Even in DDSPF21 the Chicago Butchers are off to a good start, matching their form over the recent few seasons. After a season-defining home win against the defending champion Yellowknife Wraiths, the Butchers managed to eke out a close victory on the road against the Philadelphia Liberty. As for Juan Domine, the Butchers' standout linebacker is starting out strongly as well. After two games, Domine has accrued 19 tackles (most in the league), 3 sacks (2nd most in the league), 1 interception (2nd most in the league), and a fumble recovery. If he continues this pace, perhaps Domine's third year in a Butchers uniform will mark his true breakout season.
As for the streams themselves, my only complaint would be the overall length of the stream. However, I understand that the games are simply longer in DDSPF21 so there isn't much that the team can do to combat this issue. Otherwise, the presentation has been fantastic! Updated stream graphics, customized fields for each team, and perhaps most importantly--a somewhat random order to the games so the same teams don't always go first or last. My personal taste in home fields is "the weirder, the better", even though that might be something of a minority opinion. So, I'm really digging the teams that used colors besides green for their grass or have flashy or unusual end zone displays.
My written response is obviously going to have a little bit of bias and a different viewpoint than more other users will have, and I hope that's okay.
My initial impression of the new sim engine is that the games, while taking longer, honestly are more fun to watch. We've had a number of very close games, and the fact that you even see incomplete throws now adds just that little extra bit of excitement, since now when you see someone open and the ball heading your way you have to hold your breath a little bit wondering if the throw will connect. The adjustments to the playbooks as well as the addition of the various game planning options have also opened us up to a whole new host of strategic differences that you see play out in real time.
I know people have complained about the high scores and the abundance of big plays - especially in the running game - and while yes it does feel a little crazy at times, keep in mind that last season the longest running play we had was 42 yards. In the NFL in 2020 40 players had at least one run longer than that.
As for my own player - Doy Fieri - life has been tough as a CB1 for the Liberty. While I might have a respectable 700+ TPE, I'm still not at the level I need to be to regularly compete with top flight WRs, so each game I come in wondering if this is the one where I get picked on and torched repeatedly. Philadelphia is 1-1 currently, and even though we did allow Baby Yoda to break the single game rushing record against us, we still only lost by a single score to the Butchers, so I feel pretty happy about that.
First of all, my first impression of this new stream is pretty great! I love the broadcast, even if the simulation itself is going to take some time to figure out how to best perform within. I enjoy the cleaner look, the fields are slick (great job to all who designed them!) and the game is much easier to follow as it is happening, rather than having to read everything to know what's going on. However, my individual performance has been less than spectacular. Week one I had 6 tackles, and week two I have my worst ever game with 1 tackle and no other stats. Coming off back to back seasons of over 100 tackles and looking at my player as the clear LB1 in Berlin, it's been a bit frustrating to see the stats not match up to what I know I'm currently capable of, but as with all new things there were sure to be growing pains here. I'm looking forward to optimizing this new process, finding my niche and getting back to owning opposing offenses very, very soon. As for Berlin as a whole, we've had a terrific game followed by a very mediocre game. I think that may be a trend for us this year, but am hoping that we can string some wins together and make a run at the playoffs! I remain extremely optimistic about our chances in the next few seasons if we are able to keep our talented core together. Good luck to everyone in S27!
My thoughts on the new sim are as follows. I do believe this is a positive step for the league as a whole. Change is always opposed, and no one likes it, even if it's for the better. I strongly feel as if this is one of those instances. There are a few issues that need to be ironed out before this is a truly positive change, but I feel as if the positives outweigh the negatives here. Some of the issues I feel strongly about is the speed of the presentations, I feel like it could definitely be sped up, and it might need to in the future once we expand to 16 teams. Having long streams doesn't seem sustainable, and I feel like adjusting and tinkering with stuff now will help us be set up for success in the future. This season is almost like a test season of sorts, which sucks for me because it's like one year of my career that's getting wasted, it feels like. I only got 1 sack in preseason and I was hoping to finish with at least 5 sacks on the year, but I feel as if I'll be lucky if I finish with more than 2. There are some balancing issues, especially with running, but I feel like it's a butterfly effect. The skill position value formula seems pretty busted, with veterans getting a huge benefit, as opposed to TPE. It really does make low TPE players play much worse, which is understandable, but part of me was hoping to do well as a rookie. The only good thing about that is my fellow rookies will also be struggling. Those are just my 2 cents.
I for the most part enjoy the new sim. It does look better when you view it full screen on a computer, basically not on my phone or even my tablet. I don't like that it doesn't show the stats players have at all times. The biggest thing about it, so far, is it seems there are so many long runs by running backs. Every game I watched in week two had at least two or more long runs. Seems like they are breaking out big time, then you have a lot of wide receivers not doing much of anything. I'm sure some of it is growing pains as far as adjusting to the new life. As for my team, we started off one and one. With our first game being a close loss to the chicago butchers(who appear to be a very strong team). Had another close game, this one a win, against the Sailfish. Overall not a bad start, definitely odd, after have a dominant defense last season to a mediocre defense two games in this season, while managing to basically return our entire team. But, all of the teams are on the same page as far as simming new strats and figuring out what works for each team's roster. I am assuming after a couple of seasons all the teams will return to their normal places in the league.
So I’ve written about the new sim before – specifically what I was excited about and the changes I was expecting; however, I will say that I clearly hadn’t spent enough time checking out the demo before the season, as I was surprised by a few of the things I experienced. I have to say I was disappointed that special teams plays and defensive turnovers are shown simply as a colored line representing the direction of the play at that point. I had somehow convinced myself that the new sim engine would be showing interception and fumble returns on the field, and had thought maybe we would see a kick trajectory and/or kick returners squiggling around trying to return a punt. So to be honest I was pretty disappointed by this. Despite these issues, they cannot take away the coolness factor added to the overall impression of the sim experience. The different field colors, the new logos at midfield and in the end zone, and the more in-depth analysis being presented from the play-by-play box has been a real joy to see play out. I’m still having some troubles trying to keep up with the speed of the dialog box and stats playing at the bottom of the screen, but overall this has been a great transition.
Oh man, as a new player here in the ISFL I have no idea how the old sim worked so no idea what the difference between the two might be. That being said, I am having a hell of a time enjoying this sim with the Coyote locker room. Coming from a 1-13 season where each game seemed to be close, I don’t know what the state of the LR was like. That being said, I always make it my personal goal when joining a new locker room to be as upbeat as possible and that positivity led to our almost smiting the dsfl league leaders in a close game that saw a rapid turn around in the 4th quarter. Prof Gravity has been used his TPE advantage to have an amazing game in week 1 where he not only got 5 tackles, but managed to get 1 safety and 1 sack all in the same game. Were working on our deep game so it was a little sad to see our team fall behind on big plays where our bots just couldn’t keep up, but I have no doubt that KCC will be huge threats this year and will dominate the next.