Sunday Rivals News

Today I’m happy to show some of the big changes coming to Sunday Rivals in the v.17.0 Coaching Update! Check out this video for a complete overview of the new features, or read on below!

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This update introduces the all-new 'strategy' section to your custom teams, allowing you to edit 8 sliders to create coaching gameplans that best fit the roster for each team:



Want to make a team that pounds the ball on the ground eating up every second of clock possible? How about a hyper-aggressive defense that blitzes on every down? Those type of strategies and everything in between are possible now, with the hope that games against the AI will present different challenges and will feel more unique to their specific roster. Make sure to update your custom leagues' team strategies to get the full impact of this update!

This update starts the process of bringing more depth to Season mode, beginning with your team's GM welcoming your freshly hired head coach and directing him to put together his staff during preseason. Going forward, you'll be seeing your staff integrated into different parts of the mode, starting with your head coach giving a summary of your upcoming opponent and your coaching staff providing advanced scouting reports in the Pregame section.



In the future, I'm hoping to get actual, physical coaches roaming the field. In the meantime, while you may not be able to see your coach yet, you're definitely going to be hearing from him and the entire staff, thanks to the brand new 'coaching' tab on the playbook screen. The head coach and staff will provide live reactions, milestone tracking, strategic advice, advanced scouting, and in game stat tracking to keep you tuned into all aspects of the game.



Along with the new features, this update also introduces a handful of gameplay adjustments, quality of life improvements, and bug fixes. You'll definitely want to check the patch notes below for the full breakdown, there's a lot packed into this update!

Team Strategy

• AI will call run or pass based on field position and strategy
  
• AI will call short or long passes based on field position and strategy
  
• AI will attack runners on expected running plays based on strategy
  
• AI will pressure the quarterback on expected passes based on strategy
  
• AI will adjust their playcalling to counter player trends based on strategy
  
• AI will go for it on 4th down based on strategy
  
• AI will go for 2 point conversions based on strategy
  
• AI will use up extra clock while calling a play based on strategy
  
• Season Mode
  
• In-progress seasons will be reset after update
  
• Added the ability to hire named staff during preseason
  
• Added coaching breakdown and OVR comparison to pregame screen
  
• Added scouting section to pregame screen
  
• Added comparison marker to higher value in pregame screen
  
• Sim games use strategy settings
  
• Implemented chance for kick return touchdowns in sim games
  
• Increased likelihood of tackle for loss in sim games
  
• Increased interceptions for higher skilled QB's in sim games
  
• Minor stat range balancing in sim games
  
• Staff and management names show up throughout the UI
  

Gameplay

• Rebalanced when defenders go for deflections versus interceptions
  
• Removed tip penalty for defenders deflecting passes when they try for interceptions
  
• Effect on catching high balls correctly uses agility rating now
  
• Increased the effect of a player's height when trying to deflect a pass
  
• Increased chance of higher skilled defenders making direct interceptions
  
• Increased chance of receivers dropping passes
  
• Increased pass inaccuracy and quality degradation when moving or getting hit
  
• Decreased overall speed of ball on passes and punts
  
• Decreased catching radius
  
• Decreased chance of tipped-ball catches
  
• Deflections are attributed to the first defender making contact now
  
• Offense should no longer steal catches from kick returner
  
• Time to touchback shortened by 50%
  
• Game clock will not run during touchback sequence
  
• Decreased speed boost after winning blocks on kick returns
  
• Defenders on kick returns should more aggressively pursue returner
  
• Decreased catch radius for kick returners
  
• Kick returners no longer get stuck in catch pose when ball lands out of bounds
  
• Kick returners should always run forwards now
  

UI

• Added coaching, scouting, and leaders tabs to playbook screen
  
• Changed kick defense to a single option on the playbook screen
  
• Running clock animation and color change on the playbook screen
  
• Updated background graphics of playbook screen
  
• User tackles, deflections, and interceptions are highlighted in the HUD
  
• Increased available stat options to display for selected player in the HUD
  

Teams

• Custom teams are auto-patched after update, use default strategy values
  
• Updated strategy settings for default league
  
• Updated head coach names for default league
  
• Updated GM name and budgets for default league
  

Bugs

• Fixed a critical bug where after switching leagues, incorrect teams and data would show when starting a new season and potentially hang the game
  
• Fixed a bug where the AI could snap the ball during play preview and selected defender OVR ratings would get stuck on screen after the snap
  

Hey everyone, the next update to Sunday Rivals is just around the corner and I wanted to relay some important information to help you prepare for some of the changes coming along with it!

Season Files Will Be Reset
Bad new first, but unfortunately the game will need to reset your in-progress seasons to work properly with this new update, so be sure to try and finish them up asap! I'm hopeful we can avoid this in the future...

Auto-Patching Custom Leagues
To allow for a bunch of new team customization options, the game needs to patch your custom teams and leagues. This will happen automatically the first time you run the game after the update and should only take a few seconds. However, there are a few important things to note after it's complete:

1. Check to ensure you have the proper league loaded (from the folder icon on the main menu), especially if you have only ever played the default league.
   
   
2. The new customization options will be set to default values for every team and all of the new text fields will be blank. Be sure to take some time to fill in that info and setup those new options to get the full value of the new update!
   
   
3. If you share or download custom leagues from other players, you'll want to make sure they are from a patched version of the game (v.17.0 or greater) going forward. v16.3 and earlier league files may create instability issues and potential lockups.
   

Backup Your League?
While I don't expect there to be issues with the auto-patching process, there's always a risk of things going wrong. If you have a custom league you'd really hate to lose, I recommend making a backup version of it and storing it somewhere outside of the game's directories. Even if the process goes smoothly, you'll have peace of mind knowing your league exists somewhere safe forever!

I'll have an in-depth video outlining all the new features and fun stuff coming your way, but I wanted to get the word out sooner so everyone understands what's coming!

Let me know if you have any questions and as always, thanks for playing!

First off, a huge welcome and thank you to all the new players who picked up Sunday Rivals recently, it's been a crazy month! If you haven't already, be sure to jump into our discord server if you have any questions or want to see what the community is up to: https://discord.gg/Waq2j6UbqC



For folks who've been playing the game for awhile now, you've probably been staring at the giant, gray rectangle in the endzone and wondering when that was going to finally turn on. In v.16.3, that bad boy as well as some of the smaller scoreboards are fully functional now! No longer will you find yourself unsure of whether or not it was appropriate to 'make some noise'. To keep things hyped, I've also added multiple stadium songs blaring over the speakers to ensure the place stays rocking between plays, as well as some new sound effects throughout the game.

In an effort to provide a better player experience on the defensive side of the ball, I've added an experimental speed boost after you've successfully defeated a block, giving you a better to chance to wreak havoc in the backfield or chase down fleeing QB's. Be aware, AI defenders have it too, so keep your head on a swivel out there!

Check out the full patch notes below:

Presentation

• Main stadium scoreboard shows animated text for the home team
  
• Added additional small scoreboards that rotate through team stats
  
• Added stadium music playing between downs and after home team scores
  
• Added fanfare music to cutscenes
  
• Added sound effects to UI shutters opening and closing
  
• Offensive play previews now show the OVR rating of eligible players
  
• Defensive play previews now show the OVR of the selected defender
  
• Play preview camera can now freelook by moving the left stick
  

Gameplay

• Added an inverted, ratings based speed boost to players who successfully overcome a block
  
• Increased lower rated defenders' tackling success
  
• Decreased pass accuracy and throw quality for lower rated QB's, especially while moving
  
• Removed button mashing slowdown on kicking plays
  
• Made blocking kicks possible again
  
• Changed OVR weighting for TE's
  
• Rebalanced kick meter accuracy to work with new sliders
  

Bugs

• Fixed a critical bug where loading into a league would hang the game after finishing a game, returning to the main menu and advancing to playoffs without playing a game immediately afterwards. The game should load correctly going forward.
  
• Fixed a critical bug where loading into a league would hang if you had previously loaded into a smaller league
  
• Fixed a bug where quarter scores on the postgame screen were formatted incorrectly
  
• Fixed a bug where a tipped, intercepted pass on a 2pt conversion would give the ball back to the offense
  
• Potential fix for rare bug where players will lose the ability to use their controller after entering the pause or halftime menu and returning to game
  

Quick fix for a bug that may have reset your user sliders accidentally. Apologies if so, this fix should keep that from happening in the future!

Bugs

• Fixed a bug where user difficulty sliders were reset between games
  
• Fixed a bug where user difficulty overall ranking wouldn't update in all UI screens
  

Hope everyone is enjoying Season Mode so far, in this update I've made some long needed changes to how difficulty is handled in game. For starters, I've replaced the terms 'custom skill' and 'skill level' with 'difficulty' throughout the UI. I've also removed 'Normal' as a difficulty option and replaced it with 'User', so the default difficulty in the game will be connected to user sliders. Speaking of, gameplay sliders have received a face lift, with new slider options and more detailed comparative ratings:



How the sliders affect gameplay has been completely rebalanced and better utilizes the entire 0-100 range to give you more granularity in tweaking your performance. I've also added the ability to independently adjust run blocking, pass blocking, pass rush, run defense, and pass defense. If you haven't tried them out yet, now's a good time to give them a run!

Additionally, I've updated the 'Easy' and 'Expert' preset difficulties in the game to be more challenging and less punishing, respectively. To round things out, I've also a new 'Pro' preset difficulty in case Expert is too much. As a reminder, these difficulty settings do not use your User slider values in game...

Lastly, I've made some small improvements to Season Mode, including reworking conference-style playoff seeding to respect divisional standings and the addition of a 'Playoff Picture' screen in the Standings section.



Check out the full patch notes below for all the details. Thanks for playing!

Difficulty

• 'Custom skill' has been renamed to 'difficulty' throughout the game
  
• Broke out blocking slider into 'run blocking' and 'pass blocking'
  
• Broke out attack slider into 'pass rush' and 'run defense'
  
• Re-balanced all sliders to better utilize the entire 0-100 range
  
• Added 0-100 numerical value to difficulty
  
• Removed AI-specific sliders
  
• Force-reset sliders and save files
  
• Replaced 'normal' difficulty with 'user'
  
• Added 'pro' difficulty
  
• Renamed 'beginner' difficulty to 'easy'
  
• Rebalanced 'easy' and 'expert' difficulties to be more challenging/less punishing
  

Season Mode

• Added 'playoff picture' to the standings screen, showing tentative playoff matchups starting in week 4
  
• Conference-based playoff seedings now factor in division placement over league ranking
  
• Adjusted seeding for 16 team 'ranked' playoff brackets
  

Rosters

• Improved the overall defense for multiple teams, particularly CHI, BAL, and SEA
  
• Adjusted how OVR's are weighted for running backs (more speed, less skill)
  
• Adjusted how OVR's are weighted for defensive backs (more awareness, less speed)
  
• Decreased ENG rating for most DB's in the game
  

Bugs

• Fixed a bug where the incorrect round number for ranked playoffs was shown