So far we have covered the Skills and Strategy elements of Season Showdown. This week we will focus on the third major component, Sportsmanship. Before I go into the details for what's considered good and/or poor sportsmanship I'd like to go into why we chose sportsmanship as a component for Season Showdown.
For the most part, the last remaining barrier preventing people from enjoying online games vs. someone they don't already know is the quality of play by your opponent. Everyone has been matched up in a game where the fun is completely lost because your opponent has never seen a 4th down they won't go for, and the only chance their kicker has of seeing the field is on a kickoff. Even worse, you sometimes find yourself baited by this behavior and the next thing you know your rationalizing your poor play as "well they did it first, I'm justified", or "everyone random online person is a cheeser, so I'm gonna cheese them before they have a chance to cheese me". It's a vicious cycle.
One thing we learned last year with Online Dynasty was the multi-game restart warning proved to be a very good cheat preventer. The simple act of calling someone out for restarting their game was often enough to prevent someone from quitting a game vs. the CPU if their star player went down with an injury. We applied that same concept when coming up with Sportsmanship. Let's call people out when they are acting like jerks, and reward them when they do the right thing. Now when you choose to go for that onside kick when you are up by 28 just to annoy your opponent, not only will it hurt your school, but it will also tarnish your image in the eyes of the online community as the more you do these things the more of a "bad sport" you will be considered.
Sportsmanship is the only category that you can gain and lose credits during a game. If you earned 400 credits in all of the other categories, but finished with -200 in Sportsmanship, you are going home with 200 credits for that game. Before you start to think that I've just shown you the way to tank a school just by signing up for them and losing as many credits as possible, we cap the number of credits lost at zero for the school, so you can never remove credits from a school. You will, however, go into the negative for your own personal sportsmanship rating. And then everyone will know what type of player you really are.
Before heading into a game with someone make sure to check out their Season Showdown ID card, here you will be able to see the school they are representing, how many total credits they have earned, and their Skills, Strategy, and Sportsmanship levels. These levels will let you get a good indication as to what type of player your opponent is, and what type of experience you can be prepared for if you play them.
Alright, enough about why Sportsmanship is in, now let's talk about how you can display good and bad Sportsmanship. First I'll start with the positives:
Punting on 4th down
I know, this is a foreign concept to some, but it is true, punting is a part of football. This is the single biggest gripe among gamers, you hold your opponent to a 4th down, and they go for it, regardless of distance, score, location on the field, etc. So this one is pretty simple, if it's a situation where you should punt it, do so.
QB Kneel
Pop quiz, outside of a Punt, what's the least used play during an online game in NCAA Football 09? If you said QB Kneel I'd venture to say you are correct. Even with a 1-point lead I've seen countless number of people risk a turnover to keep running the ball, or worse, passing the ball, when all they need to do is knee out the clock. Do this and you will get some easy Sportsmanship credits.
Chewing the Clock
One of the new additions this year is the ability to "chew the clock". This feature allows you to speed up the game and play clock to 12 seconds left on the play clock. This means when you are trying to preserve a win, instead of just sitting in the play call screen waiting for the time to tick down, you can call your play and have the time tick off automatically. Since the point of doing this is to run out the clock, you will need to wait until there are 5 seconds or less on the play clock before snapping the ball if you want credit. Also, if you are on the losing end of a contest and just want to get it over with you can turn on Chew Clock to help speed up the end of the game, you will get credits for doing this too. Remember, Chew Clock only works when the game clock is running, so if you turn it on before the start of a drive, it won't work on 1st down since the clock is stopped.
Concede Defeat
This one couldn't be simpler. If you just want to end the game cause you are getting waxed, waive the white flag and concede defeat, you will get credits just for doing that. If your opponent accepts they too will get some credits for being a good sport.
Now let's talk about the negatives. One thing to remember is that these are all situational based, so just because you can lose credits for going for it on 4th down doesn't mean that every situation would be considered poor sportsmanship. If you are losing in the 4th quarter, go for it as much as you want.
Going for it on 4th down
I guarantee that if you are reading this, you would score at least a 9/10 on a quiz called "Should I go for it on this 4th down". So you know what you should do any given situation. For the borderline cases, we will only hit you with a warning that lets you know when you are cutting it close.
Unnecessary 2-point conversions
Every coach has that little card that tells them when they should go for 1 or 2 based on the score. If you are up by 5, what's one point going to get you? You want to go for 2 to get your lead to 7. If you are up by 34, does going up by 36 really put you in a better position to win? No? Then kick the extra point.
Onside Kicking
Simple, if you have the lead, kick it off.
Calling a timeout just to get one more play
As the game is winding down and your win is secure, if you call a time out on defense just to try and get the ball back to pad some stats, or if you are already on offense and call a timeout with 2 seconds left just for one more stab at the end zone get ready to lose some credits.
Continuing to Pass late in the 4th quarter with a comfortable lead
This one is not an affront on the Texas Tech's of the world, but if you are passing on 1st or 2nd down in the 4th quarter with a 3 score lead, then you are going to lose some credits. Even Mike Leach would be fine with you running the clock out here.
Well there you have it. That's what Sportsmanship is all about. One last note, the situations and scores are all tunable after the game launches. So if we missed a situation, or need to make an adjustment to the scoring we will be able to do that automatically and not through a patch, which will allow for very quick turnaround if an issue comes up. And if one does, I have no doubt you will let me know.
- Ben Haumiller