Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

[SonicZulu25]

<o></o>Let me start by saying that I am a pretty hardcore franchise madden player. The last true franchise that I played was in 2005 which lasted 28 seasons. For this madden I have been so unhappy with the sim stats, I decided to see how accurate CPU vs CPU could be while using my own team within a 32 controlled team franchise. Like many others, I control every aspect and have every game play out. None of the games are simmed.
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Now, I am not perfectly happy with all of my stats but I enjoy this just the same. I fully realize that this is only a game and that it wont be perfect. I have played out well over 100 games and have compared various stats to real life stats. For the most part this does really well.
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Although I play my own games with my team (and sometimes other teams), I will not post my player vs CPU sliders as I find that mine work for me but are sliders arensuited to peoples own play styles and skill level.
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First I will post my CPU vs CPU sliders. I welcome feedback to help improve the stats but remember not to base 2 or 3 games worth of stats as a final conclusion. My main reason for posting is to get feedback in order to perfect these sliders.
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Gameplay Speed – Slow
Threshold –60
Qtr Minutes – 14
Acc Clock run-off – 25
Fatigue -100
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Passing:<o></o>
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QB Acc 0
Pass Blk 0
Catch 0
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Rushing:<o></o>
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Brk Tack 30
Run Blk 100
Fumbles 40
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Pass D:<o></o>
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Reac Time 40
Int’s 0
Pass Rush 0
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Rush D:<o></o>
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Reac Time 5
Blk Shed 5
Tackling 37
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Spec Teams:<o></o>
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FG Power 55
FG Acc 50
Punt Pw 100
Punt Acc 80
KO Power 60
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Penalty Sliders
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Everything at 100 except Holding-52, Facemask-62, and clipping-65
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Sub Out Sliders:
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QB 90/95 (as suggested by Gooma, seems to lower the INTs...not sure why though)
HB 65/85 (very touchy, I wouldn't go higher than this or lower than 60/80)
WR 45/60<o></o>
FB/TE 15/20<o></o>
OL 1/2
DT 60/80<o></o>
DE 60/80<o></o>
LB 40/50<o></o>
CB 30/40
S 30/40
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The sliders that I am now working with are the coaching scheme sliders. By now most people are aware that controlling all 32 teams and adjusting the aggression slider decreases the all out blitz’s. My biggest problem with the CPU vs CPU has to do with the insane amount of passing yards by the top QBs. I have been adjusting the Run/Pass coaching slider as required per team. Most teams right now are between 30 and 50. Even at 30 some teams are quick to abandon the run. I manipulate this slider constantly. They seem to go from anywhere between 0 and 50.
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In my franchise, I manipulate the Run/Pass slider if I notice that a team is either passing way too much or not running enough.

I look forward to feedback and debate.

[SonicZulu25]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

As stated before, I have had some problems and successes with my sliders. I have listed what I have noticed below.

Issues with Current Stats:<o></o>
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# of plays – I avg 120 plays per game.
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Sacks:
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1. One thing I always hear is that there are not enough sacks. I have yet to experience this. I think many do not realize that the avg number of sacks in a full game is approx 4 between two teams. I see an avg of approx 4 sacks per game. I lied here somewhat....i am getting 3.5 sacks per game which is quite off 4 sacks over time.
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2. Although the number of sacks is not a problem, the positions that seem to dominate the sack numbers are. DTs seem to get too many compared to DE’s and 3-4 OLBs. CBs also seem to get more than their fair share. However, for the most part I am satisfied.
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3. Even if I wanted to get more sacks, I have the sliders maxed in the areas involved in getting more sacks. I actually have the Pass Rush slider at 0 but it seemed to work better than when at 100 with these same sliders.
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4. One thing I notice is that the good O-Lines seem to protect the QB better than the bad ones. This works well. Teams like TB, Det, and Cle are the worst and Ari, Ind and NE are some of the better teams. TB has given up 34 sacks and Ari has only given up 4.
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Tackles:
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1. The tackle stats seem to be reasonable but you have to add the solos and assists. Minor point for me but may be an issue for others.
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2. The right positions and right players seem to dominate here. MLBs are dominating here as they should. There are some OLBs and Safeties in the mix near the top though.
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Passing Yards
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1. Currently in my chise, I have 5 QBs on pace for 5000 yards plus (In my new chise I only have 2 on pace for 5000). My goal is to have the team passing yardage per game to be 215-230. Right now, I am probably closer to 260. This is still a problem. Now I am probably around 240-245 yds/game...still a problem but not nearly as bad.
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2. As stated before, I am using the coaching scheme sliders to manipulate how much the teams run and pass. For now this is working somewhat with limited success. As I do more testing, I will post what I find. The sliders here seem to work for many teams but for the passing type teams it does not seem to have much influence. Teams like HOU, IND and ARI still seem to want to pass. Although this represents reality it still skews the numbers.
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Ints vs Passer Rating:
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1. Ints have been a big issue in getting the proper stats. The higher the Pass Reaction Time, the higher the Ints. The only time that I seem to get a reasonable amount of Ints is when I lower the Reaction time between 30 and 35. The problem is that the passer ratings for QBs sky rockets. My goal is to have it so that the avg # of ints per game is somewhere less than 2. The team avg is 1.3 Ints per game. This is a reduction over time and think that I am probably getting about 1.1 ints per game on avg for each team. INTs were a real problem in my new chise, but once I raised the auto-sub sliders for the QBs, this seemed to drop. I was at 1.4 but am probably closer to 1.1-1.2 now.

I actually bench QBs with high INT #s. I have a formula that I use that ensures that QBs are benched so many games for poor performance over a series of games. With some micro management of the 32 teams, there are many ways to do this.
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2. I have done enough manipulation with the passing and pass D sliders that I will live with the high ratings and pass yards. Now I manipulate the Ints somewhat with the Coaching Scheme sliders by lowering the Run Pass slider. The less a team throws the ball, the less picks they will have.
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3. The guys getting the Ints seem to be the right guys. However there still seem to be many MLB picks. But I can live with this.
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Pass Acc:
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1. Completion % is a little on the high side but I can live with it. There are 4 players with % over 70 in my franchise (only 2 are over the 70% mark. The avg is around 62%). The only way that I can lower this is to raise the Pass D reac time. But this raises the Ints. I welcome any suggestions here.
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Avg Yds per Pass Att
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1. This is not too bad but a little on the high side as well. Only 2 are over 10 but there are quite a few averaging 9 yards per att. More than what I would want. This issue is similar to the Pass Acc. Other than increase Pass D reac time, I am not sure how to fix this.
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Rushing:
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1. The starting RBs look really good. After 6 seasons in a franchise, I have 16 guys that are on pace for 1000 yards with only 3 on pace for 1600. There are no issues with having 3 or 4 guys go over 2000. Actually, none seem to be headed that way. The numbers here seem really good. there are still only 16 guys on pace for 1K. Jacobs leads the league with 1008 in 9 games. Peterson is second with 800 in 8. There are only 3 guys with avgs over 5. One of which is my own user controlled back. The highest number is 5.7, and the good backs seem to be around 4.5 with the numbers tailing off from there.
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2. The issue that I have is that the team rushing numbers are too low. I would like for the avg team to avg approx 110 yards per game. Right now I am at 90. I continue to try and change the coaching scheme sliders to make teams more run oriented. I need to do more testing here. This seems fixed now. Team rushing is good, the backups get a lot of carries. The original sub sliders that I posted were a fix to this problem. In a recent game I saw, ATL went into OT and won with only 2:25 remaining. Turner carried 20 times, with Norwood having 25, and Haynes having 6. The odd thing was that the next game Turner had 29 carries. Now it is not uncommon to have the starting back have 20+ carries and have the backup have 10 for the running teams. The pass happy teams hardly use the backups.
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3. Another problem is that the backup RBs seem to get very few carries even with the fatigue sliders set the way they are. I still need to work on this. Again, this is no longer a problem. I do sometimes sub out RBs between games to give the backups a chance to get some serious carries (eg. Jonathan Stewart or Mendenhall)
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Receiving:
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1. I have few issues here but agree with some that the slot receivers can often get too much attention. However, it depends upon the team and their playbook. Eg. Wes Welker and Randy Moss are numbers 1 and 3 respectively in both receptions and receiving yards in my chise.
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Fumbles:
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1. I am happy with these and don’t plan on changing this number.
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Field Goals:
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1. Except for missing the easy FGs, the numbers here (including %) seem good. This one is wierd. It seems that as soon as I changed the threshold slider that kickers could not kick anything over 40 yds. This was not the case prior. I had to up the sliders here. This completely went away with the sliders that I have posted.
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Punting:
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1. The punt avg seems too low. The avg punter in my chise avgs about 35yards. This is mainly due to the large number of botched punts. Maybe I just need to raise the acc or power. Although this seems minor, it does increase the amount of points that teams can get. Fixed.
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Pancakes:
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1. This issue is here too. There are virtually no OL pancakes. I see no fix here. Not getting pancakes is not an issue for me (at least not yet). The top guys are still getting voted in to the pro bowl and are considered the top OL in the awards section. Guys like Mangold, Faneca, Mankins, J. Thomas, J. Long are some of these guys. There seem to be no one who i shake my head at here.
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Points Scored:
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1. My goal here is to have an avg of total points between the two teams to be around 45-50. It is slightly higher than this but it is close. Right now my avg is about 53 points per game. This has improved greatly. I now get 51 pts per game. Considering that my stats are combined with old and newer sliders, I suspect that my avg is now in the high 40's. This is far better since the avg teams seem to get about 22 pts/game. Still a little high though.
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Penalties:
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1. I have not really looked at these but they seem ok. I need to do more analysis here. I get 3.5 penalties for 35 yards per game which is a little on the low side.
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Injuries:
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1. For those of you that do not know, injuries are non existent in CPU vs CPU. Since I run a chise, I simulate my own injuries. As long as a player is removed from the positions that can play in a game, they wont play. For example, if you take a WR out of the top 6 WR positions, then he will not play WR or any position on special teams. Be sure to take him out of KR and PR positions too. I have yet to see a player play that I have removed.
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2. I suggest determining the injuries by simming the week and using the injuries found in that week. Unfortunately, you will have to still manually take the injured players out of the lineups. Its not perfect but it seems to generate some good random injuries.
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In General:
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1. Star players remain the star players in the statistical categories. It is obvious that the ratings mean something for most positions. Players like Moss, Peterson, Brady, and the Mannings seem to do well. On defense there seems to be some more randomness but for the most part the good players seem to rise near the top of the stat categories.
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2. The good teams seem to play well but there seems to be much more parity between the teams. After six weeks there is only one team that is undefeated but 5 others have only one loss.
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3. Whatever your opinions are on the quality of the CPU vs CPU stats, they beat the crap out of the sim stats….assuming you have the patience to play them all out.

[sascgs]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

Thanks for all of your work on these. I just can't get over there be no injuries in CPU vs. CPU games.

[SonicZulu25]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

After quite a bit more testing in my ongoing franchise, I have posted my findings above in bold.

Some new issues have arrive. After seeing MI88's sliders, it queued me to play with the Threshold slider. This helped with TEs dominating the pass game. now the slower TEs get tackled more quickly. This has helped the pass game a little. It has created some other issues though, such as KR Td's and Def scores and it helps the flats.

I will post again in time when I get another good sampling of games in. I am now at the 10th week of my chise and I only control one team as the user.

[johnriii]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

I will definitely have to try these later this evening, they look quite interesting. it's good to see someone working on sliders for the CPU vs CPU players. thanx for your work on these.

[SonicZulu25]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

I will definitely have to try these later this evening, they look quite interesting. it's good to see someone working on sliders for the CPU vs CPU players. thanx for your work on these.

No problem at all. Laying it out for others to see helps me organize my changes.

After trying MI88's sliders for a bit (only tried 6 games but they seem ok.....I would give them a shot too) I changed my user sliders all to 0. After I changed them back to play a user controlled game, I went back to my old sliders. The first thing that I noticed was that the FG distances were back.....actually too much. I can only equate it to the change in player sliders. There was also some whacky issues with my pass game that may have been attributed to me not changing back my player sliders.

Note to MI88: I was not using the second controller when I noticed this change. Any idea what player slider may have caused this change to the FG length?

Anyway, I am trying to get another good sampling in and then I will update my sliders but I also think that I will throw in my own player sliders as I think MI88 is right in that they play some role in the play of CPU vs CPU (NOTE: This is not coach mode that I am talking about).

The real thing that I am continuing to do is changing the run/pass sliders every game to help manipulate the stats.

[johnriii]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

ok, here are my stats with your sliders from my first game. the only difference is the time of play (12 mins). overall, I thought this was the best game I've run so far.

Jets 27 Bears 14

m. sanchez 22-26 246 yards 0td 0 int
J. Cutler 9-17 199 yards 2td 1int

Thomas Jones 23 car 86 yards 1 td
M. Forte 12 car 41 yards 0 TD

those are really the only stats worth posting, as this was really a defensive battle all the way. the Jets kept the ball away from the bears with a bunch dink and dunk passes and running the ball. the Bears had 3 sacks, the Jets had 2, with tons of hurries for both teams. Cutler's INT came from serious pressure from a jets LB, and he threw it right to another Jet. Sanchez also scrambled around a lot, running for 26 yards. hopefully, i will post another game tonight, but i will adjust my gameplay time to 14 minutes.

[johnriii]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

bears 44 lions 28

passing
Matt Stafford 23-34 417 yards 3td 1int
Jay cutler 21-27 368 yards 3td 1 int

rushing
matt forte 22/79 yards 1 td
kevin smith 17/60 yards 2fumbles

receiving (bears)
Earl Bennett 7/143 1td
Devin hester 4/94 1td
Greg Olsen 3/27

receiving (lions)
Calvin Johnson 6/101 1td
Derrick Williams 5/125
Brandon pettigrew 3/53

as you can see, this was an offensive explosion, but it didn't happen until the last half of the 3rd quarter into the 4th. two bears TD were direct results of lion turnovers, including a sack, fumble and scooped up ball returned by Gilbert for a TD! even though this was a high scoring game, I'm encouraged by the balance these sliders seem to show so far.

[TheBrew101]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

When you do this, do you use the "spectate mode"?

I started messing around with this a few days ago when starting a new franchise. I used Bill'sV3 sliders and played the Packers game but for every other game on the schedule, I went to play it and then moved my joystick to the middle and then there is what is called "spectate mode".

The stats after one week were actually pretty good I think and it was kind of cool to see how the games played out when the computer actually played. I don't have a big enough sample size to see if the stats are good or not but they look to be pretty diverse after 1 week. I think I was getting a tad too many plays though using spectate mode, 11 min quarters, 15 second run-off (the CPU tends to calls plays quickly in this mode).

Anyway, I was wondering if that is what you were doing or if there was another CPU vs CPU mode.

[SonicZulu25]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

When you do this, do you use the "spectate mode"?

I started messing around with this a few days ago when starting a new franchise. I used Bill'sV3 sliders and played the Packers game but for every other game on the schedule, I went to play it and then moved my joystick to the middle and then there is what is called "spectate mode".

The stats after one week were actually pretty good I think and it was kind of cool to see how the games played out when the computer actually played. I don't have a big enough sample size to see if the stats are good or not but they look to be pretty diverse after 1 week. I think I was getting a tad too many plays though using spectate mode, 11 min quarters, 15 second run-off (the CPU tends to calls plays quickly in this mode).

Anyway, I was wondering if that is what you were doing or if there was another CPU vs CPU mode.

Yeah....it is the spectate mode. About the amount of plays though, I find for me with the way I typically have my coaching sliders, the 14 min with 25 sec run-off gets the 120 play avg per game.

[SonicZulu25]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

bears 44 lions 28

passing
Matt Stafford 23-34 417 yards 3td 1int
Jay cutler 21-27 368 yards 3td 1 int

rushing
matt forte 22/79 yards 1 td
kevin smith 17/60 yards 2fumbles

receiving (bears)
Earl Bennett 7/143 1td
Devin hester 4/94 1td
Greg Olsen 3/27

receiving (lions)
Calvin Johnson 6/101 1td
Derrick Williams 5/125
Brandon pettigrew 3/53

as you can see, this was an offensive explosion, but it didn't happen until the last half of the 3rd quarter into the 4th. two bears TD were direct results of lion turnovers, including a sack, fumble and scooped up ball returned by Gilbert for a TD! even though this was a high scoring game, I'm encouraged by the balance these sliders seem to show so far.

The high pass numbers that you have happen too often for me. But you will notice that certain teams will keep their balance. eg. the cowboys. I actually have the coaching rush pass slider set to 0 for some teams and still get high pass numbers. I am averaging 255 team pass yards per game but this number includes the old coaching sliders from early in my season. I think I am probably closer to 245-250.

[johnriii]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

I think I can handle the occasional explosion of offense. if you noticed, my first game had a pretty good balance, and it was a low scoring game. one thing I did notice, as it seems with all madden games from the past, was that after the two minute warning, whoever has the ball on offense has a chance to score. it's like the defense gets really, really bad with two minutes to go....I will run a couple more games tomorrow evening and post those stats.

[johnriii]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

Bears 27 Dolphins 23

passing
Chad Pennington 24-37 304 yards 1td 1int
Jay Cutler 18-22 286 yards 2td 1int

rushing
Matt Forte 23car 74 yards
Ronnie Brown 16 car 55yards

receiving
anthony fasano 7 for 84 yards
C. Davis 4 for 33 yards

J. Iglesias 4 for 108
E. Bennett 4 for 68 1td
D. hester 4 for 62 1td 1 rush 46yards 1td

1 sack this game between the two teams. Dolphins had almost twice the possession time the bears had, with a bunch of dink passes and running out of the wildcat. I haven't touched the sliders since I began, I will run one more game before I make changes, if any.
D. Hester 4 for 62 1td

[SonicZulu25]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

Bears 27 Dolphins 23

passing
Chad Pennington 24-37 304 yards 1td 1int
Jay Cutler 18-22 286 yards 2td 1int

rushing
Matt Forte 23car 74 yards
Ronnie Brown 16 car 55yards

receiving
anthony fasano 7 for 84 yards
C. Davis 4 for 33 yards

J. Iglesias 4 for 108
E. Bennett 4 for 68 1td
D. hester 4 for 62 1td 1 rush 46yards 1td

1 sack this game between the two teams. Dolphins had almost twice the possession time the bears had, with a bunch of dink passes and running out of the wildcat. I haven't touched the sliders since I began, I will run one more game before I make changes, if any.
D. Hester 4 for 62 1td

What are your coaching sliders set at? They make a difference too. At least with the pass vs rush attempts..

Whatever you do change, let me know as it may help me out too.

I plan on submitting my updated sliders in a few days. I am trying to get another good sample size before I do.

Thanks for your feedback with the stats.

[SonicZulu25]

Re: Sonic's CPU vs CPU Sliders

I have been going through the last 3 weeks of my chise to see if the changes in my sliders have been different from the first six weeks. It appears that my passing yds have come way down. Still not perfect though. The Ints are the problem. I am currently playing with the sliders that MI88 provided along with testing out the rest of the player sliders to see how they affect the mechanics of the game.

This will slow me down a bit as I do not plan to provide my updated sliders (including coaching sliders) until I finish the next 2 weeks of my franchise. I hate reacting to 1 or 2 games. But this may take me awhile as I am doing the other testing with the player sliders as they definitely have an impact.