WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (FOF2K4 Mentor Discussion)

[Ben E Lou]

Two of my veterans have the following listed:

Warrick Dunn
Leadership--66
Intelligence--87
Mentor To: Running Backs

Keith Brooking
Leadership--83
Intelligence--90
Mentor To: Inisde Linebackers


This is apparently NOT strictly attached to being a position group leader. Dunn is a leader, but Brooking is not. Does this mean what I think it means???????? Do smart veterans with high leadership help develop youngsters?????



Uh.....excuse me.....I...uh....gotta go to the bathroom for a few minutes.....


(Now where did I put that Kleenex???)

[Raiders Army]

Cool. Haven't seen it, but will have to look for it. It's the little things (actually this is big) that make me enjoy it more and more.

[Ben E Lou]

Dang....just found another one. CB Tyrone Williams....Leadership 57, Intelligence 990---Mentor To Cornerbacks.

[JAG]

That is outstanding...I am so impressed with FOF 2004 thus far.

[Ben E Lou]

One more....DT Ellis Johnson...Ldr--58, Int--84....Mentor To DT's.

It looks like they have to have above 50 leadership, high intelligence, AND 8+ years of experience. This is VERY VERY VERY cool!

[Raiders Army]

Can you do a quick "search" and look in the chemistry of each team for this?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Raiders Army
Can you do a quick "search" and look in the chemistry of each team for this?

No...it is not in the chemistry. It is on the player card only, as far as I can tell. Go to the personality view screen, and sort by intelligence. Then, just starting looking at player cards. If the guy has more than 8 years experience and high intelligence, look for "Mentor To". It is listed between his Agent and his Loyalty on his player card.

I'm guessing 8 years, because Keion Carpenter is in year 7, with 100 intelligence and 74 leadership, and is not listed as a Mentor, while Brooking is in year 8, and is a Mentor.

[Raiders Army]

Skydog, thanks for pointing this out...now, the question is what you have above, and if it's true, then we need a free agent search capability for leadership and intelligence!

[Ben E Lou]

Dola--

You can see it listed on teams other than yours as well. The cutoff appears to be 8 years, leadership >50. I'm not sure how high intelligence has to be, but I'm looking at an 8-year guy with leadreship 75 and int. 62 who is not a mentor.

[astralhaze]

Muuuuuuuussssstttttt purchase this game.

[Ben E Lou]

It will be extremely cool if former mentors are the guys who become coaches and coordinators. I know that Jim indicated that players would show up in the coaching/scouting pool.

[CamEdwards]

Originally posted by astralhaze
Muuuuuuuussssstttttt purchase this game.

well, we're in agreement on this, at least.

[Doug5984]

Originally posted by SkyDog
One more....DT Ellis Johnson...Ldr--58, Int--84....Mentor To DT's.

It looks like they have to have above 50 leadership, high intelligence, AND 8+ years of experience. This is VERY VERY VERY cool!

Darren Howard is a mentor to DEs on my team with only 7 years experience...He is the youngest mentor on my team.

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by SkyDog
Does this mean what I think it means???????? Do smart veterans with high leadership help develop youngsters?????

Affirmative, at least in part. I haven't confirmed that intelligence is necessary, but mentors definitely do help your youngsters in that position group develop. I also don't yet have a handle on the magnitude of this, but I agree it's a really intriguing feature.

[Chief Rum]

Originally posted by SkyDog
Two of my veterans have the following listed:

Warrick Dunn
Leadership--66
Intelligence--87
Mentor To: Running Backs

Keith Brooking
Leadership--83
Intelligence--90
Mentor To: Inisde Linebackers


This is apparently NOT strictly attached to being a position group leader. Dunn is a leader, but Brooking is not. Does this mean what I think it means???????? Do smart veterans with high leadership help develop youngsters?????



Uh.....excuse me.....I...uh....gotta go to the bathroom for a few minutes.....


(Now where did I put that Kleenex???)

lol...I hate to say it, but when I read this, I thought of another way this could go down.

"Holy Cow! A running back held out all year and is returning to the draft? Oh my...HONEY! We're going to bed!"

CR

[Buccaneer]

Originally posted by QuikSand
Affirmative, at least in part. I haven't confirmed that intelligence is necessary, but mentors definitely do help your youngsters in that position group develop. I also don't yet have a handle on the magnitude of this, but I agree it's a really intriguing feature.

Can you or SD elaborate, how does this effect decision-making?

[Radii]

you people are really making me want to buy this game, and I swear, I just do not have time for a new game right now, espicially one I would become this.... AHEM, "immersed" in. If this feature actually impacts the game it is easily one of the most interesting additions I have seen to this series.

[Bonegavel]

Skydog, I don't think I believe what I see... you are using the real roster? Don't you have several thousand reasons not to do that?

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Buccaneer
Can you or SD elaborate, how does this effect (sic) decision-making?

Maybe I don't understand your question, but here goes:

A player who has the potential to be a mentor is worth more to you, since his presence on the team will benefit the development of younger players in the same position group.

So, it becomes one more thing to consider when evaluating players for your team -- in addition to current and potential raw talent, team cohesion and chemistry factors, off-skills like special teams roles, etc. More things to consider (or not) makes the game more nuanced, at least potentially.

[Buccaneer]

If I have Personality and Chemistry turned off, then this would not be a factor?

[Bonegavel]

Come on bucc... one thread your kissing Jim, the next you are Zero Personality. What gives?

[uglytuco]

Pretty cool stuff.

Ya know, I read a few threads from a few days ago where folks were saying that it didnt look like there was too much new in the game and probably wouldnt be worth buying. And, other than multiplayer, it didnt really appear as though there was much in the way of bells & whistles added to the game. Instead of fancy chicanery, Jim chose to tweak and add lots of little things that we are just now finding out about. It would appear that he has, in subtle yet important ways, improved the game play and made this into a much more difficult game to 'master', as so many of us have through the years.

Kudos to Jim for a job well done. Maybe some day soon I can get around to actually playing the game!

[Raiders Army]

This should have been on the "new feature" list

[Eaglesfan27]

This thread had me look through my Eagles' lineup more closely. I have 2 mentors. Troy Vincent is a mentor which is to be expected. But, I also have Nate Wayne as a mentor to outside linebackers. This is interesting as he is only in his 5th year and this is his first year with the Eagles. His intelligence (71) and Leadership (87) are high, but his strength of personality is a zero! Troy Vincent had high values in all 3 of these ratings (83 int, 78 leadership and 89 strength of personality.)

[Wasabiak]

Corey Chavous
6 yrs
Leadership--76
Intel--91
Mentor to--Safeties

Yet he has a conflict with Denard Walker.........Hmmm..........

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by Buccaneer
Can you or SD elaborate, how does this effect decision-making?

Well, here's a specific answer. I've got cap room issues, with Dunn on my roster taking up $1.96M in space as my #3 RB, with three more season left on his contract. However, with a 4th-year guy and 2nd-year guy getting all the carries (and doing well last year), I'm wondering if part of their success is due to the presence of Dunn's mentorship. So, rather than cut him (which I would have done without the mentor rating), I am going to just deal with the cap room he takes up for at least this year. I suspect this decision will be repeated numerous times with aging veteran mentors with waning skills. I like it.

[Samdari]

Originally posted by QuikSand
mentors definitely do help your youngsters in that position group develop.

Is this just a qualitative assessment, or have you examined this in some detail?

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Originally posted by SkyDog
Well, here's a specific answer. I've got cap room issues, with Dunn on my roster taking up $1.96M in space as my #3 RB, with three more season left on his contract. However, with a 4th-year guy and 2nd-year guy getting all the carries (and doing well last year), I'm wondering if part of their success is due to the presence of Dunn's mentorship. So, rather than cut him (which I would have done without the mentor rating), I am going to just deal with the cap room he takes up for at least this year. I suspect this decision will be repeated numerous times with aging veteran mentors with waning skills. I like it.

Is it possible to run the same season twice? Once keeping Dunn and the other season cutting him to see what the exact effect of the mentoring ability is?

[korme]

Originally posted by SkyDog
One more....DT Ellis Johnson...Ldr--58, Int--84....Mentor To DT's.

It looks like they have to have above 50 leadership, high intelligence, AND 8+ years of experience. This is VERY VERY VERY cool!

8+ years? My only mentor I have found in my OPU is a guy with 5 experience.

I'd say 5+ years.

[sabotai]

I had a mentor with low intelligence, so I don't think that's a factor.

[Ben E Lou]

Actually, the more I look around, the more I see that this is varied, which imho is a good thing. It would have been a little disappointing if this was as automatically decipherable on the first full day of the release as it appeared. It doesn't look like you can say, "If years>x and ldrship>y and int>z then he will be a mentor."

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by sabotai
I had a mentor with low intelligence, so I don't think that's a factor.

Heh. Interesting. Haven't seen one of those yet.

[Ben E Lou]

*****WARNING*****
The rest of this thread my contain what some of you might consider spoilers with regards to how mentorship is determined. If you don't what to know some pretty solid stuff on what ratings are clearly the determining factors for being a mentor, stop reading now.











OK. I'm in the process of entering some mentors into a spreadsheet, and it is very clear that the determining factors are (in no order yet): intelligence, leadership and experience. At this point, intelligence and experience appear to be the top two determinants, with leadership being a secondary determinant. I'll post more in a few minutes.

[korme]

I signed an old vet with nearly no skills because he was a mentor to QBs and I had a 3 year pro that was only about 50% full of his potential.

By the end of the year he is nearly maxed out his potential. Very cool.

[wbonnell]

Shouldn't these features be documented? The game looks excellent thus far, but the documentation is underwhelming.

[Ben E Lou]

OK, here are some hard numbers. I went through all 32 rosters in my league. There were a total of 93 mentors. Here are how the three determining factors break down in the pool of mentors.

INTELLIGENCE
>=90: 32 (34.4%)
>=80: 52 (55.9%)
>=70: 65 (69.9%)
>=60: 80 (86.0%)
>=50: 86 (92.5%)
>=40: 90 (96.8%)

Only three guys <40 intelligence are mentors. All three of them were on the high end of the other two categories. (Ldr>87, Exp>10).

Average intelligence of mentors: 78.1

LEADERSHIP
>=90: 24 (25.8%)
>=80: 37 (39.8%)
>=70: 50 (53.8%)
>=60: 66 (71.0%)
>=50: 79 (84.9%)
>=40: 89 (95.7%)

Only four guys <40 leadership are mentors. They are on the high end of the other two categories, but not as extremely so as low intel guys: (>71 int, >8 exp). It appears, then, that intelligence is a stronger determining factor than leadership

Average leadership of mentors: 71.9

EXPERIENCE
5 yrs: 2 guys
6 yrs: 8 guys
7 yrs: 2 guys
>7 years: 81 guys

Once again, the mentors on the low end of the experience range had very high scores in leadership and intelligence.

Personality and popularity of mentors graded out to very close to the league averages, and was evenly distributed, incdicating that they had little/no effect.

Now, two major questions remain in my mind:

1. How strong is the effect of mentorship?
2. How often do guys with high intel, high leadership and high experience become mentors?

The latter question can be checked out fairly easily. The former is going to take some time and testing, I would think. That's all for today.

--Ben

[Vince]

Good work, Ben

[Eaglesfan27]

This is so cool. Especially if you can hire free agents specifically for their mentoring ability as Shorty was mentioning to help bring along young players. It puts a whole new value on old players with declining skills.

[korme]

It also appears nothing is set in stone. As I said, a mentor can be as young as a guy with 5 years experience.

Well I have had the same 3 RBs for now a 3rd season, and just this year 9 year pro Marlon Mayes is a mentor to Running Backs. Too bad I notice this after I release him, and now I frantically try to resign him and he won't due to past injustices.

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by wbonnell
Shouldn't these features be documented? The game looks excellent thus far, but the documentation is underwhelming.

I more or less agree. I would point out, though, that the "new" features being discovered lately are essentially things that have come about since the first beta version of the game. So, when Jim first produced a "features list" he had not included any of these things, to the best of my knowledge. An explanation more than an excuse, but it does offer some context for this.

[clintl]

It would be really cool if mentors entered the coaching pool when they retire.

[wbonnell]

Originally posted by QuikSand
I more or less agree. I would point out, though, that the "new" features being discovered lately are essentially things that have come about since the first beta version of the game. So, when Jim first produced a "features list" he had not included any of these things, to the best of my knowledge. An explanation more than an excuse, but it does offer some context for this.

Even so, I'd like to see definitive word from Jim on these features rather than guesswork (albeit ingenious) from FOFC. Perhaps a help file update or, alternatively, a web site FAQ would be appropriate.

In a way, this is similar to Bucc's preference for Civ3 rather than Europa Universalis. Civ3 is explicit about its rules whereas EU's ruleset is ambiguous at best and nebulous at worst.

Perhaps this is the old "open versus closed system" debate. Do you want a game with known rules or a simulation of real life with all its uncertainties...

[Bonegavel]

I'm confident all things will be revealed in time. Meanwhile, I'm having fun "discovering" the little nuances myself, though, I definitely would like the official word at some point.

Since Quik is our resident computer and beta tester, I tend to accept his take on things. He usually doesn't speak in certain terms when he is guessing. Kind of reminds me of the line in Star Trek IV when Bones tells Spock, "I think what he (Kirk) is trying to say is that he trusts your guesses more than most people's facts."

This doesn't excuse the missing info, but I would much rather be playing this sans good documentation than waiting for the help doc to be complete.

[daedalus]

Originally posted by QuikSand

I more or less agree. I would point out, though, that the "new" features being discovered lately are essentially things that have come about since the first beta version of the game. So, when Jim first produced a "features list" he had not included any of these things, to the best of my knowledge. An explanation more than an excuse, but it does offer some context for this.

Jim has also traditionally been extremely tight-lipped about inner-workings of the game so I don't know if this is a (lack of) documentation issue or if it's his usual mode of operation.

[Buccaneer]

Originally posted by QuikSand
I more or less agree. I would point out, though, that the "new" features being discovered lately are essentially things that have come about since the first beta version of the game. So, when Jim first produced a "features list" he had not included any of these things, to the best of my knowledge. An explanation more than an excuse, but it does offer some context for this.

Then I would have to find another smilie where I would be kissing the whole beta team.

[3ric]

Originally posted by Bonegavel
Kind of reminds me of the line in Star Trek IV when Bones tells Spock, "I think what he (Kirk) is trying to say is that he trusts your guesses more than most people's facts."

I see it... I can picture the FOFC version of Star Trek:
SkyDog as the fearless leader, Cpt James T. Kirk.
Buccaneer as the grumpy ship doctor, Bones McCoy.
Quiksand as the highly logical Vulcan, Spock.

[Ben E Lou]

This thread now has a link from the main thread.

[Ben E Lou]

Just an observation, not a conclusion, but Duckett has 2950 yards and 4.6ypc in two seasons, and doesn't have oustanding ratings. He has, however, an affinity with Dunn, and Dunn listed a mentor. I have to wonder if those two facts are boosting his performance significantly.

[Ben E Lou]

No amount of mentorship can help T.J. with this, after the third game of the preseason:

T.J. Duckett, RB - Ruptured Achilles Tendon, Out, full strength in 2006.

[Buzzbee]

I curious about a couple of things.

If a mentor changes teams, is he still a mentor, or does he have to earn the respect of his pupils? Based on comments above I think he would still remain a mentor.

Can you have more than one mentor at a position group? If you bring in a mentor LB from another team and you already have a mentor LB are they both mentors, or is one "chosen" over the other to be a mentor? If you can have two, is the effect doubled, or just boosted a little?

Does team experience have anything to do with who is designated a mentor? In other words, if you have two players with the same INT, LDR, and EXP, will the one who has been on the team longer be the mentor?