Gameplanning testing

[Leonidas]

I'm feeling pretty good. I just ran a test on an offense that virtually duplicated the results of the control AI gameplan. So now I am at least as good as the AI at gameplanning.

Here's my test. I drafted a fictional Chicago Bears team with the intent of creating a balanced offense. Then I set injuries at 0 (to maintain constant rosters) and ran a control where I let the AI handle all of the gameplanning. I ran 20 seasons (all the same season, with the same roster, over again 20 different times). I then ran 20 seasons using the offensive gameplan I built and made the constant plan for every game (the AI changes its plan every game). Here are my results on the key data points I chose (AI results first, my results in parentheses):
Average rushes per season: 452.8 (451.1)
Average yards per season: 1900.1 (1901.75)
Ave YPC: 4.20 (4.22)
Ave pass attempts: 513.6 (510.0)
Ave completions: 306.3 (306.0)
%: 59.63 (60.0)
Ave yards per season: 3202.3 (3171.7)
Ave yards per attempt: 6.24 (6.22)
Ave touchdown passes: 20.1 (21.4)
Ave ints: 13.3 (13.85)
Ave points per season: 328.25 (326.0)
Ave wins: 10.3 (10.75)

You may be thinking, "woohoo, he made a virtual replica of AI gameplanning." Actually I am quite elated. If I can make a gameplan as good as the AI I am fairly certain I can tweak this to make it significantly better.

My next experiment will be to draft fictional teams towards a power running game and a run and shoot style offense and see if I can make something better in those than the AI. And eventually I might get to blitz/coverage schemes on defenses, but I'm not so sure I can come up with something better than the AI.

[Caratacus]

Nice idea, I'll do the same with some defensive gameplans and see what I can come up with....

[Icy]

One of the first things i have noticed is that is possible now to really set a West Coast offense with lots of short passes to your RB, FB and TE while i was never able in 2k4 unless they all had excellent route running. I'm liking a lot the gameplan options so far.

[SlyBelle1]

I'm kind of lost in the game planning area, do any of you have good tutorials how you go about doing it? Icy, you mentioned you had good luck getting the TE involved, anything you can share?

[Icy]

I'm kind of lost in the game planning area, do any of you have good tutorials how you go about doing it? Icy, you mentioned you had good luck getting the TE involved, anything you can share?

Once i get a better felling on how it all works, I'll write my thoughts but by now, to get a WC style offense what i did is the following (All is pretty basic, no any advance knowledge used).

- In the basic gameplanning screen, i lowered the long pass % and raised the short one for most of the situations, specially when under 10 yards to go.

- In the miscellaneous offensive selections screen, in the choose short part distances boxes i raised the % for screens and 0-4 passes. In the choose long pass distance boxes, i raised the 9-12 yards % lowering the others.

As expected, that kind of gameplan allowed my RB, FB and TE to be looked way more by the QB, sending them short passes instead of looking to go deep to the WR's.

Anyway as i said before, this was just a first test not paying a lot of attention to the details, just applying basic football knowledge to the game.

Tomorrow I'll start to really experiment to create some different basic offensive gameplans (West Coast, Smashmouth and Vertical) and some defensive ones (3-4 with heavy blitzing and aggressive and 4-3 zone more conservative). Once you got those basic sets it's only about adapting them to your players or drafting/signing FA's appropriated for them.

I really hope this year we can have good discussions about strategies and not to worry that much about MP leagues as anyway i don't think there is any winning gameplan that can be applied to any team to win a SB, it's more about having the right the personal. Btw, shouldn't we discuss this in the strategies forum?

[RedKingGold]

I really hope this year we can have good discussions about strategies and not to worry that much about MP leagues as anyway i don't think there is any winning gameplan that can be applied to any team to win a SB, it's more about having the right the personal. Btw, shouldn't we discuss this in the strategies forum?

Amen.

Put me in the crowd of one who is not into hardcore gameplanning, however, I would like to see some basic plans that I can tweak some percentages depending on my personnel in both SP and MP. The sharing of gameplans should not be a big deal when it comes to multiplayer, because it should be similar to how it is in real life.

Think about it. Many teams in the NFL run the "West Coast Offense", but every single team runs a different variation of it depending on their personnel. Do you have a Ricky Watters or Warrick Dunn? If we had a base plan of how certain type offenses/defenses would work; we can tweak those plans based on our personnel

[Caratacus]

Using the same guidelines as Leonidas, I made a 4-3 defense based heavily on Bump & Run with Safeties playing a little B&R & mainly Zone (If they are infact in zone when you play 2 Deep Zone Bump & Run and not considered to be playing B&R? If not they also played nearly all B&R) very very little M2M coverage. AI results first, mine in brackets...

Rush Yds p/g 106.24 (106.1)
Rush Ave p/c 3.67 (3.77)
Completion % 54.55 (53.48)
Pass Yds p/g 190.34 (187.71)
Total Yds p/g 281.21 (278.4)
3rd Down % 29.72 (28.39)
Turnovers 29.8 (29.7)

Ave Points 275 (246)
Wins 8.2 (9.1)

Not much in it statistically but 30 points allowed less per season and an extra win per season. Plus it allows you to get players who are not highly rated who can be system players. CB's with B&R and little or no M2M or Zone skills.

The CB's I was using were only in the 60's for B&R coverage, and 80+ in M2M and Zone, so the AI wasn't at a disadvantage using all the coverages.

It was my first attempt at setting a defensive gameplan so it could quite possibly be improved further with a little tinkering.

[Subby]

Put me in the crowd of one who is not into hardcore gameplanning
OBVIOUSLY

:D

[RedKingGold]

OBVIOUSLY

:D

Don't worry, I'm sure Mr. Young will make you eat your words in a future season...

;)

[Subby]

Well your other big QB splash was Lomax, so you really have no where to go but up.

:pwned:

[SlyBelle1]

It just dawned on me one key piece missing from the game planning areas, unless I missed it. The concept of time. Meaning, there are a lot of categories for saying what to do based on whether yor leading and on a certain yardline, but nothing is considered about how much time is left in the game. For example, if I'm trailing by 8 on my opponents 20 yard line in the first half, I would likely kick a FG. But if this was the situation in the 4th qtr with 2 minutes left, I would go for it. Is there anywhere that I can make this type of adjustment? If not, seems like a big piece missing.

[Leonidas]

It just dawned on me one key piece missing from the game planning areas, unless I missed it. The concept of time. Meaning, there are a lot of categories for saying what to do based on whether yor leading and on a certain yardline, but nothing is considered about how much time is left in the game. For example, if I'm trailing by 8 on my opponents 20 yard line in the first half, I would likely kick a FG. But if this was the situation in the 4th qtr with 2 minutes left, I would go for it. Is there anywhere that I can make this type of adjustment? If not, seems like a big piece missing.Actually there is. Look at the bottom of the adjusted gameplanning screen and it asks you to set what minute (out of a 60 minute game) you want to use the gameplan adjustments. I think it's defaulted on 35.