*What can we do about speed?

[Jonny2x]

Please fix speed. I joined in S15 not knowing anything about this league. Started as a defensive lineman, was told to rush speed then strength. Switched to running back end of my DSFL season. Decided on all-purpose back due to my player’s high strength and the limitations (understandable) of moving TPE around when making a position switch. At the time I was very excited about an all-purpose back position and liked the idea of being able to run between the tackles with a high strength. Torenson’s career started off like gang busters his first two seasons, albeit on the back of a heavy workload. It was hard for me to argue with over 1400 yards rushing at a very low TPE point. My average yards per carry were, well average. Some even held it against Torenson saying his aypc were well below average and he was just a product of the system.

Fast forward 4 seasons and Torenson has not approached that kind of production again despite max earning almost his entire career (I stopped max earning once I reached max stats). Even this was not overly frustrating as his production was still high end and due to his amazing rookie season he is still on pace to become the league’s all-time leading rusher. Yet, here he sits, not having made any progress statistically whatsoever despite nearly 800 TPE in earnings.

I understand this can be a frustration of the sim, or possibly the system a player is in but if you look around the league, every single other running back of note is 100 speed. I am 100% convinced that Torenson reached his ability peak at 95 speed, which was his rookie season because, again, everyone tells you when you enter the league, speed first. I was more than content thinking his advantage in other categories would make him comparable but it is not even close. The 5 speed seems to easily add .5 yards per carry. An obvious huge factor for voters in awards. The plus 10 strength for all purpose seems to accomplish nothing. All-purpose also suffers with 5 less in the max of agility, though I don’t think this causes any real issues. The plus 10 in hands really means nothing at all, especially considering it is more about how a player is used that translates to catches.
To be clear, this is not salt at any player in particular, Mathias Hanyadi and Apollo Reed were very deserving winners of the running back of the year award the last two seasons. My issue is that at a 5 speed deficit I don’t think Torenson has ever had the ability to improve as a player for the past 4 seasons despite working hard to max earn in the league. I know most will just say “why not just switch to speed back” but that isn’t my point. If someone is forced to pick one archetype then what is the point of archetypes? I believe any skill position player should have the ability to max out speed at 100, similar to how everyone can max endurance at 100. If any adjustments need to be made from there to balance things out that is understandable but forcing running backs into 1 role does not make for a balanced system.

This is obviously written from my viewpoint and perspective but hoping to stir some discussion on speed in the game.

[Baron1898]

As someone who retired a receiving back because of my frustrations with constantly being outclassed, I agree completely, although I don’t think we can fix it cause speed being broken is built into this garbage sim we run. I do think you raise an interesting proposal with the archetypes all having max speed of 100, because you’re right - if only one archetype can clearly stand out as the best, then there’s no point to having other archetypes at all.

[Trautner]

I tend to agree with this post, but there are some key issues. Not sure how many conclusions we can draw because, as you mentioned, your best seasons happened at presumably 95 speed or below, outperforming 100 speed peers at RB. Perhaps someone with more experience testing out RB archetypes can weigh in rather than relying on (in my opinion shaky) anecdotal evidence.

[speculadora]

this is a tricky issue. one thing I kicked around when I was GMing was a different update scale for speed, similar to what PBE has for velocity. basically something that makes speed more difficult to max to 100, mostly to force greater archetype diversity to get people away from just automatically assuming speed best, but also to create a greater trade-off in terms of how you have to update a speed arch.

as for the 100 speed archetypes automatically being the best, I'm actually not sure I would agree with the exception of the true primary back, playing RB and RB alone running back. Because the regular RB role just doesn't get enough targets in the passing game to make all-purpose or receiving back viable without putting them at WR or FL. but at almost every other position I would say I like the balanced archetype just as much, if not more, than the speed archetype.

Some part of this is idea that these are the only archs worth picking that everyone is told to choose speed archs, so all the best players are those archetypes, and we confirm our own bias. but I promise you if you test any archetype in the right role, they're all viable. the only ones I'd say flat out can't compete are speed rusher DE, run stopper LB, and, with the S at LB ban, run support S.

[Jonny2x]

(in my opinion shaky) anecdotal evidence.

Totally agree, I know nothing about the sim and haven't done any sort of worthwhile testing. There is, however, obvious evidence that my player has not improved statistically in any way for 4 seasons, despite maxing out every single other "meaningful" stat.

[Isidore94]

Totally agree, I know nothing about the sim and haven't done any sort of worthwhile testing.  There is, however, obvious evidence that my player has not improved statistically in any way for 4 seasons, despite maxing out every single other "meaningful" stat.

perhaps thats due to everyone else getting better as well? I think if we sim tested it, and compared you at a lower level of TPE vs the current TPE, we would find some variation. Although because sim is dumb, I couldn't say for certain what direction that variation would be to

[Jonny2x]

perhaps thats due to everyone else getting better as well?

Maybe but everyone else in the league did not max earn during that time.

Anyway, this is from my perspective but I don't want this to be about me too much. There is a problem with speed and I think it needs attention so that a solution can at least be discussed by HO.

[Jonny2x]

this is a tricky issue. one thing I kicked around when I was GMing was a different update scale for speed, similar to what PBE has for velocity. basically something that makes speed more difficult to max to 100

I think this sounds like a great start, could be even more balanced than just allowing everyone max of 100, though I think if it had it's own scale, archs should not have a ceiling but rather everyone can spend on speed as they see fit, with the scale maxing at 100.

[Trautner]

Totally agree, I know nothing about the sim and haven't done any sort of worthwhile testing.  There is, however, obvious evidence that my player has not improved statistically in any way for 4 seasons, despite maxing out every single other "meaningful" stat.

I can definitely sympathize there. Part of the reason I switched Grithead from a RB to defense was because I had heard of the lack of correlation between TPE and success at RB.

[timeconsumer]

Yes when I redid archetypes I struggled to find a way around the speed problem for running back because of how gamechanging it is. And without really changing the update scale for just speed (something I didn't feel was within the scope of my authority) it was challenging. Instead the idea around the archetypes became less so about how to make them all equal at playing at RB and nothing else, instead about adding versatility (something that is very common in this league). All-purpose back is more than just a back, it's an offensive weapon that can play RB, WR, FB, or TE. Power back is meant to be a TE, FB, or RB. And so on. If all you care about is running the ball as much as possible as far as possible, yeah be a speed back.

Also I hesitate to recommend anyone rely too much on yards per carry. It's nice sure, but it isn't without its flaws. Increase attempts, yards per carry drops. Check it out if you want, even with 100 speed and 100 endurance the back with 15 carries a game is more efficient than the one with 25. This goes for passers too. Better blocking gives better efficiency. Selecting the Committee for backfield increases efficiency. The quality of defenses changing every season makes efficiency vary between seasons. It's a nice metric but like all things you can find within the sim index, it isn't perfect.

I'm not against looking for solutions. I like solutions (hell a great idea would be removing 40% of our archetypes). Just wanted to give some insight as to why things are they way they are.