This is the response I get when I asked why I ran out the clock in the first half. I was losing, had conserve clock if losing, was in FG range and had 2 TO's left. I ran a play with :45 to go for 2 yard on 3rd down and just ran out the clock. I have felt for a long time that the play-by-play was just fluff and filler and that the games were predetermined. I don't care what adjustments you make if the outcome has you losing you will lose. Total failure and a waste of time and money. I don't believe they even read my question because if they had they wouldn't respond with this. I EXPLAINED TO THEM I HAD CONSERVE THE CLOCK WHEN LOSING AND I WAS LOSING. Final score??? Lost by 3 points. Image that. To anyone new, I wouldn't recommend playing this game as it is. I've been here since 2005. I've stayed out of habit. Time to get a new hobby.


Hello Brian,


This situation occurs when you have a run the clock setting in place. The game does not differentiate the first half from the second half and treats them the same so when you have the settings to slow down, it will do this at the end of the first and second halves, depending on the specific situation.

Jordan

WhatIfSports Customer Experience Team

This gets better each time they respond. I can't believe they are really looking at this seriously. My response was then why didn't I run another play? Why no Timeout to call another play. They are grasping at straws trying to explain this away and it's not flying.

Apologies for my confusion. I checked your setting and the reason you didn't kick a field goal is due to the "very aggressive" setting. You do have the conserve time (this is my bad on the assumption) but you have it set to be very aggressive which tells the sims you want to try to score touchdowns whenever possible and not settle for less. The sim is going to take the aggressiveness into consideration over the field goal limit in this situation.

Jordan

WhatIfSports Customer Experience Team

Here is their latest response:

You didn't run another play because it was 4th down and the game determined running the rest of the clock vs trying a field goal with a FR kicker was the better route. There have been nuanced situations from time to time where the game opts to let the time run out instead of running another play. I will ping the devs to see if they can see anything else but honestly the decisions sometimes come down to some RNG by the engine and even if you try to steer the game towards a decision it doesn't always do what is expected.

Jordan

WhatIfSports Customer Experience Team

Just to recap, I had my setting sets to conserve clock when losing (I was), Very Aggressive, and the last play was 3rd and 3 with :45 left in the half. I gained 2 yards making it 4th and 1 and had two Timeouts left. If anyone is buying the " the game determined running the rest of the clock vs trying a field goal with a FR kicker was the better route" Explanation then you are out of your mind. The more they respond the more I believe the outcomes are predetermined by overall values and the play-by-play is put in to fit the outcome. Which means halftime adjustments mean nothing. What you think you are controlling, is not really being controlled. It will be interesting to see what the developers have to say.
I wanted to edit this and say when I checked the score at 3:30 AM I predicted I would lose. I've seen this kind of thing before.

the outcomes aren't predetermined, but the play by play stuff is essentially fluff/filler generated to explain what just happened. each play uses their engine to determine an outcome, and they have to come up with words to reflect the representations they are trying to draw between their sim and real life. their isn't a defensive line breaking through, or an offensive line getting a good first step. it's telling you the results of the sim in steps. it's more like here is the first part of this outcome, here is a little bit more, and this part completes it. it gives you most of the useful information, but it's not really what is happening. there is quite a bit going on for every play, and not all of it is useful information.

halftime adjustments definitely affect the outcome of a game, but sometimes it's not enough. or sometimes we can make adjustments based on biased information, and then we wonder why it didn't work? sometimes its means what we thought we were looking at wasn't actually happening. other times, the universe just liked the other guy that day. which happens in real life as well. sometimes theres no good reason, but app st beat michigan in the big house. for these reasons, and some others, halftime adjustments are rarely going to drastically change the game. and, they shouldn't. unless you can drastically change what players you are putting on the field, the game shouldn't flip on its head because of a couple of adjustments. thats not how it goes for real life either.

with all that said its seems like this jordan guy is the only one who answers these tickets, and who knows how many he gets per day. im not a fan of the new team in charge, but id hate to be the one having to always answer for not just your whole team, but the teams who came before you as well. there are a lot of moving parts here, and i doubt they or anyone else involved through the years ever fully understood all of it. even the guys who write this stuff are going to be finding new things all the time when there are so many factors to be decided to yield an outcome. if you have to take over someone else's stuff.. thats a task and a half. the thing about the fr kicker is wild. if its actually considering that... that changes some things about my understanding of the sim at least.

i dont doubt you are able to accurately predict the outcomes either. you have seen a lot of sims. when you see so many you start to get a feel for how its gonna go, and when you see so many more you start to be right with some regularity.