Playcalling Menu, Passing Difficulty, and Hot Routes.

[specter800]

First off I have to say I'm loving the game, if it ever goes to Switch I will probably be buying another copy. I do have a couple suggestions/issues (but both may be something I'm overlooking) and a couple feature requests that are less important.

Firstly, I think the play calling menu could be improved in a couple ways:

1.) Scrolling plays left and right only scrolls plays *one at a time* rather than *a page at a time*, increasing the time it takes to choose a play. This isn't the biggest problem on offense but on defense, especially when in PvP, it has led to some frustration finding a play before one is auto-selected. I suggest there be a way to scroll a page at a time similar to Madden (sorry for bringing up the *other* football game).

2.) Play selection by highlighting the play is slow and makes screenlooking a problem in PvP. The PvP concern is minor but having to scroll across 4 plays to get the one you want compounds the previous issue with slow play selection. Apologies for invoking Madden again, but the ability to scroll through the playbook page by page and choose any play on the page using A,B,X,Y is much more efficient than the current system and I think it would be worth implementing, at least as an option.

Passing Difficulty:

1.) Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I find defensive linemen are unrealistically effective at batting down passes. I've had lobs, bullets, and standard passes all blocked at ridiculous rates by the DL and it makes passing more frustrating than useful and I find myself leaning on the run more than I'd like.

2.) I've noticed the AI pass rush is extremely quick, I think I've had, at most, 2 seconds of pass protection before the pocket collapsed? There's almost no time for routes to develop and I can only rely on route combos that happen ~3 yards past the LOS. Maybe AI are able to shed blocks a little to quickly? Combine the lack of pocket time with the (I think) unrealistic amount of batted passes, and passing seems almost pointless.

The next 2 points are more feature requests than possible bugs.

Pass Rushing:

I would like to see a bit more complexity to pass rush gameplay. There's a ton of depth to ball carrying and lots of flexibilty with the ball in your hands but as a pass rusher there's not much to do but buttonmash and hope for the best. It would be nice to have a few different moves to try as a pass rusher rather than a bull rush.

Hot Routes:

If it's possible with how DB AI works, it would be nice to adjust individual recevier routes at the LOS.


Again, I love the game so far and hope it gets all the recognition it deserves. I also may be missing some settings that allow you to do what I mentioned above, if I am I apologize. Keep up the great work!

[Damian_N_DNA]

I've had the same issues with AI, its hella annoying in a higher difficulty cause my line can't block, my DB's run from the reciever, and my passes keep getting blocked

[Tinitis]

I agree with both of your passing difficulty points. Passes get knocked down at the line like crazy.

Also, maybe it's because I went to Hard difficulty, but defensive backs on my team seem to really struggle with defending the pass. They often throw themselves on the ground right after the receiver catches the ball, allowing them to easily run free to the endzone. The AI DBs don't seem to have as nearly as much trouble staying in position as mine. Deep vertical routes seem especially easy to drop in over the DB, for both the AI and human player.

In my first season, I started at Normal and went to Hard later after I was blowing teams out by 50+ points. It seemed to get a little more difficult after that, but not unreasonably so. When I started a new season at Hard, it seemed much harder than before. That's when my team AI seemed to get much worse. I also tried out the franchise mod for the new season, in case that has anything to do with it.

Overall, I'm enjoying the game, but there are a few frustrating points.

Also, random bug report, but Dime package Cover 2 Man doesn't display the ILB's assignment when you hold R2.