[ggsimmonds]

Quote: Originally Posted by JoshC1977

Great hypothetical! Here's my thought: You don't have to be super-knowledgable (or skilled) to play "sim". To me, "sim" is as much a mindset as anything. Do you value losing as much as winning? Do you play by doing things as realistically as what you see in real life or do you take the 'easy way' out when things get tough and exploit the game? You don't have to be overly knowledgable about the Xs and Os to know that rolling your QB out to the right on every freakin' passing down isn't sim. You don't have to be knowledgable about Xs and Os to know that it is highly unrealistic to run the same formation (and 2-3 plays) the entire game. You don't have to be knowledgable about Xs and Os to know that checking-down the entire game to exploit CPU shortcomings isn't sim. Even if you don't know crap about the Xs and Os but watch the game on TV, you can quickly identify things that people do that "don't hapen in real life". I will flat out tell you that I am not an Xs or Os guy. I have a very good understanding of football rules but begin falling short on playcalling and things like that, I understand general concepts and player roles based on fronts/formations. But when you drill down into the more technical terminology and concepts, I struggle. I was physically unable to play the game as a kid (and now I am older), so I don't have the experience of "coach speak". Nonetheless, I consider myself a sim gamer. I'll give an example that happened on one of my streams (when I was playing and not 'testing') a few weeks ago. I was in a tight CFM game (3-4 point spread). My opponent was down and driving at the end of the game. They got the ball in the red zone and clock was ticking (they had one timeout still left)....5...4...3 (they are trying to snap the ball and no way they will make it)....2... I used one of my remaining timeouts since they were (for whatever reason) not going to do it themselves. It gave them one play in definite scoring range and a chance for me to lose the game. The comment I made to my chat was along the lines of, "I would have hated to win that way". (and had I not called the timeout, I would've agonized over that and probably started my CFM over). Yeah....I'm a bit weird ...but my point is that sim "is" what you put into it.

Great post. I agree, to me "sim" is more of a mindset than anything else. To me it boils down to what takes priority, beating a videogame or playing a football game.

As for your final paragraph, you're not alone. Against the AI I frequently deny penalties, intentionally commit my own, run out of bounds instead of scoring, punting after turnovers, etc. I do those things when I think Madden's flaws would unfairly work to my benefit, like when the AI QB took sack after sack. I wouldn't do what you did in that scenario, but I get the motivation behind it