From 94 to 48 approval in one game

[havlen]

This is how flawed the approval rating and defining moment systems are:

As the 5-1 Houston Texans, I roll into Detroit looking for a win. In the course of the game, I decide not to go for a 4rth and 6th from the 6 in the 2nd quarter of a tied game, and I decide not to kick an onside kick with 6 minutes left in a game that I'm only losing by 7 points.

Ultimately, I end up losing the game. So a 5-2 Houston Texans team (year 1 of the career) has me lose almost 50 points of approval for a single loss?

Personally, I think this game would be improved 100% if they just released a patch that disabled defining moments completely. It's such a flawed system, it only drags the game down.

(I also think the game would be improved if the patch disabled the emotional system, but that's mainly because of the horrid performance issues during the game -- I like being able to be calm or emotional but not at the cost of waiting 4-5 seconds while my playclock ticks down in another thread.)

[morieeel]

Just win baby. And try to complete your season's goals.
I think i saw recently a quick fix for the defining moments where you pause the game and supersim next play right before you start seeing the closeup shot of the coach and the sound effects.

Its silly but I think the developers had the right idea. I just do what I feel is the correct situation, except in preseason.

[havlen]

Oh, I like the idea of defining moments. But the implementation makes me think the developers simply don't have the football knowledge to see it through.

Overall, though, it's not anything more than an irritant. I took Miami to a 13-3 season their first year, I'm not worried about getting fired with Houston

[Coredor]

I'm inclined to agree with you on this one. The defining moments actually have a lot more riding on them than actually winning or losing the game and they can be annoying. This is especially true when things happen like like wanting yout o blitz and you have to call a play without being able to see the other team's personnel when you make a play call or trying to get you to go for it on fourth down when you just want to run the clock down so you have to call a play and it snaps the ball as soon as you make your decision.

Just make sure you have your special ability that helps with approval to mitigae it and do what you think is right. If you win you'll be fine. I kind of chuckle though when I've won a bunch of Super Bowls and everyone freaks out whenever I don't do what they tell me to even though I win the game.

[havlen]

Quote: Originally Posted by Coredor

This is especially true when things happen like like wanting yout o blitz and you have to call a play without being able to see the other team's personnel when you make a play call ...

I find that part annoying too, but frankly, the way they've done that in the regular playcall screen stinks too considering it is not always accurate. Even the worst defensive coordinators can count how many receivers the opposing team has on the field.

[mercalnd]

Quote: Originally Posted by Coredor

This is especially true when things happen like like wanting yout o blitz and you have to call a play without being able to see the other team's personnel when you make a play call

Quote: Originally Posted by Havlen

I find that part annoying too, but frankly, the way they've done that in the regular playcall screen stinks too considering it is not always accurate. Even the worst defensive coordinators can count how many receivers the opposing team has on the field.

You are never able to see the other team's personnel in this game when calling plays. The number of WRs, TEs and RBs displayed in the playcall screen is based on your opponent's tendencies and not on the personnel they are putting on the field. It's actually written right there on the screen too but we are so used to the way other football games always display the actual personnel that most of us didn't notice.

I agree that the defining moments don't make sense at all sometimes.

I'm still rather inexperienced with the game. I've just finished my preseason and I playe dmy first regular season game last night. I picked "Win 3 games" as my preseason promise since I had lost all my preseason games.

I was then pretty disappointed to find that one of my season goals was to win 3 of the first 4 games, which will undoubtedly cost me 25 approval points since I have yet to win a single game in spite of a few close calls. In what world are the Dolphins expected to win 3 of their first 4? Especially given that I only promised 3 wins all year!

[bcruise]

Quote: Originally Posted by mercalnd

I was then pretty disappointed to find that one of my season goals was to win 3 of the first 4 games, which will undoubtedly cost me 25 approval points since I have yet to win a single game in spite of a few close calls. In what world are the Dolphins expected to win 3 of their first 4? Especially given that I only promised 3 wins all year!

But you see, that's not 25 overall approval points - it's only for one subset of the whole approval picture (probably fans, with that goal). In reality, it's probably about 6 or 7 points off the average approval score (the big number in the bottom right). That big approval number isn't going to drop from, say 80 to 55 based on that one goal.

Not disputing the OP though - I've seen some pretty massive drops of the overall too, usually after a conservative defining moment + bad DM outcome + a "win this game" goal failed. A combination of negative factors can put a hurting on your average rating.

[adembroski]

Wow... I must be the only person who actually likes the system as it is. I think it's a very good system for measuring the fickleness of we fans. Go into the NFL forum and look at all the second guessing and criticism for coaches who've been solid for years. That's the way we, as fans, really are. If we weren't, we wouldn't bother playing this game:P

At any rate, I've had very few problems with the system once I got a handle on it. Now I know that I can have a horrid season, but if I play my cards right with the defining moments, I can come out with high approval anyways.