Custom Play Policy Discussion

[Tim-Colts]

Just going by the game film would never be enough to recreate most pass plays and many defenses. We don't get the all 16 or whatever the NFL calls all the angles. We get 1 angle and there are guys off the screen at times. For pass plays there is the play selection screen that can help, but sometimes the game flashes through the screen pretty quickly and makes it annoying to pause at the right time.

My personal feeling is that we hold the newly created plays back for a few weeks. A system like new plays are released every four games (so before week 5, week 9, etc). Then it gives creators a few weeks to use their play that nobody else has on hand. I already spend way too much time on this game and I don't watch all the game film. I study the logs and go by that. I do some sims and make some adjustments. I don't have time to study all of some game film to recreate somebody else's play.

We have several guys that can create a simple program to help Rich zip up files older than X days. This would allow stuff 2 weeks old and older or whatever the time limit is, to make it easy to manage. But making plays completely unavailable for the rest of the league for the whole season will really hinder most people's ability to compete. Not that we don't already have like 3 or 4 teams that are in the SB every year...

So restricted time limit (either certain weeks files are released or after a certain length of time) would get a vote from me. Full season restriction gets a NO vote from me.

[Mitch-Oilers]

Just going by the game film would never be enough to recreate most pass plays and many defenses. We don't get the all 16 or whatever the NFL calls all the angles. We get 1 angle and there are guys off the screen at times. For pass plays there is the play selection screen that can help, but sometimes the game flashes through the screen pretty quickly and makes it annoying to pause at the right time.

My personal feeling is that we hold the newly created plays back for a few weeks. A system like new plays are released every four games (so before week 5, week 9, etc). Then it gives creators a few weeks to use their play that nobody else has on hand. I already spend way too much time on this game and I don't watch all the game film. I study the logs and go by that. I do some sims and make some adjustments. I don't have time to study all of some game film to recreate somebody else's play.

We have several guys that can create a simple program to help Rich zip up files older than X days. This would allow stuff 2 weeks old and older or whatever the time limit is, to make it easy to manage. But making plays completely unavailable for the rest of the league for the whole season will really hinder most people's ability to compete. Not that we don't already have like 3 or 4 teams that are in the SB every year...

So restricted time limit (either certain weeks files are released or after a certain length of time) would get a vote from me. Full season restriction gets a NO vote from me.

I like Tim's idea of limited restriction of 4 to 6 weeks That mimicks the NFL's "copycat" mentality.

[Dean-Atlanta]

I think for this to be a serious incentive to create new playsm it needs to be the rest of the season. If it's just 4 weeks, that will not cause me to increase new play design effort over just having exclusive use of them for one week. If it's a full season, that will cause me to make some serious effort in the off-season to create some new stuff.

[Steve-LA Chargers]

Would each team have the same play category folders as the PNFL in a team folder? Sounds like a mess to manage - mainly for Rich. One misplaced play and you have a play not found.

Also makes the league go somewhat old school which could be interesting.

[Matt-Jacksonville]

Also makes the league go somewhat old school which could be interesting.

Effectively that's what we are calling for if a team decides to use custom PPPs for a season. Now with the rules we have, it wouldn't be 100% that as you could only have a subset of your game plan be new custom plays. However, by the time we got to week 16 you'd effectively have a completely custom PPP and no one could see the actual plays. This could make things interesting for playoff teams. If you managed it correctly, you could build your playoff PPP in the offseason and then layer it in a little at a time over the season.

Not sure if that's good or bad, but as Steve said, it could make things interesting.

[Dean-Atlanta]

Would each team have the same play category folders as the PNFL in a team folder? Sounds like a mess to manage - mainly for Rich. One misplaced play and you have a play not found.

Also makes the league go somewhat old school which could be interesting.

I would suggest just ONE folder per team. That's all that is needed. If a team submitted 20 off-season plays and 8 per week, they still easily fit in ONE folder, and they still need to be saved in the right categories and approved by Charlie that wey. Game plans still need ther same number of plays per category.

[Shawn-Giants]

I've been asking for this for eons now, didn't appear fair for teams that take time to create and test customs for another team to just plop them in into their game plans.

You can't recreate a play with all the details from just watching it so the thought that you can isn't totally true.

Creating customs isn't hard and if you have time to game plan and create strategic PPP's you have time to create and test a custom play.

I'm for the, one team folder per team for the exclusive plays for that team with protection.The whole season.

You want to use unique custom plays that work, create them yourself, it's the reason this off season I didn't create any custom plays because if their going to be available for the masses that's a waste of my time and doesn't give me an edge.

An owner who has the time to sit and create customs for their next opponent should not get their plays whored out for the whole league to use

It also allows for teams that may not have a stacked roster to be able to compete strategically with custom plays.

It will add a another level of strategy.

[Jerry-Redskins]

Just to be clear. If some form of this occurs we just added more prep time to our already stressed real lives to get to the same level in the league. Not sure adding on time needed each week is the right way to go. We have this super competitive league and more talk to alter the dynamic.

[Matt-Jacksonville]

Just to be clear. If some form of this occurs we just added more prep time to our already stressed real lives to get to the same level in the league. Not sure adding on time needed each week is the right way to go. We have this super competitive league and more talk to alter the dynamic.

Jerry raises a good point. This is football, so how do we effectively add this benefit for play designers without upsetting the competitive balance of the league for the non-play designers in a way that doesn't require a ton of extra time per week?

This is football...when we add one thing we have to look at how we can counter that one thing in order to maintain the competitive balance.

[Dean-Atlanta]

Just to be clear. If some form of this occurs we just added more prep time to our already stressed real lives to get to the same level in the league. Not sure adding on time needed each week is the right way to go. We have this super competitive league and more talk to alter the dynamic.

I dispute this. It may change HOW you spend your time preparing but it doesn't change how much time you spend. If you are playing me or Shawen and face the odds we have SOME new plays (maxx of 4 off and 4 def, previous customs you saw on the game videos even if you can't sim against those plays) that is still FAR LESS variation to prepare for than you do NOW preparing to play Justin and Thomas who change 100 percent of their plays each week and scouting is absolutely worthless.

Each coach decides how much time to dedicate to this game, and HOW to dedicate that time to the various parts of coaching a team. What we are discussing here does not increase or decrease the time needed to win in the PNFL.