FOF2K7: What could stand to be fixed or tweaked in SP?

[Ben E Lou]

I'm posting this thread as much for myself as anyone else. I sometimes just plain forget to report issues I run across. I'd like to use this thread for me and others to log stuff that we run across. I'll consolidate into bullet points from time to time, and periodically send the list to Solecismic Support on behalf of FOFC. This isn't the place to post a bunch of ideas for new features. Let's keep this focused on existing stuff in SP that could stand to be bettered in a potential FOF 6.5 or FOF 7.0.

EDIT TO ADD DISCLAIMER: No, I know nothing of a new patch or version on the horizon, so no more PMs about it pls k thx. I created these threads because I was setting up a new SP career and was thinking about all the time I was spending setting up my house rules, and how some of those could go away with some tweaks.

[Ben E Lou]

DRAFTING/PLAYER CREATION/PLAYER VALUATION

The game undervalues WRs tremendously, both in the draft (not drafting them as highly as they should) and in free agency (contract demands of 52/52 types wayyyyyyyyyyy too low, and AI teams ignoring these useful guys) making it far too easy to build a passing game.
Keep cpu teams that have drafted a qb in the first round from drafting another for 2 or 3 years. I keep seeing teams like detroit trying to replace a stud 50/70 Matthew Stafford with some 15/50 qb. Sometimes they do this a few years in a row. And the qb just rots on the depth chart. If a qb does get drafted in the first, maybe the cpu should make him a full time starter by his 2nd or 3rd year, even if there is a better qb on the roster.
Also its disturbing to see some top players in the draft that are way too short. Every year it seems a lot of the top qb's and lb's are around 5'9. I don't know if size plays into a players rating, but I have a hard time drafting these type of players.
And there also aren't enough tall receivers. Maybe 1 or 2 guys every year that are 6'2 or 6'3 and they usually aren't that good.
The cpu should value draft picks for future years by what position a team is drafting in the current year.
AI teams far too willing to swap future first round picks with very good human team.
AI teams seem to "forget" why they drafted an obvious creeping combine stud player. There are frequent cases of AI teams appropriately drafting a 23/38-->29/46 type who is almost assured of unmasking up to 60/60 or better. They'll pick this kind of guy in the late first/early 2nd, but then once he's on the team, he is treated like a 29/46 player, often replaced with a FA or new draftee the following year, and then eventually released before his potential is realized. SUGGESTION: Allow AI teams to see the real ratings of players at the highest level. This would make a huge difference in SP.
The Ai will not draft a QB in the 2nd round. If you have 5 good ones and 3 go in the 1st round those last two WILL be there in the 3rd round.AI ROSTER BUILDING/FREE AGENCY

AI does not pursue mentors, and appears to ignore chemistry.
AI teams do not "bid up" a player in free agency, making free agency far too predictable and simply a matter of adding a little bonus and salary to the requested contracted.
It improved some in 6.3/6.4, but players requesting one-year deals in FA will still sign multi-year deals at prices that are too cheap.
AI rarely pursues undrafted rookies during FA2, giving the human player free reign to get the best ones.
AI cap management needs serious work. There are still fairly frequent instances of AI teams with 30-50% of the cap stuck in dead cap space.
It seems that when you allow the AI to handle FA signings for your team, a Vast number are for 1 year deals, even if you have a large amount of cap space. In my current SP league my team has a minimum of 25+ FAs every season due to 1 year signings.
CPU cuts too many guys/allows 4th year guys to become free agents in secondary FA.MISC

I'm not convinced that the mechanism whereby players perform at less than top capacity when injured is working. It's difficult to test in a controlled environment, but sniff tests run in many different instances indicated little/no drop in performance.
Contracts assigned after an initial preference draft are unfair in that it appears that 1.1 and 1.32 get very similar deals.
AI drastically undervalues rookies in an initial preference draft. Without putting much effort into it I built a team that would average over 40ppg by year 4 by drafting all rookies.
Say you need a borderline starting caliber DE/CB. I just keep going down the list until I find the first guy who wants a 1m bonus and a 2m base salary. He gets a 3yr/9m deal from me, even though the guys around him all want 4/36m(for example).

Suggestion: similar players should have similar demands, and (especially) players with 7 years of service or less should want larger amounts of money
Cap-out should not prevent a player from holding out later in the season. He should express the desire to hold out at the moment you attempt to cap him out. If I know I'm dramatically underpaying a guy, I'll cap him out to avoid having to hand out a large contract I can't afford.
When you cap out a player, it should not eliminate his voidable year provision.
Stud Players in the 6-8 year range should go to the mattresses instead of playing out the last year of their contract. this is their last chance to make a ton of money
Extension demands for upper tier talent(top 5-10% of their position) should be super super high. As in, "Damn, I don't think I want to pay that much high." As in "You're asking for 5 years at the franchise salary with 50% guaranteed" type money."
Players demands should be based on a number of factors such as performance, raw skill level, and raw skill level in relation to available talent on the open market. If a guy is a 57/57 WR, and there are only 10 WR with better rankings, he needs to get paid a ton more coin than he'll demand. He's virtually irreplaceable.
Demands in free agency should reset each stage based on the scarcity of talent available. If player X was the 3rd rated DE, and the top 2 signed, he needs to demand more money.
The coaches screen could use a fix that makes it easier to find people out of contract. You can sort on contract status, but it after a couple of seasons you need some scrolling to find those out of contract. A fix to one of the labels in that screen would help re-ordering the list and put the out-of-contractees at the top of the screen.
Award KRBs on plays like this.

Kansas City: Pro formation with two tight ends, strength is left. The defense is in a 34 with dime personnel and 3-deep zone coverage, keying aggressively on the pass.
1-10-KCY47 (2Q: 08:35) Jamaal Charles ran inside the right guard for 12 yards. Tackled by S Michael Lewis, assisted by CB Sedrick Hookfin. The ball was fumbled and recovered by KCY Brad Cottam to the SDO41.
The game still informs you of phantom chemistry effects between quarterbacks and defensive position leaders, despite the confirmation from the company that this is not present in the game.
When a team leader becomes a free agent it's frustrating to still have him showing as the leader during free agency if you have no intention of re signing him. Allow the player to "release" a player who is not under contract.
Another relatively minor thing that I think got exacerbated by a recent patch (but I have not done extensive research to demonstrate this to be true). The salary demands for late round draft picks are substantially higher than the minimum salary requests of undrafted rookies. In any environment where the salary cap is a major factor, this make late round draft picks of awfully little value (if any). Whether it's an adjustment made in the name of NFL realism or just game play value, the game ought to reinstate the concept of "Mr. Irrelevant" and make the dropoff from #224 to #225 a very modest one.
When starting a new league after the initial player draft is complete, you can immediately go to the green sheet and find 1-3 top rookies with only a one year contract.

Then you can offer a number 1 draft pick to get these guys, and the AI eats the player's bonus to boot. Most of these guys were drafted between rounds 3 and 6 of the initial league draft. ( AI will not trade a fan favorite, however)

The suggested "tweak" is to make sure all rookies on the green sheet have multiple year contracts.
I would really like to have some sort of signal what kind of injury setting is required to make a non-out injured player to play or not to play. To make it more a bit clearer what I mean, the game already has a pop-up and field for the severeness of the injury, but it doesn't tell what the player has to do to make or not make the player actually play when probable, questionable or doubtful. Heck, maybe the easiest solution would be to replace the 'use injured players' setting with a slider/drop down with the choices of: none injured, probable only, probably or questionable, all not listed as out.
After just a few seasons, league-wide positional experience looks very different from both the default rosters and game-generated fictional ones. Specifically, there are *far* more players with cross-positional experience after only five or six seasons than there are initially. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but it's one of those things that I've known for years and haven't remembered to report. It's at least worth bringing it to Jim's attention to make sure the game isn't playing differently in this regard than he intends.
To piggyback on Ben, the default rosters will have a lot of 14/17 types. 4-5 seasons in there will be a ton of readily available 35/35 types. I'd prefer to have much less qualified replacement players.
I have been looking at HFA lately. I think it was Jim that did a big study on HFA on his stat analysis site, so not sure if he has clocked this. As per his work, there are lots of variable but the average in the NFL hits around a 58% win for home teams.

I did look at this years ago, and FOF was around 56% Having looked at a number of seasons, and taken the average, I came back with 52% I'm not satisfied my sample size is quite big enough, but I would bet the advantage of homefield needs to be raised in FOF.

I wouldn't like to see the detailed approach that he discusses in his findings as it wouldn't be fair on the west coast teams. Just a simple nudge up for all homefield teams would be great.

[stevew]

I would prefer that dumb shit like this wouldn't happen.

AI has stud QB that doesn't get to play until his 4th year
AI drafts ahother stud QB at 1.2 the following year, anyways.
A few seasons later, the AI is in cap funk and cuts both of them.
AI resigns the older one throwing a ton of cap money at him again.
AI team has 10 players on their roster, a negative cap charge greater than the salary cap, and is -100m plus over the cap between those 10 players.

[Ben E Lou]

REMINDER TO SELF: Write up other issues with initial player draft. Short version: the AI is completely clueless when it comes to drafting rookies in the dispersal draft, to the point that this is possible within four years before the contracts get crazy:

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/yougottabekiddingme.png

[Ben E Lou]

Thread cleaned up. Again, THIS IS FOR FIXING/TWEAKING WHAT ALREADY EXISTS, not for new features. And really, there shouldn't be any discussion in this thread at all. When you see something in FOF that isn't right, come post it here.

[IMetLyleAlzado]

This builds on existing ratings so I would consider it a fix vice new.

We have Head coaches and Off/Def Coordinators. And as it is currently setup Coordinators do not call plays, only the Head Coach. This is pretty much opposite the NFL practice.

I would like to see a change where play calling is a some sort of a combination of the two. A head coach rated poor in Def play calling with a great Def coordinator will result in bad Def play calling. But then a great Def Coordinator with an above average Head Coach will pretty good Def play caller. Balanced so that a Bad head coach would have a greater negative affect than a good one.

Also, there are some Head Coaches who were great coordinators, thinking Rex Ryan or Mike Shanahan here. In the balancing they would have a greater positive affect in that one area with any sort of Coordinator. And with these examples, Shanahan would be below Average Defense and always drag a good Def coordinator down a little.

Thinking about what I just wrote, a Head coach with a great positive or a big negative Off/Def would pretty much over rule any coordinator, no matter how good.

This way when I need to improve one side or the other, can hire a new coordinator, not trash my entire staff and try to find the perfect head coach who is perfect in everything.

[mventres]

As eluded to above and in other posts, a big reality-lacking aspect of this game is a result in AI planning abilities (whether it be drafting, player development, cap management, expected retirements, game planning, etc). It seems as though the current setup is purely based on statistics and crude heuristics. There needs to be some type of planning engine that "thinks" longer-term and with purpose. Without this engine, and it's no easy feat to code one up, the game will always be flawed and open to stupid things like drafting a QB 1.1 three years in a row, etc. You just can't code in all those scenarios. It's quite tricky when it comes to trades, FA signings as well as drafting...perhaps even more so.

Anyways, I say this to everybody expecting the next edition (if one comes) to be uber-real...it won't be...but we all still look forward to it because it's still an awesome game.

[Dave Hansen]

ALL IN GAME INJURY NOTIFICATIONS !!!:banghead:

I just finished playing out a game. At the completion of the game I checked my mail and found that I had 4 guys injured in my last game. The severity ranged from a couple of weeks to 30 weeks. Okay...since I have injuries set at 150...but never did I see one notification that these 4 defensive players ever went down.

Because you do not have an in game depth chart for defensive players, it's therefore critical that at least EACH injury is comminicated in the play by play text and some indication if the subject player is no longer available to play or can play through the situation.

To find out that my starting stud LCB (85/85) and my starting SS (72/72) were on the field for less than 15 defensive snaps provides absolutely no realism to allow me to make the neccesary play calling strategy changes required during the game.

Yeah, "some" injuries are currently reported, but every one needs to be highlighted in the PBP text at the time of occurence.

I can just imagine Rex Ryan in this situation the past Sunday against the Pats..." Hmmmm...I can't understand how Branch keeps getting open all the time and making all those catches against Revis...I "think" that is Revis out on the field...has to be...no one has told me that he's fractured his leg and is out for 30 weeks, have they? No of course not!"

[aston217]

Here is one I've just noticed.

When a QB gets replaced by another in the regular season, it should presumably be for poor performance (assuming no injury).

These decisions almost always occur at the beginning of a series.

In-game, this isn't what happens. I noticed in a recent MP game that my starter was pulled at the end of a losing effort mid-series, right after a 34-yard completion. If he's gonna get pulled - pull him at the start of that series, or after it.

I *think* this belongs in the SP thread, since this is an in-game mechanism that applies to both.

[redfox000]

After 50 years in my SP only one player has over 13,000 yds rushing. To me it just seems like the passing is a bit high and the rushing a bit low.

Don't allow the CPU to release players after week 16. If you look at the FA pool after that, there are usually a couple very very high rated players you can pick and then franchise the next year.

Maybe this is a problem with me, my play calling, or my teams. I can get a 99/99 rated QB with a 70+ TE, and two 60+ WRs, but the highest I can seem to get his QB rating is low 90's with maybe 3500+ passing yds. That's probably my issue. (EDIT: To clarify I play out my games, call my offense, and let the coach call the defense)

Still cases where the CPU will have, some years, 52 rookies on their teams with 90% of them UFA. Talk about the youngest team in the NFL. Imagine if a RL GM did this, he'd be fired on the spot.

[redfox000]

Would also like to see defensive stats for my players during the game, who fumbled/how often, who got the int, etc.

[aston217]

1st-and-Goal on the OPP 10 yard line.

Running back runs for 9 yards.

Defense called for offsides.

Offense accepts??? :confused: No way, I'm thinking.

Kicked a field goal from the 2 as a result, I'm pretty disappointed.

[Tony]

I hate it that a Defensive Coordinator will get hired as an Offensive Coordinator and vice versa. I know that the game is not supposed to replicate the NFL, but still...

Crazy that the Eagles just did that... :)

[SegRat]

Please fix the2 minute offense. You should see more Wr's getting out of bounds. Also the use of timeouts IMO in the 2 minute offense are horrible.

[Rizon]

I'm not sure if this is a mistake on my part, but I swear in SP that the AI makes their roster moves as you click the PLAY game button. As in, I look at their roster, see an injured player that's inactive, and then he shows up in the game. This could be in my head, I haven't researched it yet.

[redfox000]

Please fix the2 minute offense. You should see more Wr's getting out of bounds. Also the use of timeouts IMO in the 2 minute offense are horrible.

Agreed. Even running no huddle sometimes it takes 40 seconds from the start of one play to the start of the next.

[Raiders Army]

Crazy that the Eagles just did that... :)

Not really true. An offensive line coach was selected to be the defensive coordinator. How many coordinators are hired for the other side of the ball?

[mventres]

Perhaps this is just me, but I seem to notice the overall skill level greatly increase with the number of seasons. After 25-30 years, I usually see at least 5-6 players at any year onwards, per position, with nearly maxed out bars. Also, there are like 15-20 players who are in the 85-95 bars...this doesn't seem normal.

[Dutch]

Perhaps this is just me, but I seem to notice the overall skill level greatly increase with the number of seasons. After 25-30 years, I usually see at least 5-6 players at any year onwards, per position, with nearly maxed out bars. Also, there are like 15-20 players who are in the 85-95 bars...this doesn't seem normal.

I'm fascinated that you mention this because in my IHOF league, we're in year 25 or 26 and some of us are clamoring over this extremely deep and badass draft class.

[mventres]

I'm fascinated that you mention this because in my IHOF league, we're in year 25 or 26 and some of us are clamoring over this extremely deep and badass draft class.

Yes, I noticed the "deep and badass" draft classes seem to increase in frequency...I have tried this simple experiment about 20 times/careers:

"Play" for 50 seasons. How many QBs/RBs/WR/DL/CB were drafted who reached very near maxed out bars?

Averages are about: 7 QBs, 22RBs, 35WRs, 30DL, 35CB

That's insane! These are players who have skill sets extremely beyond anything during the first few seasons. I haven't tracked the overall change in distribution of values over a larger sample size, that would be better to do. However, I would really be *shocked* if I happened to fluke on these outcomes...

[MIJB#19]

Yes, I noticed the "deep and badass" draft classes seem to increase in frequency...I have tried this simple experiment about 20 times/careers:

"Play" for 50 seasons. How many QBs/RBs/WR/DL/CB were drafted who reached very near maxed out bars?

Averages are about: 7 QBs, 22RBs, 35WRs, 30DL, 35CB

That's insane! These are players who have skill sets extremely beyond anything during the first few seasons. I haven't tracked the overall change in distribution of values over a larger sample size, that would be better to do. However, I would really be *shocked* if I happened to fluke on these outcomes...Providing it's true, maybe it's a feature that represents that over time there will be more people on earth, creating a large pool of players to dig from, which would increase the average talent level, as well as the frequency of superstar quality players?

[MIJB#19]

Sometimes the cap out option isn't available for a player, despite that he has a multiple-year contract and a salary greater than minsal. I'd like to know why it's not available for those players.

[mventres]

Providing it's true, maybe it's a feature that represents that over time there will be more people on earth, creating a large pool of players to dig from, which would increase the average talent level, as well as the frequency of superstar quality players?

That may be, but I think it's increasing too fast. Over the last 25/30 years could you name 7 QBs with *MUCH* more skill than P. Manning? Or 35 WRs in the Jerry Rice skill range? etc...

Don't think so...

[Dutch]

That may be, but I think it's increasing too fast. Over the last 25/30 years could you name 7 QBs with *MUCH* more skill than P. Manning? Or 35 WRs in the Jerry Rice skill range? etc...

Don't think so...

You're starting to lose me now...you cannot compare FOF players to NFL players.

[MIJB#19]

That may be, but I think it's increasing too fast. Over the last 25/30 years could you name 7 QBs with *MUCH* more skill than P. Manning? Or 35 WRs in the Jerry Rice skill range? etc...

Don't think so...Could you provide a screenshot of what you're seeing? Personally I've never been that deep into a career with FOF2007...

[Raiders Army]

FWIW, I think a screen with team needs would be nice. Just something with the positions the team needs to fill for minimum requirements and rank ordering it by need. Either that or an expanded team needs window with more than three positions since teams rarely hold on to more than 30 of their players from the previous year.

[garion333]

Something that's bothered me from the beginning is that when hiring coaches, the free agent coaches who weren't with a team the previous year/don't have an assigned role (HC, OC, DC) will always show up as head coaches. Meaning the red highlighted areas and the salary are always showing head coach.

When scrolling through the available coaches I'd like to be able to choose OC or DC from the dropdown menu so that the particular areas are highlighted and when I hit Next of Prev that choice stays the same so it's easier to identify the particular areas (offensive or defensive) that I'm looking at.

Hope that makes sense.

[millhousebc]

If we use the franchise tag, player's loyalty drop. I would like to see that when a GM resigns a player and overpays him, his loyalty would climb. So the DE that's demanding 5yr/40million with low loyalty, and signs for 5yrs/50million, his loyalty would climb a percentage. Creating "good faith" between team and player. It would reward teams when the player hits FA period, as his loyalty would be higher and better chance of resigning with team.

[garion333]

Something that's bothered me from the beginning is that when hiring coaches, the free agent coaches who weren't with a team the previous year/don't have an assigned role (HC, OC, DC) will always show up as head coaches. Meaning the red highlighted areas and the salary are always showing head coach.

When scrolling through the available coaches I'd like to be able to choose OC or DC from the dropdown menu so that the particular areas are highlighted and when I hit Next of Prev that choice stays the same so it's easier to identify the particular areas (offensive or defensive) that I'm looking at.

Hope that makes sense.

I'd like to reiterate my point because in a MP league I just hired someone I wanted as an OC as my HC and fired one of the best Head Coaches in the league by accident. :banghead:

[T-Storm]

-) (also concerns MP) Players holding out should not be added on the roster screen under "active players". As it is now holdouts behave like inactive players when playing games/fielding a legal roster, but are not shown that way.
-) When the AI resigns players their demands appear higher than if the players hit FA. That's probably due to the fact that contract demands appear to be based to some degree on a players current salary. Also mediocre players should not fleece the AI in re-negotiations just because they were starters. In fact I believe that many mediocre players demand too much money just because they were starters. While this does not make the game harder for me, it makes it much tougher for the AI.

This might be more than a tweak, but I suggest a setting to allow the AI to either have more salary cap space or to have players demand less money from AI teams.

Oh... and I still see plenty of QBs get drafted in the second round. It's the third round as well as the top half of the fourth round that is barren.

[Dutch]

I'd like a trigger to fire in the gameplan to insert a comment that states "Your coach is making adjustments based on your GP" after X minutes have passed (and when the score is no longer tied) so I can tell exactly when my coach starts making adjustments based on my GP. Also, a comment that states, "Your offesne has entered hurry-up" or "Your offense is trying to drain the clock".

[Ben E Lou]

The last several posters have evidently completed ignored what I said this thread was for. The posts will be deleted.

[Ben E Lou]

Another place where FOF has no idea of the value of WRs. Check out the two guys Extender identifies as the top two OROY candidates from my current SP season:


<table style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #dddddd; WIDTH: 600px; COLOR: black" border="1" cellpadding="4"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 18px" colspan="4">Offensive Rookie of the Year Candidates</td></tr> <tr style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; FONT-SIZE: 14px"> <td>http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/small/helmet1.png</td> <td>SE Juan Malone</td> <td valign="middle">Atlanta</td> <td>79-1327 yds catch (16.80 ypc, 365 yac, 117 tgt, 11.34 ypt), 11 TD, 9 drp, 5 bdC, 1 fumb (0 lost)
</td></tr> <tr style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; FONT-SIZE: 14px"> <td>http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/small/helmet21.png</td> <td>RB Moe Fulton</td> <td valign="middle">Philadelphia</td> <td>202-925 yds rush (4.58 ypc), 5 TD, 31 forloss, 91 suc, 51-338 yds catch (6.63 ypc, 146 yac, 68 tgt, 4.97 ypt), 3 TD, 0 drp, 10 bdC, 3 fumb (1 lost)
</td></tr></tbody></table>
Not even close, right?

Wrong.

FOF gave the OROY Award to Fulton. There's really no justification for that.

[Rizon]

I'm not sure if this is a mistake on my part, but I swear in SP that the AI makes their roster moves as you click the PLAY game button. As in, I look at their roster, see an injured player that's inactive, and then he shows up in the game. This could be in my head, I haven't researched it yet.

So now I can confirm this. It is Week 1 in my SP league, and half of the teams in the league have 60 players. They will be cut down to 53 as soon as I hit the "simulate week" button. The team I am playing has a LB that is OUT with an injury yet still listed as active and starting.

I dunno if this is just supposed to add to the SP challenge (and I could be seriously anal about this), but it irks me that every CPU coach is Belichick when it comes to injuries and roster transparency. I wish I had some idea what roster shape the CPU is going to be in. Instead, there is a Fog of War for a CPUs roster starting at the end of a game until kickoff of the next game.

[Alf]

- right now, it is impossible to follow the players ratings development year after year using the game only (compulsory to use outside tools)

- would be nice to be able to be able to write "notes" on each player card