Can anyone confirm whether the defensive scouting bug (scout a play, familiarity decreases) is merely a display issue or whether it is making your team more stupid please?

No idea. Every game, I still scout my opponent's top 10 most-run defensive plays. I haven't noticed anything one way or the other.

You still never gain offensive familiarity on non-blitzing plays.

Play: Man Cover 1
Formation: Dime Normal
LB: Zone
Sec: 1-Deep Man
In Playbook: Yes
Off Familiarity: 0%
Def Familiarity: 71%
Times Used/Avg: 335/3.4
1st Down/Avg: 75/2.7
2nd Down/Avg: 64/4.7
3rd Down/Avg: 191/3.2
4th Down/Avg: 5/3.5

That's from the scout defense tab in my scouting

Yes.
though many have stated the impact is minimal, there is still an impact "in the first 10 passes against" (Setherick) any defensive plays that have a negative (-%) offensive familiarity against such defensive plays.

Still the biggest bug in MFN, still the deal breaking bug for me.

Fix the engine or I quit.
I refuse to be punished for doing the right thing, much less any of the things I have to do - defensive play scouting in this case - to be competative in MFN.

There's far too many players still abusing the negative defensive play familiarity bug for it not to matter.
Removing the next abused play is never an option, with precedent now having been recently set.
The only solution is to FIX IT.

I remember the beautiful days of my opponent trying to ice me out with the Flat Zone stream.

Nerf'ing all your passes to the tune of -123% negative familiarity. You could mush through it and pound it to oblivion with plays like Hard Slants.

Don't believe the propaganda, which was always a joke. "Do not pay attention to the man behind the curtain!"

Ray and JDB put out that 'bug' display concept so that we'd ignore it and continue to throw right into the headwind of a full-on nerf without a second thought. Another parity attempt.

Sucker the elite GM into not even considering it and to be lost in the wilderness of trying to figure out how to get their offense going thus allowing the common GM to rise up on an equal playing field.

Both approaches bode toward the fact that certain plays are penalized and others are not. so using either approach will win games.

One pass defense exploit is within the dbs ability to slow the wr. Throwing off timing, reads, and creating panic to force a throw at an unseen zone defender.

Thats flat zones cases but here no other play has that angle for the zone defenders. Prefectly designed to stop alot of the 4.6 offense.

Planting off ball denders, while in other man assignments, within in passing lanes in order for some of these quick reads to the middle of the feild get picked off easy is something else to do or try to avoid.

Play the negative familarity thing but if those numbers tell of percentages over 100 not negative the numbers that would actually correlate people are noticing the effectiveness and are calling the play more often. Cause it works. Not cause -123% made the qb crappy.

It is like why do wrs pick off alot of passes as dbs? Ithink thats a better question to ask to get to the bottom of the nuances of 4.6 passing. Though I am certianly open to hearing more of the familarity bug. I enjoy it this one is tricky for sure but wheres the data?

Talking about bugs... Its really about these position limits adims in leagues put in.... with weight classes per postion. Playing that bug get anybody most wins.

I think this quote is the crux of why CSB (and others, I presume) is/are still upset. You can call a non-blitzing play the same amount of times as a blitzing play, and the latter will get the overuse penalty first. That's why the non-blitzing plays can be effective, but also why they can be overused to others' chagrin.

If I’m reading this right, apparently calling any defense is “abuse”!? There have been multiple studies showing how “broken” the flat zone was compared to EVERYTHiNG else.

Just to be clear, I tend to agree with almost everything you address, it’s just that one statement that confuses/hits a nerve. I recall a long time ago (for me, 2 years), before 4.6 anyway, that the common sentiment was that zone def did not work and only man to man defense was worth calling. Then things started to shift to this familiarity issue, which seems to be a poor half assed way to make initially weaker defenses improve over time?

It's not zone defense, it's non blitzing plays. Plays like 4-3 Normal Man Under 1, 4-3 Normal QB Spy, 3-4 Normal Man Cover 1, just to name some examples. They aren't as effective as FZ was, but can be spammed without overuse penalties. Still very beatable if spammed, in fact probably more than FZ (which seth has shown in the original play removal thread). I think the frustrating thing (to CSB and others) is that they still can be spammed without said overuse penalty.