Short-Form Tasks (2.5 TPE)
23. Ah, the sim engine, that delightful yet exasperating collection of 0s and 1s that makes the little dots do football. I like the sim engine a lot; I find a unique charm in the "dot football" as opposed to a more realistic, "Madden-style" sim. And overall I think it does a very good job of simulating realistic football games and outcomes. I even bought a new Windows laptop just so that I could play around with the sim (which isn't compatible with my antique Macbook). Never mind that I can never seem to find the time to realize all those sim-testing ideas! All these things being said, there are certainly some frustrating quirks to the sim that I wish could be addressed, specifically, end-game clock management and special teams playcalling. It is an infuriatingly powerless feeling to watch your preferred color of dot lose a close game with timeouts remaining when proper use of those timeouts could've gotten them into position for a game-tying or game-winning field goal. Speaking of field goals, when you have a kicker at peak TPE, with the Power and Accuracy to make kicks of 50+ yards routinely, you will curse the name of Wolverine Studios every time you see your dots punt from inside their opponents' 35-yard line. This seems to happen a lot, and from a football perspective it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially not in the first half of games. From the opposing 35 there's only a 10-yard difference between a missed FG and a touchback punt (which punts from that distance almost always are). That's a very small risk to take for the chance at 3 points. In the DSFL, where kickers are much weaker, this punt-first mindset makes a bit more sense, but not in the ISFL. On the other hand, even real-life football coaches struggle with clock management and FG decisions, so maybe we should appreciate this as an added layer of realism! (~320 words)
23. Ah, the sim engine, that delightful yet exasperating collection of 0s and 1s that makes the little dots do football. I like the sim engine a lot; I find a unique charm in the "dot football" as opposed to a more realistic, "Madden-style" sim. And overall I think it does a very good job of simulating realistic football games and outcomes. I even bought a new Windows laptop just so that I could play around with the sim (which isn't compatible with my antique Macbook). Never mind that I can never seem to find the time to realize all those sim-testing ideas! All these things being said, there are certainly some frustrating quirks to the sim that I wish could be addressed, specifically, end-game clock management and special teams playcalling. It is an infuriatingly powerless feeling to watch your preferred color of dot lose a close game with timeouts remaining when proper use of those timeouts could've gotten them into position for a game-tying or game-winning field goal. Speaking of field goals, when you have a kicker at peak TPE, with the Power and Accuracy to make kicks of 50+ yards routinely, you will curse the name of Wolverine Studios every time you see your dots punt from inside their opponents' 35-yard line. This seems to happen a lot, and from a football perspective it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially not in the first half of games. From the opposing 35 there's only a 10-yard difference between a missed FG and a touchback punt (which punts from that distance almost always are). That's a very small risk to take for the chance at 3 points. In the DSFL, where kickers are much weaker, this punt-first mindset makes a bit more sense, but not in the ISFL. On the other hand, even real-life football coaches struggle with clock management and FG decisions, so maybe we should appreciate this as an added layer of realism! (~320 words)