RFF's M21 32-man CFM USER v USER Sliders

[Aestis]

I've finally posted my first official sliders in OP. I've marked the 'changes' below for those who've been following along with the unofficial set we started with.

Notes:
- Gameplay is not in a good place yet, candidly. But posting these because after 2 weeks & 31 full user games worth of data, it sure as hell beats default!
- Run game is still massively OP. Hoping these latest settings bring it back down to earth. I'm legitimately anticipating 30 not being low enough.
- Pass game has been OP. Can't do much more with coverage, it is what it is. Can't do much about pass rush being massively slow, it's already at 0. I've tweaked accuracy & catching down to help.

As you can tell from my tone... offense is a problem. The key reason is pass rush. It's just too slow, QBs have too much time in pocket, sack rate is lower than NFL levels despite our QBs throwing it 33% *deeper* in the air and completing a higher % of passes than the dink-n-dunk NFL style offense. I will do everything I can with sliders, but sliders don't change the game.

Here's current set as we enter week 3. Will post further adjustments in a few days:

[Aestis]

As expected, running still very high at 30 RBK (median team averaged 4.6 ypc vs target of ~4.1 median in a given week).

Runs of 20+ yards were about on par with NFL target (2.5%), so don't think tackling is the problem.

Hopefully the modification below gets us close. Pretty crazy that RBK is this low, by far lowest I've ever had it in previous years. Changes highlighted in yellow, OP updated as well:

[Chin2112]

Hi Aestis,

Thank you for putting in the time to share your sliders with us, the league I'm in always uses them as a base and it's extremely helpful for us.

I do have a question though, have you noticed issues with punting and punt lengths in particular. I've done some research and here are my results

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Compared to the 2019 season our punts are shorter on average in every catagory

https://www.footballdb.com/statistic...9?sort=puntnet

I was just wondering if this was something you was planning to change and if not I thought i'd just share my findings to let you know.

Thanks!

[Aestis]

Quote: Originally Posted by Chin2112

Hi Aestis, Thank you for putting in the time to share your sliders with us, the league I'm in always uses them as a base and it's extremely helpful for us. I do have a question though, have you noticed issues with punting and punt lengths in particular. I've done some research and here are my results https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing Compared to the 2019 season our punts are shorter on average in every catagory https://www.footballdb.com/statistic...9?sort=puntnet I was just wondering if this was something you was planning to change and if not I thought i'd just share my findings to let you know. Thanks!

Good catch, and yes! It's coming in the next update, I just don't like to make slider adjustments mid-week for us to avoid cluttering data.

Our median Net Punt Avg is 37, whereas NFL target is 41.25

Additional context, our median Inside 20 % is 29%, whereas NFL target is 39%. So, punt power will be going up and we'll find the sweet spot over the next few adjustments. We've had Punt POW at 49-50 the past couple of cycles and net avg has been right on point, so this change surprised me.

I'll bump it up to 55 next week and see how that affects the data.



Happily, this is also one of those "under the hood" adjustments that reduces offensive scoring on the margins... my set has a handful of these 'minor' benchmarks baked in which seem by themselves fairly trivial. Like, who cares about 4 punt yards, right? But across a lot of punts, it matters. Teams are backed up more = even with the same level of passing+running offense, you get more drives that end in a FG instead of a TD or a punt instead of a FG. That might be 1 ppg shaved off the top right there when gameplay is too offensive.

[Aestis]

OK so good news, run game finally looking pretty close at RBK 15 in the previous update. Median YPC was 4.02, target is 4.1. Ultra close and even a hair low. There's some variance week to week, so we'll leave it as is for now and see how it goes.

Scoring & passing game still too strong. Looking for ways to impact this on the margins. Previously mentioned buff to punt power included here which hopefully will reduce scoring every so slightly. This slider is historically pretty sensitive so we'll see what 55 looks like.

Fumbles Lost % is too low. I suspect this is mostly because sack rate is low (strip/sacks are one of the top sources of fumbles lost). So we don't want to drop the FUM slider too far and make up the diff with RBs suddenly being too loosey goosey. But, it came down a couple of pts.

OP updated & changes highlighted in yellow.

[Aestis]

Handful of adjustments... still have not reached ideal gameplay but getting closer each week:

- Run game was too strong again this week at RBK 15, so dropping it slightly. The 4.02 YPC was clearly on the lower side of the range. To elaborate on that: you will see variance in weekly medians, especially as Bye weeks & a few simmed games reduce the teams playing each week from the full 32 down to ~24. What I'm looking for is a range from high 3s to low/mid 4s. The centerpoint for median YPC is 4.1, but again you will see variance.

- Passing still too strong, in particular deep passing. Accuracy bumps down slightly but will keep an eye on this one when watching games to make sure the random off-target throws doesn't get too obnoxious.

- Fumbles recovered rate was still low despite sacks/pressure popping up this week, so it's not just a 'low sacks' problem. Slider drops.

- FG% is looking high a few weeks in, both in total FG% and in 50+ yd FG%. Accuracy coming down.

- The increase to Punt Power did bump our Net Punt Yds by about +2, but still a couple yards shy of target. Getting another similar increase this week.

- Disabled Roughing the Kicker. It gets called too often and leads to a few extra TDs more than we want. Given offense is a problem right now, this is a minor sacrificial lamb. I don't ever love turning off penalties, but this is an ON/OFF switch and imo ON is currently more unrealistic than OFF.


OP updated with current set & as always, changes highlighted in yellow below:

[Aestis]

Giving our most recent set a 2nd game-week for more robust sample, but most likely RBK is headed to 0 soon.

[Aestis]

Slider update heading into our week 8. Things are getting closer, bit by bit, by finding defensive 'wins' along the margins. It's tough this year, lol.

Run game as previously mentioned was still high even at 10.

Fumble lost rate went up too much when we dropped from 45 to 40, so giving that a few points for what is clearly a sensitive slider.

FG% is still too high. I generally am paying close attention to the 50+ FGs here, as Madden users attempt more and longer 50+ yd FGs than NFL. Target there is around 58%.

Penalties--giving Holding a small bump as it's not been too high and that's a small nerf to offense on the margins. Lowering PI a smidge. This is less due to it being too low in a vacuum and just looking for another 'margin' way to slightly reduce some of the downfield offensive gains due to DPI.

Changes highlighted in yellow. I've also included a few visuals of where we are with a couple of key metrics vs NFL targets at the bottom:




Total Snaps. Very cool to see these stats are from bona fide NFL-length games now. ~63 off snaps per team vs NFL target of 63.5 Keep this in mind always when looking at scores & stats from other sets/games. Scoring may look lower, but how many snaps are they taking?


Net Yds per Dropback . This means it's taking sacks as well as the negative yardage from sacks into consideration. Yds per Att and comp% are heavily dependent on decision-making and aggressiveness, and humans differ greatly from NFL there. But Net Yds per Dropback represents the true trade-off of outcomes (e.g. stay in pocket longer, throw downfield more, but lower comp% and more sacks). This is one of the stats that should not "lie," and it's still high.


Yds per Carry. Self-explanatory. There will be variance week to week here but we want medians to fall into the 3.8-4.3 range (4.1 midpoint), with a few rare outliers in the 3.5-3.8 and 4.3-4.5 ranges.


3rd Down Conversion. This can be a result of a lot of things, but it's a really critical metric to make sure is balanced. If it's too high or too low, drives are far too easy or tough to sustain. NFL target is 38.9% and we were finally within 0.5% in week 7 after running a bit high most of the season. Hopefully that continues. Given Madden player's tendency toward downfield aggressiveness, this one we really don't want higher than NFL. At or below is generally what we'd expect to see.


Recovered Fumble Rate. This is % of snaps where a fumble turnover occurs. You can see what happened when we lowered to 40 in week 6. Went a bit too far there. Higher slider = fewer fumbles.


Net Punt Avg. You can see what happened when we bumped to 55 in week 5 and then up to 60 in week 6. May end up coming down to ~58-59 but will leave this at 60 for another week or two to get a higher sample size. Target here is 41.5. Week 6 was a tad high but week 7 on point, so just need a couple more weeks to get a more precise # across 3-5 weeks.