Super new questions

[krazyorange]

I'm playing as Oakland with Carr. Since he's listed as a short passer, and since all of my attempts at long passes are abject failures, I end up throwing ~50 short passes per game. By the third quarter, I'm constantly getting the "the defense is very familiar with this play" messages, and by the fourth quarter is becomes "extremely familiar" and the interceptions pile up. But there are only so many viable short passing plays I can call. How to I go about dealing with this?

I have assembled the best offensive line in the NFL (as determined by the game and by my opinion) through trades. However, I'm still averaging around 3 yards per carry, even though I specifically got linemen who are excellent run blockers. Latavius Murray isn't the greatest inside runner, but even he should surely be averaging better than that with a 100-rated o-line, right? Can someone explain the difference between blast/smash and so on runs, and how I should be calling my run game with such an amazing o-line?

How does the "fan favorite," "idolized," system work? When I started the season, Carr was a fan favorite, but we're 4-1 now and he's only "recognized." He's not doing great, but we're 4-1. What happened to the fans?

Thanks for any help and tips. Love the game so far! Much better than Bowl Bound College Football. Ugh.

[stevew]

Are you calling plays yourself? Sadly even the most seasoned veterans here don't do that.

"Short passes" doesn't really mean much in regards to a QB. It just determines which formations he will learn.

If you're calling running plays manually that could describe why your performance is not great.

[QuikSand]

A few quick things:

-you're overreacting to some things, the game tends to punish behavior that's to far "out of line"

-in FOF, your QB being labeled as a "short passing" guy mainly just means those are the formations he's queued up to learn next (i.e. don't overreact and start throwing al short passes)

-if you did a lot of trading/signing to load up your OL, you likely have a lot of fresh faces - your team's cohesion there is going to be low, so the unit might not perform at a top level right away, just be advised (this applies everywhere)

-my advice on fan popularity is to completely ignore it for now, and maybe forever

[krazyorange]

Is there a particular reason NOT to call my own plays? I sim the defense but call my own offense. I have fun with it, it just seems my yards per carry are a bit low all things considered. Perhaps I'm just not calling the correct running plays -- if that's the case, is there a particular strategy to that?

That makes sense about the QB and short passing. It's not so much that I'm overreacting, it's just that Crabtree got injured and Cooper is a rookie with butterfingers, so at least 50% of medium-to-long passes are dropped. Carr's long pass ratings aren't that great either. Am I doing long-term damage to him by not letting him air it out?

Good to know about fan popularity.

My performance overall isn't terrible. I'm 5-2 with the fifth highest scoring offense. The only two things about my offense that drive me nuts are the dropped passes and the ridiculously low YPC. Thanks for the tips so far though. Ten hours played in two days...obviously it's great fun!

[wustin]

For the first one,

Analysis of Playcalling - Defense Looks Familiar Issue - Front Office Football Central (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=56873&highlight=playcalling)

[Ben E Lou]

Is there a particular reason NOT to call my own plays? I sim the defense but call my own offense. I have fun with it, it just seems my yards per carry are a bit low all things considered. Perhaps I'm just not calling the correct running plays -- if that's the case, is there a particular strategy to that? If that's what you enjoy, do it. However, don't expect to get a lot of "veteran FOFer wisdom" about this topic. As I posted elsewhere a couple of days ago...FYI, very few people who post here call their own plays. (And I strongly suspect that--relatively speaking--very few people who play FOF regularly call their own plays.) FOF is best at the Career/GM aspects of football, and as such, the crowd that it draws tends to be most interested in that. You probably aren't going to get a lot of eyeballs on this thread who know how this works. I feel pretty certain that I'm in the top 1% of "time spent on FOF" on the planet, and the last time I called my own plays was for a couple of weeks in 2003, when there was a delay in the release of FOF2K4, so all I had was the demo that only allowed me to play 2 weeks.

[krazyorange]

I've spent another 30+ hours with the game, and my enjoyment has increased exponentially while NOT calling my own plays. Good advice on that. It's much more fun to spend 2-3 hours per season on the GM aspects of the game. Sadly, as I'm still a nub, this brings up even more questions...

1) I've brought five rings to Oakland in eight years, but no one comes to my games. I'm averaging about 35,000 attendance, and my fan loyalty is pretty low as well. Don't the fans want Super Bowl wins? Five in eight years is...unheard of. Even if Buffalo had been able to capitalize, well, this is better than that. What do I have to do to get people to come to my games? (25,000 attendance after I announced the move to LA, even though I went 14-0-2 and won the SB that season.)

1b) It's a little moot now because I was sick of the low attendance and moved to LA, but I don't want the same problem to crop up in 2027 when I finally get my new stadium built there. How can I get people to come to my games besides winning?

2) My end of season ratings are always in the 30s for roster strength. I consistently have 90-100 ranked QB, RB, tackles, and guards, and my cornerbacks are in the 80s. My linebackers have been weak, but I only have so much money to spend. All the other categories have been in top-of-the-middle. Why am I getting rated so low?

3) How does training camp work? I've drafted great rookie defenses with huge potential and put massive hours into the defense, but my defense always sucks and games turn into shootouts. My CBs are the best in the league and my starting D-line gets about 35 sacks between them for the season. I go for linebackers who have high Play Diagnosis. Is this not a good strategy? Also, all my coaches have high ratings with young talent. I feel like I'm doing something wrong with my defense.

4) How do I make the AI stop activating/deactivating players on my roster? This is so irritating.

Thanks for any help!

[stevew]

4 is a setting in the game. AI sets depth charts. You gotta change it under single player options I think.

Attendance really only matters to the degree that you'll have a low number in the staff draft if you aren't profitable. Attempt to change your ticket prices to recommend.

2. End of season roster strength never makes any sense to me either. Mine is typically in the 20s. I just ignore it.

[krazyorange]

I have the AI sets depth charts to NO, but it still activates/deactivates players, which in turn screws with my depth charts constantly. So much frustration.

EDIT: I can't even play/simulate a game now. Every time I try to enter a game, it says I have a player who is no longer on my roster. I go back to the roster, and the AI has deactivated half of my depth chart. There has to be a way around this.

[QuikSand]

Under single-player options menu, there's an item called:

Staff automatically signs players to fill roster


Turn this off.

It's a criminally poor description of what it enables -- but all the active/inactive stuff you're seeing is because of this setting.

[Dawgfan19]

3) How does training camp work? I've drafted great rookie defenses with huge potential and put massive hours into the defense, but my defense always sucks and games turn into shootouts. My CBs are the best in the league and my starting D-line gets about 35 sacks between them for the season. I go for linebackers who have high Play Diagnosis. Is this not a good strategy? Also, all my coaches have high ratings with young talent. I feel like I'm doing something wrong with my defense.

Search FOFC for different defensive game planning ideas. You'll find a variety of opinions regarding double coverage, blitzing and pass coverage packages.

Also, when initially learning how to game plan, use REX (recommend option) to get an idea what the AI would do. I'd suggest factoring out the very aggressive settings except 3rd/short and 3rd/long in the base plan.

Chemistry and cohesion can improve your defense considerably, so don't ignore that aspect of the game. If you have a lot of rookies on defense, cohesion will be a problem for a couple of years. You could spend more time on team functions in camp.

[stevew]

Under single-player options menu, there's an item called:

Staff automatically signs players to fill roster


Turn this off.

It's a criminally poor description of what it enables -- but all the active/inactive stuff you're seeing is because of this setting.

I really wish it was turned off by default. It always seems to mess new players up.

[Dutch]

Does fan popularity have any effect on attendance? I'm looking for strategies to get one of my stadiums to get more fans in the seats and was hoping getting some fan favorites on the team would help.

[Ben E Lou]

I really wish it was turned off by default. It always seems to mess new players up.Yup. Jim made an effort in one of the 7.1 family (I think it was 7.1b) to make this more obvious, but it didn't work. He should hire me to add graphics to get their attention more.

http://www.fof-ihof.com/upload/Ben%20E%20Lou/screenshot_20160103_09.37.31.png

[Ben E Lou]

Dola:

What's interesting is that in the same patch, he also added messages to let the player know that depth charts were on auto. For whatever, reason, that one seemed to "work," in the sense that I don't think we've gotten a single newbie question about depth charts since that patch, and we used to get those very frequently.

[stevew]

Wow..it actually says that? I guess I never bother to read that screen other than to hit simulate week.

[Ben E Lou]

Wow..it actually says that? I guess I never bother to read that screen other than to hit simulate week.Yes. I *think* it was added in the 7.1b patch, a few weeks after the Steam release. Of course, if you don't use that setting, you wouldn't see that message so you wouldn't know it was there.

[krazyorange]

Thanks for all the help so far! I absolutely love this game so far. It is sad to see all the IRL players start declining and then retire. Derek Carr is so ancient now, but his fingers are running out of space for rings. First ballot for certain.

Another question, however: Do inactive players gain experience and/or have their top limit decrease? I discovered that there's an undrafted rookie hidden gem in each position during late free agency, but their starting skill level is so low I can't keep them on the active roster. Will this hurt them in the long run?

[aston217]

I saw that screenshot, and I had to read the two posts below it to realize that I probably usually don't see that line of text. I still wouldn't be able to tell you without going to check if I usually see any line of text there. It looked "normal" to me, it's that unnoticeable. The arrows are definitely a necessary cue!