More verbose:
You would Load Recommended for both the defensive gameplan and playbook, and would not be able to set either rules or overrides in the event of a Yes victory.

Here's the rationale.

Watching offenses go to work makes for games that are more fun to watch. Sure, it still sucks if you lose, but wouldn't you rather have 300 yards offense and a couple of touchdowns and lose, rather than sub-100 yards after being blown out?

The game's meta is very, very, well established defensively. So much so that anyone using an optimised defensive playbook, particularly when using rules as well, has a monstrous advantage over those who don't.

Obviously, everyone is free to optimise in this fashion, but a large number of owners in the league don't.

As a potential leveller (and more exciting season) I propose that all teams remove defensive rules and "load recommended" both for their defensive playbook and gameplan for the 2031 season. You're still free to throw nothing but TE passes on offense, but defensively it'll suddenly become all the more interesting (with some absolutely shocking defensive schemes being used).

Yes, the strongest rosters will still win the big games, but we might get a few more upsets and offensive displays to watch.

Vote is open until we have either a majority (15 votes yes or no) or the season ends. If there's no outright winner by season end, the neutrals will be considered "yes" votes. Absent voters will be considered "no".

Comment/discuss as you wish.

No, because it removes almost all of my fun in the game, i.e. to decide through rules activation how I want to defend against certain formations. It's part of the chess play that I do before a game. Offensively, there is not much that I change every week if anything at all. Only very rarely I have changed offensive plays to adapt to skewed defensive mechanisms.

Hence, if you were to force load recommended, I might as well load it once and let the game run for the season.

As I said in chat - I think its travelling towards a roster only league and I don't really understand the fun of that - the game is in the planning. I know many people dont - but I look forward to my post season games against Pakk, Beans, Bangers, OT etc. as there is the chance of bluff, double bluff, and even bringing out suprise tactics.

I've said it countless times that game planning has always been a bug bear of mine. I've never 100% fully understood it, and most of the time, it means absolute gibberish to me. The only part I do really understand is the RB/TE/WR numbers thing (i.e. 203 is 2RB/0TE/3WR). Defensive game planning is even worse for me, I find it complicated and difficult to wrap my head around it. Most of the time, I have just loaded recommended anyways and left it. Maybe I've ducked in there and taken out a play or two, loaded in a play or two based on either discussions we have in the Discord chat about a play working a little better or not working as good, or if it comes close to play overload, but most of the time I have ran with close to the limit that the game allows for defensive plays in the playbook. I will say that I do run a few defensive rules (finally started to work out how to design them... it's slow but getting there). Whether they are working, it's hard to tell with the way in which the game logs are. But that's a discussion for elsewhere.

As for this, as much as I think I would love to say what most people are thinking I would say, and that being that "oh, it's great, let's do it. Maybe some of the stronger teams will come back down and make it a more level playing field for those who want to push further up and maybe we might have some more title-winning teams, rather than always the same teams at the pointy end of the season", I actually can't say that.

I actually do agree with Muttley on this one. I tried a Roster-Only League a year or so ago, and while it was enjoyable not having to worry about game planning, it actually made the game a little boring. I would login to that league maybe once a day, and that was normally after the game sim cycle. I'd check my depth chart, make adjustments to that, see if there were any good free agents on the waiver wire and then log out and come back to Electrosports. I also found it very easy to build the roster and keep it strong. One example being that I took over a team that had gone 7-9 (through the AI) the season previously and I got them to 13-3 in just one season, the very next season; made it all the way to the championship game with a 10-6 record, only losing that game in 2OT by a field goal with three seconds left (11-5 in my third season).

There really wasn't any skill to the roster-only league. That is what I like about Electrosports and what we have, there is some skill needed. Yes, I would absolutely love it if there was more assistance to those who want it when it comes to game planning and understanding that section of the game (and yes, I understand the need to keep some things a bit private to keep that competitive edge) and while I do think that removing all aspects of the defensive side of the gameplanning could in theory level the playing field a little bit, make roster building a bit more important and put more emphasis on offensive gameplanning, I personally feel that like Muttley said, it's leading us slowly down the path of one day deciding that this iteration has run it's course, and we end up setting up another foundation draft but as a roster-only league.

We have some strong teams who are constantly up there at the top, constantly making the postseason without really breaking that much of a sweat (yeah, they might lose a game or two along the way but it's never really a risk that they won't make it to the postseason), what I think we need to be more looking at is how do we give the other teams an edge to bring the playing field back a bit. I'm not sure what series it is, but there is a racing series out there that (might be the BTCC) where as the successful drivers have ballast added to their cars (they moved to a different system with the different cars now). Maybe we need to look at a system where the more success a team has over a period of time (say 2-3 seasons) has a limit placed on them. I could work on something for that, but I think if we drop the requirements for defensive gameplanning, we are just going to see the same teams who know their way around, find a way around building up a super offense on their roster while the others get left behind and we will be back to square one but with the offense as the problem.

Having tried it, this is a terrible idea.

Getting beaten by a better roster and seeing the AI call the worst defensive plays in the game is less fun by a long way.