I look collectively at what I've seen people post and my experiences, as well. I truly believe it's straight forward what needs to be done. We can start at the speed element of the WRs. I typically don't freeze frame to see 'oh, my WR is not moving off the line' but more so collectively look at it and say *** I have all-world play makers and the skillz to break huge plays and I can't get sh*t done in the air. What's going on?

Then we can move onto people's wishes for expanded play use on the offensive side of the ball (force 40/40 selection) and opening up long passing because right now in v4.6 you can lop off 1/5 of the options to scout (basically) and go Inside/Outside/Short/Medium with your 10 scouting points.

We need an overhaul on play design and expansion of available plays so that the challenge is which 40 plays do I limit myself to, not how on earth do I find 40 viable plays.

Same. 4.6 seems to introduce so many new problems in an attempt to fix these two plays, when good defensive game planning minimizes the impact of those two plays. I hardly get hit with 20+ yard gains from these plays anymore. Obviously, having gimmicky plays is bad for the game, but having completely neutering the passing game is not the solution.

Football has always been about physicality, technical skill, strategy, and counter-strategies. This game benefits from having all of those.

Forcing 40/40 play selection doesn't matter much if an offense is run completely off of rules that exclude certain personnel sets. A better way to force variation is to have a greater advantage to the defense if the offense is running a scouted play, such as a quicker
(or even pre-snap) recognition of the play. This avoids the offenses with 20 or fewer plays selected.

I agree with all of the above, the FL Hitch hasn't been 'neutered' in 4.6 though - it still works, but the pass to the WR2 on the outside slant is thrown less often. Due to the change in coding to blocking, people are less prone to carrying 10+CB's on the roster. This has two major benefits in that more teams have CB's with elite speed and coverage abilities. It also means that some of those CB's are being converted to Linebackers, and less LB's are being converted to DB. That leads to less missed tackles and better coverage.


The changes made to the code in blocking were necessary to fix the Punt block problem. Those changes affect every play in the game, because blocking occurs on every play. Getting the Punt block sorted is the main priority in 4.5, a fix has been applied in BETA, it has stood up to 12 months of testing and remains sound. Those changes make the line of scrimmage more important on both sides of the ball.



BETA doesn't take away from the above, in my opinion, it adds greater depth to an already excellent simulation. If anything it adds to all those attributes.

The data doesn't bear this out. In 3 games, I've thrown the hitch 10 times (right at the 3 per game mark like I like). My QB has completed 9 - the WR2 has 6 catches on 7 targets, the TE has 2 catches on 2 targets, and the WR1 has 1 catch on 1 target. 70% targets on the WR2 is in line with 4.5. The only difference here is that the WR2 isn't getting the big gainers anymore, which again, are a result of the CB falling down when the WR2 stutter-cuts on the slant. Still my WR2 is averaging 15.5 YPC on the play with a median of 11. Again, these are in line with 4.5, the only difference is that you don't get the wild swings of 10 and 75 (or at least I haven't hit one yet with that play).



I don't understand this comment at all. I often carry 9-10 DBs on my roster and I play something like 80-90% of all plays in a base 4-3 defense.

I also don't get the statement that more teams have CBs with elite speed and cover abilities by converting fewer players. The reason that you convert your good B&R and cover LBs to CB in the first place is because there are never enough of these players in a league period. And you can get LBs from converting DL cheaper.

Pro tip everyone: Never convert a high coverage DB to LB. Leave them at CB or safety if you play your safety in man. There are enough high cover DTs and DEs that you can convert to LB that you can get dirt cheap at the end of a draft or in FA. Converting a DL has the benefit of gaining speed as they drop weight. If you convert a guy to lose speed, you're doing it wrong.

Here's the problem that no one wants to talk about still. What 4.6 gives in terms of fixes, it takes in making game planning that much harder. It's going to be less enjoyable to your casual player than 4.5 is now. I mean there will be a set number of plays that work - I think - against almost all defenses still, but finding these plays and building a game plan around them will be harder.

And if you don't use rules, I don't see how anyone is likely to be successful on defense with the spread runs gashing all of the nickel and dime plays.

I don't understand this comment at all. I often carry 9-10 DBs on my roster and I play something like 80-90% of all plays in a base 4-3 defense.

9-10 DB is standard, the problem comes when teams start holding 12-15 CB plus 2-5 Safeties (FS and or SS). Usually these roster styles will carry either 2or 3 LB or DL and in 'extreme' cases 2 or 3 of both.

I believe (as an extreme example), CJ Fred won the exploit League with this strategy, to prove the point.

People see the strategy, copy the strategy and soon there are half a dozen teams in a league doing it and being successful because there is no real detriment to doing so.

The same is true of WR, it's not difficult to find a team with 12-15 WR, usually the teams with a heavy excess in Secondary players.

It leads to an imbalance of players. I don't have an issue with players playing out of position per se. I just think that if they are training at CB all week but playing and starting at LB or DL they should be more inclined to making errors, picking up injuries and getting overpowered by heavier guys. You'd also find them picking up the wrong player, running the wrong route, jumping offsides, getting called for holding etc

I also don't get the statement that more teams have CBs with elite speed and cover abilities by converting fewer players. The reason that you convert your good B&R and cover LBs to CB in the first place is because there are never enough of these players in a league period. And you can get LBs from converting DL cheaper

In 4.5 speed is too dominant so people inevitably stack up on it. It's about the imbalance it creates across a whole league - the haves and have-nots. Because speed is so dominant things like coverage ability become irrelevant. You wouldn't have a QB with 25 pass accuracy but you do see CB with less than 25 for m2m coverage just because they have 90+ speed.

Pro tip everyone: Never convert a high coverage DB to LB. Leave them at CB or safety if you play your safety in man. There are enough high cover DTs and DEs that you can convert to LB that you can get dirt cheap at the end of a draft or in FA. Converting a DL has the benefit of gaining speed as they drop weight. If you convert a guy to lose speed, you're doing it wrong.

Good advice, I like to convert players if I feel they have qualities better suited elsewhere on a roster. In BETA there is a case for converting down as strength and weight are a bigger factor at the line of scrimmage and for LB's when they need to defend the run.

Here's the problem that no one wants to talk about still. What 4.6 gives in terms of fixes, it takes in making game planning that much harder. It's going to be less enjoyable to your casual player than 4.5 is now. I mean there will be a set number of plays that work - I think - against almost all defenses still, but finding these plays and building a game plan around them will be harder.

I respect your opinion and you may be right. You could also be wrong. Only one way to find out for sure though.

Getting beat by 75 points after being hit with 5 punt blocks and getting scalped in trades is proving detrimental to keeping newbies in 4.5

And if you don't use rules, I don't see how anyone is likely to be successful on defense with the spread runs gashing all of the nickel and dime plays

You can win with little or no rules. People do. If your argument is that to be the best of the best you need to play with rules, I would agree. It could/should be the difference in two evenly matched teams. However, many don't fully understand how to create rules as the current system is overly complicated and counter intuitive.

Until the punt block is corrected in 4.5 people will continue to vote with their feet and leave. There is a fix, tried and tested across 4 leagues for 12 months and proven to be robust.

That fix affects every play in the game as it involves improved blocking.

4.5 has monster YAC numbers cause the Speed gaps are too large.Not cause of DBs slipping all the time. 4.6 has DBs slip at the same rates but the value of zero speed has been raised lowering the RAC numbers. Simple cause and effect. There’s way more wiffs by DBs in 4.6 too

NCAA (4.5) I have a rookie at averaging almost 30 yards a catch. He has 90+ speed. Prior to that my best was 18 or something. Draft him and boom record averages.

In mfn (beta 4.6) I have five almost 90 rated DBs ..... they are good but nothing like they would be in 4.5. Beta has a fine line due to raising zero speed that dictates elite to average players....only cause speed still matters a lot but the scale is closer than ever.

No, my point is that to win in 4.6, you have to use rules, period. My recent game is a good one: https://lol.myfootballnow.com/box/3614

My QB is from off the street and no one knows the plays well yet, but how my opponent so thoroughly disrupted my passing game was to use a 4-3 base defense 90% of the time (there were blitzes out of the same 4-3 alignment too, I still consider that base defense) against every personnel set.

The reason that this is effective is that it spaces the DEs inside the tackles, which negates the weakside runs. Whereas the nickel and dime defenses put the DEs outside the tackles, which allow you to blow them up. If you weakside blitz 60-90% of the time on 1st and 2nd down against all sets, you can virtually take away the running game. And if you pass key and blitz, you can take away the running game AND your safeties will continue to play back.

Since there are no over the top passes (I'm being somewhat facetious here there are at least two that my team couldn't pull off this game because of PK and my opponent's defense was better than my offense), you can just hammer your opponent at the line over and over again and make sure nothing gets deep.

But you have to use rules.

If you don't use rules, your defense starts defaulting against sets and the offense gets the mismatches it wants:

113 runs > 3-3-5 Cover 2

311 PA Flats > GL M2M defenses

etc.

In 4.5, you can spam certain plays to keep your opponent from running the same base defense against. You can't in 4.6.

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For anyone else, you can PM me on my thoughts of what the next 4-5 play passing offense looks like in 4.6.

The passing feels like it's the same plays that are effective. I try not to throw too much because my QB's int is low, but I think I run the same pass plays that I run in 4.5 and those are most effective. At some point I plan to get a QB and WR's more to my liking and then test out more pass plays.

I've enjoyed 4.6, but to me it feels like it's boiled down to set your defensive rules/plays the same as 4.5, set my offensive matrix to run 70% of the time, do not call a single long pass to avoid getting sacked, and call the same pass/run offensive plays as 4.5. The positive is that you care about actual attributes along with speed for most players