 AV/C, 9.04 AV/A, and 36 touchdowns - all career highs. We also had the #1 passing offense in the league by both YD/A and AV/G. They ended up cruising through the playoffs.

We had a decent collection of talent on that team, including an elite C and WR, but my QB was only a 50 overall. I stopped using the playbook (didn't fit my universe's roleplay) and my QB's passing yardage has tanked without it even though he has improved to 62. Not sure if his elite year was because of the playbook or some roster-building fluke but if I ever end up using that playbook again (or your other ones) I'll let you know what I find.

[markdub2]

Originally Posted by KingZal

It's a small sample size, but I ran your Greatest Show on Turf playbook for a year and my quarterback's stats improved significantly, especially compared to when I stopped. He threw for 4700 yards with 13.81 AV/C, 9.04 AV/A, and 36 touchdowns - all career highs. We also had the #1 passing offense in the league by both YD/A and AV/G. They ended up cruising through the playoffs.

... if I ever end up using that playbook again (or your other ones) I'll let you know what I find.

Thats cool to hear! FWIW, My experience tracks with yours, the NFL playbooks ive made do seem to boost offense pretty significantly and ive seen it across dozens of seasons/rosters/universes now. It's to the point where I cant play without them anymore because AI generated ones r just so bad that they just nerf the shit out of ur offense even when you have good rosters.

I think it would be cool to do more historic/landmark Offense playbooks like the GSOT but, a lot of the older ones are really hard to read when theyre handwritten

Keep me updated if u do try any of the others!