For the few of us still fiddling with the sliders for this game (let alone, even still playing this game), I've come across some very important discoveries I wanted to share. They've completely changed my approach to adjusting sliders. In summary, for now, I'm only adjusting penalty sliders and leaving everything else at default.
That's because recently, I read some very interesting posts on Madden 15 sliders regarding various theories about sliders. I took those ideas and tested them on HC09, and even though they don't work exactly the same way, the fundamentals still apply.
To better explain, I'll walk you through what I tested and its outcome. (NOTE: I played the same matchup game in Year 1 of a franchise.)
I started with everything, Game Play sliders and Penalty sliders, at default. I then took one penalty slider, Roughing the Kicker, and moved it down to 10. This impacted the defense's play recognition/pursuit, particularly LBs. LBs had a higher frequency of hesitating before pursuing the RB on a run play.
I then defaulted again and moved Roughing the Passer down to 10. This decreased tackling.
I now put RTP and RTK both down to 10. With lower PRC, PUR, and TKL, the run game improved dramatically. There was still plenty of TFLs, but due to the hesitation and poorer tacking, there were much longer runs to balance it out. Also, the overall game speed decreased slightly with 2 sliders adjusted.
Mind you, I still have not touched the game play sliders at all. They are all still at 50.
I defaulted penalty sliders again, and lowered just Offsides. This made the DL slower off the line. It appeared to make it harder for the DL to get to the QB (and improved the run game). I also moved False Start up to 90. This appeared to make the OL faster off the line to improve blocking but seemed to benefit the USER more than the CPU.
Again, I defaulted again, and I only lowered KR/PR Interference. Game speed was high, but there were more broken tackles across the board.
I then put RTK down to 10, leaving KR Interference at 10. This boosted the run game by a lot. But it also appeared to decrease the DLs chance to rush the passer. I had must more pass rush success with RTK and RTP at 10.
So, I again put everything on default and put RTK down to 0. Interestingly, it was like the slider was at 50. There was no visible impact. I put it at 1, and same thing. Therefore, moving forward I'm only going in intervals of 10 between 10-90.
At this point, none of these combinations seemed to impact the passing game. Coverage was tight and comp% seemed to be realistic. So, I defaulted and put RTK and RTP down to 10 to improve the run game. I then went to the game play sliders at put both INT sliders from 50 to 10. Immediately, I saw the WRs and TEs get too much separation from their defenders. One would think this would just decrease chance for INT, but it decreased overall coverage.
Finally, I defaulted again and put RTK, RTP, and KRI down to 10. Per the above, my hypothesis was that the run game would be even more potent. This did not happen. For whatever reason, the run game became much more stifled.
Another overall observation...the CPU team (Texans) was very competitive against the USER team (Colts). Even though the Colts have a much better roster and coaches, every single test I did, the Texans kept up with me score for score. Why this is interesting to me is that when I defaulted all sliders and just moved USER/CPU Pass and Run Blocking to 20/80 respectively, the CPU's competitiveness declined greatly. Leaving the game play sliders at 50 and only adjusting the penalty sliders provided more competition for me.
CONCLUSION
Here's my rough analysis:
Also, the less sliders you touch, the better. Anytime I adjusted 3 penalty sliders at the same time, it seemed to thwart the effect I was trying to make. And I am not moving sliders around 1 tick at a time. I had RTP and RTK at 10, everything else at 50, and then all I did was move Holding and Facemask up 1 point, and it negated the RTK and RTP slider impact.
For now, I'm going to move forward with testing over several games everything at default except RTK and RTP at 10.
Not sure if this is interesting to anyone, but it has given me some hope that I can coax some more fun out of this game. It has also made me realize that I need to stay as close to the default settings as possible. Even just one penalty slider adjustment can make a world of difference. Playing with multiple sliders just messes the game play up too much and provides erratic results.
That's because recently, I read some very interesting posts on Madden 15 sliders regarding various theories about sliders. I took those ideas and tested them on HC09, and even though they don't work exactly the same way, the fundamentals still apply.
- Penalty sliders have a MAJOR impact to gameplay and the AI.
- Adjustments to one slider can impact multiple areas that in theory should have nothing to do with one another.
- The sliders appeared to be coded in numeric "chunks," meaning that using values like 41 and 22 versus 40 or 20 have much more erratic (or negligible) effects.
To better explain, I'll walk you through what I tested and its outcome. (NOTE: I played the same matchup game in Year 1 of a franchise.)
I started with everything, Game Play sliders and Penalty sliders, at default. I then took one penalty slider, Roughing the Kicker, and moved it down to 10. This impacted the defense's play recognition/pursuit, particularly LBs. LBs had a higher frequency of hesitating before pursuing the RB on a run play.
I then defaulted again and moved Roughing the Passer down to 10. This decreased tackling.
I now put RTP and RTK both down to 10. With lower PRC, PUR, and TKL, the run game improved dramatically. There was still plenty of TFLs, but due to the hesitation and poorer tacking, there were much longer runs to balance it out. Also, the overall game speed decreased slightly with 2 sliders adjusted.
Mind you, I still have not touched the game play sliders at all. They are all still at 50.
I defaulted penalty sliders again, and lowered just Offsides. This made the DL slower off the line. It appeared to make it harder for the DL to get to the QB (and improved the run game). I also moved False Start up to 90. This appeared to make the OL faster off the line to improve blocking but seemed to benefit the USER more than the CPU.
Again, I defaulted again, and I only lowered KR/PR Interference. Game speed was high, but there were more broken tackles across the board.
I then put RTK down to 10, leaving KR Interference at 10. This boosted the run game by a lot. But it also appeared to decrease the DLs chance to rush the passer. I had must more pass rush success with RTK and RTP at 10.
So, I again put everything on default and put RTK down to 0. Interestingly, it was like the slider was at 50. There was no visible impact. I put it at 1, and same thing. Therefore, moving forward I'm only going in intervals of 10 between 10-90.
At this point, none of these combinations seemed to impact the passing game. Coverage was tight and comp% seemed to be realistic. So, I defaulted and put RTK and RTP down to 10 to improve the run game. I then went to the game play sliders at put both INT sliders from 50 to 10. Immediately, I saw the WRs and TEs get too much separation from their defenders. One would think this would just decrease chance for INT, but it decreased overall coverage.
Finally, I defaulted again and put RTK, RTP, and KRI down to 10. Per the above, my hypothesis was that the run game would be even more potent. This did not happen. For whatever reason, the run game became much more stifled.
Another overall observation...the CPU team (Texans) was very competitive against the USER team (Colts). Even though the Colts have a much better roster and coaches, every single test I did, the Texans kept up with me score for score. Why this is interesting to me is that when I defaulted all sliders and just moved USER/CPU Pass and Run Blocking to 20/80 respectively, the CPU's competitiveness declined greatly. Leaving the game play sliders at 50 and only adjusting the penalty sliders provided more competition for me.
CONCLUSION
Here's my rough analysis:
- Offsides -- lower seems to decrease DL speed off the line, negatively impacting the pass rush; might help run game
- False Start-- lower seems to decrease OL speed off the line, negatively impacting OL blocking
- KRI-- lower seems to decrease tackling, possibly pursuit, too
- RTP-- lower seems to decrease tacking, possibly pursuit, too.
- RTK-- lower seems to decrease PRC and PUR; higher frequency of making LBs hesitate against the run (also makes PA harder to stop)
- DPI-- could not confirm impact -- read that lower means worse coverage; leaving it at 50
- OPI -- could not confirm -- read that lower means BETTER receiver play, but did not see it; leaving at 50
- Holding-- read that it increases OL blocking, but even putting it at 60 created holding penalties for every plan; could not test so leaving it at 50
- Facemask-- read that this increases HIT/POW, but did not see it. Any tests I did negatively impacted other sliders I was testing, so leaving it at 50.
- Clipping-- did not test; read that it impacts blocking, but leaving it at 50.
Also, the less sliders you touch, the better. Anytime I adjusted 3 penalty sliders at the same time, it seemed to thwart the effect I was trying to make. And I am not moving sliders around 1 tick at a time. I had RTP and RTK at 10, everything else at 50, and then all I did was move Holding and Facemask up 1 point, and it negated the RTK and RTP slider impact.
For now, I'm going to move forward with testing over several games everything at default except RTK and RTP at 10.
Not sure if this is interesting to anyone, but it has given me some hope that I can coax some more fun out of this game. It has also made me realize that I need to stay as close to the default settings as possible. Even just one penalty slider adjustment can make a world of difference. Playing with multiple sliders just messes the game play up too much and provides erratic results.
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