If I understand the strategy and the new game engine correctly, Infinity's strategy would still be valid because he mixed personnel sets up on downs, which means he would not be running the same play over and over. He was just choosing from a limited number of plays in each scenario.

While it doesn't match how I like to play, the underlying problem is that most of the plays simply don't work. How many times have you seen an outside run out of the gun go for positive yards? I never have, and I laugh every time I face an opponent that runs it. (This is just one example. I don't have a full list handy of the plays that don't work. This is just the one that fails the most hilariously hard.)

I don't disagree with you that most plays don't work, but that's normal. I routinely go through my plays and exchange plays that aren't working with ones that I think may work better, based on my team's strengths and weaknesses. I think anyone that doesn't do this is crazy. It's Gameplanning 101.

If Infinity is (was) switching up his formations and personnel to 'confuse' the defense, that is something I can absolutely get behind and respect. That is legitimate football strategy, something that is done is every league across the states.

My beef is with guys using just a few plays, the ones we ALL KNOW are the best plays. We've all seen it. I don't want to get all on a soapbox here, but it's not football. I don't like losing to guy running the same couple of plays over and over. It cheapens the game for I, I guess. I feel cheated when it happens, although I know it's not cheating...

I played him in aplayoff game when i was coasting through a season in 19. Somebody even warned me and told me to gameplan. I did nothing different as usual, either did infinity. He ran only eight different plays by half time . Really six most of the time. I got tired of looking. His type of play was adressed. I would scout those plays, and play ones that work well against that fit my team. It is very stoppable with a equal team.

He would run plays where there was general benefits under the code. Spread it out and run weak side. Or pass to WRs doing fades ...both reek of exploits. I do the same and it is a little harder than before. He keyed every play and was wrong half of the time. Little strategy is used in those areas and code could be tightened. DB/WR interactions will look at those fade routes and how guys read them. Cause it **** poor
Same for MLB reads in the run game but i feel that is after DB/ WR. Also, those keyes are powerful.

All of his players making plays on my weak un gameplanned team were elite players. Leading rusher, passer, reciever, leading tackler and sacker. This was a good team using exploits plain and simple. A peewee team runs more plays than that. I seen some real life playbooks in college that were hundreds of pages long.

The word 'exploited' is the perfect word to use to describe it!

I've had 2 frustrating experiences with this strategy, neither of them with Infinity. In one league, the owner dominated the league for seasons by only using 3 running plays. He'd run every 1st down, and on 2nd and short, and he averaged 8 yards a carry with these 3 plays, (obviously). The other guy won a championship using only 6 defensive plays, and 3 of those almost exclusively. Neither of these strategies would pan out in real football.

That being said, I can't speak to Infinity's actions, I don't recall playing him...

I feel using a few plays is not smart but i have seen it on offense as well as defense, but see no advantage. I could be wrong as infinty beat my team 66-2 but like i said i did little to stop this stragety as it was under the old code. I am just using his teams/ gameplans as examples of wondering "if" it would work under this new code.

75 has all that. New code, balanced rosters and competive owners. It is a great test league for me for the longevity of the game. In other words exploits should be exploited here. Cause if they work really well in 75 then it will work in every league.

Right now i believe guys are so doninate due to a few factors. Roster parity being number one. That is the biggest benefit to 75 is that other leagues will still have to wait seasons if not longer for the same parity to develop.

That makes 75 the best to notice true exploits. Not ones that work cause teams are loaded and can gamble alot. Still, the latest changes will be in full effect there only due to lack of variables and new changes.

I want to see if a few plays works there too, but dont really care, because i will still build my playbooks as if it were a real life team. Taking into acoount factors this game doesnot even look at. With enthusiasm that one day it might be here like in reallife.

Don't count on that, check out the Cinci vs Indy game in MFN1 last season. Indy ran 1 play on offense like 50+ times and one on defense like 70+ times and it never seemed to perform any worse.

The best part of that experiment was when he faced my team. My d had no familarity with that play. Not only by play twenty did my defense start destorying it. It helped me figure out how many plays it takes to fill up player meters and team meters with that play familarity.

I think it was 10 he did it too and my D had just switched complete defensive schemes and once again play 20-25 my team had a beat. I dont think it is too strong there also but that one is wr/ db game play also.

Punishers WRs are are going 10 deep and breaking on routes. DBs let the WRs come right at them and run right by. Most would back pedal a little first. Also, most DBs would use long and short sides of the field to thier advantage. Not act like they are not there.

And the topper is his lower rated guys just catch over grade A DBs when tightly cover. Punish should be reserved to big hits . While hieght vertical and timing should dictate catch overs. That part is the last of the great blunders of this game.IMO. No jumping skill. I will never get it, but have accepted courage as a top tier skill for all recievers.

Still, easy pickings for an exploit and JDB has something on the dockett i just want it to be in one of those areas. Along with screen passes i feel they should go hand and hand. Better coverage(or more intuitive) on deeper routes for the defense and for the offense have screen passes to help with teams that blitz alot.

I don't know (or particularly care) what's realistic or appropriate or meets everybody's approval, but I would like to clarify a couple of things.

1. I've read admin's explanation and don't buy it: The playcalling matrix doesn't work when multiple personnel sets are available. I trust it as much as the highly reliable power rankings.

2. On offense, I utilized a full playbook over the course of a game, limiting play selections based on certain situations. On first down, I selected from four plays. Second down depended on yardage, utilizing entirely different plays. Third down was largely an anything-goes-crapshoot.

Side note: In addition to the broken matrix, the play knowledge "feature" was the catalyst for limiting first down plays. Calling those plays more often meant the team actually could learn the plays. If anything was an AI exploit, this was it.

3. Ryan is either a terrible scout or a liar. Without consulting play-by-plays, I would guess I rarely if ever called a single play more than 15 times in one game. Unfortunately, our playoff game was marred by an admin mistake (https://mfn1.myfootballnow.com/community/thread/6/1735?page=1#10510 ... but even with my starters limited to a handful of snaps, I only lost by 3 points.) Regardless, the game was played before I embraced the first down strategy.

You've noted in multiple comments that we'll never know if my approach would have worked in the latest game engine. When things calm down at work and a passing game upgrade is deployed, I'll start looking for teams that share a division with you.

4. This discussion seems a little silly to me because my teams rarely fielded a competent passing game. Whether you approve of my approach or not, I would suggest you don't copy it.

5. I won with defense and special teams. Defensively, playcalling was much more complex, with a rule in place for each offensive formation.

6. The single biggest advantage I had was on punt returns and coverage. I put as much effort into finding depth players who would excel in punt coverage or blocking as I did into assembling an offense or defense, and it paid off. Four TEs and two FBs? Why not.

I won a lot of games I had no business winning because I limited opponents to 10 yards per return while scoring a couple of TDs. The new game engine neutered this, and I would expect to have lost at least 2 or 3 more games per season as a result.

My first game in the FP league, I inherited an 0-15 team, so I decided to throw the final game by only calling deep passes (about 3 plays total, if memory serves). This is the only time I ever attempted this, but it resulted in my pitiful winless team scoring more than 100.

So if the AI is supposed to account for this, it doesn't work.

Is there an online FBPro98 league? Best game ever.

For what it's worth i personally have nothing but respect for the way Infinity played the game and instead of complain about certain tendencies i noticed in scouting, I worked to try to defend or beat him. I prefer to try to solve something rather than complain about it. He's shut me down numerous times so there's no reason i couldn't figure out a way to do the same to him. I hope you come back eventually cause you pushed me as a coach to be more creative in finding ways to beat teams :)