My Final HC09 Sliders

[Mike3207]

I tried CPU defensive awareness at 40,50, and 55-my offense was good, the CPU wasn't as good. I tried it at 60-I couldn't run the ball, but the CPU offense was very good. The sliders are just so frustrating!I'll try it at 55 the first half of the season, after that I'll go back to Picker's 40/20 set if it turns out too easy.

Picker, I did try your new set for 1 game-my offense was a little too good. I may give it another try the 2nd half of the season-I don't think one game is enough to tell though. I will be interested in how that set works for you going forward.

I'd really like to know how the coach special skills affect things. For example, the game I played against the Giants last year I only had 7 completions in it-and the Giants DC turned out to have Improved Defending-the last defensive special. I think in time it'll turn out the special skills affect game play more than the sliders do.

[Byron Yatch]

If you dont have a running game with those sliders then you dont have good coaching for running or good running blockers or a good running playbook, or a great rb. Or you versed a superior run d team than your run o.

I can frequently get 100 yards rushing with a rookie ladanian tomlinson clone I got in the 3rd round of the jelani okoye draft with both onkens at guard. Only times I cant is when I verse a better defense system than my rushing playbook.

Ive actually made the sliders harder now if you cant run on those! Im only at 50rba and 65 rblk and might drop it to 60! Have cpu up at 70 ability and 90 blocking now might go 75 and 100 for cpu soon enough.

Ill load up HC09 and write up my current sliders that allow teams to come back in the 2nd half if they have good coaches that make great adjustments. I hadnt finished the preseason like i thought I had so i used that browns game a couple more times to test a few more adjustments. think Im at week 5 now of regular season in year 4

[Mike3207]

Quote: Originally Posted by Byron Yatch

If you dont have a running game with those sliders then you dont have good coaching for running or good running blockers or a good running playbook, or a great rb. Or you versed a superior run d team than your run o. I can frequently get 100 yards rushing with a rookie ladanian tomlinson clone I got in the 3rd round of the jelani okoye draft with both onkens at guard. Only times I cant is when I verse a better defense system than my rushing playbook. Ive actually made the sliders harder now if you cant run on those! Im only at 50rba and 65 rblk and might drop it to 60! Have cpu up at 70 ability and 90 blocking now might go 75 and 100 for cpu soon enough. Ill load up HC09 and write up my current sliders that allow teams to come back in the 2nd half if they have good coaches that make great adjustments. I hadnt finished the preseason like i thought I had so i used that browns game a couple more times to test a few more adjustments. think Im at week 5 now of regular season in year 4

Well, it's true I don't have Improved Blocking with any of my coaches-and my OLC only goes to 3 Performance. Nothing wrong with my OL though-3 Elite players and 2 Pro Bowlers. Do you have max OL special skills with all coaches? I expect you would the way you seem to stress the O-Line.That has a big impact on gameplay. I was able to rush for 88 yds rushing with defensive awareness at 52, but the Rams had 7 TFL in the game.

I'll stick with 52 for now-although I might consider lowering it a bit more later. That game resulted in a 31-19 win-I liked the overall effect with my QB having 220 yds passing, no TDs, and the RB with 88 yds. The CPU had 360 yds passing and 50 yds rushing.All I'll say in conclusion is that 60 doesn't give me a running game right now, but that might change if I were to get advanced O-Line SS.

[picker19]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrs844224

I tried CPU defensive awareness at 40,50, and 55-my offense was good, the CPU wasn't as good. I tried it at 60-I couldn't run the ball, but the CPU offense was very good. The sliders are just so frustrating!I'll try it at 55 the first half of the season, after that I'll go back to Picker's 40/20 set if it turns out too easy. Picker, I did try your new set for 1 game-my offense was a little too good. I may give it another try the 2nd half of the season-I don't think one game is enough to tell though. I will be interested in how that set works for you going forward. I'd really like to know how the coach special skills affect things. For example, the game I played against the Giants last year I only had 7 completions in it-and the Giants DC turned out to have Improved Defending-the last defensive special. I think in time it'll turn out the special skills affect game play more than the sliders do.

Thanks for trying out my new set. You're definitely right, one game is not enough due to all the variables, but you can usually tell in a game if a set is worth testing out over several games. Very interesting that you tried a game with CPU AWR at 60 and the CPU offense seemed less impacted by it. As you said, these sliders are so frustrating. Sometimes, it seems as if it's a balance thing...where you move a slider past a certain point, and it completely changes the gameplay. If I end up hating my new slider set, I may try Byron's to see if he's on to something.

So far using my sliders in Year 2 of my Jaguars franchise I'm 6-0, but four of those games I won in the final minutes with scores of 20-17, 17-13, 31-24, and 24-21. Most of these wins came by a KR for a TD or a fumble return for a TD or a last-minute INT against the CPU (again, I question if there's catch-up logic helping the USER, because I see this all the time...the CPU seems to always choke), so it's not like I'm usually dominating my opponent or it's excellent playcalling on my part. As far as stats go, my current team is built more for the run, so I've been doing well in the run game averaging around 4+ ypc in most games and usually getting 100+ ypg. However, I suck in the passing game, ranking 27th in the league and averaging only 170 ypg with a 55% completion rate, scoring 9 TDs and 7 INTs.

The one thing that is frustrating is that the CPU has a hard time running against me consistently. So far in Year 2, two teams ran on me for 100+ yards, but they both did that with at least one big run. The others averaged around 2.7 ypc. They break tackles and have good runs now and then, but I still get a good # of TFLs which obviously destroys their YPC. Now, I do have a great defense that knows the plays real well, have Gregg Williams as my DC (his game performance skill is maxed at 5 and he's got 10 special skills) and have good position coaches who each have at least 1 special skill, so I have to keep all that in mind since I did build my team to be good against the run. As far as passing goes, the CPU #s are fairly realistic. Passing yards have ranged from 60 (Chiefs ran the ball 30+ times) to almost 400 (Colts) and completion rate is usually between 50-60% (even the Chiefs with 60 yards had a 60% rate). I average around 1 INT a game and have never gotten more than 2. Sacks are all over the place from 0 to 7. If the CPU could run on me better, and if you took away the last-minute big plays (or CPU errors), I'd probably be looking at no better than a 3-3 record.

I just constantly keep in mind that it's easy to build a good team in this game, so it's hard to test sliders once you are at Year 4 and above, because by this time you've acquired good players, built up your coaches, and have mastered most of the playbook with your core players, all while the other teams are constantly switching players and coaches and sometimes starting from scratch. So, I'm going to stick with these at least for another couple years and see how I do over longer period of time. When I start a new franchise, then I might do some more testing. But wouldn't it be nice to just play the game and not worry about this?

[Byron Yatch]

You're correct mrs, when I started my career, I bought the first 3 blocking special skills.

Now in year four I have 4 ol int 4 ath 3 learning as well as 2 TE ath int and learning(started building development in year 3). I also have a rb coach at oc(stump mitchell) and a badass rb coach(jimmy raye) let alone a good ol coach.

So you may have a point on the difficulty to run being too high. Havent played in a day or two, got side tracked. Im 4-0 in the first 4 game but they are coming back.... if I use a lot of learned and unlearned plays....

Its troublesome that sometimes you think you have a good set and then it fails, over and over again. I just cant add difficulty without ruining reality. I wanna take away the qbs throwing for 300 every game but it seems even at 0 acc noah wyoming can find a way...

Im almost to the point of raising qb acc back to 50 and dropping catching to 40 or lower and trying from there. I just dont have it in me tonight. Maybe tomorrow...

Just to throw something out there, I'd try 75rba 100rblock. That seems to give a decent run game for the cpu, I dont know about the human, might be fumble prone or way too strong. but cpu it gives them a chance at running. That and tackle at 25...

[Mike3207]

I tried the setting at 60 again and got 100 yds rushing against the Bucs-so I'm thinking it was just Del Rio having the 2nd level of defensive special skills shutting down my running game. The one thing I can say-positional special skills have a HUGE impact. I played the first half against the Bucs and had only 70 yds passing at halftime-then I quit and purchased Improved Catching. 340 yds passing for the game the next time I played. I'm also tempted to purchase Improved Blocking, but I don't want to be the last team in my division to get Motivator.I think at some point the positional special skills override whatever slider set you're using.

The low QBA is leading to lots of INTs and defensive TDs, will go back to the 40/20 set.It's still the best slider set I've seen for a dynasty past the 4th year. I think my defense is improved enough to moderate passing stats.

[picker19]

mrs844224, so if you've been playing my original 40/20 set, how have your games been, especially once you get beyond Year 4? The only reason I tried to come up with a new set is because my original one led to too much scoring. Once I built up my passing skills, especially, I was averaging close to 80% pass completions. Plus, there were way too many broken tackles for big plays. So, scores were up in the 30s and 40s for most games. So, I'm curious what you've been seeing and what you like/don't like about them.

[Mike3207]

Quote: Originally Posted by picker19

mrs844224, so if you've been playing my original 40/20 set, how have your games been, especially once you get beyond Year 4? The only reason I tried to come up with a new set is because my original one led to too much scoring. Once I built up my passing skills, especially, I was averaging close to 80% pass completions. Plus, there were way too many broken tackles for big plays. So, scores were up in the 30s and 40s for most games. So, I'm curious what you've been seeing and what you like/don't like about them.

I really like that the games stay competitive-I was able to have competitive games into the 10th season-even if the scoring was on the high end. Anything else I tried-default, the new set, I would win games like 60-14.-I would see lots of INTs and defensive TDs.

Some of this was all the special skills by the CPU coaches. I can say for a fact the Giants had Improved Defending-the last defensive SS. I found it really hard to go for Super Bowls like I had in the past when the CPU coaches had the more advanced position special skills, and my coaches were still working on the basic special skills.

I really think you need to take the positional special skills into account with the sliders. 20/25 QBA will work in the early years of a franchise, but once the CPU defensive coaches get built up with Performance and the defensive SS-having QBA that low is likely to end up with interceptions and defensive TDs.Picker I'll ask, with the 80% completions-did your HC or OC have the advanced QB special skills or Performance high.I will say after about 6 years the CPU defenses do catch up, and then some. I'm definitely going to work on getting Improved Defending with both my HC and DC my new dynasty.As for defense, Improved Defending will shut down any offense.I think it might even bring down scoring with the 40/20 set.

I'll definitely be doing some testing with the 40/20 slider set as well-see if things work similar with CPU defense at 25 or 30, maybe see if QBA 30 or 35 would work. I don't like all the scoring either, but Improved Defending is very effective at shutting down a offense-especially if you have it with both your HC and DC.I'll definitely make defense a focus in my new dynasty.

The last game I played in my 10 year dynasty with these sliders I was down 24-0 to the Colts at halftime. Teams like the Giants and Colts kept the same DC and got really good-I switched teams and realized too late my coaching staff simply couldn't compete for Super Bowls anymore-it's why I started a new career.

Finally, will try your new set on my new career. I'm 3-0 on the new career-looking for a challenge.The result might be different with a new dynasty as opposed to a advanced one like I had last time.