State of the Sim Transfer: February 22nd

[Pat]

Greetings, and welcome back to another installment of State of the Sim Transfer.

In this edition, we want to share our thinking around tweaks and adjustments that we are looking to apply from S28 onwards. So, to not delay any longer, let’s dive right in!


Concern #1 - Running Back Performance

One of the most commonly mentioned issues with the performance of DDSPF21 has been the overall health of the running game. While the overall numbers through 11 weeks of the season for Running Backs do not look concerning at first blush, one big concern users have brought up is how the overall rushing numbers, specifically Yards per Carry, are being made up of  an overabundance of both long carries (20+ yards) and micro-yardage carries (0-2 yards) rather than a healthy level of 3-6 yard carries.

Running Back stats through Week 11

As you can see in the above numbers, while the overall numbers seem to look fairly good, the amount of long plays is very disproportionate, which can be interpreted to mean that there is very little consistency in Running Back performance - leading to a exaggerated boom or bust play style as well as an overall distrust in the usefulness of the running game in general.

To combat this, we have implemented a number of fixes to Running Backs in general. Starting in Season 28, all Running Backs will be given the Power Runner trait by default. This trait has quite a few effects. It gives RBs a very minor speed boost, but more importantly gives them boosts to breaking tackles if they are close to the line of scrimmage, which will turn more of those runs of short or no gain into 2 or 3 yard carries. It also gives a boost to your chance to break through a tackle if you can beat a Strength check against the tackling defender, in the same manner that fumbles work with Competitiveness. In addition, the Position Skill formula for Running Backs is being tweaked to compress the distribution, with the aim of making lower TPE backs viable. Not as good as top tier RBs but at least not a detriment to the team when put out on the field.

One last change that impacts rushing. Implementing only the above changes result in YPC being lower than before, so we will also be increasing the rushing modifier in the league settings. We haven’t finalized exactly what that number will be yet, and are continuing tuning while keeping in mind the impact this will have on Running QBs (Scrambler and Mobile).

Implementing these changes leads to a much smoother and more consistent running game, that relies less on the long runs to supplement a Running Back’s Yards per Carry. Below is a chart of a typical season we achieved during testing (with an adjusted rushing yards modifier), using team strategies from the ISFL W10 file:

As we can see, the % of 20 yard runs and 40 yard runs has dropped significantly, while YPC has remained at 4.39.

A closer look also shows much more consistent performances by Running Backs overall:




As you can see in the chart above, while we might not match the same distribution as the NFL with our per game YPC numbers, the floor has been raised, with games where a Running Back obtained a YPC under 2 yards being drastically reduced from 12.24% to 1.95% of games. We also see a slightly smaller amount of games where a Running Back goes off for massive YPC, as the percentage of games in the 6+ YPC band are reduced from 21.08% of games down to 19.47% (compared to 16.55% in the NFL).

We hope that these changes bring back a little more balance and stability to offenses in the ISFL and DSFL, and increase the overall enjoyment of users.


Concern #2 - Safeties are Underperforming

We will admit that this concern was a little bit more ambiguous to look at for a number of factors. First of all is that Free Safety as a position is much less effective as an all-around (some might say overpowered) position in DDSPF21 than it was in the ‘16 version. Second is that due to the nature of how Defensive Playbooks are implemented, teams are no longer able to have a Free Safety playing 100% of snaps at Nickelback as was a common tactic in the old sim. These, amongst other factors, have led to what many consider a feeling of underpowered-ness for Safety players, notable Free Safeties. For reference, here are the end of year averages for Season 26, and the Season 27 numbers through Week 11:

Season 26




Season 27 (thru W11)




As shown above, overall per/game numbers for Free Safety and Strong Safety are lower going from Season 26 to Season 27, with Free Safeties feeling it the most.

Upon researching the issue further, it has come to our conclusion that Safety as a position group is generally underperforming as opposed to other positions. In DDSPF21, the Safety positions were given innate boosts - FS has the same catch radius boost that it did in 16 and SS now has a boost to tackle success. As mentioned in previous releases, the intent with the Safety position as a whole was to create some uniqueness amongst the archetypes. Unfortunately, we believe we have fallen short of our goal and have left Safeties feeling a little left behind.

To correct this, we are going to be performing some adjustments on the player class as a whole. While we are still in the process of testing and finalizing specific numbers, the general approach we are taking will be as follows:

1. Increase Center Fielder archetype max Speed attribute, but require a designation at FS in the sim. This should enable them to be rangy defenders who can cover a larger area of the field to record interceptions, while the FS designation will prevent them from being overpowered if played at other positions on the field.
   
2. Increase Ball Hawk max Speed attribute and Weight. 90 Speed players have performed worse than anticipated at FS, so giving these players a Speed boost will improve their ability to play the position while increasing Weight will give them a competitive advantage over Center Fielders as better tacklers and run defenders.
   
3. Increase Enforcer max Strength and Tackling attributes, but require a designation at SS in the sim. These changes solidify Enforcer as the opposite style Safety to Center Fielder, making them even better in the run game comparatively.
   

As with any other archetype changes we plan to announce for the upcoming offseason, our intention is to minimize the number of changes to each archetype and keep the total TPE required to max relatively even before and after the changes.

Below is the per-game averages of both Free Safety and Strong Safety players I received after simming a quick season with these changes in place. Please note: these numbers are not meant to be taken as a Bible, but more as an example for the impacts these changes can have on the position group as a whole.





One thing going forward is that Safeties simply will not see the same tackle numbers as they did in DDSPF16. However, these changes do put Free Safeties either on the same level or even better than they were in ‘16 when it comes to pass defense statistics. Strong Safeties are seeing slight adjustments across the board in most statistical categories from ‘16 to ‘21.


Concern #3 - Penalties in the DSFL

Penalties are given based on a player’s Intelligence (and the Role Model trait). Because DSFL players are much lower TPE than the ISFL, this has led to the game penalising them at an extremely high level, much higher than we would like.

For context, there are 11.4 penalties in an average NFL game. In the ISFL so far this season, a typical game has 9.3. The DSFL sees more than double that total, clocking in around 19.0

To address this, all DSFL players will be given the ‘Media Darling’ trait and be given 100 Sportsmanship. Neither of these play a role in builds and aren’t obtainable anywhere else, so no one has to take any action. This will all happen in the sim only.

Implementing those changes and re-simming the DSFL with this season’s rosters and strats brings the per-game average down to roughly 12 penalties.


Additional Note - Power Back Balance

Another change we want to mention in this article is a slight change to the Power Back archetype for RBs. Starting in Season 28, we will be increasing the maximum Endurance rating for the Power Back archetype from 90 to 95. The purpose of this change is to make the high-end Power Back feel more like a true workhorse that an offense can rely on, as the slowdown penalties for higher numbers of carries that RBs suffer will be lessened for those who have reached the new cap of 95. There will be additional adjustments to the archetype to make sure that it is not just a straight TPE increase on the archetype.

This change, along with the standardized use of Power Runner, will make Power Backs a more enticing and viable option for players to choose moving forward.

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None of the above is 100% set in stone right now, but they represent the aspects of our sim that will likely change for S28. We have set a hard deadline of Sunday March 7th, the weekend before the Ultimus/Ultimini, to have announced a final set of changes along with the relevant actions that need to be taken.


Also, as per the new Rulebook, some of these changes will result in players of those positions receiving free archetype switches (if used this off-season only) that will not count against their one career archetype switch. See: Rulebook Section VIII.E.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this post! If you have any concerns or general findings that you would like to bring to the Sim Transfer Team's attention, please drop us a line in the Sim Transfer Question Thread, and make sure to tag one of the members of the team so we know to come find it!

[zaynzk]

TLDR

[Big Edd]

TLDR

Smh even I can read

[Kotasa]

TLDR

TL;DR Zayn is stinky

[Z-Whiz]

TLDR

Speed Back go brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[excelsior]

TLDR

Run long no good
run mediocre good

free safety bad
free safety good

power back bad
power back good

[zeagle1]

I feel like I've been a pretty big critic of the new sim thus far this season, but the sim transfer team really has done a great job with the whole process. These tweaks all sound good and I'm very thankful to be in a league where HO listens to the players (gnomedab) and allows things like this to happen. DDSPF21 is a garbage game and the fact that we have a halfway decent season out of it thus far shows just how well the transfer team did.

[124715]

1. the FS designation will prevent them from being overpowered if played at other positions on the field.

These all sound like great changes! Could you expand on this line though - does the FS designation itself make players worse out of position?

[qWest]

When you say that you're compressing the PositionSkill range for RBs, what does that look like? Is the plan to decrease PS at high TPE and raise it at low TPE relatove to where it currently is, or is the plan to simply raise the floor closer to the ceiling again?

[infinitempg]

These are all great fixes and hopefully work out for the league! This plus the double media theme should hopefully give the sim team a little extra research boost for issues in the sim.