Does anyone have a clue about how game outcomes are now being determined???  For the past 3 seasons it seems more and more like it's just a random coin flip for damn near every game.  I had a streak of 60+ wins against Sims and now have lost 4 times in the past 3 seasons to inferior Sims teams -- 2 of them at home!  I've won a National Championship and 7 or 8 Conference Titles in 13 seasons so I think I kinda know what I'm doing when it comes to coaching, recruiting, and game planning -- but the past 3 seasons there are several results that make no sense at all and I'm really questioning if it's worth wasting time putting together a game plan each night, when it doesn't seem to have that much of an effect anymore.
    Best example of this is a friend of mine's team that has had the #1 recruiting class for 6 seasons in a row -- and doesn't have a NC during that time, although I know he's a helluva coach, he does have one NC.  He got beat in the playoffs last year by an inferior team that had 2 losses on the season -- BOTH to Sims !!!
    I have another team in a different world that went on the road and defeated a Top 10 team by 11 only to come home the next night and get beat by another inferior team that was ranked 172 and then 2 games later lost to a SIM at home.
    I don't know what all has been changed, or tinkered with, but it's getting to the point where the SIMs are becoming too powerful both in games and in recruiting and you're going to see people bailing because of it -- as far as I know WIS ain't making any money off of the Sims !!!
    Almost forgot my best example -- 2 seasons ago in the Bryant world Div III,  we had 4 user owned teams in the Conference - myself, another pretty decent coach, and two semi-newbies and the Conference Championship game was a showdown between 2 SIMS !!! -- who were maybe the 5th or 6th best teams in the Conference.
    So either I've gotten stupider, or the SIMS have gotten a ton smarter --- or maybe the changes, and the tinkering, ain't working !!!  But it's hasta la vista babeeeee,  if this crap doesn't get figured out, and figured out quick !!!
    Not whining, just stating the facts -- anyone else experiencing these freakish outcomes !!!
 

The game has been random for some time now.

I have to say that I am on the other side of this argument/comment.  I have not lost a game (or won a game for that matter) that has not been clearly explainable for several seasons...maybe 10 or so.  

I'm somewhat upset by the 1st  half of my Heisman game yesterday, but it was 1 vs 2 and his team played a great 1st half....so I really can't complain about the engine or the outcome.

I understand your comment, but I personally cannot validate it.

Mathematically, it is entirely possible to come out on the "short end" of the probability many, many times in a single game.  When that happens, you lose or have an "unexplainable" game.  

People who think the game outcomes are random are not working hard enough to figure the game out.   That's not meant to be insulting, but it's the truth.  The engine is far from perfect, but to throw up your hands and say the game is broken and there's nothing you can do about losing is a lazy cop out.

I can't say that EVERY game is explainable...things like special teams touchdowns and interception touchdowns have created many upsets.  However, the vast majority of wins can be traced to better talent, better gameplanning, or both.

The same coaches and schools continue to sit atop the rankings in every world.  If outcomes were truly random, that would not happen.

I had a 4 point lead with 1:14 to play in the game and the ball on my own 7 yard line. What does the engine do? I throw a pass on 1st down and the result was a Pick 6 and I lose by 3. Does not make sense. NO coach in his right mind would throw in that situation.

Posted by Mofo2001 on 7/25/2012 12:53:00 PM (view original):
I had a 4 point lead with 1:14 to play in the game and the ball on my own 7 yard line. What does the engine do? I throw a pass on 1st down and the result was a Pick 6 and I lose by 3. Does not make sense. NO coach in his right mind would throw in that situation.

Unless the offense you were running was 'Always Run' in all situations, I don't really see how this is the game's fault.

Posted by ebbetts55 on 7/25/2012 10:23:00 AM (view original):
People who think the game outcomes are random are not working hard enough to figure the game out.   That's not meant to be insulting, but it's the truth.  The engine is far from perfect, but to throw up your hands and say the game is broken and there's nothing you can do about losing is a lazy cop out.

I can't say that EVERY game is explainable...things like special teams touchdowns and interception touchdowns have created many upsets.  However, the vast majority of wins can be traced to better talent, better gameplanning, or both.

The same coaches and schools continue to sit atop the rankings in every world.  If outcomes were truly random, that would not happen.

You can work 24/7 on "figuring out" the game, but you'll still be just guessing, because you can't see how the plays developed. There's no way to know what stat line caused a particular result. It's all about trial and error, and if you could play the same game 50 times you might be able to come to some valid conclusions, but with a different team every day, you can't build up a large enough baseline sample to compare anything to. And while WIS might have an engine with no random number generators, because we can't SEE the cause and effect, it night as well be random, because we are forced to make too many guesses in our game-planning. So until norbert can program some causality into this game, we're going to keep having these seemingly random "Invincible SIMs".

Posted by jeffn48 on 7/25/2012 1:06:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Mofo2001 on 7/25/2012 12:53:00 PM (view original):
I had a 4 point lead with 1:14 to play in the game and the ball on my own 7 yard line. What does the engine do? I throw a pass on 1st down and the result was a Pick 6 and I lose by 3. Does not make sense. NO coach in his right mind would throw in that situation.

Unless the offense you were running was 'Always Run' in all situations, I don't really see how this is the game's fault.

Totally agree.  There are too many pick 6's in the game right now, but its not the engine's fault for running the gameplan that the coach sets up.    I've lost my share of games because I didn't have the right gameplan set up at the end of a half or end of a game.  Clearly you cannot gameplan for every conceivable situation.

speaking of SIMs, they are not all created equal.  Some of them are pretty darned good.  IMO, the most dangerous SIMs are those that had a decent coach who was running Pro Set and Trips, and then the team has been SIM for like 2 seasons.  That leaves a team with some Juniors and Seniors recruited by the human, that are still running the same basic offense as the human was.    This goes to the "talent is king" line of thinking, 

Posted by jeffn48 on 7/25/2012 1:06:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Mofo2001 on 7/25/2012 12:53:00 PM (view original):
I had a 4 point lead with 1:14 to play in the game and the ball on my own 7 yard line. What does the engine do? I throw a pass on 1st down and the result was a Pick 6 and I lose by 3. Does not make sense. NO coach in his right mind would throw in that situation.

Unless the offense you were running was 'Always Run' in all situations, I don't really see how this is the game's fault.

Agreed.

Posted by flexmagnum on 7/25/2012 12:24:00 AM (view original):
The game has been random for some time now.

This ^

If I thought is was completely or even highly random I would quit. There is a lot of strategy in building your roster and then I think you can influence outcomes considerably with game planning. Random/wierd things happen in real football games all the time. That is why it is so hard to pick winners when people bet.

Posted by harriswb3 on 7/25/2012 1:22:00 PM (view original):
speaking of SIMs, they are not all created equal.  Some of them are pretty darned good.  IMO, the most dangerous SIMs are those that had a decent coach who was running Pro Set and Trips, and then the team has been SIM for like 2 seasons.  That leaves a team with some Juniors and Seniors recruited by the human, that are still running the same basic offense as the human was.    This goes to the "talent is king" line of thinking, 

+1 on this.  A previously coached human team that was pretty good that goes sim can be a tough match up.

If you know how to recruit at the lower three levels, you'll win many more than you lose, still. Talent does matter, just not in the ways that we used to think of it under the previous engine.

There are some really, really ****** outcomes that come out of nowhere. Many more, in fact, that I would prefer to see. I had a Top-3-talent, Quarterfinal team lose to a first-year-human-previously-all-Sim team in the regular season, recently, that went on to lose multiple games to horrible Sim teams and finished 5-8. In lopsided fashion (like three TDs, IIRC). Inexcusable. I'd have been seething, even if it was a one-score loss on a fluke turnover or something, but at least I could wrap my mind around it.  But that way... by three scores... with horrible coaching and horrible talent?  I mean... just complete and utter bullshit.

If I never see another loss like that, for myself or anyone else, I would be ecstatic. And I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll get that with GD 3.0. Cautiously.

Posted by gt_deuce on 7/25/2012 6:09:00 PM (view original):
If you know how to recruit at the lower three levels, you'll win many more than you lose, still. Talent does matter, just not in the ways that we used to think of it under the previous engine.

There are some really, really ****** outcomes that come out of nowhere. Many more, in fact, that I would prefer to see. I had a Top-3-talent, Quarterfinal team lose to a first-year-human-previously-all-Sim team in the regular season, recently, that went on to lose multiple games to horrible Sim teams and finished 5-8. In lopsided fashion (like three TDs, IIRC). Inexcusable. I'd have been seething, even if it was a one-score loss on a fluke turnover or something, but at least I could wrap my mind around it.  But that way... by three scores... with horrible coaching and horrible talent?  I mean... just complete and utter bullshit.

If I never see another loss like that, for myself or anyone else, I would be ecstatic. And I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll get that with GD 3.0. Cautiously.

+1