Long post alert!
just one mans thoughts. no disrespect or trying to influence anyone to my way of thinking. Take it as is or keep it movin.
The first thing is nobody cares what other people do with their game in their own environment. The same you should care less if he has a sim crusade in his environment. You get your game and do what you want with it. Who cares?
With that said customizing everything is a thing few sports games allow. The show does not let you create a team of 8 ft tall 360 lb sluggers and pitchers. FIFA, nba2k11, ect..
the reason?
It takes away from the core of that sport. This is not nfl street or blitz or jam, Backyard football, or mario football.
Most people's issue is these things will impact the 2 player experience. Thats what every one is talking about. OD, online ranked matches, or head to head on the same console.
The whole discussion is about multiplayer. Nobody cares what you do in your offline dynasty. I know how ODs work and ive got 65 to 70 season in ods since ncaa09 in every type from tradition.com and heavy controlled web site hosted dynasties to dynasties that are pure psn communication with no msg boards or web sites.
i get the offline point as well since i have been playing this offline since ncaa 99 on pc. Avg about 10 season a year in offline dynasties and during good years its more like 15 to 20 seasons.
And the point of contention is we dont want to disable it. i want to go up against custom offense and defensive playbooks. What you hear is some guys dont want every single user game to be multi offense vs multiple defense.
The whole small issue, not a big deal, is how game to game, the offenses will be the same. you stop the run, guys come out in 4 and 5 wide. The identity of teams wont exist because every team will be a chameleon. Able to be any offense it chooses on any particular down / series.
There are some good playbooks with no qb runs. There are some good playbooks with no 5 wide or empty sets. some playbooks with no power running formations. At the start of the game i know what style you are and By the second qrt i know what sets you have.
i know what 2wr 2 rbs sets can do in that particular style or playbook. Now i can start to attack / be aggressive.
That chess match is over. With playbooks this big and diverse i now have to wait and see what you come out in every down.
Every team in a bcs any team online dynasty, after year two will have 4 star players, 3 deep at every position. They will have the depth.
in MAC or sunbelt dynasties, its relative. So your lack of depth is equal to his lack of depth on defense so the play still has the same chance for success.
Of course im gonna match his personnel after he pick his play. what is lost now is against some guys i know the general limits of his playbook and what he likes to do based on his individual game and season stats. I can pick my defense first.
I can dictate what i want to do without fear of getting gashed. 335 split has a good balance of run / pass coverage(basically a predator type defense with a three deep zone with shorter zones in the flat.) 335 has a bear and a stack.
If i catch you in a shotgun heavy playbook based on your game stats and season stats i have a good chance to shut you down if there is no big gap in talent. Same type of thing if i have a very good secondary and you are passing team. Advantage should be with the defense like it would be in real football situations. But now you just switch to a two te/ wishbone /flexbone offense and go from there.
Now with huge variety in playbooks, there is no one defense to shut any team down because the offensive style is so big.
Again every team should have the ability to run every play. Every team has a shotgun system. The issue you hear us make, is now you have the ability to run multiple, complete, multi-attack offenses in one playbook.
The avg game you only run about 50 offensive plays. So having 90 shotgun, 90 wishbone, 90 i formation / weak / strong, 90 pistol formation / single back formation plays, each are whole offenses in themselves.
Having 75 different pass plays and 15 different runs out of the shotgun when you will only call about 30-35 different plays in a game is a complete offense by it self.
75 different runs and 15 different passes out of the wishbone / flexbone same thing, an offense by itself.
To compare, play a game in ncaa 11. it like letting teams load 4 playbooks of different styles for that game. Imagine the other guy has the Texas Tech, gTech, Tulane and Nevada playbooks during that game. or Miss st, Michigan st, Hawaii, and Miami all avail to choose from in one game.
For those that dont know, when i post its usually big a$$ posts. Even though its not that big a deal to me. In fact im in a few recurring dynasties and to stay competitive one of my playbooks will include as much as i can get in it. Thinking about setting up my playbook actually triggered how much i think it affects two player games.
what guys would want for od? restrictive custom playbook setups. it could be an on or off od option.
What would have worked is choose a weight of pass to run. have like 5 classes of playbooks from pass heavy, to balance pass, to balanced, to run balanced, to run heavy.
If you had a pass heavy weight playbook you would have a limit on certain type of formation and plays. Once again you could pick any formation and any play, but the number of power run plays and formations would have a playbook limit. same with run heavy, only a small number of shotgun / 4 wide plays could be loaded.
The custom playbook creation menu would be either run or pass. a shotgun draw is a run a wishbone pass is a pass.
You could have all runs in a run playbook but you cant have more than the limit of passing plays / formation.
in a balanced playbook you would only be able to load so many formations and plays per style(I formation, wishbone, shotgun, ect...).
This still allows creative playbooks. you could have a run heavy with all shotgun and pistol runs. or pass heavy with all wishbone and flexbone passes. you could still be a primary I formation team or a pistol, or flexbone team regardless of the playbook weight class of run vs pass.
something like this would simulate the difficulty in trying to have a full multi-philosophy offense.
On defense my take would be declare your main front and that takes up 80 percent of playbook and limited on other sets.
multi defense could be two base fronts and those two take up 80 of your playbook and limited other sets.
There is a reason there are no Air raid / power option teams. or I formation / run and shoot teams. Its not that it doesn't sound good or fun. its just not realistic in a simulation attempt in an od. Which most dynasties strive to try to be as realistic as possible. and this could be an on or off option. allow custom playbooks or allow only restrictive custom playbooks.
This is all my opinion on the impact of how this is implemented. I never said take it out, it sucks, its cheesy, i cant stop it, none of that.
Again my opinion is the way it setup now, it takes a little away from the basic chess match of offensive style vs the defense in 2 player games.