From our first game in MFN-2:

- Lots and lots of injuries. Not sure if this is to simulate small dings, but half my roster is hurt with something after one preseason game. Felt like every other play someone got hurt.
- QB seems to throw to the covered man and ignore wide open receivers.
- QB doesn't want to scramble. They move outside the pocket a lot, but won't then rush for yardage. I'll look for a gameplan setting.
- Running seems overly difficult, but again I'll check through the gameplan.
- Player covering a running back in the backfield charges into the backfield, then turns around once the RB is behind him and tries to catch up. Several times I thought this was a blitzer, if he'd just continued he'd have had the QB in 2 steps or so. If he's really covering the RB, he needs to hang back a bit more.

I agree with the injuries. Haven't watched the game yet, but ****!

As for the rest, have you factored in things like, it's the first game of the season, and they are getting the rust off? Also, the majority of the game was backups playing... probably not as good and rusty as well...

Most of the pre-season injuries are just that, small dings. If your player is probable then it's a small ding. The injuries taper off dramatically once the players get up to game conditioning.
The logic for who the QB throws to is something like this: At the beginning of the play, the WRs are ordered based on their pattern depth vs. the pass type (short/medium/long) and then the QB works through his progression as they complete their routes. Who he decides to throw to at that point is determined by whether he sees another open player in his field of view, and whether that open player is in the same range (short/medium/long) as the play call, as well as how covered he is. So there will be times that a player looks open, but the QB won't throw to him because he's too far away from the play's intended range and the covered WR isn't covered enough to cause the QB to throw to the open one, or just plain doesn't see him because his field of view doesn't allow him to see him.
I've noticed this as well lately, I'm wondering if something I did to tone this down might have turned it too far down (it used to be way too frequent)
In general, the average YPC should fall somewhere in the 2-3 yard range. A lot of this has to do with your run blocking vs. the defense's run defense.
This is a bug that I'm not sure when it got introduced, but I've noticed it as of late as well. You are correct in that the covering player is supposed to stay back and wait for the RB, so I need to investigate why this is happening.

2-3 for an average per rush is way too low. The average run should be closer to 4. If it stays 2-3, it's not worth running much at all.

To back that up, here are the 2012 team yards-per-rush totals:
http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/team/_/stat/rushing/sort/yardsPerRushAttempt

They range from Arizona at 3.4 to Minnesota at 5.4. The median was 4.2.

There should be a range (I think I misspoke, 2-3 is probably lower than it actually is, I'm pulling that out of my head) - In 2012 the NFL had 4 teams at 5.0 ypc or more, with the highest being MIN at 5.4. The distribution in testing has been similar to the NFL, with a couple of good rushing teams getting 4-6 YPC and most teams falling at 4 or lower.

You're correct, I have actually been referencing those stats to find the balance. The overall league - especially the regular season - should fall closer to those ranges.

Another observation. I reduced my fatigue factoring thinking that would pull the starters and play the rest. It seems to have done that but with an interesting twist. Once my second string QB was pulled due to "Fatigue" he was replaced with a receiver and eventually a running back. Needless to say they were not very capable of playing the position. Question - Did I use the fatigue setting correctly? (Set it at 27) Once pulled due to fatigue will the player ever recover and re-enter the game?

Other then that I can mirror G's feedback. On the injury front though I wanted to point out that we suffered 4 concussions. 4! A wee bit high I would think.

One last question. When are you going to go public and "sell" this to the world? :)

That's interesting, the QB actually should not get pulled for fatigue, but it's possible he got pulled because of injury. If you don't have a 3rd string QB active, then the coach will put in whoever has the best available ratings, but he won't put back in the starting QB once he's been benched. (He's probably over chatting with the cheerleaders with his pads off anyway)

You are correct on the fatigue setting, a lower number will pull your players earlier than a higher number. The fatigue is set such that during a play a player's fatigue increases based on what they are doing and his conditioning. Between plays and if the player is on the sideline, his fatigue reduces based on his conditioning. So to answer your question, yes, the player will recover and return to the game. Similar logic happens with injuries, when a player is injured the game calculates the real time it will take for him to return, and he will return to the game at that time (if the game is still going).


I'll take that as a vote of confidence that you like the game, so thank you. :-) I'm not quite ready to take out an ad during Monday Night Football but feel free to throw out any ideas that you think would be helpful.

I probably will revisit the injury issue, it does seem high to me during pre-season as well but during the season it seems low. One huge advantage to having several leagues going now filled with human players is that I will have a lot more data to parse through and study. Also it's very helpful as you all give feedback, as everyone has a different perspective and frequently it's a perspective I've not considered.