http://www.whatifsports.com/gd/GameResults/BoxScore.aspx?gid=4599317

I have to say, when 3.0 just came out I was a huge defender of it. I honestly believe outside of a few bugs the last version of beta was the best we ever got out of it. I thought it came a long way towards becoming more predictable, more consistent, and more of an actual simulation. I've always had a problem with the idea of the dice rolling piece of defense, but if it lead to more consistency and more logic to the sim I would deal with that. After the past few days the only reason I'm here past this season is that I was given a gift certificate by another member.

One of the biggest reasons that I liked the update to 3.0 was the position roles aspect of the game. I understand that the default position roles and guess roles invariably are off from what the calculations are.

This game features, according to the dev chats, according to every post. This team I am playing has between an 8 and 10 point disadvantage across the board in the core ratings that supposedly go into the calculations of an inside run. Then, for some reason my Running Back (who is superior in everywhere a running back is supposed to be outside of maybe a slight mediocrity in Game Instinct) looked pedestrian.

What use is playing this game if you can't explain the results? You can call it random chance and a 2% chance of it going that badly. If that is the case I will no longer be a customer of this website. I'm fed up with this, particularly after defending this game to the extent that I did early on.

I think coaches have been saying all along that this is not the same game we played in Beta, and that changes are being made with no notification.  It is difficult to make sense of a game that is fluid and constantly being altered.  A little here, a little there.  Things that work one season with less talent don't work the next with better talent, and no explanation from the DEVS about what is changing or why or how the game itself is supposed to work. 

I think maybe you assumed you understood things more than you did, and eventually you came to the same inevitable realization that many of us already had.  Version 3 is flawed, difficult to make sense of, and inconsistent.  With that said, I still think it is better than version 2, at least at the division 3 level and when not running the wishbone or playing Colorado and trying to cover Ball...    Speaking of Ball, he is off to a stellar start this season!  Can he break his own record?  lol

I guess it comes down to potential and patience.  If you think the new engine has potential and you have the patience to wait for the needed changes to happen for it to reach that potential, it would be worth sticking around.  If not, I doubt anyone will blame you for taking a break.  At the end of the say, it is just a game. 

samson..something changed. Recently. I believe that they stopped running percentages and went back to raw numbers. That means this season DIAA is going to make more sense and DIII is going to make less sense. I'm fine with changes, I'm not fine with things not making sense. When I did analysis on games I could always point to something to explain the result being more acceptable then I thought. I can't do that here. I can't do it on the game thats going on right now. I don't want to take a break, if I'm gone the chances of my coming back are slim. Very slim. It would be one thing if there was vague communication. This is unacceptable. I'm fine with losing the game I lost, for instance, because the teams were evenly matched. I got beat pretty handily, but that will happen. I just don't get anything about it.

I'm sick of the random, unannounced changes, and more so with the lack of communication from the developers. I *know* it's a small staff.  I realize they are probably being pulled 100 different ways, and spending time on the forums is less important than fixing the application... but as I've said more times than I can remember, five minutes a day is not too much to ask.

I'm ready to walk away from the game. 

3.0 is like trying to coach a football team but some days you have to go all run because the laws of physics changed and the football now weighs 16 pounds. And then a few games later the football weighs 1 pound and sprouted wings, and everyone goes back to passing.

Posted by bhazlewood on 1/20/2014 4:18:00 PM (view original):
I'm sick of the random, unannounced changes, and more so with the lack of communication from the developers. I *know* it's a small staff.  I realize they are probably being pulled 100 different ways, and spending time on the forums is less important than fixing the application... but as I've said more times than I can remember, five minutes a day is not too much to ask.

I'm ready to walk away from the game. 

Agree 100%.

Well I certainly can't run the ball...that is for sure.

Noah,

I dont understand your complaint.  The game you posted you won.  Yes, you outclassed the team by a large margin but your LB's are very young and the rest of your defense lacks elite players.  Just look at your GUESS report for the passing defense, you're  B.  Everywhere else you are an A.  If you just step back and look at this game, you were on the road, being pretty predictable with your play calling and your young defense wasn't making the stops you would expect in this matchup.  There is no sorcery here or five-card-monte, you just ended up in a tighter game than you expected but still won.  I noticed you varied your play calling afterwards and it looks better overall.  I just don't understand the complaint here.

The rest of you, I also don't understand.  Bob, you have a valid complaint that the Dev's should at least spend 5 minutes a week on a developer's blog to let us know what they are up to and to give us a roadmap of expected changes.  Beyond that, none of these complaints are based in reality.  The game engine has not be tweaked in almost a month.  There are no stealth changes and nerfs, it is acting very consistently game to game.  The SIM's are harder to beat than they were in 2.0 but that's not a bad change.  

lol jtd79 if you think this version is good I don't know what version your playing.Far to many upsets between good to great teams and crappy sims and human coached teams.theres even more randomness at the higher levels then there ever was in V2.No one can explain anything that's going on def is just a crap shoot.The only coaches that have consistant success have figured out ways to beat the game this is complete garbage and anyone that likes a game where you guess on def ,playcalling means more then talent .this game is so far from consistant I don't know what yopur looking at.I don't think anyone invisioned the game to be like this.Maybe V2 wasn't great but this version is complete random makes no sense CRAP

Show me an example of this randomness Jax.  And it better be consistent randomness over an entire game.  Prove your point with an example and I'll concede the point.


Note - my argument has nothing to do with the fatigue/stam issues that are plaguing 3.0  Those are terrible and have to be fixed.  Im asking for true randomness to the engine more than just anecdotal perceptions.

The SIM's are harder to beat than they were in 2.0 but that's not a bad change.

I have no problem with this if they are evenly matched or the sim team is better. Problem is, a lot of them aren't and they are still winning. My first game this season in Dobie I lost to a sim team 17-16. I was leading at half-time and didn't change anything yet they came back to beat me albeit with a much weaker team. My next 2 games I have crushed the other teams. Why the problem with the 1st game?

The biggest problem I have with GD3 is the fact they lured some of us into playing this game before they had all the bugs worked out. Sure the first season was free. The recruiting process was a lot of fun and I jumped in thinking the final product was going to be complete and ready for gameplay. Only later did I find out that the product isn't and it still needs some work. To me this only means one thing........ I, or should I say, a lot of us were misled by them into thinking we were playing a finished product. Not a good way to do business if you ask me.

The second biggest problem I have is the lack of communication on their part. It has been going on for a long time over in SLB and we finally got a reply when a few of the LONG-time owners sent in tickets threatening to quit if some sort of reply wasn't received. We have been waiting for an update in SLB forever it seems even after they posted that it would be coming soon and that was well over a year ago. If the update comes in SLB and it is like the update in GD I will leave.

Think about it.......  they release an improved version of a game. Advertise it with a free season to get people to play and it isn't even completely ready for gameplay. Then when the customer makes complaints and or suggestions to problems that would improve the product they don't respond. Doesn't sound like a business that will STAY in business very long to me.

Jax, how have you been? Its been a while, hope you're doing well.

Forum Mob Disclaimer: i'm not defending the Ver 3.0 engine.

I tend to disagree with the randomness comment. At least at DIII (that is all i know because that is all i play). I have seen almost too much consistancy. Rarely do i see RBs deviate from the 15%-20% stuff runs per game with a 3.0 - 4.0 median yards/rush. The RB average yards/rush seem to increase based upon 1 or 2 very long runs (40+ yards). Rushing is almost pyrposly throttled back to the point where it is difficult to exclusivley rush the ball down the field.

Same consitancy shows up in passing. For example, throwing "short" with a blocking TE yield 60% -70% compltion percentage. INT rarely show up for these shorter passes.

I have seen reasonably consistant results through defensive game planning. If i see an opponent running all the time for a given situation, i have had reasonable consistant success buy choosing a run stop formation (i.e. 5-2), choosing run, setting all my LBs to "line" and blitzing a DB.

I really wish we could see more cause and effect in this engine, but i havent seen a lot of "randomness".

Posted by jtd79 on 1/20/2014 5:50:00 PM (view original):
Noah,

I dont understand your complaint.  The game you posted you won.  Yes, you outclassed the team by a large margin but your LB's are very young and the rest of your defense lacks elite players.  Just look at your GUESS report for the passing defense, you're  B.  Everywhere else you are an A.  If you just step back and look at this game, you were on the road, being pretty predictable with your play calling and your young defense wasn't making the stops you would expect in this matchup.  There is no sorcery here or five-card-monte, you just ended up in a tighter game than you expected but still won.  I noticed you varied your play calling afterwards and it looks better overall.  I just don't understand the complaint here.

My complaint has nothing to do with defense...or really even of the closeness of the score. My complaint is that I was playing a SimAI team. A SimAI team runs the default playbook I know what the sim team runs defense for. Yes...I ran the ball a lot. Out of the same formation. I see no benefits to using separate formations for running and have had similar results running out of one formation or running out of five. They could have thrown the ball for 400 yards and beat me and I would not care. My point is that I had a superior offensive line and running back and it resulted in pedestrian running results. My weakness is in my defense. Thats cool. Bad game on d? (which btw the game was not bad on D or they would have scored more against me) Sure. Go ahead. That at least MAKES SENSE. SimAI cannot take advantage of someone being predictable in their playcalling, and quite frankly I have changed NOTHING about my gameplanning really since this game. I have three gameplans. I run them all.

My complaint also has nothing to do inherently with randomness. Without a test game feature I cannot really test what randomness is within the game. But lets say that every time the game is run I averaged a 13.9% stuff and 4.0 median rush yards per carry. I would have a problem with that because I do not see it as being reflective of the attributes of my personnel. I had a game last season which was very much like this, but I had chalked it up for poor SP teams AI so I did not do a thorough analysis of the results.

I had the advantage in talent and IQ in this case. It was a SimAI with a static gameplan so they really can't "adjust to my predictable gameplanning". And as I said in my original post the amount of frustration would be significantly less were this to have happened while the developers were in consistent, even if sparse, communication about the state of the game and we had a solid idea of what the heck is going on.