Any interest in a FOF2k7 background Quick Reference Guide?
 

QS recently broached the subject of modifying the standard in-game background with a "Quick Reference Guide" of sorts. Something where we could take the most important data that we find we are scurrying to reference somewhere else most often.

For me, I immediately thought of easy kills such as the Draft Value chart and the Chemistry affinity/conflict combos (two charts I reference fairly regularly). The much headier QS of course was after key data for drafting. Something that isn't currently consolidated into easy to read charts, but possible if we put some time into it.

So here we have two different individuals with two different ideas and perhaps others will have better Quick Ref Guide ideas that we are missing (or good data compiled that I could use to build this out).

The data in the example below is pulled straight from an Excel spreadsheet. Obviously we are limited by the size of the window and we can only shrink text so much, but after adding a Draft Value chart and a Chemistry chart, there is still plenty of room for more.

Building this background is the easy part once you have the right data. The next part would be building a package for use with Greg's Utility.

Looking for feedback, ideas, and guidance from the field to make this an FOFC community initiative.

Thanks for posting, Dutch.

I think two things, that could be assembled/drawn from this site, would be:

-a summary of the "static bars" associated with each position

-a summary of the known correlations between individual combines and specific bars for each position

In my mind's eye, i love the idea of replicating the old fashioned DM screen from D&D...

The Draft Value chart is a waste of time for FOF, unless heavily modified. I posted something once that went like:

1-1: 500,000
1-2: 450,000
1-3: 400,000
1-4: 200,000
1-5: 100,000
1-6: 50,000
1-7: 25,000
1-8: 12,500
1-9: 10,000
1-10: 7,500
1-11: 6,000
1-12: 5,000
1-13: 4,000
1-14: 3,000
1-15: 2,000
1-16: 1,000
1-17: 500
1-18: 450
...
1-32: 100
2-1: 95
2-2: 90
...
2-32: 10
Round 3: 5 points
Round 4-7: 1 point

I still use it quite a bit, but the point of this is to come up with the best Quick Ref Guide, so obviously it can be pulled from the screen. And it would be nice if people used your thoughts on draft value. :)

Great idea Dutch, that affinity chart is pretty compact and simple, never seen that.

+1. That is much neater than the one I use.

I usually use this affinity chart, myself -- for some reason I like not having to corss-reference the groups by artificial number:

Fixed. I'm the minimum wage help in this scenario. :)

QS --> I like that better, I'll fix that.

I found out today that I've got the next 4 days off. So I should have time to try and consolidate some of the draft/combine data sets into somehting tangible. Totally down with the D&D style, so perhaps I can help make it look like that. Take the edge off those Excel spreadsheets a little (like FOF doesn't already have enough Excel flavor to it!)

If you're going for the extremes, I suggest you should decrease the value of #3 and #6 and increase that of picks 4 and 7, the latter are much more cap friendly in their salary requests. I think it applies at one more spot in the draft, once I posted that research at the WOOF forum (I tried to go dig it up, but the WOOF forum seems to be down at the moment).

But your overall point makes sense, the listed values are out of line with their true values these days, I came to that realization in the latest IHOF draft.

I'd love to see the finished product here. Great idea.

I started with data sets pulled from RKG's posted research. My first attempt really eats up screen space though...

For instance, laying out all ratings/combine correlations --> Lots of dead space.

I'm trying to capture what to look for...but I want to capture the really important stuff.

For instance, I don't really care about the QB's 40-yard dash or Scrambling correlation. So I can see myself pulling that info from the screen...but others might not agree with that assessment.

However, I do care about the QB's SOL score correlation to Avoid Int's or his Agility correlation to Sense Rush...so I want to articulate that somewhere.

(The green highlight is pulled from gstelmack's draft utility)

OFFENSE	Solecismic	40-yd	Bench Press	Agility	Broad Jump	Pos Drill
QUARTERBACKS
Screen Passes				25%
Short Passes
Medium Passes					66%
Long Passes					50%
Deep Passes					50%
3rd Dwn Acc					66%
Accuracy						50%
Timing						50%
Sense Rush				75%
Read Defense	10%
2-min Offense
Scrambling		85%
Avoid INT's	50%

ADDITIONS:

A debatable KEY column that weights (3, 2, 1, n/a) a skill's importance. In the QB example, I've identified MEDIUM PASSING, SENSE RUSH, and the hidden AVOID INT's as primary skills and things like SCREEN PASSES and SCRAMBLING as much less important.

A "525+" rating per combine rating. This comes from Malcpow's work that suggests that having a combine score better than the listed number significantly increases the odds that it's related skill is ABOVE AVERAGE. For instance, if a QB's dash score is 4.55s or better, chances are high that the QB scrambling rating is above average (525+). Critical variables here are the %'s that RKG has identified. For this example, the dash comprises ~85% of the scrambling rating, so there is a margin of error. That's a fairly absolute correlation, so things get a bit sketchy with lower percentages and/or skills that have known split attributes but the combine scores listed still seem like a fairly safe gauge.

I'll look into HEIGHT/WEIGHT averages for each player. I know they are around here somewhere. It is my assumption that understanding the average (ideal) HEIGHT/WEIGHT of the position you are attempting to switch a player to helps with the success of that switch.

I'll also look into adding some way to identify masked pairs.

Disregard the aethetics of the charts, they are not translating accurately from Excel to WYSIWYG. But the info is still the same.

Other considerations might be a quick reference chart for the importance of each training camp section and when you want to increase certain times to help yourself out. (Rebuilding vs Playoff team)

Oooh, I think this is a big one. These numbers are important. I would argue also the other way around. chuckd and I are having a disagreement on where we think a guy's GD bar is going to end up, for instance. He's hoping it will be pretty high, given the WR is a VU stud. However, I'm completely convinced it won't do much, given that his agility score was below a 7.20.

I definately thought about the bad combine scores, but I doubt I'll have room...and once you start wondering how shitty a combine score is, you're probably in the 5th round and people just want you to fucking pick already. :)

Also, I think you're argument is valid, fwiw.

Malcpow's #'s say that a 7.20 agility score can be anywhere from a 425 (below average) to 550 (above average) (not bad and not great). The the agility score makes up a large % of the GD rating (the dash making up a small%) So the GD will be in the 40-60 range and modified slightly by the dash score.

The Overated/Underrated interview results only works against your scout's margin of error and provides no ratings bump. It's designed to help you figure out if you scout is full of shit.

The combine scores are the best insight we have into true ratings.

yeah, but check out what Malcpow says about 7.21 agility scores ;)

When I said VU, I just meant a guy who went up significantly in rookie TC. +4 or more, although I don't remember exactly how much this guy had.

I meant the one with the you had in the first post, I use affinity calc, that is basically the chart QS posted in an excel spreadsheet.

Fitting all this on the same screen will probably mean that one wins anyway. :)

This is an idea that might deserve another look... at some point we're likely to see some graphics mods for FOF 7. A new background with useful data might be a winner. (Yes, I know it will be a turn-off for some people who want flashy graphics in a game like this)

This very early rought draft was just a cut & paste of some excel files. It's all I ever came up with and quickly realized that I just didn't have the right vision to keep up the momentum of QS's idea (which I really like btw and would love to see implemented).

As someone coming back to FOF after nearly a decade this sort of stuff is incredibly valuable. Many thanks!

Nice addition:

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Coaches Strategy

...noted...

I haven't honestly had much time to review everybody's comments, but I'd love a quick and dirty cheat sheet for drafting players. I was originally going to try and streamline some of malcpow and rkg's thoughts but eventually gave up on that. I still think there is plenty of value there though that could be converted into some good info...but yeah, no idea how to do that in such limited space.

Was actually just thinking the same thing Mike and was looking for your thread where you brought it up some time back. I stumbled across "Ant" chart also and wondered what else would be needed. Would make a great "page 2".

Mike, offer to throw something like this in with your permission, it was your concept. If so what else would everyone want on the screen...... the draft value, modified draft value, key position bars by position..... I don't know.

No permission needed from me. Glad to see it look good for a change anyway. :)