Fantasy World League Forum

What do you think? Here are my pennies:

Top 5 "Wows":
1) Raleigh: WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) Aaron Rogers
3) SACs Jerome Davis: Set a new ALL-TIME-FWL-record  with 6 sacks(!)
4) Austrias Defense: First wipeout since Week 6 of season#5 (31-0 vs. Orlando)
5) Austrias Kicker Anderson (tied ALL-TIME-FWL-record  with 6/6 FGs)


Top 5 "What the hell?s" (Disclaimer: NO OFFENSE, just my ranking....):
1) Montreals last three quarters
2) Berlins running-game
3) Orlandos performance
4) Jamal Robertsons performance in his first game for Barcelona
5) "When it´s close: The good teams always win in the end....": (Frankfurt, Amsterdam, New York, San Antonio......)

throw in your pennies.....

Well some of those rushing games are just plain ugly, thats why we need to fiddle the files and make them realistic so most teams have at least an average rushing attack.

I knew Raleigh were a good team, but Rodgers going 27a, 27c was totally OTT and unrealistic which was a shame. Still in the past we had unknown Jim Ballard go 17a, 17c.

I'm a bit disappointed with Week 1 after all the months of offseason to be honest.  Its good the leagues started again, records created, all time records added to etc but some very disappointed offenses.  As normal with the software the 'defense' catches up and we're back to the dark old days of RB's carrying the ball 15 times for 21 yards.

cmon, wipe away your tears.
things are not as bad as they seem...

we should wait and see and not start thinking about what should be changed after just one week of play....

Think about to huge amount of trading that was going on in the last couple of weeks and enjoy the leauge....

They are Mario, last year we had 1 1000 yard rusher, so far in just week 1 the vast majority of starting RB's had terrible stats, yes it was only one week but many of them were terrible.

I have so many other things going on right now i dont have tons of time for the FWL so if i am going to continue with the FWL i want things to be 'realistic' and not 8 carries for 4 yards by a lot of RB's. 

The huge trading is great for the league, just a pity about some of the games this week

I think you're overreacting. Ohio nearly had two 100 yard rushers all by itself, and several teams were over 100 yards in team rushing yardage.

hi mr. compton.
i miss you..... (a bit...)

Really disappointed with the result, thought we would get the result this week. The problem on the offence from last season seem to have improved, however our tight defence totally disappeared! Could see some changes for Week 2...

Same problem as last season awfull O-Line.

Me too, about that much. :)

Yeah a few people have said that, i'll see how Week 2 goes without any changes.  Very strange though, rushing offenses werent great, i'm saying defenses are great then Rodgers has an incredible day ?!

Well maybe Rodgers performance was all down to the team  ;D  ;D

I am more worried about the qb stats! almost no interceptions and unbelievable compl stats.

maybe we just have to change the future rookie: better RB's and TE and much worse QB's, worse WR.

making changes in the skills is unfair to some teams, especially the defense focused teams.

On other thing we can do to make teh stats more realistic is that the FA vets will retire after the season (or atleast the QB's)

Even though the Aztecs lost, I was very happy with the way my team played in San Antonio.  SA's roster is downright scary, yet we had a chance to beat them on the road.  Mexico probably would have won the game if it weren't for the lousy punt return coverage.

On the Rodgers thing, don't firget that he was sacked twice and thrown for a loss as well, A smarter QB may have thrown those away and had fewer sacks and less completions.

Ah i see: niki needs a RB and a TE on his roster ;-)

regarding shortages in the skills i do not uflly agree with you niki. the only thing that can happen is that the better teams have a slightly disadvantage (which is not a bad thing at all) if skills are cut by the same level:

if a 90/90/90-player is reduced to 88/88/88 taht is more of a loss than a 70/70/70-player which is reduced to 68/68/68 because it is easier to get back to 70/70/70 in next TC then go back to 90/90/90....

But all in all the differences would be peanuts and it would not change the fact that ADK will win the next four FWL-Bwols...  8)

Well we've had some low int totals the last few seasons, Curt Anes finished Season 14 with 0 ints, the first time ever that has happened.

Its difficult knowing what to change, hopefully Jason/David once they have the time can give us some pointers and eventually make the changes to the files.  We'll see how Week 2 pans out.

The number of interceptions has always been pretty low in the FWL, but it is getting lower.

Here are the total number of regular season interceptions thrown in each year:-

Year	Total Ints
1	141
2	139
3	151
4	144
5	134
6	116
7	94
8	94
9	94
10	96
11	120
12	106
13	109
14	89
15	85

So, last season was the lowest total ever. What happened in season 11 to make the total jump so high?

How about a significant global increase in the hands rating for defensive backs and linebackers?

It has been low, but after 1 week the avg is 1 a week = total 14, that si extreem low


even players that already have high hands rating do not make a lot of int, besides that the hands skills has no influence on the completions, since a couple of seasons the compl % is extreem high (QB below 65 is a bad QB). I think this problem is due to quality of players (skills in 90's is normal in off and high 80"s in def) the better the players are, the less mistakes are made (less int, less long runs) I think we have two ways to solve it that is fair for everyone: down grade all skills with a % or create in next draft much more better players on positions that do not work (RB's and TE"s) both positions are needed for a good run off.


That si partly my point, main issue is that it happens after TC, and teams with older players are hit twice

INTS:Well as Far as I understood it was the Intelligence of the QB that chooses the pass and the Discipline not

to throw any ints and Strength the distance so if we want more ints then lower the

Intelligence which means he will make more wrong passes, but I am sure

it is not that simple  :P

RB's: Well maybe the D-lines are just to good and lower the average yards per

Carriage so a QB with good IN will choose not to run the ball again(or less)

So in my opinion it is down to the QB’s ie.
                         TEAM  YR POS  CARRIES  YARDS   AVERAGE  LONG    TD'S
Payton, Jarrett      OHIO  2   HB       13          93         7.2         57       0

With an average of 7.2 I would run the ball nearly every play but with the QB completing 67% 

and having 3 TD'S he choose not to run the ball.

David et al probably have more to say about this, but based on my experiences in the FWL, raising RB stats isn't gonna help. Plenty of runners have had 85+ across the board and spun their wheels.

I'm currently on a long trip in Canada, when I get home in a week or so I'll work out a comparison between that stats used by the default NFL League and the stats we now have. Then we should know where the faults may lie.

Well I had a bit of spare time and researched the average yards in the NFLE NFL and FWL so here they are

League                      Average       Ranking
FWL                            5.7         TOP 10 RB's
FWL                            3.9         TOP 11-20 RB's
OVERALL FWL              4.8         TOP 20 RB's
NFLE                           4.5         TOP 10 RB's
NFL(preseason)             7.1         TOP 10 RB's

So as you can see the difference between the FWL and the NFLE is that the top 10 RB's in the FWL stats are better than the stats of the NFLE (Not using the NFL as it is preseason)
BUT the top 11-20 RB's in the FWL are down by 0.6 of a Yard .

SO OVERALL
By these stats the FWL RB's Average are better than NFLE average which gives no explanation for poor overall yards.

It is no secret that every 3 or so seasons there has something done to the player values or the league stats get down.

Maybe we had less discussion if we would not talk only about defense reductions  :)

I think most of our problems are in the lines (many sacks and low running):
I propose:
OL all values +1
DL SP,AC,AG each -2

This alone should even out some things and sounds overall a lot better to all GMs ;)

Regarding the high completion percentages, I am a bit helpless. At least for Rodgers these are
not only 'save' passes at HB or so but also to WR1, Montreals defense on the other side is very well
build especially at DB (fast etc). So I dont know what to think of this statistical oddity.
Maybe he just is that good.

I think what you said there sounds good

Its weird, on one hand SOME teams seem to run the ball quite well, others pass the ball well but cant run it.

But if you look at http://www.fwl.org.uk/sseason.htm#O19

Some of the defenses for stopping the run are just stupid.  We need to get that back to normal.  There were a couple of games i had to re-run because so often the starting HB had 15 carries for -35 yards which was ridiculous.

Things were fine i think in Season 14, not so great last year but this year are even worse and its taking a long time simulating games.  If a team has stats such as HB1 15 carries for -30 yards i do rerun the games, i hate rerunning games but stats like that are just stupid.

So even though some of the scores might look 'okay' i have to rerun a lot of the games which takes time.  Still weird as i say as some passing stats are very good, just some of the rushing defenses are totally unrealistic

I´d add something here:

At least for Austria it is the LBs that shut down the opponents run, not the DLs.
If that is the case throughout the league we should think about lowering the LBs, especially ST.....

Well its very funny if you go back say 5 seasons and see some of the stats there, most teams didnt have LB's with 80 SP, nowadays we have most teams with 2-4 LB's with 80+ speed each

maybe that is the key?
i think LBs ST is a key as well.... RBs cannot run flat "through" a LB due to the LBs strengh....

I think the best way will be a flat reduction of the whole defense (as we did before and worked quit well)

I still think the D-Line needs more then just a -1 on some attributes

And I still do not like that IN,DI und EN are also globally reduced

However from a practical point of view the flat reduction of every defense rating by the same amount is done the easiest.

well I think we now are to much focused on the increase of the def skills, unrealistic stats are not only from this season! we already have a couple of years unrealistic QB rating's. the worse QB rating in the FWL would make the QB a more then good QB in the NFL. I think in general that the problem is that all skills are getting to high + that all players have equal potatials (def 95 and off 99)

1) normal skills vs potentials: if I am correct is that the skills we see what the players normal level is, while the potential is what he can reach (during a game), thinking about it I think the potentials are connected with teh mood. The mood will influenced by the teams results. which explain why some teams keep winning and some keep losing while the year after it is visa versa.
2) all skills are to high, while a couple of years back we were happy with a QB with one skill in the 90, now we need atleast 3. same with WR and the oliners, to be more correct at all positions.

I think it is a combination between to high potentials and the total increase of all skills:

my solution:
1) decrease all skills with 20% it is fair for everyone, in percentage all players are at 80%
2) drecrease all potentials: off 90 and def 85. In this way we avoid to have the same problems in teh future
3) draftees have to be worse then in teh past. this years draft was ok for the league. we still need to change some things I think: not so many good QB's, WR and Oliners and more LB (we almost are very short in young LB with some future) TE's (1 a year that can start within 1 or 2 years is to low, TE's are used to block in the rush attack so without strong TE's it will have effect on the rush attack)

well this was my idea about why the rushing game is not working

i think that small steps are much better. reduce a little and see how fwl develops.

don´t rush into something.....

Based on the just posted statistical look between the season 1 roster and now, we can see that some positions - especially QB and along both Lines has shot up by more that 100 ponts. WR, DB and LB have gone up by half of that.

HBs are small risers, but FBs are big risers.......

 Look ing at these stats I think we would need to make some pretty big changes to get the league back to producing more realistic stats.

Anyone any other thoughts?

cheers
Ross

nice work Ross!

It think that all positions have been raised is normal (especially keepig in mind that we increase the values of our rookies)

Note referring to HB and FB risers, we can switch them so at the end the avg rise is avg?

the compairment is great and shows the increase and the differences between increase, but the only question I have was season 1 a normal season by stats? (ross if it is not, I can do (with same guideline info) the compairment of which season it was)

Niki the other comparison I want to do is against the NFL league that comes with the game, but until I get back from Canada I don't have the data. That will actually be a more interesting exercise as that is a realistic league.

As was pointed out in an earlier post, the FWL has always had high sacks low interceptions. I think the number if fumbles is pretty low as well - if you discount a certain London QB ;-).

This exercise was to show what happens as the league progresses through the years. My own thought is that too many players have too long a career, so go through too many training camps.  The average NFL career is a little over 4 yearsand we have many players who are way over that. In fact most camps rounds 5-8 don't make the rosters.

First of all great work done, thank you !

But I dont think the problem are too many training camps, this would be valid
if the starters are all 10 year veterans, but they are not.

Again, the key against too many sacks, almost no running game and the too many blocked punts
are the SP, AC, AG of the DL if we take them done by 2-3 points it should help a lot.

That we have an overall increase in the league is also no wonder, because in the first
season the players were terrible in many cases. I think a better season would be 2002
(after the first defense reduction) back then we had 6 1000 yard rushers
after 2 season without one. The league was allready some seasons old so we have a good mix
of veterans and our own rookies.

By the way we had to make the rookies better (bye ourselves), because the Game creates
terrible rookies.

blocked punts???? i do not see a problem at all!

ADK had about let us say 1 blocked punt every season on off and def. is it different with other teams?

maybe you remember in the eraly days we had too many blocked punts !

season
1999     95
2000     82
2001     18 (dont remember if we did reduce defneces here allready)
2002     2   ! (big first defense reduction)

2009    1
2010    7
2011    13
2012    3 after 2 weeks

So it may become a problem again, maybe not as big as in the early days, because the Ps are now overall
better, however it is increasing again.

I dont know the NFL numbers but I dont see there every week a blocked punt (= 14 for our league)

If somebody has a lot of time, here

http://www.afl.atfreeweb.com/AFL/vpnfl_description_by_henley.htm

is a description of a FBRro league that made a lot of changes to keep it realistic
Very detailed and researched changes !

Interesting to read but too much for us I fear ;)

Blocked punts isnt a major problem yet but so far the number seems to be rising, its not a huge problem as in defenses/rushing attack but could get out of hand, those early years with loads of blocked punts by Bruce, Emtman and others was sooooooooo unrealistic it was funny

i really like blocked punts and blocked kicks as they can turn the games momentum around.
as i said i think we do not have too many....

i just hope that all these discussion that could/should be done end when Paul announces the changes. PLEEEEEEEEeeeaaaaaaaaaaaassssee!!!!!

This discussion last for much too long now.....

5 days to go for week 3.....

Yes they can turn the games momentum around but to have 3 or so in 2 weeks is quite unrealistic and you can see year by year the punt blocks going back up.

Well i'll talk to David about the changes and if he can do them in time, i know hes very busy and just come back from holiday etc but hopefully we can go back to normal. Basically changing skills etc wont please everyone but theres not much you can do, at the end of the day a dominating defense will be good, a rubbish defense will be poor.  So it affects everyone, if you have a great defense and it gets worse then a 'worse' defense will be even worse so its fair for everyone

Just a huge bug in the software really

That link from Marco was really quite interesting, what it was suggesting was that each attribute of each position needed to have a range of acceptable values. Ones that would keep everything in line.

I guess then that if we did that then we can shrink the necessary attributes as required.

My big worries always come with an across the board -2 on defense or offense as somepositions require an absolute minimum value to work at all. The famous 80 for ST on Offensive Linemen for example.

I did a quick check on the 2002 rosteers - again at Marco's suggestion , and the differences were smaller than previously, but the most marked areas were still the same. I've put the reference material in the other posting if anyone wants to take a look.

Hi Mario,

I know this discussion is boring if you do not own a game and therfore know the mechanucs of it.

However it is about how we can have a league with realistic stats and in the end how we can keep Paul
interested to continue with the league ;) so its VERY important as I see it.

Regarding the article I mentioned:

They also did change gameplans, playbooks etc. The FWL will not do that, so we cannot take all their changes,
because it would not work the same way. However the mentioned Kang-Files were able to
create more or less realistic stats with the original plays from the PC-game.

Unfortunately after almost 10 years I find no links anymore that work if I search for them :(

If somebody is interested in the VPNFL values, Miguel should still have them (hopefully)
as the league he commished some years ago did use them and he had a webpage explaining
how the attributes were set.