Best way to improve your CPU offense?

[ganggang]

What is the best way to make sure your team's offense is playing well when simming? I play as the defensive coordinator so I only control the defense during games and sim the offense. 8 minutes quarter and for some reason my offense can't produce points or any type of offense. I play as the Colts and have rebuilt the o-line and WR corps and even added a younger and better RB to compliment Andrew Luck. My offense is supposed to be a higher overall than my defense yet my defense is forced to produce shut outs or create turnovers/points to make sure my offense can actually do something. I've tweaked with user sliders but that doesn't do anything which makes sense.

Can anyone help me find a way to have my offense score or create offense when they are being simmed.

[ParaAut]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

Can you give us some stats, so it is easier to judge what is not working? Yearly stats would be a start...

Yards for your RB? Maybe 2nd RB too?
Yards for your Top3 WR's?
Yards for your QB?
Yards for your TE? (in my experience a huge factor for the offense)

In my experience I have a good offense if I get about 4500 yards with my QB, in this case there are 2-3 WR (or TE) above or close to 1000 rec. yards. If you RB has 1300+ yards rushing and 10+ TD's, then your offense should be good enough.

I would expect your offense with Luck is more focused on passing, so the passing numbers should be there of course.

[SpyPirates]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

Agree with ParaAut, need more stats, also maybe a starting lineup with each player's OVR.

My team is 99 offense, 97 defense, and wins almost all simmed games (many of them offensive blowouts), so CPU offenses can be explosive. I have even noticed that fast players are more likely to break big plays. I have a backup QB who is high 80s acc, low 80s speed, and he has broken big 50+ yard runs on multiple occasions. Also have a 98 spd RB who breaks big plays.

This might infringe on your rules of only being the DC, but I would also point out that CPU offenses use the game plan from your offensive playbook, which by default is fairly run heavy and conservative. So you could try tweaking run/pass balance since it sounds like you have a good passing attack.

Other than that, I'll wait to see if you want to post any stats for us to look over.

[ganggang]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

Alright so I'll post some stats from the last full season, these should give you guys an idea of what I'm working with.

Also for some reason my offense is really run heavy. It was this way with Colts playbook so I changed it around to teams that throw a lot Packers Steelers etc yet it is still the same. I left my offense on Steelers and haven't touched it since, maybe the playbook is an issue but all playbooks I've tried love the run.

Andrew Luck 89 OVR: 2909 yards, 20 touchdowns, 7 INT
RBs split between 2, my starter (73) was terrible so switched to different RB at end of the season (79), 73 and 79 OVR: Combined about 1450 yards, 17 TDs
WRs 92, 82, 80 OVR, No 1000 yard WR, TY had 708 yds 5 TDS, another WR- 763 YDs 4 TDs, last one had 716 yds 7 tds.
TE: Ladarious Green around 82 OVR then regression at end of year: 382 yards 3 TDS.
O-line gave up 36 sacks last year which was a lot.

This year is worst as Andrew Luck already has thrown 7 INTs half way into the year although he is 1000 yds and 12 TDs short of tying last years.
New RB has been better with 4.1 AVG per carry, he was injured but he's a good starting RB for now until I draft one this off season.
None of the WRs really stand out as most of them are similar to each other in terms of amount of yards and TDs. They're all around 400 yards right now.

Offseason pickups I made last season:
Dropped 2 WRs except for TY and drafted 2 to replace them. Dropped Green and traded for Hunter Henry. Traded for Conklin and drafted a stud OG in the 4th round.

The new WRs overalls are lower OVR due to awareness and stuff but their actual catching stats are really nice. Henry is having a larger impact than Green was last year which is a good sign. Sacks are still being given up for some reason. Conklin has given up the most despite being the highest overall by far. Center, Ryan Kelly has given up none while Mewhort has given up 1 so far. All other offensive lineman are struggling.

I know my offense's OVR isn't impressive by any means and they do have holes in them. I try not to cheat the trade system and I try to make fair trades whenever I make them. My defense plays very well but it's hard for my offense to perform.

I have tweaked with user sliders such as pass blocking for offense but it makes sense that they aren't working. I haven't touched CPU settings except for pass blocking so defensive players can get sacks and keep up with how CPU players get sacks.

[TexInOrd]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

Alright so I'll post some stats from the last full season, these should give you guys an idea of what I'm working with.

Also for some reason my offense is really run heavy. It was this way with Colts playbook so I changed it around to teams that throw a lot Packers Steelers etc yet it is still the same. I left my offense on Steelers and haven't touched it since, maybe the playbook is an issue but all playbooks I've tried love the run.

Andrew Luck 89 OVR: 2909 yards, 20 touchdowns, 7 INT
RBs split between 2, my starter (73) was terrible so switched to different RB at end of the season (79), 73 and 79 OVR: Combined about 1450 yards, 17 TDs
WRs 92, 82, 80 OVR, No 1000 yard WR, TY had 708 yds 5 TDS, another WR- 763 YDs 4 TDs, last one had 716 yds 7 tds.
TE: Ladarious Green around 82 OVR then regression at end of year: 382 yards 3 TDS.
O-line gave up 36 sacks last year which was a lot.

This year is worst as Andrew Luck already has thrown 7 INTs half way into the year although he is 1000 yds and 12 TDs short of tying last years.
New RB has been better with 4.1 AVG per carry, he was injured but he's a good starting RB for now until I draft one this off season.
None of the WRs really stand out as most of them are similar to each other in terms of amount of yards and TDs. They're all around 400 yards right now.

Offseason pickups I made last season:
Dropped 2 WRs except for TY and drafted 2 to replace them. Dropped Green and traded for Hunter Henry. Traded for Conklin and drafted a stud OG in the 4th round.

The new WRs overalls are lower OVR due to awareness and stuff but their actual catching stats are really nice. Henry is having a larger impact than Green was last year which is a good sign. Sacks are still being given up for some reason. Conklin has given up the most despite being the highest overall by far. Center, Ryan Kelly has given up none while Mewhort has given up 1 so far. All other offensive lineman are struggling.

I know my offense's OVR isn't impressive by any means and they do have holes in them. I try not to cheat the trade system and I try to make fair trades whenever I make them. My defense plays very well but it's hard for my offense to perform.

I have tweaked with user sliders such as pass blocking for offense but it makes sense that they aren't working. I haven't touched CPU settings except for pass blocking so defensive players can get sacks and keep up with how CPU players get sacks.

What playbook are you running?

I've found that when simming, the offensive playbook plays a huge role in stat output.

For instance:

Pass balanced with a good to elite qb gives me 4500-5500 yds and 30-50 td's.

Wr1 gets about 100 catches for 1300-1600 yds and double digit td's.

Wr2 gets around 1000 yards and 8-12 td's.

Wr3, who plays slot is heavily utilized in this playbook and gets about 95-100 balls and 1200-1500 yds. 12 td's or so.

Te gets about 850-1000 yds

Hb output varies from 1200-1700 yds and 500-700 yds receiving.

If I switch to a balanced playbook those stats plummet.

Try creating a save point and simming several season using different playbooks and see if it helps your output.

Disclaimer; this is for straight simming, not super simming. I don't know if that makes a difference.

[ParaAut]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

@SpyPirates: Do you play on Rookie? With your ratings you are far away from sim, so this is not comparable in any way. Of course you win all games with stat roster

@ganggang: The stats are indeed not very good, but you have to admit that the ratings are not very good either, so it's not too surprising that the offense does not perform.

I hate the out-of-the-box ratings, but a QB with 89 OVR is not very good. If you draft a QB, then he gets easily a OVR 90+ and is much better than Luck. It's stupid, but thats Madden unfortunately.

If you have a run heavy playbook and your best RB is below 80 OVR, then it gets difficult of course. But in general, 80 OVR for RB/WR is just average and much better is possible. So personnel wise, you can really improve your offense.

One additional aspect: If you defense is really great and you are playing with a lead, then your offense will run more. If your run is not successful, of course the offense will not perform. So with a great defense you should try to get a good run game to close the games.

[EricFreakingBerry]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

Like TexInOrd said, the most important sim engine factor is the playbook. Test different ones out, even ones that you don't typically like to run if you play a game. Also increase your offensive player's awareness with XP...I've noticed players with high awareness seem to perform better in sim than young rookie/low awareness players.

[ganggang]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

Thanks for all of your guys' responses and tips. I loaded up into a game and changed the playbook to pass balanced. The offense was a lot more productive and put up points on their own. Andrew Luck played well and I was pretty satisfied with the result. I didn't like how my running back only got 7 carries however so I'm going to try out the balanced playbook and maybe more after that.

[SpyPirates]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

@SpyPirates: Do you play on Rookie? With your ratings you are far away from sim, so this is not comparable in any way. Of course you win all games with stat roster

The difficulty is irrelevant (I play on All-Pro with Armor & Sword or default sliders), it's just how easy it is to build a good roster with how the AI values draft picks. I prefer the analytics-informed strategy of accruing draft picks, trading down, and trading into next year's draft, and this is the exact strategy that is OP in madden now. Using the trade down tool in the draft screen, you can reliably improve your draft picks by a full round by trading into the next year, and it's super inconvenient to manually make all those trades, so the draft picks just pile up and my team gets inevitably better. The ease of finding good players via the scouting system is also an issue.

@ OP - I think it's mostly a play selection issue. If you switch to a more pass-heavy playbook, either by editing your favorite playbook's gameplan or by switching to Pass Balanced like Texin suggested, that will go a long way. The run game in the sim engine is pretty strong IMO; a lot of 4-5 yard runs and not many stuffs, but with your O-Line and RB, you might not be having the same experience, so you could benefit a lot by forcing the sim engine to pass more.

I think you could also use a better second option. Either a better game-breaking HB or a WR2. I say this because I've noticed that sometimes my WR1 won't get as much action as I think he ought to, and this is maybe because the sim engine matches him against the other team's CB1, so if you have a tough matchup, your offense might stagnate. Another option will give you a chance to still move the ball without relying on one guy.

[ParaAut]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

The difficulty is irrelevant (I play on All-Pro with Armor & Sword or default sliders), it's just how easy it is to build a good roster with how the AI values draft picks. I prefer the analytics-informed strategy of accruing draft picks, trading down, and trading into next year's draft, and this is the exact strategy that is OP in madden now. Using the trade down tool in the draft screen, you can reliably improve your draft picks by a full round by trading into the next year, and it's super inconvenient to manually make all those trades, so the draft picks just pile up and my team gets inevitably better. The ease of finding good players via the scouting system is also an issue.

Yeah, maybe I have written it in a wrong way. If you cheat the CPU it's unfortunately too easy to get a completely overpowered team - but I lose the fun if I have 5 first-round picks each year. If you do the training with each team gold additionally, then the only questions is if you lose one game each season or not - boring!

But yeah, not a question of difficulty, that's true. More a question of setting house rules or not.

[ganggang]

Re: Best way to improve your CPU offense?

@ SpyPirates Yeah I tried pass balanced and was somewhat satisfied with it. Tried balanced playbook for a few games and I think I'm going to roll with that in the future. Offense played well and both my QB/WRs and RB got a lot of attempts/carries and yards. My offense is now improving and putting up points on their own without me needing to put them in good field position. Now, I just need to improve my offensive weapons like you said to make use out of what I already have. Thanks!