My Final HC09 Sliders

[Mike3207]

What does your offense look like with offense at default? I had a game recently where I put 70 on the Bills with the sliders at 40 and 20, although my HC does have a lot of the 1st and 2nd level of SS.

[picker19]

I've never had a score that high, but that's the downside to my original slider set...it allows for higher scoring and once your team gets good, you can rack up points, but even when I was in my 9th season, I was averaging in the 30s (and every game I had at least one INT returned for a TD). Either way, that's why I went back and did a week's-worth of testing, because I didn't like the high scoring.

I seriously wish I could figure out what makes these sliders tick, but I think I'm at the end of my rope. I have confirmed that the Human Defensive sliders do impact the CPU. There's no doubt in my mind on that, which is why I set up the sliders the way that I did...I was trying to give the CPU an advantage. But I never could confirm if the Human Defensive sliders also impacted the User. At first, it didn't appear so, which was good, but after the latest round of tests, I'm not so sure now.

If anyone wants to help, I'd be very grateful if someone could test out the following slider sets I'm researching and tell me their own observations. What I'm looking for in particular is if the sliders only boost the CPU defense, only boost the User defense, or impact BOTH.

Set 1
Both Offenses = All 40
Human D = All 80
CPU D = All 20

Set 2 (connecting one D slider)
Both Offenses = All 40
Human D = 80, 80, 20, 80, 80
CPU D = All 20

[Mike3207]

I'll try both sets later tonight. I'll be playing against the Bucs, so it should give a good representation of both sets.

[Mike3207]

Slider set 1-the deep pass works. Boy, did it ever.

Zito-4-19 with short and medium passes for a total of 26 yards, 14-15 with deep passes for 428 yds.

TB QB- 10-11 short and medium for 44 yds, 18-23 with deep passes for 371 yds.

Seahawks DBs:

CB D. Woodson-8 thrown at, 5 catches-101 rec yds allowed.
CB D. Miles- 5 thrown at, 5 catches-74 yds allowed.
FS Craig Steltz-5 thrown at, 4 catches-35 yds allowed.

In summary, boosting the Human D slider to 80 seems to negatively affect pass coverage in general and deep pass coverage in specific.If anything, boosting human D hurts defense-I would say it impacts both, but the CPU seemed more effective with short and medium passes than I was, but he did throw 4 INTs.

Turnovers-there were a few. 5 for us, 2 for TB. You expect some turnovers when you play TB however.

As for the second slider set, it was pretty much the same as the first. This time however, I had 400 yds passing by halftime, 200 for TB. They could have had more, but they spent a lot of time running the ball the 1st half. Mendenhall had a 60 yd TD run early and they kept going to the run game, 100 yds by the half.

I ended up putting 60 on the Bucs with the 40-20 set, so it may not be the sliders after all. I'll try the 80-20 set later with another team and see if there is any difference. I'll put any further observations in this post.

[picker19]

Thanks for taking the time to test them. You have quite the offense! But you had a lot of pass success using my original slider set at the 20/40 mark, so I'm curious if the Human D sliders had no real impact at 80 versus 40, which seems to be the case.

I actually am now testing a totally different slider set, and I'm looking for feedback, because so far, I like them. They are not perfect by far, but they have made the games fun.

A long time ago, I was playing with a set where I just had the AWR slider different between USER and CPU, and I really enjoyed them, but I could never calm down the passing game. So, I tried it again, made some new tweaks, and here's what I came up with:

Offense (Both) = 20, 50, 50, 50, 90
USER D = 50, 50, 10, 50, 50
CPU D = 10, 50, 10, 50, 50

The only difference between the two is the AWR slider. Everything else is the same. I tried to avoid going below 10, because I have seen (but could never confirm) weird gameplay with sliders below 10 (never put the slider at 0). Obviously, I boosted RBK to max, but no matter how good the blocking is, AWR is the key to making a good run game. It helps the LBs and other hesitate for a moment before charging through the gaps unblocked. But a low AWR makes the passing game WAY too good, which is why I put the QBA down to 20. It's certainly not realistic in many cases, but it does help defend against the pass MUCH better and make deep passes harder to complete. Finally, INTs are down to 10, because a 20 QBA makes it much easier to pick passes off.

I've played four games on this and am now 2-2 using the Jaguars in Year 1 using a new coach and a modified playbook. On both sides, I've seen a wide variety of stats on both O and D but most stats remain within the sim stat averages (so far). Now, I'm sure by Year 3 I'm going to be killing teams, but either way, I'm just glad to have found a set to play with for a while (testing sliders can be very frustrating).

I welcome any feedback if anyone wants to test these.

[Mike3207]

I'll try the new set my last 2 games of the 2016 regular season and playoffs.

BTW, is the special teams sliders default or what it was previous?

[Mike3207]

I'm not sure the Human D sliders have no impact-I think the 80 set didn't work properly because of the 80 Break Block. 80 Break Block is going to neutralize any possible pass rush; maybe even negatively effect the run blitzing. I don't think the Break Block even belongs with Defense, it seems to be more a offense slider.

I've tried the new set-I used default special teams sliders because you didn't mention special teams sliders. Passing was down, I had 400 yds passing against the Cardinals with the old set, 300 here.The 2nd game I was at about 290, CPU had other 200. As for interceptions, not terrible. 2 for both sides the 1st game, but the Arizona QB threw 4 the 2nd game. If you want to reduce the passing game even more, you might lower the WR slider below 50.You might also increase knockdowns as well, but any changes might change the whole set.

I could run the ball, negative rushing yardage for the CPU.After I finish testing, I might try Defensive Awareness below 50-40 or 45 possibly. Linebackers just slaughter the running game at 50 awareness.

Pass rush-about normal.You might see 2-4 in a game-I think that is about normal.

I do worry the sliders might hurt the CPU offense too much, but I'll make any final judgements after the playoffs. I will mention a lot of the coaches in the league have the first 2 levels of special skills, a few have maxed out the QB and WR SS-that will have a impact as well.

[picker19]

Thanks for the feedback. First, my ST sliders were still the same: 50, 50, 90, 90, 20.

For my first four games, the CPU was able to run fine and the CPU pass game was realistic. But as my defense learned the D plays better, I noticed that the CPU run game disappeared, even against good running teams. As you pointed out, my LBs were swarming into the CPU's backfield.

Now, there's no doubt in my mind that all the CPU sliders control both the Human and CPU. And I know the Human D sliders impact the CPU (slightly), but I haven't confirmed if they impact the Human at all. I just know that when they are different (USER vs. CPU D sliders), the game play is different (many time, better IMO) than if they were the same.

That being said, last night I was playing against the Lions and I was slaughtering them in the first half. Rudi Johnson couldn't get out of the backfield to save his life. So, I quit and changed the sliders to the below:

CPU D = 1, 50, 1, 50, 50
Human D = All 50

Then I went back and played the Lions and got a VERY different game. Johnson ended up getting 4 ypc and 1 TD, Kitna had a 63% completion and 260 yards and 2 TDs and I lost 27-24 (it would have been worse had I not recovered two onside kicks).

I plan on doing more testing today with the above D sliders to see if I can replicate the challenge. If not, I have a couple more crazy ideas in mind to test.