Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

Would it make sense to have individual player settings like in baseball?

RBs - prefer Line Buck or Off Tackle or End Run
QB - prefer Short Pass or Long Pass
DB - prefer Double Team or Zone
LB - prefer Blitz
TE - prefer pass route or pass protect
Team settings - huddle after each play, no huddle

Some things like this to give us more control over the play selection?

Great idea.

Our options are very limited right now. Agree. It's a bummer.

ROBERTLATORRE wrote:Would it make sense to have individual player settings like in baseball?

RBs - prefer Line Buck or Off Tackle or End Run
QB - prefer Short Pass or Long Pass
DB - prefer Double Team or Zone
LB - prefer Blitz
TE - prefer pass route or pass protect
Team settings - huddle after each play, no huddle

Some things like this to give us more control over the play selection?

Agree 100%

ROBERTLATORRE wrote:Would it make sense to have individual player settings like in baseball?

RBs - prefer Line Buck or Off Tackle or End Run
QB - prefer Short Pass or Long Pass
DB - prefer Double Team or Zone
LB - prefer Blitz
TE - prefer pass route or pass protect
Team settings - huddle after each play, no huddle

Some things like this to give us more control over the play selection?

Robert I just noticed that the formation settings have interesting comments available when you click on the "details" button to the right of each formation.

I just saw this for "smash mouth":

"Smash Mouth Details
Approx. Pass/Run Ratio: 45/55
Notes: HB will carry ball extremely often with emphasis on linebuck and off tackle runs, FB/BB rarely carries ball
Pros: Increased blocking for both run and pass plays
Cons: Fewer Long Pass attempts"

and there is also this formation:

"Smash Mouth 60's-70's Details
Approx. Pass/Run Ratio: 35/65
Notes: Multiple running backs necessary with emphasis on linebuck and off tackle runs, conservative passing game
Pros: Dominates time of possession
Cons: 4th WR never used"

If you wanted to run interior running plays (not end runs) you could use smash mouth to do this.

"Pro Set Details
Approx. Pass/Run Ratio: 55/45
Notes: HB gets more End Run carries, FB gets more linebuck carries, 3rd WR used in passing downs, 4th WR used in long 3rd downs
Pros: Suitable for any style of offense
Cons: FB must be a large part of running game (at least 30+ carries per season)"

Could be used to get more HB end runs, but you lose some of the benefits of the BB formation, above. The pro set could be a good formation where the FB is good at linebucks.

Although there are not the individual settings that Robert and other gamers would want, if you carefully read through the descriptions of the formations, and look at the strengths and weakness of your own team and of your opposition, it looks like you should be able to create a specific game plan to target your opponents weaknesses, guard against your opponent's strengths, and exploit your own strengths.

For game 1, my strategies were very generic (normal settings) . I am looking at each of tonight's games with very specific offensive and defensive strategies in mind. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Yes!

^^^ Radagast (and others) - follow-up from my previous post :

I "think" my strategy plans were executed, and they worked.

I say "I think", because there really is a lack of info on the play by play details, in my opinion.

One team I had set to Run and Shoot, with a balanced pass/run attack, and normal number of bombs.

The other team I had set to West Coast offense,"Favor Passing game", and ".throw very few bombs". For this team, I was facing a good defensive team whose weakest part of their defense was their linebackers. I thought they might blitz a lot, so I was hoping to throw a lot of flat passes (or screens) and look in passes.

In both cases, the strategies appeared to have the desired effect.

For the team with the Run and Shoot offense, it showed it as "Pro Set"! I printed out my settings before the games were played, so I'm pretty sure it was run and shoot that I selected. Not sure why it said pro set. I am assuming that the game play by play descriptions need some fixing up - see the next paragraph. The team through far more passes than they did running plays. Strategy was successful. See further comments in the next paragraph - it's really difficult to know how successful the strategy really was.

For the team with the West Coast offence, it showed 4 WR 1 HB on the play by play for the formation. This was effectively the West Coast offense, at least in this case. And there were a lot of flat passes and look-ins, a few short passes, a few runs, and very few (if any) long passes. There were more runs than expected. So the strategy appeared to be executed. It was a very successful result. Unfortunately, without the cards and esp. without the die rolls, I can't really be sure of whether this was as a result of the strategy, or just some good die rolls. I also can't tell how often and how many linebackers blitzed! But the results were excellent.

^^^ I've printed out my settings for tonight's games as well.

On the real field, the opposing coach can see the formation, and then after the game, by looking at the film, they can see what the other team did.

We really shouldn't be scratching our heads once the game is over as to what the opponent did.
I think all game strategy settings should be revealed at game end. Everything. List it all out.

Then, before, we play a team, we can go back and look at the history for that team and that coach.

That would add a lot to a league and playing a game like this. The pre game chess match.

But. Nope. We have to look at stats and play by play and try and figure these things out. That's not cool. Ruins a lot of the fun that could easily be a part of playing this thing.