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Main - General MFN Discussion

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By raymattison21
10/19/2022 8:03 am
For B&R It’s just a level and adjustment and is a great idea. Still I wonder the key differences in the old zone updates tested but not installed yet. In general passing numbers we’re up… but I wonder how in particular long passes ended up? Right now they are almost useless.

Its like if you take out B&R and still the qbs are getting sacked at a high rate. What then? Or are they tossing up 35-40 yard jump *****. But to the third option…slot or whatever just not the deep outside. Are QBs dumping it off all the time and ignoring the primary all the time? Just different stuff to look at .

I am not sold on any one fix it here. In a dream world I like fatigue to use body mass index over just weight in pounds and maybe do away with raising zero speed. Idk alot of working pieces at play
Last edited at 10/19/2022 8:04 am

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By setherick - League Admin
10/19/2022 8:13 am
Of course the biggest problem with the game engine and passing other than speed is the number of drops for passes over 5 yards. But JDB has flat out said he doesn't see having drop rates of >10% for 100 Catch WRs as a bug, so I've given up trying to get that ... or ... really anything changed on the game since he doesn't listen to anyone with data backed ideas.

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By Mcbolt55
10/19/2022 8:33 am
I understand jdb is trying to keep certain plays from becoming overpowering or broken, but that deep catching logic is pretty flawed as a simulation. Drops aren’t the reason deep passes are harder to achieve in real life, it’s the time it takes for the ball to travel that allows for the defense to close on the intended target as well as the variance in accuracy due to wind and simple range/direction judgement on making a throw that far away. In other words, any idiot with an arm can get the ball relatively close to a receiver 5 yards away so that they can try to catch it, but if a guy is 20-30 yards away any variance on the ***** trajectory is magnified significantly and a previously catchable ball is now 10 feet off target. It has to be a significant challenge to make code simulate reality as I described it, but I’m simply stating was seems like flaw in how to approach the logic. Drops in reality also tend to primarily happen when the receiver is wide open a short distance away (and mentally prepares to run upfield before actually securing the ball, so perhaps a combination of catch, intel, disc?). If a player is contested trying to get the ball I don’t think that can be considered a drop and all the attributes of the defender vs receiver need to be “rolled”

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By setherick - League Admin
10/19/2022 8:41 am
Mcbolt55 wrote:
I understand jdb is trying to keep certain plays from becoming overpowering or broken, but that deep catching logic is pretty flawed as a simulation. Drops aren’t the reason deep passes are harder to achieve in real life, it’s the time it takes for the ball to travel that allows for the defense to close on the intended target as well as the variance in accuracy due to wind and simple range/direction judgement on making a throw that far away. In other words, any idiot with an arm can get the ball relatively close to a receiver 5 yards away so that they can try to catch it, but if a guy is 20-30 yards away any variance on the ***** trajectory is magnified significantly and a previously catchable ball is now 10 feet off target. It has to be a significant challenge to make code simulate reality as I described it, but I’m simply stating was seems like flaw in how to approach the logic. Drops in reality also tend to primarily happen when the receiver is wide open a short distance away (and mentally prepares to run upfield before actually securing the ball, so perhaps a combination of catch, intel, disc?). If a player is contested trying to get the ball I don’t think that can be considered a drop and all the attributes of the defender vs receiver need to be “rolled”


Keep in mind this nerf was added because of the ideal placement code that controls QBs is super broken. Basically, a QB with 100 accuracy ALWAYS places the ball in the most ideal spot to catch on every throw regardless of distance unless under pressure. Arm Strength doesn't control how far a QB throws, only the velocity (unless that has changed). So QBs were pinpointing all throws instead of throwing to a space on deep throws and either overthrowing or underthrowing receivers.
Last edited at 10/19/2022 8:44 am

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By Mcbolt55
10/19/2022 9:04 am
I did not know that, obviously not understanding how the “coding” side of this game works. Only joined 2 years ago, so must have missed when that was an issue.

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By setherick - League Admin
10/19/2022 9:05 am
Mcbolt55 wrote:
I did not know that, obviously not understanding how the “coding” side of this game works. Only joined 2 years ago, so must have missed when that was an issue.


It came out in testing of 4.4 and 4.5 to stop the long pass revolution.

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By jdavidbakr - Site Admin
10/19/2022 10:49 am
setherick wrote:
Of course the biggest problem with the game engine and passing other than speed is the number of drops for passes over 5 yards. But JDB has flat out said he doesn't see having drop rates of >10% for 100 Catch WRs as a bug, so I've given up trying to get that ... or ... really anything changed on the game since he doesn't listen to anyone with data backed ideas.


I love your data, setherick - your data has had a significant impact on the game engine development over the years.

I haven't been doing much in the game engine because I've decided to focus on the user experience. I spent several years splitting my focus and literally nothing came from either side. At this point the game engine work takes so, so much time, because (as you especially probably remember) a tiny tweak has such a butterfly effect. There was a significant amount of work done to improve pass defense over probably 4-6 months a while back but ultimately that work was shelved because it was a two steps forward one step back exercise (or one step forward two steps back in many cases), and with the pain of the long-in-the-tooth user interface, including the amount of work I have to put in to respond to support requests that hopefully can be pushed to league admins with the new UI framework, I have decided to focus 100% on the UI update. Even jumping into the forums is a decision I have to make because that pauses me pushing the needle forward. This update also has under-the-hood updates that will help game engine development, and make the game more playable on mobile devices, and lays the framework for a future native app.

My plan is to get the UI update completed, and then return to the game development. I may try to form a committee of players who are focused on the data to help assemble ideas and tweaks and ultimately make the game engine better. I wish I had the bandwidth to focus on it now, because honestly I love, love, love that part of it. But since MFN is a labor of love I have to be selective on what I spend my time working on.

Thanks everyone for your patience and support.

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By jackals
10/19/2022 11:43 am
First off, I hate the removal of these plays for two main reasons. The first reason is that FB Dive is effectively a QB sneak, which happens all the time in the NFL. The second reason is that these plays weren't THAT good. Several other plays have comparable success rates to FB Dive in effectiveness of getting 2+ yards -- even against blitzes. In fact, over a dozen plays had a higher success rate of getting 2+ yards against GL Attack #2 -- the main counter to FB Dive. 4-3 Normal Man OLB Flat Zone similarly was good, but not even the best zone defense play. But what it did do was give less experienced owners a starting defensive play to stay competitive with the better owners while they learned the game.

Second, I'll volunteer to be part of the data team. I've written some pretty extensive analytics for this game in my spare time, and having access to the actual database rather than having to maintain spreadsheets, download game logs, and scrape web pages would enable me to write some great player/team stats way beyond the current scope of what's available that would make the user experience better. I can also provide quicker feedback on broken plays -- both those that are overpowered (like FL Hitch in 0.4.5) and those that just plain **** (mostly long passes in 0.4.6).

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By Legendruthless
10/19/2022 12:45 pm
jdavidbakr wrote:
setherick wrote:
Of course the biggest problem with the game engine and passing other than speed is the number of drops for passes over 5 yards. But JDB has flat out said he doesn't see having drop rates of >10% for 100 Catch WRs as a bug, so I've given up trying to get that ... or ... really anything changed on the game since he doesn't listen to anyone with data backed ideas.


I love your data, setherick - your data has had a significant impact on the game engine development over the years.

I haven't been doing much in the game engine because I've decided to focus on the user experience. I spent several years splitting my focus and literally nothing came from either side. At this point the game engine work takes so, so much time, because (as you especially probably remember) a tiny tweak has such a butterfly effect. There was a significant amount of work done to improve pass defense over probably 4-6 months a while back but ultimately that work was shelved because it was a two steps forward one step back exercise (or one step forward two steps back in many cases), and with the pain of the long-in-the-tooth user interface, including the amount of work I have to put in to respond to support requests that hopefully can be pushed to league admins with the new UI framework, I have decided to focus 100% on the UI update. Even jumping into the forums is a decision I have to make because that pauses me pushing the needle forward. This update also has under-the-hood updates that will help game engine development, and make the game more playable on mobile devices, and lays the framework for a future native app.

My plan is to get the UI update completed, and then return to the game development. I may try to form a committee of players who are focused on the data to help assemble ideas and tweaks and ultimately make the game engine better. I wish I had the bandwidth to focus on it now, because honestly I love, love, love that part of it. But since MFN is a labor of love I have to be selective on what I spend my time working on.

Thanks everyone for your patience and support.


A committee is a great idea. I think you would want users from all aspects to be a part of it. Smirt is one of the top guys I can think of that should be on it. He is loved/not-loved by the community. A committee without Smirt wouldn't make sense.

Jackals and Setherick for data.

GrandadB and Cjfred as the old guys. Well cjfred isn't quite old yet so maybe call it older guys. We will need that wisdom and opposing point of views.

Bruno to keep the peace.

ArmoredGiraffe as the sidekick of the group ;)

Of course they would all need to be willing, I am sure more would come forward who would be interested. Maybe Rialto, he is in every league I am pretty sure.

Just some ideas.

Re: IMPORTANT: Play Removal Notice

By setherick - League Admin
10/19/2022 12:45 pm
I don't understand the comment about the FZ. It was statistically speaking the single best defense in the game. Gave up almost no passing yards and contained the run. I hate that it was removed because the game remains broken and the FZ highlighted the brokenness. But it's a reasonable compromise to stream defenses killing interest.