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Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 12:39:39 AM

LarryK

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Joined: 9/19/2008
Status: offline

I set up an 8 team league, 8-man, American outdoor field, 10 min. quarters.
20 man rosters, no unlimited motion, injuries & fatigue turned off.
Using stock defenses from "default 8 man redone" by jcd37 from FBmax.com

All teams use my playbook, approx. 40 plays.

I play my game manually (coach mode, not arcade) & quick sim the other 3 games.

Week 1: Simmed games, scores were 3-0, 0-0, 3-3.
I won my game 119-87. (5 kickoffs returned for TDs.)

Week 2: Simmed games, scores were 0-0, 3-3, 8-0 (2 FGs & a safety).
I won my game 164-125. (21 kickoffs returned for TDs.)

I think I've detected a pattern here.

I've had the same kind of results watching the simmed games, using the default 8-man offensive plays in "default 8 man redone", using the default plays with the 5-team indoor league that comes with the game still yields really low scores, but at least someone
scores a TD once in a while.

I've tried using my playbook for an indoor league, and on a Canadian field, & it's pretty much the same.

I've simmed several games using the 11-man teams that came with the game & gotten reasonable scores. So it's apparently just 8-man games, and pretty much destroys any enjoyment I could have gotten as far as 8-man is concerned.

Have I missed something? Or does simming just not work for 8-man?

Post #: 1

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 1:49:49 AM

Marauders

Posts: 4428
Joined: 3/17/2005
From: Minnesota
Status: offline

The default sim constants file was not created specifically for the 8-man rules.

A few patches ago, each league was given its own constants file. Perhaps a community member has a quick file they can give you for better 8-man results.

As a side question, why is there no unlimited motion in your league when most real indoor leagues have multiple motion as a rule? I suspect most 8-man playbooks are set up for multiple motion.

(in reply to LarryK)

Post #: 2

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 1:51:27 AM

mbsports

Posts: 275
Joined: 1/7/2007
Status: offline

OK well lets see if there is assistance here. The first problem is likely the playbooks but another thing is the constants for the sim file - tweak that a bit and you should see some improvement. Here's my indoor sim constants. These are giving me Arena Football League realistic scores...

[SETTINGS]
passcompletion_modifier=52
Pass_ExceptionOdds=80
PassYards_BaseMin=7
PassYards_BaseMax=38
PassYards_ExceptMin=4
PassYards_ExceptMax=49
RushExceptionOdds=80
RushYards_BaseMin=-2
RushYards_BaseMax=4
RushYards_ExceptMin=-2
RushYards_ExceptMax=10
PenaltyOdds=40
FumbleOdds=72
InterceptionAverage=50
ExtraPointOdds=90
TimePunt_Min=30
TimePunt_Max=40
TimeIncomplete_Min=30
TimeIncomplete_Max=40
TimeKO_Min=30
TimeKO_Max=40
TimeBasicPlay_Min=30
TimeBasicPlay_Max=40

Note the times are kind of out of line but for simming this is giving me around the average of AFL plays and realistic stats.

I think the fact that you saw 21 and 5 returns for TDs is a huge issue - I would be goofin' with the kickoff plays every which way and sunday to try to get that under control as it is - quite honestly not working on defense obviously.

I've seen a lot of nutty kickoff return stuff lately myself but working with the play to create better coverage seems to help - that and you somewhat sabotage the return...

(in reply to LarryK)

Post #: 3

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 1:59:51 AM

Marauders

Posts: 4428
Joined: 3/17/2005
From: Minnesota
Status: offline

quote:

Using stock defenses from "default 8 man redone" by jcd37 from FBmax.com

Note that those were "redone" quite some time ago, so they are not as up to date as they could be.

Whatever kick-off plays you are using are obviously not working well.

(in reply to mbsports)

Post #: 4

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 2:46:47 AM

garysorrell

Posts: 2176
Joined: 1/29/2005
Status: offline

LarryK, Welcome. Im a big fan of the 8 man game. It takes some tweaking, but you can have it humming along in short order.

First......scrap the default league and playbook.
Second.....try something I put together....download the following:
http://www.geocities.com/gary_l_sorrell/lge_MIL2.zip
http://www.geocities.com/gary_l_sorrell/misc/Playbook_Export_8Man01.zip

Now, unzip both zip files to your main maximum football directory. Move the files 'MIL2.pbk' and '8Man01.pbk' to the PLAYS folder.
Use the Max football utility to open each of those playbooks and select Import Book ....for the mil2.pbk its 'Playbook_Export_MIL2'...for the 8man01.pbk its 'Playbook_Export_8man01'.
When it asks to import situations, choose 'NO', since they are already in the playbooks.

There are 6 text files named similar to '20_DAYTONA.txt'...move these to the Team Profiles folder. These are team profiles for each team.

All the teams in the MIL2 are assigned the mil2 playbook. You can change a few to the 8man01 if you want. Not sure how different the playbooks are, havent looked at the mil2 one in a while.

The league is set to go week 1, so you may want to reset it and redraft. The quarter length is set to 15min. So if that is too long, reset, change the settings and then redraft. Make sure the teams have their Team Profiles set and they arent using the default.
The game will create a new simgame_MIL2.dat...you can tweak that for best sim results.

_____________________________

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Post #: 5

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 2:51:54 AM

garysorrell

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Joined: 1/29/2005
Status: offline

And I have a selection of small 50yd stadiums, both indoor and outdoor, at my site

http://www.geocities.com/gary_l_sorrell/

_____________________________

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Post #: 6

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 2:56:31 AM

garysorrell

Posts: 2176
Joined: 1/29/2005
Status: offline

quote:

I set up an 8 team league, 8-man, American outdoor field, 10 min. quarters.
20 man rosters, no unlimited motion, injuries & fatigue turned off.
Using stock defenses from "default 8 man redone" by jcd37 from FBmax.com

Oh, I just realized you are using the American outdoor field. That definately makes the simmed games go wonky. You will need to do some playing around with the leagues simdata file.
And played out games can get crazy also. Thats a lot of room. I also like playing on the outdoor field. I think thornbird has a league that uses the CFL field. You will see a lot of KO returns for TDs.

_____________________________

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Post #: 7

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 4:24:01 AM

Marauders

Posts: 4428
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From: Minnesota
Status: offline

quote:

American outdoor field

All right, this is a hybrid league.

As Gary stated, that will likely require sim tweaks and playbook modifications.

My indoor 8-man playbooks have Mack and Jack linebackers. I'm not sure how well that will play out on the larger field.

(in reply to garysorrell)

Post #: 8

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 5:11:59 PM

LarryK

Posts: 12
Joined: 9/19/2008
Status: offline

I guess my frustration is in the fact that if I can score lots of points against an opponent when calling my own plays, I would have thought that even when the computer is randomly calling plays, the law of averages would dictate at least some scoring.

I'm going to try and stick with my own playbook for a while since designing my own plays was one of the main attractions in my buying the game in the first place.

I'll try playing with the sim file as mbsports suggests, & I'll try the downloads from Gary too. Also Gary, I have downloaded some of your 50-yd fields & will surely use them if I find that I have to go to a 50-yd field.

I don't follow Arena League so I don't know the rules about Mack & Jack linebackers, but then I'm not really trying to duplicate Arena league.

Thank you all for your suggestions.

(in reply to Marauders)

Post #: 9

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 8:14:49 PM

Magnum357

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Larry, I'm working on an 8 man Outdoor League (100 yard feild) and I learned that I must design my own Playbooks and custom Contants file for each league. Even the Outdoor 8 man game is different then the Indoor 8 Man Game and I use different plays and playbooks for each style of football. The default playbooks are not that great and there are certain plays you can almost score at will. The 8 man Outdoor option REALLY can open up the feild compared to the 50 yard feild and I'm still deciding to use 3 or 4 downs in my league. I'm not use to 3 downs, but it give the defense more of chance to make stops on drives with the limited amount of downs and the wide open feild.

(in reply to LarryK)

Post #: 10

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/8/2008 11:45:58 PM

garysorrell

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Joined: 1/29/2005
Status: offline

Hang in there LarryK. You will figure it out. If you need any help on tweaking the simdata file, let us know.

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Post #: 11

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/9/2008 10:46:57 PM

LarryK

Posts: 12
Joined: 9/19/2008
Status: offline

mbsports' sim tweaks didn't seem to have any effect on an 8-man game on the outdoor field. However, I reset the league to a 50 yd field with unlimited motion, still using (half of) my playbook & stock defenses.

Week 1 - Sim scores: 20-18, 27-16, 27-12. I won my game 66-33.
Week 2 - Sim scores: 16-13, 25-18, 19-12. I won my game 70-29.
Week 3 - Sim scores: 21-14, 13-0, 19-16. I won my game 75-33.

So the changes to the sim data provide a significant improvement.

There is a problem area with rushing. In looking at the game logs, the most rushing yards for both teams combined in a simmed game is 24; the low is 5. There seems to be a fairly reasonable number of attempts - probably averaging in the low teens per game for each team. The problem is that the average yds per attempt is <1. In my manual games, I've rushed for 233, 137, and 246 so I don't think it's a play design issue. I average around 7 yds per attempt.

Has anyone ever written up what the various sim dat values represent? What could be tweaked to maybe upgrade the simmed rushing yardage?

Anyway, then I assigned each team (except mine) to use Gary's playbook.

Week 4 - Sim scores: 37-32, 30-16, 19-19. I won my game 105-90.

The rushing numbers in the simmed games are still terribly low.

Then I created a playbook for the other teams that combined Gary's offense with the stock defenses.

Week 5 - Sim scores: 19-16, 20-17, 31-30. I won my game 77-62.

Bottom line: the simmed scores are now at least acceptable, but to me the manual game scores are a bit high even for 8-man (which is a different problem). It looks like none of the defenses can stop either my plays or Gary's in manual games (and his passing plays are better than mine). Of course, it may very well be that I'm as bad at selecting defenses as the computer is when choosing them randomly.

At any rate, I think I'm going to rest for a while & maybe try designing some plays for 11 or 12 man. Thanks to all for helping; I think we did come up with a lot of improvement.

(in reply to garysorrell)

Post #: 12

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/9/2008 11:03:02 PM

mbsports

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Joined: 1/7/2007
Status: offline

Yeah the problem with mine is that I use the indoor 50 yards to do my arena league which is a huge change... they work well for that, but realistically rushing in the Arena style game is so nill that my tweaks won't allow for much rushing.

(in reply to LarryK)

Post #: 13

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/10/2008 2:17:58 AM

Marauders

Posts: 4428
Joined: 3/17/2005
From: Minnesota
Status: offline

quote:

Has anyone ever written up what the various sim dat values represent? What could be tweaked to maybe upgrade the simmed rushing yardage?

Yes, I've done that.

The earlier problems with YPA and YPC caused me to ask for the Exception odds and Exception Min and Max added to the sim constants. David was good enough to add them.

That would be a good place to start.

(in reply to mbsports)

Post #: 14

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/12/2008 2:34:04 AM

Magnum357

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Larry, I have noticed in the 50 Yard game, Yards Per Carry is pretty low compared to the 100 and 110 yard feild. I beleive this is by design (I don't know that for a fact, but my stats seem to indicate this) because in the Indoor/Arena game, rushing the ball is more difficult to do. Part of the reason for this is a few factors like the width of the feild is only 28 yards, and in Arena Football 2 Linebackers are required in the box (5 total defenders). With so many players near the Offensive Tackle box, rushing the ball requires much more finess. I've noticed in my studies of Arena/Indoor Football that the objective is not to run for a 100 yards per game, but rather getting 40 to 45 yards per game is considered an effective running game in Arena/Indoor Football.

Still, you are right, 1.0 yards per carry is a bit low, even in Arena/Indoor Football.

(in reply to Marauders)

Post #: 15

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/12/2008 6:36:23 AM

Marauders

Posts: 4428
Joined: 3/17/2005
From: Minnesota
Status: offline

quote:

Still, you are right, 1.0 yards per carry is a bit low, even in Arena/Indoor Football.

I agree with your comments.

In Arena Football, anything can happen for single game stats. There are not many rushes, and a stuff can influence a short YPC. It is not uncommon to see only 6 or 7 rushing attempts for each team in a game.

Overall, the YPC is generally between 1.5 and 4.0 with 2.5 being about average for a team.

(in reply to Magnum357)

Post #: 16

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/12/2008 2:44:51 PM

garysorrell

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Joined: 1/29/2005
Status: offline

I havent followed stats as much in recent years, but I can remember when a RB with close to 100-150yds a season was Jim Brown in the AFL.

Even with MaxFB, if I have the pass plays, I rarely ever run. A few of the run plays I have created in my 8 man book are borderline AI busters anyway. Or at least skirt the line of whats proper. I have a lot of QB toss to HB runs that have the toss being made at a long distance. A few I had to tweak since the RB went beyond what the game allows in distance for a toss.
Recently though, im doing it a lot more like Marauders, and employing a ruleset for play design that is consistent throughout my league.

And for Magnum357, you have it right about the 8man game on the large fields. Very different animal. Lots of fun also. I have used 3 downs for the big field and small. I think it makes for a fun game. I did notice that it caused me to also have to work on the simdata file more.

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Post #: 17

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/14/2008 1:20:45 AM

LarryK

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Joined: 9/19/2008
Status: offline

Well, I seem to be drawn back to 8-man; probably because it's simpler.

Set up a new league using 100-yd outdoor field, 7 min. quarters.

Started with the simgame.dat values mbsports supplied & started messing with some of the values. I
got it to where the rushing totals were a little more reasonable - anywhere from 40 to over 100 for
a some teams. The scores were low compared to my manual games, then I discovered that the teams in
the simmed games were only running around 20 plays per game while in my games each team would be
around 50. So I started reducing the play times until simmed teams will now run around 40-50 plays
& the scores have increased accordingly. Simmed scores are now like 28-21, 35-28, 27-20, 35-14,
etc. and the rushing yards now occasionally go over 200 yds. for some teams.

I was still getting too many kickoffs returned for TDs in my games (oddly enough, no kickoffs get
returned for TDs in simmed games), so I modified the kickoff play to spread the players out a bit
more; the outside guys are now on the field yard numbers, and I added a "cover kick" command to the
kicker, which he didn't have before. It's still too early to tell if that's helped but in the one
game I played manually with it, there were only 4 TDs on returns.

Also, no interceptions in any of the 24 games so far. I saw a thread somewhere in which someone suggested increasing the "catching" values for the DBs. Anyone tried this to see if it works?

Here's the sim values I have so far, if anyone's interested. I'm sure they need more tweaking, considering that I have no idea what I'm doing.

[SETTINGS]
passcompletion_modifier=62
Pass_ExceptionOdds=80
PassYards_BaseMin=17
PassYards_BaseMax=48
PassYards_ExceptMin=14
PassYards_ExceptMax=69
RushExceptionOdds=80
RushYards_BaseMin=-2
RushYards_BaseMax=50
RushYards_ExceptMin=2
RushYards_ExceptMax=40
PenaltyOdds=40
FumbleOdds=92
InterceptionAverage=96
ExtraPointOdds=90
TimePunt_Min=20
TimePunt_Max=20
TimeIncomplete_Min=15
TimeIncomplete_Max=25
TimeKO_Min=20
TimeKO_Max=30
TimeBasicPlay_Min=15
TimeBasicPlay_Max=25

(in reply to garysorrell)

Post #: 18

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/14/2008 5:32:12 AM

Marauders

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Joined: 3/17/2005
From: Minnesota
Status: offline

quote:

Pass_ExceptionOdds=80
PassYards_BaseMin=17
PassYards_BaseMax=48
PassYards_ExceptMin=14
PassYards_ExceptMax=69
RushExceptionOdds=80
RushYards_BaseMin=-2
RushYards_BaseMax=50
RushYards_ExceptMin=2
RushYards_ExceptMax=40

I thought the original constants from Michael were a bit strange, and this is too. Perhaps I should explain how these commands work.

The RushExceptionOdds is the percentage that the RushYards_BaseMin and RushYards_BaseMax will be used.

If outside of that, 81-100 in your example, the RushYards_ExceptMin and RushYards_ExceptMax will be used.

In general, the exceptions are for big plays. The way it is set up, the odds of seeing big plays can be modified, and so can both the base and exceptional yardage min and max.

If you played some exhibition games with 8-man on the 100 yard field, you should have a general idea of how well players run and how many big plays there are as a percentage of plays in the 3D game. Use that as a guideline for your league sim constants.

I'd expect to see something more like this:

Pass_ExceptionOdds=70
PassYards_BaseMin=-1
PassYards_BaseMax=24
PassYards_ExceptMin=20
PassYards_ExceptMax=80
RushExceptionOdds=80
RushYards_BaseMin=-2
RushYards_BaseMax=12
RushYards_ExceptMin=10
RushYards_ExceptMax=60

Because Maximum Football has the ability to create custom with hybrid rules, that sim game will often not match the 3D straight off, so I recommend running exhibition games and noting the yardage and big plays to better make adjustments to the sim constants. In time, we should have a pretty good database of sim constants files to use for community members wanting to run similar leagues.

(in reply to LarryK)

Post #: 19

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/14/2008 6:25:26 PM

LarryK

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Joined: 9/19/2008
Status: offline

Thanks for the explanation. This is why I was asking earlier if anyone had written up what the parameters mean. Without some sort of guide, all one can do is change numbers & try to see what happens. Which in the long run is about all you can do anyway. I'll give these values a try.

(in reply to Marauders)

Post #: 20

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/14/2008 6:52:57 PM

Marauders

Posts: 4428
Joined: 3/17/2005
From: Minnesota
Status: offline

LarryK,

Could you post a screenshot of a the final stats for 3D played out game (press F12 to save the screen) or just list the stats here?

It would give me some information to go by in order to tweak the sim game file for 8man on a 100 yard field.

(in reply to LarryK)

Post #: 21

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/14/2008 10:33:09 PM

LarryK

Posts: 12
Joined: 9/19/2008
Status: offline

Here you go (my team is Victoria) -

Victoria       07   21   21   14   00   63
Saskatchewan        03   07   10   16   00   36

                    VIC            SSK
1st Downs           27             18
Rushing             209            18
Passing             294            307
Net Yards           503            325
Penalties           3/25           4/35
Total Plays         48             50

Rushing
Att/Yds           30/209         10/18
Avg Gain          7.0            1.8
Fumbles/Lost      00/00          01/00

Passing
Comp/Att/INT      14/18/0        21/40/0
Yards             294            307
Avg Gain          21.0           14.6
Avg Per Att       16.3           7.7
Sacks Against     0              0

Kicking
Punts             1/51           3/134
Field Goals       0 of 0         3 of 3

POSSESSION          16:02          11:58

Individual Offense

Passing:
VIC -- RADAKER 14-18, 294 YDS, 3 TD, 0 INT, 16.3YPA, 158.3R
SSK -- WEND 21-40, 307 YDS, 2 TD, 0 INT, 7.7YPA, 94.5R

Receiving:
VIC -- RABENECK 3-22 0 TD, CARBERY 3-103 1 TD,
CLYNES 5-101 2 TD, ANGELICO 3-68 0 TD,
SSK -- DEW 9-85 0 TD, CUMMINGS 10-191 1 TD,
LAMBLIN 2-31 1 TD,

Rushing:
VIC -- RADAKER 1-0 0 TD, RABENECK 14-73 1 TD,
CARBERY 15-136 3 TD,
SSK -- ELGAR 1-4 0 TD, DEW 6-16 0 TD,
DUPLESSY 1--2 0 TD, WEND 1-0 0 TD,

(in reply to Marauders)

Post #: 22

RE: Ridiculous scores in 8-man - 10/20/2008 12:13:58 PM

Hampe

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Joined: 10/15/2008
Status: offline

I'm currently working on building an 8 man league based on the rosters from the old EA game "Mutant League Football". I've made 8 teams so far and a playbook based off the playbook from the original game (offense only atm....currently using the standard 8 man defense plays).

I've watched a few games in quick play mode (cpu control), and for the most part, the scores are pretty good. I started with 7 minutes, but the offenses were only getting around 30 plays a game. After I set it to 10 minutes, the scores come out pretty good (the game I did last night ended 36-33).

I've noticed that most teams can't run very effectively, but it seems to be more based on RB speed vs. how good the opposing defense is. RBs with 79+ speed generally have decent games with 4 YPC.

(in reply to LarryK)

Post #: 23