Handicapping. Does it exist?
 

When someone wins a game against superior opponents it obviously could be that they played the perfect game or they got lucky or the better team just played bad that day.

But what if it happens consistently late in the series? It's over powering in FIFA and it gets worse as the year grows on. Most everyone here knows that I'm new to this game. I've lost quite a few games but have won a few too. Most against players that I had NO business beating. Most of these wins happened when I didn't have as many 'red' cards and my opponents had some great players. Now that I have a lot of those great players, I'm losing more. And my last two were against teams with mediocre players.
I'm not the only one - check this thread out where a couple of others have reported some strange stuff. (I didn't want to hijack his thread anymore than I had.)

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...k-upgrade.html

I believe that I was benefiting from the handicap in the beginning so that the game(s) were evened up a bit. Obviously this kept me enjoying it more. However, I have been blown out more in the last week than the first two months that I played this game.

Just some thought about handicapping in this game and wondered if anyone else think there is.

Re: Handicapping. Does it exist?
 

It happens to the best of us. I got beat by an all gold team the other day just because he ran the clock out from the beginning of the game. When I stopped the run he just did unstoppable routes with his TEs and WRs. I have a 97 overall team and it can be very frustrating to lose to people like this. It just goes along with how the game was made. Defense basically doesn't even matter when teams do this.

Re: Handicapping. Does it exist?
 

Ballgame, I don't care if you hijacked my thread. I made my decision and the thread is useless at the moment.

Handicapping happens a ton on MUT. That's how I've lost the majority of my games.

And on NFUT it seems more prevalent than ever lately. I too have a 97 team and I've recently lost to several gold and lower level teams who did exactly what the above post said.They just run unstoppable routes and I can't do a thing to counter on offense, even with my offense being something like a 96 or 97 rating. I've had CV Howard completely shut down by a freshman safety. I've had Sherm and Bailey abused by several freshman, Greg Salas and Dwayne Allen in the past 2 weeks.

I'd say I've lost about 30 games since I returned to NFUT about a month ago. Roughly 90% of them were to guys with worse teams than mine that had no business even contending.

Also, handicapping is extremely obvious in championship games. The last one I played in, I lost to a starter team because I couldn't cover the freshmen wideouts.

Re: Handicapping. Does it exist?
 

I accidentally posted this in the other thread -- I'm deleting and posting it here:

I am approaching 500 games played and it's very rare that I've played a game where it wasn't pretty obvious why I won or lost. I was giving uzerpicks (whatever his name actually is) a hard time during a deal the other day because he won because my cover Crabtree fumbled out of nowhere and basically handed him the win.

There have been times I'll yell "BULL$H!T!" in the middle of a game when something happens, but the bottom line is that it is usually because of MY mistake or because someone was better than me.

It's possible that bad players can get open on good players. It's possible that your cover Woodson can get beaten by a freshman Bolden. I think what most people don't realize is that the best players USUALLY (LL Sapp aside) don't just dominate their competition completely. What the best players actually do is reduce unforced errors (i.e. dropped passes, BADLY blown coverages by DBs, bad throws by QBs). They don't completely eliminate them, but they do reduce them significantly. Elite Kellen Winslow drops significantly fewer passes in traffic than Gold Dennis Pitta.

The only thing that can't really be made up for, all things equal, is speed --- UNLESS the player is tired. If your LL Moss is exhausted, then sure, bronze Jarius Byrd can catch him in the open field.

I just think people don't like to be faced with the reality that they aren't as good as they think they are. The game isn't designed to screw you. Like someone on the EA forums said, there's not an intern that adjusts the sliders on a weekly basis to say "Yep, it's time for starter teams to get their due! "
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Re: Handicapping. Does it exist?
 

There are most definitely sliders or boasts given to "starter teams". I most frequently see if I have go down levels to find games.

My main team is a 99. I've played and lost to a guy with a 95/96 solid team. I turned around and beat the same user with my farm account team (92 overall) within a week. No wacky fumbles or crazy plays in either game. In fact, I smoked him with his my farm team.

I win a lot of games I shouldn't when I played with farm account. Not every one but I beat a lot of really good teams full of cover guys and ll's. At the same I lose some games I shouldn't with my 99 overall team. Losing to guys that are a step below.

So either EA has some sort of "randomness" factor that makes games crapshoots or their is some sort of balancing slider whenever a level 8 player plays a level 1 player.

Re: Handicapping. Does it exist?
 

See my point above.


I think people expect that they will just DOMINATE with their better players. I don't think that's the case. With the exception of certain positions (when user-controlled, such as TC Peppers), I believe that better players simply limit mistakes, NOT "dominate" other players. Throwing a wide open pass to a 99 Crabtree will almost always result in a catch. Throwing a wide open pass to a 65 Freshman Bolden will occasionally result in a drop. Same with a quarterback -- most passes will be on target. Some will sail, even with the best QBs in the game. 99 Crabtree fumbles rarely. 65 Bolden fumbles more frequently.

At the end of the day, a terrible player is going to get smoked, which is why I beat some whiny kid 77-0 a few weeks ago. A decent player, however, who can exploit defenses, will have success against ANYONE. It's not a conspiracy. It's not some big secret, it's the fact that some people have inflated expectations of what better players mean.

Re: Handicapping. Does it exist?
 

agreed i am guilty of this :o

Re: Handicapping. Does it exist?
 

Rebel, I agree with everything you're saying. I consider myself to be a very good player at this game, and my record show it. I have a very good team, but that isn't the reason I beat the people I play. I beat them because I am flat out better than them at football. If someone beats me with a crossing route, I adjust on defense and find a way to stop it. I think that some of these guys claiming that sliders get messed up are simply thinking that their better players should win every time, regardless of what plays are called. Back when I had a lesser team in August, I would routinely beat superstar teams because I had a better gameplan and adjusted better than my opponent did. For example, this weekend I played a guy with 3 CV Crabtrees, 2 CV Fitz's, a stacked O-line, Rookie Vernon, 2 LL Sapp's, 3 CV Woodson's, 2 LL Deion Sander's, 2 LL Sean Taylor, LL Berry, he basically had the best player at every single position, and multiples of the very best. I ended up beating him because I exploited his weaknesses, slowed down his strengths, and he refused to change anything up to win.
In the end the player that usually wins is the one who is better at the game, not the one with the best team.