THE GREAT SIM DEBATE

[jeremym480]

Wow there are a lot of great Master Debaters here!

[jdrhammer]

Quote: Originally Posted by justblaze09

Tavon Austin says hi lol... but yeah if you are exploiting the games weaknesses, then it's cheese. If the person you play just sucks then it's another story

True. Sometimes people just suck but 09 is so screwed up and has so many flaws that you'll exploit them on accident. Hopefully this adaptive AI will settle sim play, or help.

[GetYaWeigtUp]

Quote: Originally Posted by Captain Mallow

In 'real' football, if you run the same play over and over again, the defense will almost certainly adjust. That doesn't just mean play calling on defense, it means how the players react. That's realism and hence it is 'sim'. If you can break a run everytime you run the wildcat, then it's a function of your superior stick skills vs predictable defense as opposed to great football skills. Edit: Note that the wildcat is a 'formation'; I mean to say here the same running play from that formation (or any formation for that matter). Now there are exceptions; sometimes in college football a really weak team just can't man up against a power house so it doesn't matter what happens (the option was always an easy way for superior talent to easily flatten cream puffs). I suggest it is EXTREMELY difficult if not impossible for a video game to reach true sim level except those games with a 'coach' style. No matter what the programmers do, as long as individuals are controlling the action then the players on the digital field will always perform either better or worse than they would in a true sim situation (based on the user's stick skills). That's why I love the new QB auto-throw. I look forward to finding an online dynasty using it; then the games will be decided purely by football strategy and not lag or finger reflexes.

I dont think it has anything to do with how weak or strong teams are. We saw Florida run that shuffle pass to the TE at least 5 or 6 times against OU in the NC game and they didnt stop it once. GT ran the same 5 option plays all season long for the most part and they were rarely stopped. Tebow has run that silly jump pass a ton of times and I cant remember seeing a team really stop it. So just because a team knows its coming doesnt mean they can stop it, even if they do have a good defense.

You can call a perfect play, sometimes the players dont do their job. Playcalling is a big part of it but lets be honest, Florida, OU, UT, OSU, LSU, USC arent in the top 10 every year because they call the best plays, they have the best players and talent wins more often then not in college football, over playcalling. I dont think Steve Spurrier has become a bad playcaller, he just doesnt have the horses he was used to getting at UF. Playcalling is more important on the pro level than college, because every team is talented and the margin of talent from team to team is mush smaller.

[GetYaWeigtUp]

Quote: Originally Posted by jdrhammer

True. Sometimes people just suck but 09 is so screwed up and has so many flaws that you'll exploit them on accident. Hopefully this adaptive AI will settle sim play, or help.

+1

When the gameplay isnt sim, who is to blame, Gamers or the makers? It show as hell aint me!

[Moostache]

Quote: Originally Posted by WolverinesFinest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxNMM...eature=related Is he cheesing or not sim? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1Msw...eature=related is this lack of AI? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUx9ix-CxbM speaks for itself... My point is like it or not when people cheese it's not to far from reality or the goal of "sim", im not saying I like it just being honest. For the guy that said running the widlcat for 3 possessions or something is cheese; watch the michael vick game vs the vikings from like 03(not sure about the year). The whole 4th quarter he basically dropped back and ran almsot every 3 plays. If that happened in the game I bet you would call that "not sim" as well.

Its a little unfair to ONLY show the plays that are highlight reels!

With Vick, there was the 53% career completion percentage to contend with....kind of made him a real liability if you were down and needed to pass! In the games, because you could hurry to the line and the clock never ran off enough time between plays, this was further masked in Madden when people LOVED using Vick...but honesty, the guy was a bottom third QB when he played and he was as affective as Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl!

With Bush, no doubt in college he was a freak...but in his pro career he is a bit more ordinary and injury prone. He has gamebreaker potential, but he has a career 3.7 ypc average! Additionally, in the NFL, he has 20 career TDs in 38 games...not exactly threatening Jim Brown or Walter Payton or Jerry Rice or Emmitt Smith for career TDs...

Greg Jones is averaging 3.4 ypc for his NFL career...but yeah, he did have a couple of great runs in his life...but they are the EXCEPTION, not the RULE!

The same thing holds for the game in terms of what I consider "sim" or "cheese". The game itself is NEVER going to be sim because it is programmed and cannot adapt other than the one person controlling a player at a time - there is some hope with "adaptive AI", but honestly, we have heard THAT before. When I am able to manually coach up my players and halt something like the Wildcat via in-game strategic adjustments, then fine..****n it as much as you want...but only when there is an adequate counter move available.

There are a few things that I simply HATE (and consider them "cheese"), but they are not against the rules and you could try to say they are "sim" all day and I won't hear ya!

1) No-huddle offense on incomplete pass...the entire point of the hurry-up offense is to conserve clock or limit defensive subs...it is NOT to see what the defense is in (from the "god" camera angle / Offensive Coordinator view) and then IMMEDIATELY call the SAME play off an incompletion (just because you saw that the FS was out of position and threw to the wrong guy the first time)...VERDICT? ---> CHEDDAR!

2) Refusing to punt the ball in obvious punting situations...I had a guy going fo it on 4th and 32 from his own 12 yard line...on the opening drive of the game! When I paused and messaged "?", his reply was "I do not punt"...of course, he DOES quit...which was done before half time. There is NOTHING "sim" about this style of player and while there are times in games that going for it on 4th down IS OK or even the only "sim" thing to do...that is not a one size fits all label! VERDICT --> SWISS!

3) Going for 2-point conversion on EVERY score...again just like going for it on 4th downs, this is situationally "sim" but universally it is NOT sim to do all the time! VERDICT --> LIMBURGER!

People do not do these things for strategic advantages, they do them because they exploiut the game's AI and provide an artificial and unrealistic advantage. Sure, in reall life, IF you could do it, there are coaches who WOULD (Leach is certainly one that comes to mind), but the fact is that using tactics only because they break the AI is, was and always will be 100% CHEESE.

[GoBlue10]

amen brother

[Captain Mallow]

Quote: Originally Posted by GetYaWeigtUp

I dont think it has anything to do with how weak or strong teams are. We saw Florida run that shuffle pass to the TE at least 5 or 6 times against OU in the NC game and they didnt stop it once. GT ran the same 5 option plays all season long for the most part and they were rarely stopped. Tebow has run that silly jump pass a ton of times and I cant remember seeing a team really stop it. So just because a team knows its coming doesnt mean they can stop it, even if they do have a good defense. You can call a perfect play, sometimes the players dont do their job. Playcalling is a big part of it but lets be honest, Florida, OU, UT, OSU, LSU, USC arent in the top 10 every year because they call the best plays, they have the best players and talent wins more often then not in college football, over playcalling. I dont think Steve Spurrier has become a bad playcaller, he just doesnt have the horses he was used to getting at UF. Playcalling is more important on the pro level than college, because every team is talented and the margin of talent from team to team is mush smaller.

When talent is within the same universe, coaching (playcalling) wins the day. Of course it depends on what you mean by 'talent', but as Coach Bum Phillips once said, 'coaching is beating his with yours then turning around and beating yours with his'. Florida underperformed with strong talent until Myer got there and instituted a clever offensive system. Mike Leach is the Dr. Frankenstein of football; he runs a rather clever offense, not merely the same play over and over. Take Leach and put him at Miami and the Hurricanes are in the title hunt the past five years instead of hoping for a third tier bowl game on the smurf turf.

History is full of weaker teams upsetting better teams with clever preparation and play calling.

To put a finer point on this sim vs not-sim thing, if a play is working in a college football video game because of the programming (glitch, quirk, or shortcoming) then that's NOT simming. If it's working time and time again because one team has better blockers and RBs than the defense has defenders, then it reflects a certain level of realism.

But as long as there is physical human input (controllers) into how the players react on the video field, then it will never truly be sim.

Here is how I view "sim"
- If you exploit the game in any way, you are not sim.

I think it is as easy as that.