like you said they use defaults. It was just that before a Don Beebe was good at gunner. you need a defender now if not all defensive players. or the need to be strong and fast. I pulled all my offensive players off the depth chart and my team did fine. no over rides and I still play back ups on special teams. they do ok as long as the have some of those skills in tandem. most of the broken tackles were vs. a guy with low tackle/ run defense. I have never tried using only speed/ strength but I think it will lose out. some balance is needed.

like when punt returns we're OP .....some teAms still did not allow many while others allowed many. if my memory is correct your team was one that was in the minority , but you used overrides and defense starters then too.

Ok.

I agree and I think it is more a GM issue than a coding issue.

Just like nearly everything else in MFN, if you let the Ai make the decisions for you you're just asking to get burned. If that means you give up a lot of returns then so be it.

no doubt, but I think it is tied in to weight and how the positions do not allow you to adjust your preference of how much they should weigh. that is on the docket.

as the gunners play a multitude of positions across a multitude of formations. from kick off to KR, to PR and punt coverage. generally the first two should be DBs and th e others are blends of TEs and Linebackers skills depending on the specific special team used. the whole thing was quite vague before and those generalities are becoming even more exposed as other code parts tighten up.

I think it was 73 I lost a playoff game due to An all Ai set up. the regular season was fine but in one game I let like 4 or 5 return tds.....like a month ago. upon inspection the Ai put 270 pound DEs at the top gunner postions....they had 100 speed but the new adjustment of weight and how it plays a part in speed/ fatigue had opened up that lane that destroyed PRs about a year ago. it resurfaced under those conditions....probably due to my opponent using overrides or just putting fast guys and good blockers out there.

i haven't changed the ST settings - almost always set by the AI. It seems to be the unrealistic nature of broken tackles. Here's one from this morning:

https://mfn11.myfootballnow.com/gamecenter/view/3967#709488

the A I had put two DEs as your top gunners, but the most interesting part is the 250 pound pound return man breaking all these tackles. he does have 99 Break tackle 99 carry but 26 kick catch. can that rating matter more please. really the blocks are held too long and look nothing like a "stalk block" at all.

BTW that was my guy returning the punt.

Oh, just want to make a correction for clarity: teams i have more interest in winning (basically the ones that have some reasonable chance) i do manually adjust the ST players. Other teams that i'm just managing personnel for (LA is one of them) to try to get them to be a playable team i let the AI manage that stuff. However, i have seen these things happen with both categories of teams.

I would expect exactly what you are reporting if you let the Ai set the depth chart.

I also use overides for ST. Havnt seen as many lately as a couple of weeks ago. But when a kickoff goes all the way, its the same pattern, runner gets held up and breaks a tackle, breaks the tackle by the kicker, and goes all the way from there. I dont mind KO returns or Punt returns for TDs, for or against, would just like to see them simulate real world statistics as much as possible. There was a lot of complaints about punt return TDs being way too high in previous versions, which they were. Now they have been overcorrected where your lucky to get a few yards on most PR's.

Definitely agree.

I would like to see returns (all types) as well as every other play be determined by the quality of the players on the field (and individual matchups), not some pre-determined outcome designed to ensure league totals/averages = x.

Of course there should be some randomness, and attributes other than speed/courage would actually have to mean something.