I don't understand the complaints about upsets in v2.  Upsets are realistic.  For instance, Ohio State occasionally upsets Michigan.

 A lot of the old timers remember when version 1 was pretty predictable. If you had the best matchups, you won. Upsets were EXtremely Rare. And some guys now get upset when they feel they should have won and didn't.
          But I agree with you, upsets are part of the game.
                 A few milenia back, the Chicago Bears had one loss in the regular season. They lost to the 49r's who ended up with 1 or 2 wins in the regular season
                               Who would have thought ?
                       

Having not played V1, I find V2 to be a good game. I am trying to figure out V3 and its not working very well. Whenever this new game is rolled out I will b gone. Maybe what we should do is suggest a few worlds to eliminate. V3 is absolutely not the answer.

Posted by tooslim on 9/19/2013 8:05:00 PM (view original):
Am I the only one that basically likes version 2.0? Though it seems to me that is does have some problems. Passing efficiency needs to be dropped by 10 to 15% or so.
Turnovers need to be decreased by 20 to 25%. But after that it seems like a fun game. Yes, you win some games you probably shouldn't and also lose some games to teams you shouldn't but that seems like football to me.

I never played version 1.0 but it seems like a ridiculous and totally unrealistic game to me. From what I have read--you could win by running 100% of the time and never throwing. Coaches who found that method of recruiting great running backs, offensive lines, and defensive lines and running all the time won all the time. That is supposed to be a great game? So you build up a team like that with great prestige and you can't be beat and that us supposed to be good? How unrealistic can you get?
This won't be a popular statement--but it seems like a bunch of whiners who figured out how to beat an unrealistic game to me. Then they change to version 2.0 where passing actually matters and a lot of people could not adjust and went back to their mommy's couch and pouted.
It does though seem like they went overboard and made passing a little too dominant of a feature.

I just started in the Beta world for version 3.0 and it scares me. The one thing about 2.0 is it does take a lot of time and effort to set up and run a team. Version 3.0 is going to take a lot longer and is a LOT more involved. If the game is better--I would still play and invest the time but would probably cut back from 3 teams to 2. I am afraid though--that a newbie coach would be overwhelmed with how complicated it is. They could set their team to the basic mode--but would get killed by coaches who take the time to put in the advanced mode coaching.

I certainly don't have all the answers to the GD woes but it just seems to me like a few simple tweaks to the 2.0 would be better than trying to re-invent the wheel.
I for one--enjoy the version 2.0.

+1,000,000

Posted by tooslim on 9/19/2013 8:05:00 PM (view original):
Am I the only one that basically likes version 2.0? Though it seems to me that is does have some problems. Passing efficiency needs to be dropped by 10 to 15% or so.
Turnovers need to be decreased by 20 to 25%. But after that it seems like a fun game. Yes, you win some games you probably shouldn't and also lose some games to teams you shouldn't but that seems like football to me.

I never played version 1.0 but it seems like a ridiculous and totally unrealistic game to me. From what I have read--you could win by running 100% of the time and never throwing. Coaches who found that method of recruiting great running backs, offensive lines, and defensive lines and running all the time won all the time. That is supposed to be a great game? So you build up a team like that with great prestige and you can't be beat and that us supposed to be good? How unrealistic can you get?
This won't be a popular statement--but it seems like a bunch of whiners who figured out how to beat an unrealistic game to me. Then they change to version 2.0 where passing actually matters and a lot of people could not adjust and went back to their mommy's couch and pouted.
It does though seem like they went overboard and made passing a little too dominant of a feature.

I just started in the Beta world for version 3.0 and it scares me. The one thing about 2.0 is it does take a lot of time and effort to set up and run a team. Version 3.0 is going to take a lot longer and is a LOT more involved. If the game is better--I would still play and invest the time but would probably cut back from 3 teams to 2. I am afraid though--that a newbie coach would be overwhelmed with how complicated it is. They could set their team to the basic mode--but would get killed by coaches who take the time to put in the advanced mode coaching.

I certainly don't have all the answers to the GD woes but it just seems to me like a few simple tweaks to the 2.0 would be better than trying to re-invent the wheel.
I for one--enjoy the version 2.0.

I think it's pretty odd to attack 1.0 when you never played it.  You have some serious misconceptions about it.  You could win running 100%, passing 100% or anything in between.  Coaches won because they had talent and gameplanned well.  There were clear cause and effect relationships that you could exploit.  The more talented team usually won, but gameplanning was the difference between making the playoffs and winning an NC.  

The coaches who were winning NCs in 1.0 were still winning NCs in 2.0.  They were "whining" even though they were still winning NCs.  They were "whining" because talent mattered less, gamelanning mattered less and there were fewer controls to manage your team and those controls had little cause/effect relationship with game outcomes.  They left because they didn't want to pay for a game where too many seasons ended with an unexplainable loss.  Bad coaches like the random part of the game to help them out, good coaches want skill to be the determining factor.  Most coaches want to know why they won or lost and what they can do to improve, 2.0 offers little in that regard.  

I'm glad you and a few others like 2.0.  Most other coaches liked 1.0 and left.  It's sad to see the worlds so empty.  There was a time when you had to be up when worlds rolled over to get a new D3 team.  I hope the game gets back to that kind of vibrancy, but 2.0 is not a game for coaches playing to win and 3.0 is a long way from being a good game.

slid64er: I consider myself a niche or two under the top coaches; so still pretty damn good.
And I still prefer the randomness in version 2. 
But that being said, I liked and was successful in version 1 also.
       Although I am fine with version 2 I could(and have) live with version 1  .  But 3 aint for me; at least the way it is now.

1.0 was way to run favored. 2.0 is well. And 3.0 just needs deleted. 

I think that if they were to open up a new world and give all current users, who have been active in the past six months (following the 3.0 decline) a free season for it, that it would fill up and and stay that way for quite a while. Enhancing the rewards system for successful coaches would also be a great perk and help to filling a world up.

""I think it's pretty odd to attack 1.0 when you never played it.  You have some serious misconceptions about it.  You could win running 100%, passing 100% or anything in between.  Coaches won because they had talent and gameplanned well.  There were clear cause and effect relationships that you could exploit.  The more talented team usually won, but gameplanning was the difference between making the playoffs and winning an NC.  

The coaches who were winning NCs in 1.0 were still winning NCs in 2.0.  They were "whining" even though they were still winning NCs.  They were "whining" because talent mattered less, gamelanning mattered less and there were fewer controls to manage your team and those controls had little cause/effect relationship with game outcomes.  They left because they didn't want to pay for a game where too many seasons ended with an unexplainable loss.  Bad coaches like the random part of the game to help them out, good coaches want skill to be the determining factor.  Most coaches want to know why they won or lost and what they can do to improve, 2.0 offers little in that regard.  

I'm glad you and a few others like 2.0.  Most other coaches liked 1.0 and left.  It's sad to see the worlds so empty.  There was a time when you had to be up when worlds rolled over to get a new D3 team.  I hope the game gets back to that kind of vibrancy, but 2.0 is not a game for coaches playing to win and 3.0 is a long way from being a good game.""


+1

I left after 1.0 ended when my free seasons ran out. I definitely passed though.

"Bad coaches like the random part of the game to help them out"

Sorry, slid64er. I didn't buy this back then when v2.0 came out, and I'm not buying it now, either. Please, give it a rest. If I remember right, according to you experts, good coaches weren't supposed to be able to win consistently with a random engine. Didn't quite work out that way, did it? Most of the top coaches now were top coaches with the old engine.

That said, there were a lot of things about 1.0 that were superior, namely the ability to see what you were doing wrong so you could correct it (causality?), the situational depth charting (line changes), and the increased emphasis on stamina. All of these would be great to have re-introduced. On the other hand, 1.0 wasn't particularly realistic, which I don't miss at all. Maybe "realistic" isn't the right word anyway, because there was a time when 3 yards and a cloud of dust defined college football.

Anyway, both versions have their good points and bad points. It's a pity that 3.0 doesn't seem to be aiming in between the two.

Posted by scrodz on 9/22/2013 3:44:00 PM (view original):
"Bad coaches like the random part of the game to help them out"

Sorry, slid64er. I didn't buy this back then when v2.0 came out, and I'm not buying it now, either. Please, give it a rest. If I remember right, according to you experts, good coaches weren't supposed to be able to win consistently with a random engine. Didn't quite work out that way, did it? Most of the top coaches now were top coaches with the old engine.

That said, there were a lot of things about 1.0 that were superior, namely the ability to see what you were doing wrong so you could correct it (causality?), the situational depth charting (line changes), and the increased emphasis on stamina. All of these would be great to have re-introduced. On the other hand, 1.0 wasn't particularly realistic, which I don't miss at all. Maybe "realistic" isn't the right word anyway, because there was a time when 3 yards and a cloud of dust defined college football.

Anyway, both versions have their good points and bad points. It's a pity that 3.0 doesn't seem to be aiming in between the two.

Ill agree that both have their points... as slid said though there does seem to be more "randomness."  I am completely okay with upsets here and there and definitely encourage them but when solid teams are getting beat by long time Sim AI coached teams that's a little far. I think the number of upsets has drastically declined since the initial start of 2.0 but there are still just some funky things going on. I think 2.0 is closer to making the game more "realistic" for stats, you still find some really outrageous ones sometimes. Definitely the lack of game control in 2.0 hurts a lot... they don't seem to be doing much with 3.0 right now and it's not even close imo. Hopefully some day WIS will get this game back to the way it was as far as having full worlds and many great competitive coaches.

Posted by scrodz on 9/22/2013 3:44:00 PM (view original):
"Bad coaches like the random part of the game to help them out"

Sorry, slid64er. I didn't buy this back then when v2.0 came out, and I'm not buying it now, either. Please, give it a rest. If I remember right, according to you experts, good coaches weren't supposed to be able to win consistently with a random engine. Didn't quite work out that way, did it? Most of the top coaches now were top coaches with the old engine.

That said, there were a lot of things about 1.0 that were superior, namely the ability to see what you were doing wrong so you could correct it (causality?), the situational depth charting (line changes), and the increased emphasis on stamina. All of these would be great to have re-introduced. On the other hand, 1.0 wasn't particularly realistic, which I don't miss at all. Maybe "realistic" isn't the right word anyway, because there was a time when 3 yards and a cloud of dust defined college football.

Anyway, both versions have their good points and bad points. It's a pity that 3.0 doesn't seem to be aiming in between the two.

Reread my post.  I know NC winning coaches in 1.0 were still winning NCs in 2.0.  That's not the reason they left.  

fwiw, after some limited testing, 3.0 is much more playable after this last update.  It's still a long ways from being a good game, but at least it's moving forward, albeit at a glacier like pace.

Posted by starfinder77 on 9/22/2013 9:47:00 AM (view original):

Posted by tooslim on 9/19/2013 8:05:00 PM (view original):
Am I the only one that basically likes version 2.0? Though it seems to me that is does have some problems. Passing efficiency needs to be dropped by 10 to 15% or so.
Turnovers need to be decreased by 20 to 25%. But after that it seems like a fun game. Yes, you win some games you probably shouldn't and also lose some games to teams you shouldn't but that seems like football to me.

I never played version 1.0 but it seems like a ridiculous and totally unrealistic game to me. From what I have read--you could win by running 100% of the time and never throwing. Coaches who found that method of recruiting great running backs, offensive lines, and defensive lines and running all the time won all the time. That is supposed to be a great game? So you build up a team like that with great prestige and you can't be beat and that us supposed to be good? How unrealistic can you get?
This won't be a popular statement--but it seems like a bunch of whiners who figured out how to beat an unrealistic game to me. Then they change to version 2.0 where passing actually matters and a lot of people could not adjust and went back to their mommy's couch and pouted.
It does though seem like they went overboard and made passing a little too dominant of a feature.

I just started in the Beta world for version 3.0 and it scares me. The one thing about 2.0 is it does take a lot of time and effort to set up and run a team. Version 3.0 is going to take a lot longer and is a LOT more involved. If the game is better--I would still play and invest the time but would probably cut back from 3 teams to 2. I am afraid though--that a newbie coach would be overwhelmed with how complicated it is. They could set their team to the basic mode--but would get killed by coaches who take the time to put in the advanced mode coaching.

I certainly don't have all the answers to the GD woes but it just seems to me like a few simple tweaks to the 2.0 would be better than trying to re-invent the wheel.
I for one--enjoy the version 2.0.

+1,000,000

I'm with you for most of this--I did play 1.0 (under another id), and it was much more unrealistic than the current engine.  The easiest way to build a team was to load up on OL, DL & RB, switch them around according to Box or Bone, and you were pretty much guaranteed to beat every Sim team, and after a few seasons of good recruiting, you would be a competitive team in the playoffs.  Were there other ways to succeed?  Sure.  Did it bear much resemblance to how real football game outcomes are determined?  No. But it was also more fun. 

One thing you've missed in characterizing the change from 1.0 to 2.0 is that the 2.0 that was first released was *much* worse than the 2.0 engine we see today.  (So the whining was more about the ridiculous results than the actual scores, at least at the beginning.)  The forums basically exploded with people wondering why their top10 QB in their world all of a sudden threw 3 pick-6s in the first half. ....why their RB fumbled the ball 8 times.  How a team could score 130 points, etc.  The substitution controls were even more limited than they are now.  The attitude of customer service/developers was that the engine was either working as intended, or only needed a few minor 'tweaks'.  No beta testing was done.  The exodus from the game is exactly what they deserved.  No one should pay for that product.

Within a few weeks/months, improvements were made to make the game playable as we see it today.  But most (including me) believe it is less fun--partially because it is less deterministic--it is harder to see what to do to control the outcome, take advantage of other teams weaknesses, etc.  That seems to be the crux of the problem to me--how do you balance realism with game-like qualities? 

Of course, if WIS can't even figure out how to get TEs the ball, or tell us who is getting the start....well, that's why I'm not playing any more, and just getting my (free) entertainment from these forums. :)  The Beta version is just not far enough along yet to have even been released into beta in my opinion.

I forgot to mention that I seem to remember one justification for switching from v1 to v2 in the first place was that the v1 code was 'bloated' (which I can understand), and done in visual basic(??)....  Now they also claimed that the new v2 code (done in c#??) would be "easier to update more frequently".  This, more than anything, appeared to be an empty 'talking point' or just a lie, and that more than anything else has really turned me away from WIS.

I can't help but also add--One of my favorite *quirks* of the v1 game was seeing successful, NC caliber teams not have any QBs at all on their roster so they could save the space for more OL & DL.  They'd have the punter give the hand offs and never throw a single pass the entire season.  LOL.  That is why it was really the 'single-wing dynasty'!