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| Main / Friendly Cups / Newbie Bootcamp Friendly Cup Search Forum | |
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| posted: 2023-06-14 20:25:31 (ID: 100174766) Edits found: 2 Report Abuse | |
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Let’s talk about those skills that you see when you pull up the profiles of your players.
There are those basic skills that I wrote yesterday about, STR, SPE, TW and IQ. The latter are fixed, you can’t train IQ or TW. You can train STR and SPE, until your player reaches his cap. Maximum value for all skills is 50, but your players’ cap can be well below that. But that wouldn’t mean he’s a way worse player because of that. As Pete points out in the manual, „A skill of kicking 1 doesn’t mean the skill is at the lowest possible level - and the player could not kick at all. Rather it means the player is at 75 % of his kicking ability.“ That translates to this: Skill Value 01 -> Skill Quality 75 % Skill Value 10 -> Skill Quality 80 % Skill Value 20 -> Skill Quality 85 % Skill Value 30 -> Skill Quality 90 % You see: The Quality jumps only 5 % for every 10 points you push that value towards the cap. That of course means your players are not that much worse. And it of course means that you do not need to look for the very good players to supplement your squad, instead opting for the cheaper ones without getting much less. About the single skills: IQ – high IQ is always good, but positions that need IQ as A-Skill are QB, LB and SF. I was even told by a veteran manager that he wouldn’t play an OL with lower IQ than 40. TW – helps immensely with training, high TW speeds up the training progress of your player. So it’s good for everyone. Linemen on both sides and those positions complementing the OL (FB, TE) better have high TW to work on higher levels. STR, SPE, AGI – all three physical skills should be high, although specimen that reach 50 in at least STR and SPE are rare. Everything close to 50 than to 40 is great, though, and AGI can’t be underestimated in the ability of the player to move and react in the small, but crucial situations. VIS – is a Need for every position. Not as much in the OL and the complementing positions, but still well welcomed 
POS – QBs, Ks and Ps don’t need that, every other offensive position needs to know where to be at each snap. Good to have for the Defense, too. FOO – A must-have for Linemen, every other position does not suffer from having a good skill there, too. E. g. our RB who fumbled less when he improved FOO. And I once was told that a QB with high FOO may be able to avoid the Sack better than his colleague whose footwork’s not as good. All the other skills are pretty self-explanatory as they are pretty easily assigned to the according position. Just think a bit further: Wouldn’t it be great if my Pass Defender would know how to catch the ball? And CAR can be a good skill for a QB who you want to use in a Lamar-Style of Quarterbackin’
You can, of course, have very good players dispite lacking a skill here and there. Our own Zahit Rahuma is a staple of our OLine dispite having a low TW. As written above: Don’t condemn what you have, you can make it work. You just have to put the pieces together a bit differently… and give it time. Next up: So what do you do with your players now? Last edited on 2023-06-14 20:33:38 by Chrill |
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| posted: 2023-06-15 17:41:58 (ID: 100174787) Edits found: 1 Report Abuse | |
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Now that you know your team you need to find out what they can do together. The best way to find that out, and a nice way to find out crucial details for your future playbook as well, is the possibility to play scrimmages.
And since it’s just for the sake of gaining knowledge you can keep the playbook that you set up for these scrimmages as simple as this: Offense First half - Any Down and Distance - Any Score - Any time - Flexbone - Rush - Any Direction Second half - Any Down and Distance - Any Score - Any time - Flexbone - Pass - Any Direction Defense Q1: Any Down and Distance - Any Score - Any time - on Flexbone - 3-4-4 - 4-4-3 – prefer pass - no blitz Q2: Any Down and Distance - Any Score - Any time - on Flexbone - 3-3-5 - 4-3-4 – prefer pass - no blitz Because of you setting the preference to „Pass“ your Defense will start by defending the Rush with the Pass-Defense. Not very long, though, but you’ll get a glimpse of how the passing defense does against the rush. You might be surprised. Q3: Any Down and Distance - Any Score - Any time - on Flexbone - 3-1-7 - DIME – prefer rush - no blitz Q4: Any Down and Distance - Any Score - Any time - on Flexbone - 4-4-3 - 5-2 – prefer rush - no blitz Notice how this way nearly any Defense is now being tested against one specific formation, passing as well as rushing. Now you can go and play multiple scrimmages to find out which offenses and which defenses work best for you and your players. At the end of this exercise you will know better which offensive formations work best for your team and which defensive formations you should avoid on which offensive formation. Especially the latter you can then use to set up a nice defensive Playbook. But more on that next week. Last edited on 2023-06-15 17:43:14 by Chrill |
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| posted: 2023-06-19 14:58:56 (ID: 100174889) Report Abuse | |
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Game Day 1
We experienced the first game day of this Friendly Cup yesterday, and here are the commentaries to each of the four games. It was, of course, pretty evident, that most of you still play the Basic Playbook. Which is OK, given the fact that some of you just started to play RZA. Nonetheless we're here to show you how to improve, and moving away from this basic set of rules will be a big part of the coming weeks. Ubernoobers 10:41 Córdoba Kalifas It was a very rough start for the Ubernoobers: 3 Interceptions in Q1 had them down 17 early on, and in Q3 the Kalifas recovered Fumbles by the HB Marlin Swift of the Ubernoobers on three consecutive Drives, adding another 14 points to the score. These turnovers were the backbreaker for the visiting team. Q2 and Q4 showed that they were competitive. Maybe the "luck" of the Kalifas was triggered by the fact that they already set up a more advanced playbook. The Ubernoobers showed deviations from the Basic Playbook, but in the wrong directions, sadly: 3-1-7 is equivalent to what is called "prevent defense" in the NFL. While you of course CAN use it on 1st&10 against Shotgun 4 WR, you surrender a lot of middle ground to short passes and possible rushes. Same applies to 3-3-5, although not to the same extent because of the two OLBs. One thing to keep in mind when setting up your Defense: The opposing QB will, when passing, try to get the ball to the First-Down-Marker (as long as it's set "pass" in the PB, not "pass medium" or "pass deep"). So even if your opponent chooses to work from Shotgun with 4 WRs, that doesn't mean these WRs will all fly downfield. So it is unwise to leave to much room in the middle of the field, since you may die a slow death that way... Another thing that I'd at least question is the usage of 4-3-4 against I-Formation and Big-I-Formation, especially in Q4 when most teams do a lot of rushing to control the clock. It may be a basic Defense in the NFL, but in RZA it does not very much and is pretty vulnerable against nearly all Offensive Formations. You can use it complementary, of course, but I'd suggest to limit the usage to a specific area on the field or specific situations. If you want to go for a 4-Man-Front use 4-3-3 instead. Lusaka Antilopes 21:17 Leadhills Wonderers This one was way more close, with both teams showing strong defenses. Ultimately it was, too, one turnover more that swung the pendulum in favor of the Antilopes who capped a great weekend with another win, having already won against a veteran manager in the league the preceding day. Both teams showed different defensive approaches, with the Wonderers mainly going for the 3-Man-Front while the Antilopes opted for 4 DLs. Same hints here as above
Juggernauts 12:16 Outlaws Another close one, with the only TD of the whole game scored by the winning team from an INT in Q1 that was returned for 6. The real stars were the kickers, though. Overall 7 FGs were scored in this game. Both defenses were pretty tight, even defending plays from improbable formations very well. In Q4 the Juggernauts still hung around but ultimately failed to score enough points to win. In this game happened two curious things that I'd like to point out: In Q3 with 3:51 to go, 3rd&19 on their own 9 Yard Line, the Outlaws defended an attempt from Wishbone with 5-3-3. This Rush-Defense is set in the Basic Playbook, and they were lucky that the Juggernauts indeed attempted to rush. Most teams will pass on this play, and then it can get dangerous with this kind of setting. In Q2 (8:09) the Juggernauts tried to convert 4th&1 on their own 29 Yard line. That is pretty ambitious in this vicinity of the own goalline, and since they did not get the First Down they gifted the opponent another FG. In Q4 then (10:07), when they were down 16:6, they opted for a 54 Yard FG on 4th&1. Although they scored you would have thought they'd go for it. But here you see that the rules in the Playbook override the rules from the game settings: You may have set to go for it when you're below 2 Yards on 4th Down, but in the Basic Playbook it's set that you'll try to kick a FG if you get nearer than 40 Yards on the opposing side of the field. In fact even the try to convert deep in the own half is influenced by this: If you set "Go for it on 4th when less than 2 Yards", but you haven't set a PB-line from where to begin this, your squad will even try to convert on your own goalline. Derby Rams 3:21 HAMBURG SEA LIONS Both teams showed a balanced offense, although the Rams sadly seldom reached the opposing side of the field due to a stout 4-Man-Defense by the SEA LIONS that suppressed the rushing game of the visitors. In the end it might have been the physical condition that the SEA LIONS had going for them. And of course the „lucky punch“ in Q1, when the QB of the home team tossed the ball to the WR who took it 80 Yards for a TD. Although: Was it luck, really? We’ll look into it later this week |
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| posted: 2023-06-20 18:47:47 (ID: 100174921) Report Abuse | |
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Today I have some information that I noted about Defensive Formations when I educated myself in this forum. You will find out about them when you run scrimmages, and it would not be uncommon that some of this information you will then find inacurate, because you made different experiences. But it's a start.
Some Formations are better equipped against the Pass, some are better against the Rush. In the order Pass -> Rush that would look like this (with some notes added that I read somewhere): 3-1-7 – all Pass-Defense, equivalent to the Prevent Defense for sure Passing-Downs (e.g. 3rd & very long) DIME – I'm still not sure what to make of it... 3-3-5 – best Pass Defense, allows few Big Plays; gives up many Rush 1st-Downs 3-4-4 – good Pass Defense, moderate Rush Defense; some Big Plays 4-3-4 – is the typical Bot-Defense, doesn't do much, sadly 4-4-3 – average Pass Defense, good Rush Defense; allows MANY Big-Plays* 5-2 – mainly Rush, but with two Safeties in the Backfield 5-3-3 – average Pass Defense, best Rush Defense; gives up more long Runs, allows most Big Plays Goalline D – has no Safetys behind the Linebackers, so beware It sure depends on the offensive formation that you want to defend. E. g. 3-4-4 may be a moderate Rush Defense, but a recent test of mine showed that it allows ZERO Rushing Yards on average against Pro Set, and less than 1 Yard per Rush against Singleback Spread. So nothing is really absolute what I wrote above  |
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jmax47
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posted: 2023-06-21 00:29:35 (ID: 100174932) Report Abuse |
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Thanks for the advice Chrill
As you know, I am in the early stages of developing my playbook. In previous games, my defenses were good against the run, but giving up big plays for TDs (my Safety would miss a tackle, and that was that). So I went more pass defense this time, but got chipped away slowly. I just made a few more changes to find a happy medium, so we'll see how it goes. As for the turnovers, I'm sure they'll get better with training. I have a young team and focused on physicals intentionally, to get them assigned to proper positions before position change expired. This season will be improving technical skills along with agility. Congrats to Cordoba, well deserved victory  |
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| posted: 2023-06-23 06:30:44 (ID: 100175002) Report Abuse | |
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jmax47 wrote:
I have a young team and focused on physicals intentionally, to get them assigned to proper positions before position change expired. This season will be improving technical skills along with agility. You do approach this in a very adult way. I was a lot more impatient with this  |
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| posted: 2023-06-23 07:43:49 (ID: 100175004) Report Abuse | |
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I had to deal with a few lemons this week, and though I was able to make lemonade most of the time, beverages are a real life thing, so I had less time to post here. Good thing that you were busy running scrimmages and finding the right Defense for your team, right?
But before we enter the weekend and with that the second Game Day of this Bootcamp Friendly Cup, I wanted to address something that I alluded to on Monday in my Post when I questioned if the long passing TD in my game against the Rams was really a lucky punch. Because it wasn’t. And that has something to do with the possibility of Defenses being able to learn over the course of a game. As I said earlier in this thread I would play a very basic Playbook in the group stage of this Cup. And I did: The whole first quarter was a string of plays from I-Formation; the second quarter was a string of plays from Flexbone, with I-Formation sprinkled in in the last 5 Minutes of the first half; in the third quarter it was only from Big I Formation and in the fourth quarter it was a more or less healthy mix of all the three formations. Now take a look at the first quarter of the game, with only plays from I-Formation. Notice how the first two plays from my team were defended with the passing defense 3-3-5. As I rushed for the first plays, though, the defense of the Rams switched to 4-3-4, to be better equipped for the Rush. And it stayed there, because even if I had Passes on third down on the next two attempts to reach first down, I rushed for the first two Downs to keep the the Defense in Rush-Mode. Then I suddenly passed on first Down. And BOOM: 80 Yards Passing TD. Yes, the long TD Pass maybe was luck, but scoring was properly set up, because there’s the possibility to manipulate your opponents Defense to a point where you can score like that. You could say that, like IRL, the Rush sets up the Pass. There are some formations where this works really well, with others not so much (I tried the same with Flexbone in Q2 of the game, and scored zero points). Overall it’s a matter of proper game planning and constant adjustment, at least for the first few seasons that you play this game. And of course that applies to both sides of the ball since you should prepare your Defense the same way. Now, I do not now how much the Defense really learns over the course of a game. I questioned if it’s even able to recognize not only formations in relation to downs, but even distance and maybe even time… but Pete is (understandably) hush about anything related to the deeper mechanisms of the engine. Of course the Defense is strongly affected by the Playbook rules it's supposed to play by. Are they set for every situation? Is the Playbook designed for each Quarter differently, or for each Half? More open defensive Playbooks leave more room for learning, but they present more possibilities to surprise, too. Just play around a bit, start with few formations, string a few plays together. See how you manage to make the Defense change their formation to become vulnerable... and slowly build a strong Playbook from there. |
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| posted: 2023-06-25 07:44:06 (ID: 100175048) Report Abuse | |
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I think that 4-3-4 is broken in some way as a run defense because it's the only defense where you see those long pass plays. This is both for and against my team. I have come to the conclusion that we should never ever use it.
Because the default defense gameplan uses it, it's a major reason to switch to your own gameplan. When you activate using your own gameplan, this comes with a gameplay already there so you don't have to worry about having a blank page. |
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| posted: 2023-06-25 12:28:47 (ID: 100175053) Report Abuse | |
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JohnHW wrote:
I think that 4-3-4 is broken in some way as a run defense because it's the only defense where you see those long pass plays. This is both for and against my team. I have come to the conclusion that we should never ever use it. I was once told that the MLB in 4-3-4 does not fall back to pass coverage, so passing down the middle to the Tight End tends to be a pretty easy path to success. Otherwise it does work against some offensive Formations, interestingly. When I did the exercise with testing every offensive against every defensive formation, I discovered that 4-3-4 works pretty well against the Singleback-Formations. And you can (and should) use it complementary to not always use the same defensive formation against a specific offensive formation. I don't know it that's really happening, but using different formations defending e. g. passing from I-Formation in different downs/distances seems to be more successful than just using one and the same Defense the whole game. JohnHW wrote:
Because the default defense gameplan uses it, it's a major reason to switch to your own gameplan. When you activate using your own gameplan, this comes with a gameplay already there so you don't have to worry about having a blank page. As Pete pointed out in another thread about Playbooks using the Basic Playbook, especially on Defense, makes you basically use the bot-Settings. Yes, it is a little more advanced since bots ONLY use 4-3-4, but the advantage is not that big. So you do a lot to improve your game if you just set up a proper Defense |
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| posted: 2023-06-26 13:19:57 (ID: 100175068) Report Abuse | |
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The second game day of the Bootcamp Friendly Cup came and went, and we saw some close match-ups… and a slaughtering that I’m truly sorry about. These were the games, with again commentary added:
Leadhills Wonderers 17:23 Córdoba Kalifas The Kalifas won their second game in this Cup, too. They scored the first and the second Touchdown of the game and never looked back. A promising drive by the Wonderers in the second half was intercepted by the CB of the Kalifas, leading to a fieldgoal to make it 17:0. The men from the Leadhills scored a TD later in Q2, which was concluded with two long FG-attempts that both failed. The Wonderers rallied in the second half, but failed to keep the home team from scoring. Is it true that the Kalifas are still using the Basic Defensive Playbook? I oversaw that last time, concentrating too much on the offensive side of the ball. Of course that doesn’t matter as long as the games are won, but opponents being able to download the Basic Playbook to study how they can use it to their advantage will become a dangerous trap door sooner or later. Lusaka Antilopes 24:30 Ubernoobers The last game on yesterdays game day was a close one, and being decided in Overtime tells you a lot of what you need to know about this Admirals-Duel. The Ubernoobers jumped in front with scoring two touchdowns in the first half while only allowing a Fieldgoal after an INT for the visiting team. The final 9 minutes of the first half were an intense defensive battle, with the Defense of the Antilopes setting the tone for a great comeback in the second half where they outscored the home team 21:10. The best player on the field was the QB of the Antilopes, throwing for 2 TDs and rushing for the last one that sent the game to overtime. But then the Defense of the Ubernoobers stepped up, stopped the Drive of the visitors and let the Offense march down to score the TD to win the game. Not much to say here: Both teams played a nice and varied game, time and time again catching the Defense of the opponent on the wrong foot. The final drive, though, showed what I meant when I wrote about using different defensive formations to complement each other: When you rely on one formation and one formation only to defend a specific offensive formation you run the risk of getting either overrun or heavily passed upon over the course of the whole game. Take a look at this game that I played last Saturday against the Baltic Stars. They did play a very simple offensive Playbook (in fact we both did, because I blatantly copied his Offense), but it is somehow incredibly tough to defend. You can go to site and see that they win a lot of their games that way. To be able to counter their attack I changed the defensive formation for different downs and distances, and it took quite a few scrimmages to feel comfortable about it. I’m pretty sure that I would not have won if I’d just relied on one formation the whole game. Outlaws 13:16 Derby Rams The closest game of the weekend saw a defensive battle in the first quarter with only a fieldgoal for the home team. But after a great punt to the 5 Yard line the QB/HB-committee of the Outlaws had enough and fabricated a great drive to score the first TD, even overcoming/recovering a fumble 13 short of the opposing goalline. The Rams matriculated the ball down the field in their next possession and scored a TD, too, letting then both Defenses again take over. In the end it was a Last-Minute-Fieldgoal from 38 Yards out by the home team that secured the victory. Not much to say here, either (for real this time), as both teams played basic Defense and Offense. And since we’re playing Power Mode which makes both teams nearly equal in terms of strenght it results in that kind of game. Juggernauts 10:43 HSL The Juggernauts scored first in this match-up, and managed to keep the home team away from their goalline. But with 5 minutes being played in Q2 the costly turnovers began to happen, with a Fumble converted to a FG in Q2 and a Pick6 to start Q3 took the game well out of reach for the visitors. The backups of the Sea Lions above that seemed eager to show their coach that they were able to put on a show similar to the first string players the evening before and scored a whopping 37 points in the second half, with the last score being a PAT after a last-minute TD. I can’t say much about this one besides „I’m sorry“, because I didn’t intend to score that much |
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