My 5.0c complaint

[Pyser]

Is anyone else having a bit of a problem with free agency now that you can only release players before free agency starts?

as jim explained it:

6) Do not allow players to be released during the free agency periods. This is because the free agency module can't insert them once the free agency period has begun. Since the AI never released players during this time, it's only an issue for multi-player leagues.

first off, i think he might have worded this incorrectly? i think he meant to say this is only an issue in single-player. in multi-player, where there are 31 other human owners, there would never be a problem recognizing and bidding on a player another team just cut.

in any event, this switch does a couple things.

first, you dont know who will be franchised by other teams, so you dont exactly know who you will have a chance to bid on.

second, you dont know any of the free agents salary demands, so youre not sure how much room to leave open.

third, you dont know your own players demands, so you dont know if you can just renegotiate during free agency, and free up some money that way, rather than just cutting people beforehand, knowing you cant get them back.

there are a few others, but thats a good start. it seems to me that one way around this would be to allow every team to negotiate with their own players before free agency, in something like a 2-week window. this would give you a good sense of who you can keep and who wants a big raise, so youd be letting them go anyway....plus, it follows real life a bit more.

im not a programmer, so i dont know. i just wonder if there was another way around this problem, without blocking out releasing any players at all during free agency.



edit to add: this isnt whining, i hope. i love the game, i just wasnt expecting this change.

[jeff061]

Yeah personally, i think this change pretty much thrashes a large part of the game.

Don't want to come off as a whiner though, other than that it was a damn good patch. Its just that this one issue is a doozy.

[amdaily]

Psyer summed it up pretty well. How do you free up cap room to go after FA's. You can't cut just cut starters prior to FA in hopes there will be a replacement available at his position. I think this will cause more problems then it intended to solve.

[cuervo72]

I think this *might* be a problem in multiplayer. In WigFL, all through the normal FA period, James McKnight neglected to sign, even though he had many offers. He ended up signing after the draft in the first stage of late FA. Tony Banks is now available, I believe having been dropped after the draft. I tried to sign him, but my offer doesn't even appear in the FA summary screen. I'm guessing that the bug is not going to allow him to be signed during late FA. I'm not 100% certain this is what was/is happening, but I think that might be what Jim was referring to.

[pjstp20]

I agree, I hope this gets amended.

[rpommier]

I don't like the change either... What I do now is save before FA and get a look at the FA market, then reload and make my cuts.

I also wish Jim would link the players in the HTML view so that you can see their career.

Roderick

[Peregrine]

I agree, this was a great patch, but this particular change was not a good one. It really screws over my ability to do my usual FA wheeling and dealing and renegotiate deals with my own players.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Hmm ... looks like my fairly new personal policy of not applying patches immediately upon release has paid dividends yet again.

[Rhone Ranger]

Add me to the list of people not so happy with this new feature. Actually I'm not even clear on what problem was supposedly solved by disallowing cuts during FA. Maybe it puts the human player on a more equal footing with the AI? Just a guess.

Nothing fancy needed, just putting it back to the old way will be fine.

[Ben E Lou]

I haven't really "played" the new patch yet. (I'm running some fast-sim seasons right now to see what the story is with the QB stats issue.) That being said, I'm a little concerned about this as well, but not gravely. I tend to cut players based more on, "Is he worth what I'm paying them?" rather than "do I need the cap room this year?"

Based on Jim's explanation, it *sounds* like (and I haven't noticed this...) the issue addressed was that when a human player cut a player during free agency, he wasn't available to be signed by someone else. If that was the case, then yeah, it was a *HUGE* issue for multiplayer leagues, and not really for single-player, since I'd hope the AI wouldn't want any of the scumbags I cut. My next guess is that this was a much more "patch-friendly" way of fixing it than rewriting the entire free agency module to allow these players to become a part of the process. If I am correct in both of my assumptions, then I agree with Pyser's idea of the addition of a very short cut/renegotiate stage right before free agency. If that isn't a possibility, then rpommier's suggestion of saving, checking out the market, then re-loading, sounds like a viable (albeit a bit annoying) work-around.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Hmm ... looks like my fairly new personal policy of not applying patches immediately upon release has paid dividends yet again.

I thought about this *after* I applied the patch. (smacks self in forehead)


Todd

[Dutch]

I have this file (frfoot2004_original.exe) in my game directory. I loaded it and it says 5.0b, not that I'm going to use it barring tragedy, but it's there.

[albionmoonlight]

I have yet to play with the new patch, but add my voice to those saying that this will really screw up the way that I have always done FA

[yabanci]

Originally Posted by Dutch

I have this file (frfoot2004_original.exe) in my game directory. I loaded it and it says 5.0b, not that I'm going to use it barring tragedy, but it's there.

I think that file is created by reshacker.

[Dutch]

Oops, sorry if I got anybody's hopes up. Thanks Yabanci.