Tier 1 – Choice 5.
The most fascinating thing going on in the ISFL today, truly, is the actual sim engine itself. Ever since the league began, the elephant in the room has always been that we deal with an imperfect sim. But, due to the lack of better options available, we all knew that our little dots running around the screen doing weird things was all we had. So, we just kind of went with it. But now, with more teams and more players than ever, the sim randomness has just lust its luster to a degree.
In the early days, it became obvious that Orange County “cracked the code” with the sim. For whatever reason, the Otters proceeded to just dominate the league and the rest of the league couldn’t keep up. Little did we know that OCO had proceeded to really figure out how things worked within the sim, and it gave them a tactical advantage. As the league grew, and more nerds came aboard, the sim and it’s flaws have been put out into the open for mostly all to see. If you’re a QB who doesn’t have 79 Speed, for example, you’re just putting your team at a bit of a disadvantage. Players know which stats actually matter, and that’s why you’ll see Running Backs and Wide Receivers getting to 100 Speed as fast as possible. People build very, very similar players and that’s because the meta has run rampant. The idea of a human OL was saved, which was a great development, but now, as we get way too close to parity in the league, it doesn’t matter how much a team can prepare. We’re all at the mercy of the sim doing weird things.
Maybe you’re down 1 point with 2 minutes to go and you’re at your opponent’s 25 yard line? Better Punt. Have a minute left in the game? Well a 10 yard catch is going to take away all of your time remaining, and you won’t use a timeout. A kicker will miss a 20 yard field goal, but then boot an 80 yard punt on the next drive.
These stupid scenarios exist in just about every game we sim. I know that a football team can beat one on “Any Given Sunday”, but at this point lesser teams win just far too often when they’re 70%+ underdogs. Football logic is completely out of the window. With the teams being closer than ever, you’re more at the mercy of the sim’s “invisible attributes” which gives some players a LOT more luck than others. It doesn’t matter if you have 400 more TPE than some players in the same position, you’ll be throwing an interception in the same scenario that they’ll rush for a 77 yard touchdown. And once the sim decides if it “likes” or “doesn’t like” you, you’re pretty stuck until you do a build change. Don’t believe me? Easton Cole was a high TPE QB for some time now, but no matter how good he was, he would throw insane amounts of interceptions. Even with things like intelligence maxed out. It took a build change, going the 79 speed route that OCO made famous with Franklin Armstrong, for him to throw less than double digit INTs a season and be the MVP candidate he should’ve been for a couple of season.
It’s time for us to find a new sim. I know that we use the 2016 version of our sim, but the word is out that they’re making a much better 2021 version. There’s been some pushback from the community, and some GMs behind closed doors about this for reasons that are poor like “not wanting to learn a new sim”. I’m sorry, but if there’s a better option for this awesome league, we need to look into it. We have a fantastic community that just keeps growing and growing. The truth is, we’re all ready for something a little better. Everyone on this site dedicated their free time to updating their players and working hard. We need something in there that can reward them a bit better. We can’t have this sim randomness and favoritism really ruining the league. There’s no reason the Austin Copperheads should be the highest scoring team in their conference, only to finish 3 games out of the playoffs. That doesn’t make sense. We personally lost 6 games we were high favorites to win. But the sim did weird things and this was just our “turn” to get shit on.
I know that its personal for me, but this keeps happening to a lot of teams. Should the Liberty have lost their first 8 games? No. Should San Jose have been terrible for 97% of their existence? Well, maybe. But still. Honolulu, on paper, should’ve been terrible this season. But somehow they were in first place much later in the season than they should’ve been.
I’m not saying that I always want the best teams to just win all of the time, but there has to be something a little better out there for the teams and players that work hard, max out their players together, and prepare to title chase than potentially being constantly picked on by the sim. It’s just very imperfect, and we’re at a point that we need something a little better.
We got this far with our current sim, but if we really want to go to the next level in the ISFL, the answer is clear: We need to move on from our current sim. Thank you. (930)
The most fascinating thing going on in the ISFL today, truly, is the actual sim engine itself. Ever since the league began, the elephant in the room has always been that we deal with an imperfect sim. But, due to the lack of better options available, we all knew that our little dots running around the screen doing weird things was all we had. So, we just kind of went with it. But now, with more teams and more players than ever, the sim randomness has just lust its luster to a degree.
In the early days, it became obvious that Orange County “cracked the code” with the sim. For whatever reason, the Otters proceeded to just dominate the league and the rest of the league couldn’t keep up. Little did we know that OCO had proceeded to really figure out how things worked within the sim, and it gave them a tactical advantage. As the league grew, and more nerds came aboard, the sim and it’s flaws have been put out into the open for mostly all to see. If you’re a QB who doesn’t have 79 Speed, for example, you’re just putting your team at a bit of a disadvantage. Players know which stats actually matter, and that’s why you’ll see Running Backs and Wide Receivers getting to 100 Speed as fast as possible. People build very, very similar players and that’s because the meta has run rampant. The idea of a human OL was saved, which was a great development, but now, as we get way too close to parity in the league, it doesn’t matter how much a team can prepare. We’re all at the mercy of the sim doing weird things.
Maybe you’re down 1 point with 2 minutes to go and you’re at your opponent’s 25 yard line? Better Punt. Have a minute left in the game? Well a 10 yard catch is going to take away all of your time remaining, and you won’t use a timeout. A kicker will miss a 20 yard field goal, but then boot an 80 yard punt on the next drive.
These stupid scenarios exist in just about every game we sim. I know that a football team can beat one on “Any Given Sunday”, but at this point lesser teams win just far too often when they’re 70%+ underdogs. Football logic is completely out of the window. With the teams being closer than ever, you’re more at the mercy of the sim’s “invisible attributes” which gives some players a LOT more luck than others. It doesn’t matter if you have 400 more TPE than some players in the same position, you’ll be throwing an interception in the same scenario that they’ll rush for a 77 yard touchdown. And once the sim decides if it “likes” or “doesn’t like” you, you’re pretty stuck until you do a build change. Don’t believe me? Easton Cole was a high TPE QB for some time now, but no matter how good he was, he would throw insane amounts of interceptions. Even with things like intelligence maxed out. It took a build change, going the 79 speed route that OCO made famous with Franklin Armstrong, for him to throw less than double digit INTs a season and be the MVP candidate he should’ve been for a couple of season.
It’s time for us to find a new sim. I know that we use the 2016 version of our sim, but the word is out that they’re making a much better 2021 version. There’s been some pushback from the community, and some GMs behind closed doors about this for reasons that are poor like “not wanting to learn a new sim”. I’m sorry, but if there’s a better option for this awesome league, we need to look into it. We have a fantastic community that just keeps growing and growing. The truth is, we’re all ready for something a little better. Everyone on this site dedicated their free time to updating their players and working hard. We need something in there that can reward them a bit better. We can’t have this sim randomness and favoritism really ruining the league. There’s no reason the Austin Copperheads should be the highest scoring team in their conference, only to finish 3 games out of the playoffs. That doesn’t make sense. We personally lost 6 games we were high favorites to win. But the sim did weird things and this was just our “turn” to get shit on.
I know that its personal for me, but this keeps happening to a lot of teams. Should the Liberty have lost their first 8 games? No. Should San Jose have been terrible for 97% of their existence? Well, maybe. But still. Honolulu, on paper, should’ve been terrible this season. But somehow they were in first place much later in the season than they should’ve been.
I’m not saying that I always want the best teams to just win all of the time, but there has to be something a little better out there for the teams and players that work hard, max out their players together, and prepare to title chase than potentially being constantly picked on by the sim. It’s just very imperfect, and we’re at a point that we need something a little better.
We got this far with our current sim, but if we really want to go to the next level in the ISFL, the answer is clear: We need to move on from our current sim. Thank you. (930)