DEFENSIVE LINE
I want to begin this release with a little bit of a forward. First of all, thank you to everyone who put up with our kind of gimmicky way to do this reveal. We originally were going to just release all of the builds for the positions at a later date all at once without any sort of big write-ups on them, but we figured with the holidays coming up it would be a fun little “gift” from the Sim Migration Team to the users to give little teasers about what we’ve been doing any where the league is headed.
We hope that what we’ve provided has got everyone excited and already starting to plan out the futures for their players. We know that it has been frustrating for some to have to wait to hear about changes, but you would have had to wait regardless, so be happy we’re even doing this for you! I joke, but also am 100% serious.
In the spirit of giving, we have decided to shorten the 11 Days of ISFL-mas Position Teasers to only ten days. Okay so we decided to do so because I didn’t want to have to write anything up on Christmas Even and Lord knows I’m not about to be productive and work ahead. Also, we figured this way everyone can see this at least a little while before they would traditionally get really busy with the festivities.
It has been a long, strange journey and we sincerely hope you all end up at not hating and possibly enjoying the changes we’ve made.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way, the final two positions we are going to discuss today are the Defensive Linemen – Defensive Tackle and Defensive End. There has been a lot of speculation surrounding the state of both of these positions in the new sim. I want to first clear the air and tell you that we know the concerns and spent countless hours getting them both in states of balance.
That being said, let’s move onto the last position reveal!
What’s new for Defensive Linemen in DDSPF21?
MORE DIVERSITY AND MORE SPECIALIZATION!!
As we’ve mentioned in many of the previous releases, player diversity is not at a very high level in the ISFL currently. When looking at Defensive Ends and Defensive Tackles specifically, there really wasn’t much different between the different archetypes other than some kind of sucked and everyone gravitated towards the same one. We here at the Sim Migration Team thought that was a little boring and decided to blow the whole thing up.
If you have been paying attention to any of these releases once thing you should have noticed is that we decided to really take the old notions of player size and weight and use them to our advantage to create players that really perform differently and can fill niches for their teams. This is especially true for Defensive Linemen, where depending on how you build your player you can either be a jack of all trades or be heavily invested at being good at one thing. We felt this gave players a lot more agency in the way they built their players as they progressed and would open up a whole new layer of strategy for teams. Do you have a strong defensive line full of pass rushers? Maybe you tone down your blitzing and trust them to get to the Quarterback.
This leads us to one more point: these positions will not be locked to their spots. If you have four Defensive Tackles and not Defensive Ends, then you can still run a four-man front. For those of you following along at home, this also means that if you think you’re going to unlock some secret strategy where having all Defensive Ends on your DL increases your win chance, just know we’ve prepared for it.
What’s going on with my archetype?
If there is one glaring issue brought on from the limitations of DDSFP16, it’s that players really don’t feel any different. Thanks to the improved sim logic and the new Trait system, we have been able to create diverse Defensive Linemen that fill different roles better than before. To that end, we have collapsed some old Defensive Line archetypes, and are introducing three for players to choose from. Each of these performs differently than others, so there will be some interesting choices for teams to make when it comes to creating their strategies and building their teams!
Of all the positions in the game, the Defensive Linemen were one of the best when it came to their current state. You will recognize some of these archetypes, but be aware that we have made significant changes to each to ensure that they play and perform differently.
DEFENSIVE TACKLE
NOSE TACKLE
In the current sim engine, the Nose Tackle is basically just the slow Defensive Tackle archetype. They don’t have any advantage of their DT brethren and suffer a disadvantage because of their speed. Moving into the new engine, Nose Tackles will finally be different. These large men are, well, kind of big fatties, even compared to other Defensive Linemen. They are the true immovable objects of the defensive line. Not as athletic as the other Defensive Linemen, the Nose Tackle makes up for it by having their own gravitational pull. Plop one of these guys in the middle of your defensive front and watch as the offensive line tires themselves out trying to move a small building.
ALL-PURPOSE
If you either are currently a Defensive Tackle or looking to create one, but aren’t sure what sort of a role you’d like to play on a defense, I would like to introduce you to the All-Purpose Defensive Tackle. As the name suggests, these players are a blend of size and speed, and depending on how you choose to build them can be either a formidable pass rusher or thorn in the offensive line who constantly clogs up running lanes.
INTERIOR RUSHER
Ah, everyone’s old reliable – the Interior Rusher. These players are the smallest and the quickest of the Defensive Tackles, and while they might not have the ridiculous girth of the Nose Tackle, they still can hold their own against an offensive line. Much like the Versatile DT, the Interior Rusher is comfortable playing both inside and out, but uses quickness and technique to get around blockers and make life hell for any opposing quarterback.
DEFENSIVE ENDS
SPEED RUSHER
Ah, the Speed Rusher. Anyone who’s been around is familiar with these players. They don’t typically have the size or strength to go head-to-head with an offensive linemen, but who needs those things when you can run circles around them? The Speed Rusher is tailor-made to do one thing – get to the Quarterback. They might get pushed around by an offensive lineman, but they would have to get caught first!
POWER RUSHER
While the Speed Rusher DE likes to run around blockers, the Power Rusher prefers to run through them. Bigger and stronger than the Speed Rusher, the Power Rusher gets into the backfield by carrying a blocker with them. Their increased size means that these players, while not perfectly suited for it, can hold their own in run defense as well as get to the quarterback.
RUN STUFFER
There’s an old saying, “shoot for the moon and even if you fail you’ll land among the stars.” What this saying fails to acknowledge is that everyone is up in space then no one will be on Earth to stop that pesky Running Back from gouging your team for another 20 yard carry. The Run Stuffer is the largest of the Defensive Ends, and while his cousins the Power and Speed Rusher may get all the attention because of their sack numbers, the Run Stuffer knows that their job of holding down the front line is just as important.
What are these Traits I keep hearing about?
New to DDSPF21 is the idea of Traits. As your player progresses and increases in ability, you will eventually unlock the opportunity to apply Traits to them. These will have real impacts on how your player performs. For Defensive Line players the available traits are:
BULL RUSHER
A player with the Bull Rusher trait uses their pure strength and force of will to push through a blocker’s grasp. They will not only be faster when blitzing, but will also have a higher chance of completely shedding a block!
SPEED RUSHER
Okay so no one said that Wolverine Studios was exactly creative. The Speed Rusher does, well, the same thing as the Bull Rusher trait, except this time with little zoom zooms instead of push shoves.
PERCEPTIVE
Players with the Perceptive trait will have an easier time identifying the ballcarrier on any given play. Get those X-Ray googles ready, boys!
COMPETITOR
The longer a game goes, and the more tackles you have, your player will suffer a penalty to their tackling abilities. The Competitor trait makes this penalty significantly less punishing.
ROLE MODEL
Role Model is the same for everyone – it makes your player less likely to commit penalties.
HOLY MERRY SORT OF HOLIDAYS OR SOMETHING BATGUY!! MORE STUFF?!?!
One final piece to the puzzle that is a player in DDSPF21 is the Position Skill attribute. This new feature of the sim is meant to be a measure of how good someone is at their position. It's scored between 0-100, just like a regular attribute, but there's one for each individual position. Unlike an Overall score that you'll be familiar with from games like Madden, this score gets factored in directly to things like how fast you run, blocking, tackling, passing... in fact, pretty much everything!
So how do you upgrade this stat? You don't! Much like Experience (which returns in this sim too), this stat will upgrade itself passively based on two factors: your player's experience in the league (doesn't matter whether ISFL or DSFL) and their TPE. We will be releasing the finalized formula with the rules package on Jan. 10th at the latest.
That's all she wrote for the tenth day of ISFL-mas. Have a great holiday
As always if you have any questions please reach out to a member of the sim transition team.
I want to begin this release with a little bit of a forward. First of all, thank you to everyone who put up with our kind of gimmicky way to do this reveal. We originally were going to just release all of the builds for the positions at a later date all at once without any sort of big write-ups on them, but we figured with the holidays coming up it would be a fun little “gift” from the Sim Migration Team to the users to give little teasers about what we’ve been doing any where the league is headed.
We hope that what we’ve provided has got everyone excited and already starting to plan out the futures for their players. We know that it has been frustrating for some to have to wait to hear about changes, but you would have had to wait regardless, so be happy we’re even doing this for you! I joke, but also am 100% serious.
In the spirit of giving, we have decided to shorten the 11 Days of ISFL-mas Position Teasers to only ten days. Okay so we decided to do so because I didn’t want to have to write anything up on Christmas Even and Lord knows I’m not about to be productive and work ahead. Also, we figured this way everyone can see this at least a little while before they would traditionally get really busy with the festivities.
It has been a long, strange journey and we sincerely hope you all end up at not hating and possibly enjoying the changes we’ve made.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way, the final two positions we are going to discuss today are the Defensive Linemen – Defensive Tackle and Defensive End. There has been a lot of speculation surrounding the state of both of these positions in the new sim. I want to first clear the air and tell you that we know the concerns and spent countless hours getting them both in states of balance.
That being said, let’s move onto the last position reveal!
What’s new for Defensive Linemen in DDSPF21?
MORE DIVERSITY AND MORE SPECIALIZATION!!
As we’ve mentioned in many of the previous releases, player diversity is not at a very high level in the ISFL currently. When looking at Defensive Ends and Defensive Tackles specifically, there really wasn’t much different between the different archetypes other than some kind of sucked and everyone gravitated towards the same one. We here at the Sim Migration Team thought that was a little boring and decided to blow the whole thing up.
If you have been paying attention to any of these releases once thing you should have noticed is that we decided to really take the old notions of player size and weight and use them to our advantage to create players that really perform differently and can fill niches for their teams. This is especially true for Defensive Linemen, where depending on how you build your player you can either be a jack of all trades or be heavily invested at being good at one thing. We felt this gave players a lot more agency in the way they built their players as they progressed and would open up a whole new layer of strategy for teams. Do you have a strong defensive line full of pass rushers? Maybe you tone down your blitzing and trust them to get to the Quarterback.
This leads us to one more point: these positions will not be locked to their spots. If you have four Defensive Tackles and not Defensive Ends, then you can still run a four-man front. For those of you following along at home, this also means that if you think you’re going to unlock some secret strategy where having all Defensive Ends on your DL increases your win chance, just know we’ve prepared for it.
What’s going on with my archetype?
If there is one glaring issue brought on from the limitations of DDSFP16, it’s that players really don’t feel any different. Thanks to the improved sim logic and the new Trait system, we have been able to create diverse Defensive Linemen that fill different roles better than before. To that end, we have collapsed some old Defensive Line archetypes, and are introducing three for players to choose from. Each of these performs differently than others, so there will be some interesting choices for teams to make when it comes to creating their strategies and building their teams!
Of all the positions in the game, the Defensive Linemen were one of the best when it came to their current state. You will recognize some of these archetypes, but be aware that we have made significant changes to each to ensure that they play and perform differently.
DEFENSIVE TACKLE
NOSE TACKLE
In the current sim engine, the Nose Tackle is basically just the slow Defensive Tackle archetype. They don’t have any advantage of their DT brethren and suffer a disadvantage because of their speed. Moving into the new engine, Nose Tackles will finally be different. These large men are, well, kind of big fatties, even compared to other Defensive Linemen. They are the true immovable objects of the defensive line. Not as athletic as the other Defensive Linemen, the Nose Tackle makes up for it by having their own gravitational pull. Plop one of these guys in the middle of your defensive front and watch as the offensive line tires themselves out trying to move a small building.
ALL-PURPOSE
If you either are currently a Defensive Tackle or looking to create one, but aren’t sure what sort of a role you’d like to play on a defense, I would like to introduce you to the All-Purpose Defensive Tackle. As the name suggests, these players are a blend of size and speed, and depending on how you choose to build them can be either a formidable pass rusher or thorn in the offensive line who constantly clogs up running lanes.
INTERIOR RUSHER
Ah, everyone’s old reliable – the Interior Rusher. These players are the smallest and the quickest of the Defensive Tackles, and while they might not have the ridiculous girth of the Nose Tackle, they still can hold their own against an offensive line. Much like the Versatile DT, the Interior Rusher is comfortable playing both inside and out, but uses quickness and technique to get around blockers and make life hell for any opposing quarterback.
DEFENSIVE ENDS
SPEED RUSHER
Ah, the Speed Rusher. Anyone who’s been around is familiar with these players. They don’t typically have the size or strength to go head-to-head with an offensive linemen, but who needs those things when you can run circles around them? The Speed Rusher is tailor-made to do one thing – get to the Quarterback. They might get pushed around by an offensive lineman, but they would have to get caught first!
POWER RUSHER
While the Speed Rusher DE likes to run around blockers, the Power Rusher prefers to run through them. Bigger and stronger than the Speed Rusher, the Power Rusher gets into the backfield by carrying a blocker with them. Their increased size means that these players, while not perfectly suited for it, can hold their own in run defense as well as get to the quarterback.
RUN STUFFER
There’s an old saying, “shoot for the moon and even if you fail you’ll land among the stars.” What this saying fails to acknowledge is that everyone is up in space then no one will be on Earth to stop that pesky Running Back from gouging your team for another 20 yard carry. The Run Stuffer is the largest of the Defensive Ends, and while his cousins the Power and Speed Rusher may get all the attention because of their sack numbers, the Run Stuffer knows that their job of holding down the front line is just as important.
What are these Traits I keep hearing about?
New to DDSPF21 is the idea of Traits. As your player progresses and increases in ability, you will eventually unlock the opportunity to apply Traits to them. These will have real impacts on how your player performs. For Defensive Line players the available traits are:
BULL RUSHER
A player with the Bull Rusher trait uses their pure strength and force of will to push through a blocker’s grasp. They will not only be faster when blitzing, but will also have a higher chance of completely shedding a block!
SPEED RUSHER
Okay so no one said that Wolverine Studios was exactly creative. The Speed Rusher does, well, the same thing as the Bull Rusher trait, except this time with little zoom zooms instead of push shoves.
PERCEPTIVE
Players with the Perceptive trait will have an easier time identifying the ballcarrier on any given play. Get those X-Ray googles ready, boys!
COMPETITOR
The longer a game goes, and the more tackles you have, your player will suffer a penalty to their tackling abilities. The Competitor trait makes this penalty significantly less punishing.
ROLE MODEL
Role Model is the same for everyone – it makes your player less likely to commit penalties.
HOLY MERRY SORT OF HOLIDAYS OR SOMETHING BATGUY!! MORE STUFF?!?!
One final piece to the puzzle that is a player in DDSPF21 is the Position Skill attribute. This new feature of the sim is meant to be a measure of how good someone is at their position. It's scored between 0-100, just like a regular attribute, but there's one for each individual position. Unlike an Overall score that you'll be familiar with from games like Madden, this score gets factored in directly to things like how fast you run, blocking, tackling, passing... in fact, pretty much everything!
So how do you upgrade this stat? You don't! Much like Experience (which returns in this sim too), this stat will upgrade itself passively based on two factors: your player's experience in the league (doesn't matter whether ISFL or DSFL) and their TPE. We will be releasing the finalized formula with the rules package on Jan. 10th at the latest.
That's all she wrote for the tenth day of ISFL-mas. Have a great holiday
As always if you have any questions please reach out to a member of the sim transition team.
Zoom Zoom, It was Hexagon Time.
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