I love archetypes. Choosing your player’s archetype the moment that you sign up for the league is something really exciting, and something akin to role-playing games. You’re essentially at your first crossroads, and the path that you choose will define not only the type of player you start out as, but the type of player you’ll one day grow into. And having a choice of 3-5 builds is the perfect amount to choose from. Not too many that it’s overwhelming, but not too few that it doesn’t make a difference.
In part 1 of this article, I’ll take a look at the distribution of archetypes among positions and the relative differences between them, as well as identifying certain positions which I believe need a bit of an overhaul. In part 2, to be written at a later date, I’ll put forward some suggestions on new archetype sets that might work better.
What do I mean by work better? Well as the player base grows and testing improves, it has become apparent that some archetypes are just better than others in all situations, or at the very least, some archetypes are barely viable. I completely understand that as a game designer, it’s impossible to nail the archetype design from the very beginning. But as the game evolves and as strategies change across the league, I believe we need to be reviewing the archetypes on a fixed basis, perhaps once every real life year.
Even if we knew the exact mechanics of the sim and can definitively say that all archetypes are equally strong, there will no doubt still be consensus favourites that emerge. And even in this case, I believe it’s in our interests to keep the distribution balanced. Having a sense of choice over your player’s development path is one of the best things about this game!
When I signed up for the league, I created as a Pass Blocker OL. As I quickly found out, this is not a well utilised archetype (there’s now only one active Pass Blocker OL in the entire league). I believe that we should be aiming to make every listed single archetype viable and balanced through tweaking of starting attribute values, measurables and attribute caps so that the answer to the question ‘which archetypes are better than others?’ is always ‘it depends’.
A shout out and thanks to Tesla whose awesome PT entry here inspired me to dive into the actual usages of archetypes across the league.
Without further ado, let’s dive into each position group and have a look at how each archetype is being used around the league. For the purposes of this article, I’m looking only at players with 58+ TPE:
Quarterback
Pocket Passer – 7
Game Manager – 7
Mobile – 6
Gunslinger – 4
Kudos to the designers for the QB archetype choice; this one is really nicely distributed. You could argue that Gunslinger could do with some buffing but with such low numbers overall, it’s hard to make a case for it. All in all, this sort of distribution is exactly what we want to see: no clear leader and decent usage across the board.
Running Back
Speed Back – 35 (61%)
Power Back – 8
All-purpose Back – 7
Receiving Back – 5
Blocking Back – 2
Here’s an example of where something needs to be done. Even with a choice of five, speed back is chosen by well over half of all players. And no wonder, Speed is the king of the sim. But if the first decision people are making is ‘I want to be the fastest’, we should make at least 3 of the archetypes have 100 speed, allowing users to choose a path based on the secondary attributes instead. At the moment, I don’t think Receiving and All-Purpose are different enough to justify losing out on that top speed.
Wide Receiver
Speed Receiver – 37 (49%)
Route Runner – 23
Red Zone Thread – 10
Possession Receiver – 6
This one is another victim of the ‘speed is king’ school of thought. If you look just at ISFL players, 60% of all WRs are Speed Receivers. All in all, the four archetypes here are really quite similar, but there’s still 10 speed points difference between a Speed Receiver and the two least selected archetypes, making those much more difficult to make work in the ISFL. Again, bringing those up to 95 or even 100 and rebalancing the other attributes would go a long way to helping bring more variety to the game.
Tight End
Balanced – 17 (46%)
Vertical – 10
Possession – 6
Blocking – 4
Tight end is the first skill position we’ve seen where the fastest is not the most selected archetype. Interestingly, it’s Balanced that is the preferred option around the league. Perhaps this is because the payoff by lowering speed from 90 to 85 is the benefit of being viable as a blocker. In any case, this one has a decent level of variety, but we could probably do more to make Possession and Blocking more viable.
Offensive Line
Athletic Lineman – 23 (62%)
Technician – 7
Run Blocker – 6
Pass Blocker - 1
This is a prime candidate for a redesign with the vast majority of players picking the same option. The massive boost to both Agility and Speed, coupled with 100 Strength, is apparently preferable to the drop in Run/Pass blocking. This is even more damning when you look at ISFL players. Of the 21 active OL in the big leagues, only 2 aren’t running with Athletic Lineman.
Defensive Tackle
Interior Rusher – 25 (58%)
Run Stuffer – 8
Nose Tackle – 6
Balanced - 4
Here’s another position where the one clear leader in speed dominates the archetype choices. Again, we could probably fix this by having a number of options with the highest viable speed. Balanced is a bit of an odd one here, with the caps being identical to Run Stuffer (with Hands being 5 less) and the starting values very similar.
Defensive End
Balanced – 25 (55%)
Power Rusher – 15
Speed Rusher – 9
Run Stopper – 0
This is an interesting one. Here we have two archetypes with the max speed, Balanced and Speed. Despite being inferior at both Strength and Tackling, both important attributes for a D lineman, Balanced is clearly the favourite here. Not a whole lot of difference between them all in terms of attribute caps but 55% is a huge number. And again we have two almost identical archetypes, with Run Stopper looking worse in almost every way to Power Rusher, likely why we don’t have a single active one in the league.
Linebacker
Speed Rusher – 31 (48%)
Balanced – 22
Coverage Linebacker – 9
Power Rusher – 2
Run Stopper – 1
Back to the speed meta, and despite having 5 to choose from, almost half the league has opted for the fastest archetype. Despite having high Strength/Tackling, only 3 users have opted for Power Rusher/Run Stopper.
Cornerback
Man to Man – 30 (48%)
All-Around – 19
Zone – 14
Cornerback is probably one of the best optimised archetype selections out there. While Man to Man is the clear favourite, the other two are clearly viable in the league. Zone and All-Around are very similar, so the choice is essentially between speed or supporting attributes. When you look at it like that, it’s a very healthy 50/50 split. However, it is the only position (other than K/P) that only has 3 archetypes to choose from. It would be nice to have a variant of Man to Man with 100 speed to split that one into two.
Safety
Center Fielder – 28 (42%)
All-Around – 16
Playmaker – 16
Run Support – 6
Another nicely balanced group here with the exception of Run Support, which only has 90 speed. It seems the consensus is that this is too low to be viable, with only two safeties in the ISFL using that archetype. Those opting for 95 speed builds have a good choice between two roughly equal options.
Kicker
Accurate – 15 (58%)
Power – 8
Balanced - 7
We all know that K/Ps are people too, and it seems like these people prefer accuracy over raw power. There’s only really two attributes that matter for them, so likely not much that needs to be done in terms of archetype tweaks.
Conclusion
Whoever designed these archetypes has done a truly excellent job. The majority of positions have stood the test of time with at least 2 or 3 viable options that can be chosen by a brand new rookie. However, there are a small minority of position groups that I believe could do with an archetype refresh in order to try and introduce some variety to the players at their positions. Enabling users to be creative about their builds is something we should encourage.
This will obviously require a ton of research, testing and enough notice to all players to make sure nothing is sprung upon them. But like all games, when the metagame and favourites keep evolving, we need to be reactive to those changes.
Look out for Part 2 where I’ll pick out a few positions and look at what could be adjusted!
In part 1 of this article, I’ll take a look at the distribution of archetypes among positions and the relative differences between them, as well as identifying certain positions which I believe need a bit of an overhaul. In part 2, to be written at a later date, I’ll put forward some suggestions on new archetype sets that might work better.
What do I mean by work better? Well as the player base grows and testing improves, it has become apparent that some archetypes are just better than others in all situations, or at the very least, some archetypes are barely viable. I completely understand that as a game designer, it’s impossible to nail the archetype design from the very beginning. But as the game evolves and as strategies change across the league, I believe we need to be reviewing the archetypes on a fixed basis, perhaps once every real life year.
Even if we knew the exact mechanics of the sim and can definitively say that all archetypes are equally strong, there will no doubt still be consensus favourites that emerge. And even in this case, I believe it’s in our interests to keep the distribution balanced. Having a sense of choice over your player’s development path is one of the best things about this game!
When I signed up for the league, I created as a Pass Blocker OL. As I quickly found out, this is not a well utilised archetype (there’s now only one active Pass Blocker OL in the entire league). I believe that we should be aiming to make every listed single archetype viable and balanced through tweaking of starting attribute values, measurables and attribute caps so that the answer to the question ‘which archetypes are better than others?’ is always ‘it depends’.
A shout out and thanks to Tesla whose awesome PT entry here inspired me to dive into the actual usages of archetypes across the league.
Without further ado, let’s dive into each position group and have a look at how each archetype is being used around the league. For the purposes of this article, I’m looking only at players with 58+ TPE:
Quarterback
Pocket Passer – 7
Game Manager – 7
Mobile – 6
Gunslinger – 4
Kudos to the designers for the QB archetype choice; this one is really nicely distributed. You could argue that Gunslinger could do with some buffing but with such low numbers overall, it’s hard to make a case for it. All in all, this sort of distribution is exactly what we want to see: no clear leader and decent usage across the board.
Running Back
Speed Back – 35 (61%)
Power Back – 8
All-purpose Back – 7
Receiving Back – 5
Blocking Back – 2
Here’s an example of where something needs to be done. Even with a choice of five, speed back is chosen by well over half of all players. And no wonder, Speed is the king of the sim. But if the first decision people are making is ‘I want to be the fastest’, we should make at least 3 of the archetypes have 100 speed, allowing users to choose a path based on the secondary attributes instead. At the moment, I don’t think Receiving and All-Purpose are different enough to justify losing out on that top speed.
Wide Receiver
Speed Receiver – 37 (49%)
Route Runner – 23
Red Zone Thread – 10
Possession Receiver – 6
This one is another victim of the ‘speed is king’ school of thought. If you look just at ISFL players, 60% of all WRs are Speed Receivers. All in all, the four archetypes here are really quite similar, but there’s still 10 speed points difference between a Speed Receiver and the two least selected archetypes, making those much more difficult to make work in the ISFL. Again, bringing those up to 95 or even 100 and rebalancing the other attributes would go a long way to helping bring more variety to the game.
Tight End
Balanced – 17 (46%)
Vertical – 10
Possession – 6
Blocking – 4
Tight end is the first skill position we’ve seen where the fastest is not the most selected archetype. Interestingly, it’s Balanced that is the preferred option around the league. Perhaps this is because the payoff by lowering speed from 90 to 85 is the benefit of being viable as a blocker. In any case, this one has a decent level of variety, but we could probably do more to make Possession and Blocking more viable.
Offensive Line
Athletic Lineman – 23 (62%)
Technician – 7
Run Blocker – 6
Pass Blocker - 1
This is a prime candidate for a redesign with the vast majority of players picking the same option. The massive boost to both Agility and Speed, coupled with 100 Strength, is apparently preferable to the drop in Run/Pass blocking. This is even more damning when you look at ISFL players. Of the 21 active OL in the big leagues, only 2 aren’t running with Athletic Lineman.
Defensive Tackle
Interior Rusher – 25 (58%)
Run Stuffer – 8
Nose Tackle – 6
Balanced - 4
Here’s another position where the one clear leader in speed dominates the archetype choices. Again, we could probably fix this by having a number of options with the highest viable speed. Balanced is a bit of an odd one here, with the caps being identical to Run Stuffer (with Hands being 5 less) and the starting values very similar.
Defensive End
Balanced – 25 (55%)
Power Rusher – 15
Speed Rusher – 9
Run Stopper – 0
This is an interesting one. Here we have two archetypes with the max speed, Balanced and Speed. Despite being inferior at both Strength and Tackling, both important attributes for a D lineman, Balanced is clearly the favourite here. Not a whole lot of difference between them all in terms of attribute caps but 55% is a huge number. And again we have two almost identical archetypes, with Run Stopper looking worse in almost every way to Power Rusher, likely why we don’t have a single active one in the league.
Linebacker
Speed Rusher – 31 (48%)
Balanced – 22
Coverage Linebacker – 9
Power Rusher – 2
Run Stopper – 1
Back to the speed meta, and despite having 5 to choose from, almost half the league has opted for the fastest archetype. Despite having high Strength/Tackling, only 3 users have opted for Power Rusher/Run Stopper.
Cornerback
Man to Man – 30 (48%)
All-Around – 19
Zone – 14
Cornerback is probably one of the best optimised archetype selections out there. While Man to Man is the clear favourite, the other two are clearly viable in the league. Zone and All-Around are very similar, so the choice is essentially between speed or supporting attributes. When you look at it like that, it’s a very healthy 50/50 split. However, it is the only position (other than K/P) that only has 3 archetypes to choose from. It would be nice to have a variant of Man to Man with 100 speed to split that one into two.
Safety
Center Fielder – 28 (42%)
All-Around – 16
Playmaker – 16
Run Support – 6
Another nicely balanced group here with the exception of Run Support, which only has 90 speed. It seems the consensus is that this is too low to be viable, with only two safeties in the ISFL using that archetype. Those opting for 95 speed builds have a good choice between two roughly equal options.
Kicker
Accurate – 15 (58%)
Power – 8
Balanced - 7
We all know that K/Ps are people too, and it seems like these people prefer accuracy over raw power. There’s only really two attributes that matter for them, so likely not much that needs to be done in terms of archetype tweaks.
Conclusion
Whoever designed these archetypes has done a truly excellent job. The majority of positions have stood the test of time with at least 2 or 3 viable options that can be chosen by a brand new rookie. However, there are a small minority of position groups that I believe could do with an archetype refresh in order to try and introduce some variety to the players at their positions. Enabling users to be creative about their builds is something we should encourage.
This will obviously require a ton of research, testing and enough notice to all players to make sure nothing is sprung upon them. But like all games, when the metagame and favourites keep evolving, we need to be reactive to those changes.
Look out for Part 2 where I’ll pick out a few positions and look at what could be adjusted!