Rams 2023 playbooks

[solarkev]

I have been working with Mikewest502 these past several months by helping him with his playbook creations and updates (see his "Madden 2020-22 Playbooks for 08" thread). I have learned from him his methodologies for route standardization and for how to make the AI work in Madden 08. I think that his ideas are great; I wish to continue to use them. So, attached is a continuation of that effort, but for 2023. I used madden-school.com's 2023 playbook playart pages to get the plays, and Packfan's editors to create the plays and define the AIGR tags. I have a large collection of standardized routes that I collected while working with Mikewest502, that I tried to use as much as possible. I also defined the SETT values for the defense formations using the DB Editor so that Madden 08 will try to match defense formations to appropriate offense formations. I tested each play in Madden 08, using slow motion for the offense plays. I also used both playbooks with Madden calling the plays in a couple exhibition games.

The playart for some offensive plays is not quite right for some routes in the play selection screen, but you can see the actual routes in Madden on the field or by using a Packfan editor. This is because Madden 08 doesn't recreate some long routes accurately for the playart in selection screens, even default routes from the original Madden if one tries to cut and paste them. Mikewest502 mentions this in his long thread too.

The offense has many singleback and shotgun formations, so you get to see a variety of looks. I organized the singleback plays by # of TEs for convenience. The Singleback Bunch X Nasty has the most plays. The defense is based on a fairly standard 3-4 scheme with lots of shell coverage. The 3-4 Bear is interesting with a single high safety look while the SS is close to the LOS. The NI 3-3 Cub is just the old 3-3 Wide formation renamed by EAsports for some reason.

I hope you find these enjoyable.

[MikeWest502]

I'm all for it... SolarKev, it was fun working with you. I learned some good things from you as well and appreciate your efforts. The big one for me is the "show blitz" logic. You opened up a new can of worms to fish with for the defenses to disguise coverages even better. FS and SS don't walkup to the A-Gap any more now. I'll give the Rams books the usual "once over" and provide feedback. If you have any ideas, questions or want my analysis about playbook awareness, just call. And seeing that my fire for modding playbooks is all but smoldering, I'd at least like to help you maintain your's to keep the content coming.

It's good to see Madden 23 reduced the sizes of the books. Having to select from 250+ plays was not ideal. What I would like to see is EA add the "double" coverages back into plays the way the teams use it to bracket special players. While playing 23, I had to manually set the double coverages, but it still works.

[solarkev]

Mikewest502 has graciously reviewed the PBAI tags for the offense playbook attached to the OP of this thread. He made several adjustments:
He removed pass plays from groups that the Packfan editor indicates is for running, and the same for passing groups (removing running plays).
He placed all "option route" plays in the group that the editor names as WR Option Pass group.
Performed some other similar cleanups, like removing plays from groups that the Packfan editor calls unknown.

He gave me permission to share with you all. So, the revised playbook is attached. He has used the same methodology with his recent playbooks, so there is a lot of experience and testing backing up his methods. I tried it and it works well for me too.

One more thing. Mikewest502 was bothered by Al Michaels commentary that referred incorrectly to formations on the field when using the first playbook posted. The revised playbook doesn't seem to have this flaw. There may be some detail in the PBAI tagging that confuses the Madden sound clip AI???