PS2 Troubles: Heisman Too Easy!!

[Village Idiot]

I've been playing the majority of my games with the CPU's defense sliders maxed, on Heisman. Having played an entire season that way with Michigan, and leading the nation in offense, I was beginning to suspect I still needed to bring down the human sliders some.

Last night I put together the hardest slider set I could think of that would still be fun enough so that my guys weren't running in slow motion. Something like this:

HUM OFFENSE:

QBA: 35
PB: 15
WRC: 50
RBA: 20
RBL: 15

CPU DEFENSE:

AWR: 99
KND: 99
INT: 15
BB: 99
TKL: 50

This is Heisman we're talking about. There's no excuse for me not to get my tail handed to me with sliders like that, right?

Well, I take a crappy (C+ overall) BYU team into TCU (B overall) and hang a 45 on them. Over 250 yards rushing, nearly 300 yards passing.

I would bring up the tackle slider (and have even played a handful of games with it also maxed) but that just means more hard hits and more fumbles, not necessarily better defense. Same is true of the INT slider: so I throw 5 INTs a game (supposing that would even happen); that's not better defense, that's stupid.

Seriously, I'm at a loss - because the game really can't get any harder than I already have it. What am I gonna do - make it so half my throws are garbage? Make it so the WR's drop half the passes? Make it so my RB's run at half-speed?

The bottom line is that the CPU defense just isn't very good.

Now before you hit me with the proverbial sarcasm talking about how great I must be, and how I 'must' be doing this or that for the game to be so easy, understand that I'm making this post in the first place because I think the problem is inherent: you'll all eventually experience the same thing, sooner or later. I'm a 'sim' guy, I don't cheese the CPU in the slightest. I call a very basic game: I run a lot, use my TE's a lot, and throw the deep ball maybe three or four times a game. I'm not some little kid who likes to see his QB's throw for 600 yards and have his team score 88 points. In fact, the whole idea behind maxing the defensive sliders was to get lower-scoring games ... and it's just not happening.

I'm into year two of my Dynasty with Michigan, and my non-conference schedule was #9 Tennessee, #11 Notre Dame, and a solid B Kansas State team.

I lost to Tennessee 27-13. Great, right? Well, the score was great, but I still have well over 400 yards of offense. Notre Dame I clubbed, 44-16. Kansas State, 45-20. Both the latter two could have been worse.

That's when I popped in the BYU-TCU game and the ridiculous sliders mentioned above. Another 45 points and 500+ yards of offense.

Short of imposing a bunch of house rules on myself, I'm out of ideas. If anyone's had a similar problem and figured out a solution, I'd love to hear about it.

Regards.

[Note: I'm being serious with my request for help, fellas. Please do not litter this thread with 'I play on AA and have great games' (irrelevant) and 'Wow, you're just too good' (not true) posts. This is a serious problem. I can't remember the last time I ran into a game that was just explicitly 'too easy' like this. And like I said, even if you don't agree with me now, I suspect you will sooner or later.]

[luckytroy64]

Agree

[pbtiger]

This may sound extremely dumb as I haven't tested it, but what if the defensive sliders worked opposite of what we think. Meaning a 0 would mean no adjustment to the in-game setting, whereas a 99 adjusts it substantially (offensively, I don't think this is the case because 0 QBA and 0 WRC don't give you much in the way of completions). I saw PM had some Heisman sliders with 0 KND and he noted the CPU defense still batted down passes in the game. I have been following your threads since I am trying to get a fun and challenging game on the PS2 as well, so I believe your are dead serious in your request.

[elprez98]

Have you tried any of the Xbox/360 Heisman sliders on the board and just tried them to see if they convert well to the PS2?

[ktulu22]

As I have told others that find the CPU D too easy - dont run the option! The defense does not react to it well at all and you could run for 500 yardsa game just by running the option, no matter the difficulty level

[Village Idiot]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

luckytroy -

I know you do.

pb tiger -

I don't know about them being 'opposite', but I will say I've thought more than once that the sliders don't have very much effect, overall. It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever that I could have the CPU's awareness and break-block at 99 and still be getting 500 yards of offense. None. So it's possible (we can hope) there's a slider combination out there to be had that doesn't make any 'sense' either, but will play well, ya know? Who knows?

I guess the strategy from here will be what you kind of implied: I'm just gonna set everything at zero go about it the long way, moving stuff up one notch at a time and see if I can find a 'minimal' slider set. I don't know what else there is to try.

elprez -

I haven't tried that, no, but I'm to the point now where I can pretty much just look at sliders and tell how they're gonna play. But, you never know - maybe that's worth looking into if all else fails.

I'm gonna do the zero-out thing today and see how that goes. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll just have to go buy a 360.

[Village Idiot]

Quote: Originally Posted by ktulu22

As I have told others that find the CPU D too easy - dont run the option! The defense does not react to it well at all and you could run for 500 yardsa game just by running the option, no matter the difficulty level

I never run the option.

You started a thread about the CPU being too easy, too. It was that simple a fix for you? You just stopped running the option?

[pbtiger]

If I had to pinpoint one place where not just EA, but sports game makers drop the proverbial ball is with sliders. Why put them in a game and provide absolutely no insight or guidance as to their meaning? Sure it provides us with conversation about what we are trying, but it sure would be more fun to be able to play without second guessing your playing. I am convinced out of the box is geared to the offense heavy player, whereas it appears a lot of us want the realism. It's sad that if I complete a long pass in the game I second guess the difficulty of the setting I have.

The next generation games certainly should have the power to have multi level setting built in. For instance, you could truly have 4 distinct levels (JV, Varsity, etc.) and then within each one of those have a base, offensive, and defensive challenge level. I don't know, maybe ignorance truly is bliss. Before 2004, I never even knew what a slider was. I forget how I stumbled across the first website where people talked about these sliders. So I just had to tweak them too. For better or worse, my gaming hasn't quite been the same since.