|
Quote: |
|
|
|
|
Originally Posted by Red Ronin |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
True enough. The problem though is that sometimes it seems the only way to stop cheesy gameplay is to apply more... cheese. It is situations of that sort that end up being especially frustrating to someone who just wants to play a head up game. When you know that your opponent just wants to keep running the same play over and over and over and over again until something in the AI breaks, its just a real pain. Nobody wants to have to keep calling the exact same defense for an hour because someone on the other side of the ball is too afraid to actually explore the depths of his playbook and come up with a gameplan that isn't laden in cheesiness.
Red Ronin
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well said, Ronin, and I agree with the earlier posts by spank and lbz; I was just being cautious in my response because there are plenty of guys on these boards who know more about football than I do. The problem with Earl is often that he's still going near full speed after contact and that issues with pursuit and blocking frequently prevent you from getting more than one body on him at a time, which is what you really need to do to bring him down. I've had much more success against Earl lately than I did when I first played the game, but I, like Ronin, get bored when guys run jokers weak toss or whatever and just wait for that one play where the blocking will be perfect, Earl will break five tackles, and run for an 80 yard score. When all of that doesn't happen, usually some of it does, and it's usually against a defense that has some pretty talented folks on it to boot.
The one guy who really amazed me against Earl was Cliff Harris--I played two games against Earl with him, and he was flawless. This could have been luck, but he's a really great one to have back there. The rest is getting lucky with guessing gap assignments, hoping your hot-routed linebacker gets there to slow him down so someone can clean up the trash, or the once in a blue moon straight up luck tackle by a generic comes your way.
He seems to be unnaturally good in the passing game as well. Look at his stats: he didn't catch many balls, but he's got pretty consistent hands, and when your opponent is mixing screens with runs and even one other option occasionally, it's a pretty long day.
Ronin's response is the right one, and the one I hope more people start taking with this game to give it some shelf life. Why not explore some different player combination and plays? Everyone wants to win, but it gets old to see the same ten players on your opponent's team and the same ten plays in their playbook, especially when the game is as rich as it is and loaded with plays that didn't work on other video games but will work in the right situation on this one. The weak zone stretch out of the pro set is a great example: when I first saw that play, I was like, "hell no, I'm never running that, the DE will swallow me." But I ran it, let the blocking develop, and low and behold, it worked! Not every time, but no play does. Enough work in the right situation to vary things up, though.
I started the All-Underused Team thread as a way to try to engage the community in expansive roster thinking, and it would be fun to do something similar with the playbooks--talking about the various ways we've all used different formations and plays to take advantage of specific matchup issues, etc. It might just be an encouraging way to help bring out the robustness of the game.