Ben E Lou
03-19-2008, 03:50 AM
Jim decided to include a section of his own, due to the company getting a good bit of e-mail lately about a particular issue. His comments are reflected in number 1 below.
1. People have recently mentioned problems with the two-minute offense. Too many long passes are thrown, leading to three-and-outs in crucial situations. As a result, some people have reduced the two-minute setting to zero minutes, and are reporting cases where a team will not kick a field goal before fourth down, even when the situation obviously calls for one.
Kicking field goals before fourth down is part of the two-minute package. Part of the hurry-up, spiking the ball and trying to start plays quickly, is automatic no matter what the setting, but not the kicking decision itself.
Obviously, no one wants to see halves end like this. But before 6.1, no one ever reported too many long passes in late-game situations, which has fueled this recent trend of turning off the setting. In this case, the solution is producing worse late-half behavior.
The function which handles the two-minute offense is already at least one thousand lines long, and gets looked at during every development cycle. Studying what NFL teams do, and, most likely, toning down the long passes, is on the future development list, as is including the kick itself in the automatic-despite-setting part of the function.
In fact, this code will probably get a complete makeover, as the game doesn't currently give the AI complete control over the duration of a play, meaning it needs to be conservative as to how close to zero it's willing to take the clock while trying to score a touchdown.
2. Besides cohesion, is there any extra bonus/penalty applied for veteran QBs versus young QBs? In other words, does a QB play better when he has participated in more games?
No, aside from a very slight bonus based on the number of fourth-quarter comebacks and a likelihood that the quarterback understands more formations, there is no experience bonus for quarterbacks.
3. Last month, you mentioned that "physical skills" and "experience skills" exist in FOF. Will you explain a bit more about what that means?
There are several types of aging curves built into the game, and several different types of skills. With more physical skills, rookies have a higher red bar percentage right off the bat, and deterioration begins near or after the player reaches the peak experience level for his position. With more experience skills, rookies have a higher green bar percentage right off the bat, and deterioration starts slightly later.
1. People have recently mentioned problems with the two-minute offense. Too many long passes are thrown, leading to three-and-outs in crucial situations. As a result, some people have reduced the two-minute setting to zero minutes, and are reporting cases where a team will not kick a field goal before fourth down, even when the situation obviously calls for one.
Kicking field goals before fourth down is part of the two-minute package. Part of the hurry-up, spiking the ball and trying to start plays quickly, is automatic no matter what the setting, but not the kicking decision itself.
Obviously, no one wants to see halves end like this. But before 6.1, no one ever reported too many long passes in late-game situations, which has fueled this recent trend of turning off the setting. In this case, the solution is producing worse late-half behavior.
The function which handles the two-minute offense is already at least one thousand lines long, and gets looked at during every development cycle. Studying what NFL teams do, and, most likely, toning down the long passes, is on the future development list, as is including the kick itself in the automatic-despite-setting part of the function.
In fact, this code will probably get a complete makeover, as the game doesn't currently give the AI complete control over the duration of a play, meaning it needs to be conservative as to how close to zero it's willing to take the clock while trying to score a touchdown.
2. Besides cohesion, is there any extra bonus/penalty applied for veteran QBs versus young QBs? In other words, does a QB play better when he has participated in more games?
No, aside from a very slight bonus based on the number of fourth-quarter comebacks and a likelihood that the quarterback understands more formations, there is no experience bonus for quarterbacks.
3. Last month, you mentioned that "physical skills" and "experience skills" exist in FOF. Will you explain a bit more about what that means?
There are several types of aging curves built into the game, and several different types of skills. With more physical skills, rookies have a higher red bar percentage right off the bat, and deterioration begins near or after the player reaches the peak experience level for his position. With more experience skills, rookies have a higher green bar percentage right off the bat, and deterioration starts slightly later.