tcy --> fof2004 draft weirdness

[lighthousekeeper]

Some stuff I've noticed with tcy --> fof2004 draft importing.

1. Weird inconsistencies in tcy stats to fof2004 ratings. For example, tcy player of the year QB Ted Powell, throws for 4000+ yds senior year, ncaa yardage holder, leads team to title 2 years in a row...for some reason, he's the 40th ranked qb in the draft and goes undrafted. This alone leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Senior team:
qb: 40th qb in draft
rb: 8th rb in draft
fb: 19th fb in draft
te: 29th te in draft
wr: not in draft(?!)
c: 3rd in draft
g: 2nd and 49th g in draft
t: 1st and 64th t in draft
p: 29th punter in draft
k: 7th k in draft
...last season seemed to notice similar results, but too lazy to check for sure...

i'd expect all senior team players to be in the top ten in the draft, or is this not the case in the nfl?


2. Is anyone else getting Solesicmic teams into the draft? I'm not seeing any, which is dissappointing since my tcy team is a sole-ster.


i know it's a tiny sample set - has anyone else had similar problems?

[3ric]

Solecismic teams are substituted for various small colleges in the draft export, this is nothing new though. However, you should be able to edit the cnames.dll file to include your Solecismic teams, and then edit the draft file to correct the references.

[Celeval]

QB Ken Dorsey, Miami
QB Eric Crouch, Nebraska
QB Chris Weinke, Florida State
QB Joe Hamilton, Georgia Tech

All Heisman winners or candidates, none drafted high. I don't see a problem with the above results - the QBs that have the right physical tools will be drafted before the winners who don't.

[Scholes]

Gino Torretta

Andre Ware

David Klingler

[Samdari]

Klingsbury, soon to be Symons.

Brad Banks.

In fact, truly elite talents often go pro early, and seniors in the draft usually had some question marks. This is not true to the extent of the NBA, but there is something to it.

[lighthousekeeper]

So are there real world examples of the #1 rated college player in the country not getting drafted at all?! Becuase that's exactly what happened. I'm not talking about a good player that some people feel is the best - I'm talking about the player that was voted by 50 states to be the best college player in the country - not getting picked at all in the draft.

I don't follow real-world nfl drafts, so I wasn't aware that this is the way things were.

[QuikSand]

Rather than see this poor dead horse continue to suffer a beating, here are a few things that have emerged over the course of many similar discussions:

-I think it's close to consensus that the transition from TCY to FOF is not perfectly realistic, and does not exactly mirror the real world in every single respect

-While the engine that converts players from TCY to FOF has undergone some improvements as versions have progressed, there are still some weaknesses in that connection that frustrate some players

-Since the universe of qualiity players in the college game is so much larger than that of the pro game, there has to be some mechanism in the transition such that not every single college star will immediately translate into a pro star (with which most would agree is realistic, as well as being mathematically necessary)

-Making that downward adjustment is difficult - and seems to be based moostly on player skill ratings, rather than player stats

-Some are inevitably furious when they find the fact that some college players with gaudy stats turn into marginal pro prospects in their TCY-to-FOF draft files

-Some are inevitably furious when they find the fact that some college players with not-so-gaudy stats turn into superior pro prospects in their TCY-to-FOF draft files

-Most would agree that if the TCY-to-FOF transition simply made a direct connection between college stats and pro potential, then any elements of surprise or intrigue would be missing from the resulting FOF game, which would be a bad thing for gameplay (as well as being seriously unrealistic)


So, in my judgment, we're left with this reality: the system is imperfect, and if you hold it acountable for a clear sense of realism on every single case, it will undoubtedly fail. If you can live with a system that translates your graduating players from college into the draft pool for the pros, and will have all the meaningful players (including their appropriate background, and now even their college stats) carried over from one game to the other with a positive (but definitely not absolute) correlation between their college ability and their pro abiliity... then this system works pretty well.


Just trying to help save you the trouble of searching for numerous previous threads featuring similarly enraged people saying basically "This player from TCY should be X and instead he's Y, and it stinks!"

[FloridaFringe]

Well said. Sold me completely.

[Sloan]

Originally posted by lighthousekeeper
So are there real world examples of the #1 rated college player in the country not getting drafted at all?! Becuase that's exactly what happened. I'm not talking about a good player that some people feel is the best - I'm talking about the player that was voted by 50 states to be the best college player in the country - not getting picked at all in the draft.

I don't follow real-world nfl drafts, so I wasn't aware that this is the way things were.

Charlie Ward?

[Hoya1]

Charlie Ward just chose basketball over football and told NFL teams not to waste their draft picks.

[Sloan]

Originally posted by Hoya1
Charlie Ward just chose basketball over football and told NFL teams not to waste their draft picks.

Do you have a link? Everyting I've ever read says otherwise.

[alterra]

The way I remember it, Ward said that he wouldn't play football unless he was a first round pick. No team thought he was worth a first round pick, and nobody wanted to take a chance he was bluffing in a later round.

[The_herd]

Major Harris

Pretty much told by the NFL that he couldn't make it and that his style was better suited for the CFL. The Raiders took him with a 12th round pick but never showed any serious interest in signing him.

[Buccaneer]

QS: Well said.

[TurnerONU22]

Originally posted by 3ric
Solecismic teams are substituted for various small colleges in the draft export, this is nothing new though. However, you should be able to edit the cnames.dll file to include your Solecismic teams, and then edit the draft file to correct the references.

That's what I've been wanting to do in my games, and I actually have real small college teams as my Solecismic teams in TCY, do we still have to wait on an update to your editor to edit the names in the draft file, or is their another way to edit the draft file in that case?

[pjstp20]

The only problem I had with imported files was that backups were sometimes higher rated than the players who started over them. Does this still occur?

[GoSeahawks]

Originally posted by pjstp20
The only problem I had with imported files was that backups were sometimes higher rated than the players who started over them. Does this still occur?
Yes. And some of the highest rated players in TCY come into the draft with terrible ratings. I stopped using TCY after a couple years and just went with the generated draft file.

[MizzouRah]

Originally posted by GoSeahawks
Yes. And some of the highest rated players in TCY come into the draft with terrible ratings. I stopped using TCY after a couple years and just went with the generated draft file.


I've read what QS posted, but this is still a stinker. :(


Todd

[BucDawg40]

Originally posted by pjstp20
The only problem I had with imported files was that backups were sometimes higher rated than the players who started over them. Does this still occur?

Didn't the immortal Casey Weldon start over Brad Johnson at FSU?

[Noble_Platypus]

Originally posted by Scholes
Gino Torretta

Andre Ware

David Klingler

Ware and Klingler wre both high first round picks. They sucked in the pros, but they wre drafted very high.

[GoSeahawks]

Another thing I wanted to point out is that in five or six seasons of importing drafts from TCY I never saw a player with a grade above 7.8. I think that's pretty wierd since every FOF2004 generated draft there seems to be a couple of guys rated over 8.0.

[BigJohn&TheLions]

Save the game before importing. If you don't like what you see, revert to saved game and try again.<p>This is what I did in FOF4 to keep my dropout who never threw a pass out of the 1st rd...

[pjstp20]

Originally posted by BucDawg40
Didn't the immortal Casey Weldon start over Brad Johnson at FSU?

This once in a blue moon occurance doesnt justify how often it happens with imported files.

[Ben E Lou]

I've never done an extensive study, but I've imported a number of TCY drafts, and from what I can tell, the TCY import feature ranks players primarily by their "Future Potential" rating, not by "Current Value" rating or college performance. In other words, a guy rated 50/99 as a Senior because he only got to start one season is going to be imported as a stud, but your 3-year-starter Heisman Trophy winner who is rated 79/81 is going to be an average QB. This has always been acceptable to me, because in real life, college stats don't translate into pro performance. Talent, however, usually does.

If you accept the premise that this is how players are valued when imported, it makes sense that one would see many more backups than normal being valued above the guy they backup up. This is because in versions prior to 1.2a, AI teams would start a 40/40 guy over a 35/90 guy every time, causing many 35/90-type guys around the nation to never fully develop, never get to start, and never put up stats commensurate with their ability. However, upon importing, the 35/90 guys (who are theoretically MORE talented than their 79/81 Heisman-winning counterparts) become studs, and the 79/81 guys become average players.

One player in particular comes to mind from my old Kentucky TCY career to illustrate what I'm talking about, MLB Orlando Morton. Morton was the #568 player in the country when I recruited him, nothing to write home about, but he was very intelligent and got a lot of playing time, therefore he fully developed into all red bars by his Senior season. Morton was a 2-time All-SEC MLB, and was a 2nd-Team All American one year. However, upon importing Morton into the draft, he is rated a pitiful 5/18. An outrage for an All-American, you say? Well, not really. You see, Morton was only rated 58/58, but performed very well in my system despite the fact that he didn't have superstar talent. However, OLB Warren Fletcher, who never started a game in four years, comes into the draft rated 21/48--a guy who could end up being useful. Nonsense, you say? Well, not if NFL potential is talent-based. You see, I had very good OLB's during Fletcher's tenure at Kentucky, so Fletcher never started a game, and his 40/76 rating represents a pretty good player.

(Incidentally, I just did an import of a season into FOF5 from this old career, and I am more convinced than ever that I'm right about potential ratings being the key. My top five NFL potential-rated prospects from my Kentucky team in the draft were also the top 5 future estimate guys in the senior class in TCY, despite the fact that two of those five never started.)

Now, this next part is PURELY speculation. I haven't played enough TCY 1.2a to verify or test this at all. I suspect that we'll see this less and less when importing careers that were started with TCY 1.2a, because now the AI teams are starting the 35/90 Sophomores over even the 65/65 Seniors. I'm curious if anyone has imported a mature TCY 1.2a universe into FOF5. I'm betting that the problem wasn't in the import algorithm, but in the playing time algorithm.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by GoSeahawks
Another thing I wanted to point out is that in five or six seasons of importing drafts from TCY I never saw a player with a grade above 7.8. I think that's pretty wierd since every FOF2004 generated draft there seems to be a couple of guys rated over 8.0. That may just be bad luck. I just imported a 1.2 career, and have three players over 7.8, two of whom are 8.3 and 8.6. There's also a possibility, though, that this could also be related to players not developing in the past. It is possible (and logical) that the import function would use the Future Estimate as the primary determinant, but then uses Current Estimate to slightly shift the player's value upward or downward. It would be safe to assume that Jim tested FOF5 using mature 1.2a careers, rather than mature 1.2 careers. In a mature 1.2a career, Current Estimates should be higher across the board.

[3ric]

Originally posted by TurnerONU22
That's what I've been wanting to do in my games, and I actually have real small college teams as my Solecismic teams in TCY, do we still have to wait on an update to your editor to edit the names in the draft file, or is their another way to edit the draft file in that case?

The editor has been updated now.

Linky (http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18080)