Alright Boyz, Here We Go!!! Front Office Football 9 Impressions

[sovereignstar v2]

She is out on Steam! And 10% off!

Bought, downloaded, made and released logos. Now sleep

https://i.imgur.com/ELjjemQ.png

[Ben E Lou]

First thoughts...
Offense is much more in line with the recent NFL.
TONS more that can be customized than in previous versions.
I think I'm going to like the interface, but right now it's just really different--even just little things like player cards. For example, on QBs, "likes to run" is near the top of the screen in the bar profile rather than near the bottom. My eyes still go immediately to the bottom when looking for that.
Sim speed is REALLY fast on my mid-level machine. Ran 25 seasons in just 17 minutes and some change.
The default player photos (flags) are distracting to me. I just zipped those up for a backup, and deleted them from the install folder and there's nothing there. I'm finding that preferable.
I suspect there's an issue with coach re-hiring: it appears the VAST majority of coaches do exactly four seasons with a team and then move on.
Speaking of coaches, nice immersion feature: when a coach is a former player, there's a "view Profile As Player" button on the coach card.
New RPO and pure option runs. Nice!
No more all-league teams? That's kind of a bummer.
There is a LOT more trading between AI teams. Haven't checked into whether they're "good" trades, but just at a glance, I'm looking at quite a few instances of (not including compensatory picks) AI teams with as many as 10 picks in a draft, and of course others with as few as four.
It looks like Jim is automatically outputting a bunch of data in the .dat files in the savegame folder. Here's hoping our data gurus can pull that into csvs.
Not something that I am into, but fwiw, it does appear that Jim added the full ability to play with historical leagues/draft classes. It will be some work to create those, but the structure looks like it's there.

[Cole]

The default player photos (flags) are distracting to me. I just zipped those up for a backup, and deleted them from the install folder and there's nothing there. I'm finding that preferable.

.[/LIST]

They looked pretty graphically jarring to me in the screenshots. So since game was announced I’ve been working on a fictional facepack made with the ZenGM faces.js program. The faces are a touch cartoony, sure, but for me will be more immersive than flags or nothing.

I’ve also got the photos grouped by ethnicity/player size too … so pictures you select for 320 lbs + lineman will look visually different than say a 180 lbs punter.

I’ve got over 2,000 player faces ready… I want to get a couple hundred more coach /staff photos ready before I release it. But just as a heads up for folks… I’ll have it released before week’s end.

[Ben E Lou]

First thoughts...
No more all-league teams? That's kind of a bummer.Heh. Found it. It's there. League-->Almanac-->League History-->Click on the year you want to see.

Yeah, as mentioned above, this isn't the "evolution" of FOF interfaces from one version to the next that we've gotten used to. It's more of a "revolution," in terms of it being a complete overhaul, built entirely from scratch. I feel like a complete n00b in terms of navigating around the game.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Purchased!

[nfg22]

The UI might be better, not sure yet, need to get used to it. But it is sad that it isn't modern at all. This is the one facet that can easily be hired out and make it much better, disappointed to say the least. Core game should be just as good as always though.

[nfg22]

The UI might be better, not sure yet, need to get used to it. But it is sad that it isn't modern at all. This is the one facet that can easily be hired out and make it much better, disappointed to say the least. Core game should be just as good as always though.

Actually after two hours I cant event navigate to what I want. Changing screens is harder than the past, information is lacking on the trade screen. IMO the UI is markedly worse than the past. I'm uninstalling until an update fixes it.

[NawlinsFan]

Actually after two hours I cant event navigate to what I want. Changing screens is harder than the past, information is lacking on the trade screen. IMO the UI is markedly worse than the past. I'm uninstalling until an update fixes it.

Theres going to be a learning curve. You may think its not intuitive now but after playing it for sometime it should/would become easier.

[nfg22]

Theres going to be a learning curve. You may think its not intuitive now but after playing it for sometime it should/would become easier.

Its not just about intuition, information is not displayed readily on screens. Try and make a trade, can't see the opposing teams cap, cant add other players, only request an offer for your own player. Switching between teams? Janky and can't be done with keys reliably.

I understand this has never been Jim's strong suit but I can literally build a better UI in PyQt5 with chat gpt in hours. The UI is not any better than it was 20 years ago. Just my opinion, feel free to disregard. I'm not going to let my fondness for the product blind me to the fact that the UI is seriously lacking with all of the front end tools we have these days to make good UIs.

[Qwikshot]

I tried making multiple trade picks and it'll only let me drop in one draft pick and nothing else.

I know it's a new UI, it is jarring. I did look at the guide to see if there was any sort of information on trading and it just refers to the Trade HQ as the place to go for trades.

Yes it runs fast, but I feel like some things are hidden. The game wouldn't let me proceed without hiring a new coordinator but I had all coaches employed so I was confused as to why I needed to hire a new one. I'm wondering if it needed me to extend a contract, but I'm not sure.

Nevertheless, I plan to press on.

[Ben E Lou]

I tried making multiple trade picks and it'll only let me drop in one draft pick and nothing else.I think the issue is that trading is (like many other things) just completely different from past versions. You drop a player or pick that you want to trade away in the box, and the AI makes an offer. Or, you drop an AI player or pick that you're interesting in acquiring into the box, and the AI tells you what it's gonna take to make it happen. And it appears that in either scenario, it's take it or leave it. I'm good with that, though I realize those who want to try to squeeze every possible drop out of the AI won't be.

[Qwikshot]

I think the issue is that trading is (like many other things) just completely different from past versions. You drop a player in, the AI makes an offer for him, or you drop an AI player in. The AI tells you what draft picks it will take for him. And it appears that in either scenario, it's take it or leave it. I'm good with that, though I realize those who want to try to squeeze every possible drop out of the AI won't be.

I figured that was it. I just find it odd that if I offer a team a 2nd round pick, they'll return an offer of like 2 3rd round picks.

I cannot bundle mutlipe picks though. Perhaps that is a feature to restrict trade cheating, but it's a little disappointing.

I offered a 1st round pick to another team and they offered a 1st, a 4th and a 7th. So it can be done at least on the AI side.

[Ben E Lou]

Perhaps that is a feature to restrict trade cheating, but it's a little disappointing.Yeah, this one is definitely a personal preference. I like it quite a bit, because it completely eliminates one of two issues I have with trading if I allow it at all in my house rules. I'm either stuck thinking "I wonder if I could have gotten more or given away less" or (more likely) I spend wayyyyyyyyyy more time than I want to trying to maximize it. I like to move pretty quickly through time, and trading has always been an area where I am "forced" to move at a snail's pace by my own minmax nature. :p For me this puts the focus on the "is this worth it" decision, rather than trying to squeeze an extra 0.8% of trade value out of every stinkin' deal.


(Oh, and I edited my last post after you quoted it, apparently. I phrased that terribly poorly in my first shot at it.)

[armyofone]

I love it so far. Menus take some getting used to, I do wish the menus stayed tied into the team or league. Find myself always going back and forth. But yes, very much like OOTP for a management GM type like me. Halfway thru a test league and stats and everything look great. I do like the game center display improvements as well. Thank you.

[Ben E Lou]

Menus take some getting used toYeah, I'm reserving judgement on that so far. Right now I'm doing far more "clicking around" to look at stuff than I would be if I were focused on playing a serious career. For now, it does seem reasonable to hold out hope that the "manage team" section is going to serve as basically the one-stop shop for everything once I'm focused on linearly moving from one stage to the next.

[HansMellman]

Its not just about intuition, information is not displayed readily on screens. Try and make a trade, can't see the opposing teams cap, cant add other players, only request an offer for your own player. Switching between teams? Janky and can't be done with keys reliably.

I understand this has never been Jim's strong suit but I can literally build a better UI in PyQt5 with chat gpt in hours. The UI is not any better than it was 20 years ago. Just my opinion, feel free to disregard. I'm not going to let my fondness for the product blind me to the fact that the UI is seriously lacking with all of the front end tools we have these days to make good UIs.

Jim went into some detail in a previous post as to why he leaned away from using QT and elected to go with something else.

I'm hoping to make more use of screen recordings. Since I don't stream or even watch video, a lot of new concepts.

One thing I just learned: you have to screen-record an entire monitor to pick up child windows. For example, if you have a drop-down menu and you're screen-recording an app, the drop-down menu isn't recorded (you see a couple of places on that recording where the mouse is doing something, but it's all blank).

This comment will invite some mocking, but one thing I did once we backed out of the unnamed project is spend a lot of time learning some more advanced Windows drawing techniques. A lot of younger graphics experts would say this was a waste of time: there are modern tools that are far better.

OOTP's solution was a product called Qt. A lot of people use it (they use it for FHM). We were using it. It has a lot of plusses. There's a standard "widget" that Microsoft calls a List Control that's the basis of everything in an application that looks like part of a spreadsheet. I use it on pretty much every screen.

The Microsoft Foundation Classes List Control is tested, fast, robust. If computer programs were living beings, the List Control would be the Carbon. After a year or so of working with the Qt equivalent, I missed the MFC control. Qt "can" do anything, but not as well, not as flexible, not as fast. When I started over, I wanted my List Control back, and I spent a quite a bit of time taking the customized List Control from FOF8 and redesigning it for FOF9. Going back to it was like breathing again.

So, it's old school, but I am convinced that my customized List Control does more than any cutting edge equivalent, all things considered. It's also (sorry Mac fans) the reason I don't support anything but Windows. My coding for the most part is generic C++. But I stick with basic Windows device-context drawing because MFC is based on it.

One of my favorite new features with the drawing relates to the question Ben posed. What are all these abbreviations? In FOF9, whenever you run the mouse over a header on a List Control (and many data items), there's a pop up that tells you exactly what you're looking at. There are 17 different kinds of pop-ups in the interface, ranging from a pure text header explanation to play diagrams.

[miked]

Is this a daylight savings fool post?

[nfg22]

Jim went into some detail in a previous post as to why he leaned away from using QT and elected to go with something else.

He can say whatever he wants, he has made a great product but the UI speaks for itself. Its not intuitive and honestly its very dated.

If you want to go into the intricacies of all his arguments, I can, but in essence he is unwilling to learn new things, or to contract out the UI. His decision, and this will still very likely be successful as a game but you cannot deny the UI is still terrible after all of these years. It's too much for me.

[korme]

I feel so lost

[Ajaxab]

I'm a bit confused by Trade HQ as well. I'm not sure how to put a player on the list to be traded. I think I expected to be able to add someone to the list with a right click from the Roster screen or from the player card 'Select an Action' menu. I must be missing something.

I do like the shift to more of an OOTP interface style, but miss the option to right click in some instances.

[inbar]

The game's UI is...unattractive, to put it mildly. From the main screen to the play-calling in the simulated games, it feels outdated, especially after playing OOTP and FHM9. I may wait to play it until it gets further updates.

[korme]

I got seemingly stuck on the Preseason Week 1 screen and had to automate settings just to advance. While the first time this happened, it told me I had too many active players, it didn't tell me what the limit was. I dropped them down to 46 and then the game just would refresh on advance and no longer have the prompt, but wouldn't actually advance. That's when I went and had to change the settings.

I love the robust record keeping but this seems like such an endeavor to figure out. Maybe I'm just getting old.

[korme]

I do like that when you hover over a name, a little info box appears.

However, why does it appear right over my mouse and the player in question? This disables me from right clicking active/inactive, and you get about 1 second to make that decision before the popup appears.

https://i.imgur.com/RBbRm88.png

[Ben E Lou]

I got seemingly stuck on the Preseason Week 1 screen and had to automate settings just to advance. While the first time this happened, it told me I had too many active players, it didn't tell me what the limit was. I dropped them down to 46 and then the game just would refresh on advance and no longer have the prompt, but wouldn't actually advance. That's when I went and had to change the settings.The limit is 47. I saw it somewhere on the screen. I had the same issue from being so used to 46.

[korme]

Trying to re-sign my own free agents. First offer made on the day before FA (where it says you can offer your own players)

https://i.imgur.com/4dfHqPL.png

[Fidatelo]

https://i.ibb.co/TMqWPbB/thanks.png (https://imgbb.com/)

[Joker]

JIM GINDIN
Love Ya Man!
The Front Office Football Series
This game changed my life, thankyou for creating it..."All of It"
Thankyou for fof9
It feels like I'm a new born baby-Learning to work my hands
Compared to FOF8 ---Its a "WHOLE NEW WORLD!"
Thanks again for all you do!

[HansMellman]

He can say whatever he wants, he has made a great product but the UI speaks for itself. Its not intuitive and honestly its very dated.

If you want to go into the intricacies of all his arguments, I can, but in essence he is unwilling to learn new things, or to contract out the UI. His decision, and this will still very likely be successful as a game but you cannot deny the UI is still terrible after all of these years. It's too much for me.

Oh yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you. Having just spent two hours with the game I am of a similar opinion. It's a bit painful that the front and back buttons just next to the main banner at the top are jagged, same with the edges of the ribbon on the top - things like that will take getting used to.

I know Jim had said that this was nothing to do with OOTP and that the project had moved in a totally different direction but I've played FHM since the very early days and the UI was similar, very similar in fact in the FHM4/5/6 days but those were all released around the same time as FOF8 - which I think echoes your point about the age of the UI in concept.

Still, I'll persist for now in the hope I adjust.

[HansMellman]

https://i.ibb.co/TMqWPbB/thanks.png (https://imgbb.com/)

lol - I can't even figure out how to get into a game to call the plays.

[MarkRidings]

Very early into trying out the game, so I may change my mind, but...

I think I'm the only one who likes this UI better? In my opinion its much easier to get around and find information, then FOF8. There is some figuring out, and I haven't tried to trade yet. But it just feels better to me.

Now, it's still a Jim UI, so I'm not saying it's amazing. But it's fine for what this game is, and NFL sim with the best simming engine that currently exists.

[Joker]

question:
The first few games I was able to sim without having to watch.
Now I have to watch each and everyone one of my games
call my plays or let rex coach call the plays.
Wheres the button to turn this off so I dont have to watch each and every game. thankyou

found it .... schedules/view/show/hide---show/control games check mark

[jamesUMD]

Takes some getting used to and there will need to be some fixes I think. Quick one:
Jack Del Rio, in the game shows as running a True 3-4 defensive front. He runs a 4-3. But more to the point if I go into the coaches file he is listed as a 3 for DEFENSIVESTYLE, which based on the coaches text file which notes:
DEFENSIVESTYLE - For coaches specializing in defensive position groups, their preferred defensive front. A team will always use the defensive front preferred by their defensive coordinator.
0 - Not a defensive coach
1 - True 34 Defense
2 - 34 Eagle Defense
3 - 43 Under Defense
4 - 43 Over Defense

Bill Belichick similarly shows as a 4-3 in the game, but based on the coaches file (N=2) should be 34 Eagle Defense. My hunch is that there is a number reversed in there somewhere. Teams running a 4-3 versus 3-4 may be reversed if my guess is correct.

Teryl Austin in game shows as 3 4 Eagle, but based on the coaches file is a True 3 4 guy. Probably a fairly simple fix but just wanted to check my own results and or what I noticed.

[HansMellman]

Takes some getting used to and there will need to be some fixes I think. Quick one:
Jack Del Rio, in the game shows as running a True 3-4 defensive front. He runs a 4-3. But more to the point if I go into the coaches file he is listed as a 3 for DEFENSIVESTYLE, which based on the coaches text file which notes:
DEFENSIVESTYLE - For coaches specializing in defensive position groups, their preferred defensive front. A team will always use the defensive front preferred by their defensive coordinator.
0 - Not a defensive coach
1 - True 34 Defense
2 - 34 Eagle Defense
3 - 43 Under Defense
4 - 43 Over Defense

Is there an official channel for reporting bugs of this nature? or does Jim pick these up from here - this is my first release

[EagleFan]

Minor bug: When on the schedule page I can scroll down with my mouse and the games scroll to the top of the page but the team logos stay where they were when I enter the screen.

[GrantDawg]

The game's UI is...unattractive, to put it mildly. From the main screen to the play-calling in the simulated games, it feels outdated, especially after playing OOTP and FHM9. I may wait to play it until it gets further updates.
It is even worse with my vision problems. I have a hard time making heads or tails out of anything in it.

[Ben E Lou]

Huh. No rex button for ticket prices. Curious what others think here: is that something you prefer to do manually, or would you just hit Rex and move on? (I tend toward the latter, but if I'm an outlier there, I'll hush up about it.)

[EagleFan]

Wow, simmed the first season just to see and Anthony Richardson would be booed out of Indianapolis after that season. 34 interceptions, 14 more than 2nd place Ryan Tannehill who had 20.

Also, Jaylen Waddle led the league with an astounding 174 receptions but was also 5th in the league with 15 drops.

[EagleFan]

Minor bug: sorting anomaly on pancake blocks. It seems to be sorting by sacks allowed.

[Cole]

It is even worse with my vision problems. I have a hard time making heads or tails out of anything in it.

There’s option to increase font type/size, which would help.

[Gauss]

Huh. No rex button for ticket prices. Curious what others think here: is that something you prefer to do manually, or would you just hit Rex and move on? (I tend toward the latter, but if I'm an outlier there, I'll hush up about it.)

Yeah, REX for me too. I'll playa round with it for now tho.

[EagleFan]

The UI will take some getting used to but looking forward to a weekend full or FOF.

[RedDoby]

Takes some getting used to and there will need to be some fixes I think. Quick one:
Jack Del Rio, in the game shows as running a True 3-4 defensive front. He runs a 4-3. But more to the point if I go into the coaches file he is listed as a 3 for DEFENSIVESTYLE, which based on the coaches text file which notes:
DEFENSIVESTYLE - For coaches specializing in defensive position groups, their preferred defensive front. A team will always use the defensive front preferred by their defensive coordinator.
0 - Not a defensive coach
1 - True 34 Defense
2 - 34 Eagle Defense
3 - 43 Under Defense
4 - 43 Over Defense

Bill Belichick similarly shows as a 4-3 in the game, but based on the coaches file (N=2) should be 34 Eagle Defense. My hunch is that there is a number reversed in there somewhere. Teams running a 4-3 versus 3-4 may be reversed if my guess is correct.

Teryl Austin in game shows as 3 4 Eagle, but based on the coaches file is a True 3 4 guy. Probably a fairly simple fix but just wanted to check my own results and or what I noticed.

I can confirm that something is bugged with the defensive coach styles. Both Stephen Billicheck and Vic Fangio are showing a Defense style of 2 in the 2023_Coaches file. But Billicheck in the game is 34 Eagle and Fangio is 43 Over. btw Miami should be a 34 defense, this will mess up defenses since players will not fit the style.

[MizzouRah]

Huh. No rex button for ticket prices. Curious what others think here: is that something you prefer to do manually, or would you just hit Rex and move on? (I tend toward the latter, but if I'm an outlier there, I'll hush up about it.)


Oh NO! I was hoping that wasn't taken out, I used rex for this as well in FOF8.


I know there is a global setting to have the AI handle this, but I believe it will also hire staff.


Hopefully this can be added in via patch.

[albionmoonlight]

Huh. No rex button for ticket prices. Curious what others think here: is that something you prefer to do manually, or would you just hit Rex and move on? (I tend toward the latter, but if I'm an outlier there, I'll hush up about it.)

I haven't manually done ticket prices in years.

[Olsson]

I like it so far. I'm sure i'll get used to the new UI.

I only have one complaint. Although I see it as a pretty big problem for me.

There's no view that has both ratings and contracts. That'll make end of season take some extra time.

You can't see either contract length in the basic information view or CUR/FUR in the contracts view.

[rkmsuf]

I like it so far. I'm sure i'll get used to the new UI.

I only have one complaint. Although I see it as a pretty big problem for me.

There's no view that has both ratings and contracts. That'll make end of season take some extra time.

You can't see either contract length in the basic information view or CUR/FUR in the contracts view.

beat me to it. the "scout overview" made the game fun. pos, ratings and contract status on one screen. maybe we could customize views.

[BradS]

I'm liking and applaud the new UI. So much is there. Question though, the PBP log no longer shows player grades for each play?

[markprior22]

I'm seeing something strange...may just be not knowing the interface

Cowboys released Zach Martin and he appears to be gone from the game. No injury reported, not listed as a free agent, transaction log doesn't show anyone signing him. Haven't gone through team by team rosters...was hoping to find a place to search for a particular player but not seeing anything like that.

Edit-I'm pretty sure this is something I caused at the depth chart screen. Was messing with it and trying to reorder list of players at the top part of the screen (silly, but I was just feeling my way around). In doing so I believe I moved Zach Martin somewhere on the screen that removed him from the game completely. Not sure what the exact move was but I'm 99.99% sure it was something I caused. Funny that there was a transaction of him being released.

[Olsson]

beat me to it. the "scout overview" made the game fun. pos, ratings and contract status on one screen. maybe we could customize views.

Trade HQ has Name, Pos, Exp, Cur, Fut, End of contract, Cap cost

It doesn't include rookies and current expiring contracts though. I really hope Jim adresses the cur/fut on the contracts screen.

[conception]

I took advantage of the early sale and of course, wanted to show my support for the series and for Jim. I probably won't get into the meat and potatoes of this one for a little bit - I'll wait for the gurus to dissect it better. I've never been one who is that great at the inner workings of this game - in fact I'm not sure if I ever won the SB in the last version because all I can remember are the times my team got to the big game and lost- usually in pretty heartbreaking fashion too.

[cupofjoe]

I'm a few hours in. I may be in the minority, but for me the UI isn't as bad as some claim. Definitely not the prettiest thing, but I'm enjoying the functions.

I think I like the new trade function...not 100% sure though, it definitely makes it harder to cheat the system.

One big issue I'm having is putting an injured player on IR. It doesn't seem to work. I click it on the drop down menu and nothing happens.

[Cole]

Has anyone successfully gotten a custom player portrait to work?

I followed these instructions from the manual:



You can create a 150×150 bitmap for use with any individual player, though this will only work within one universe. The Universe ID can be used as a file name. For instance, if you want to create a custom bitmap for a player with the Universe ID 1465, create a 150×150 bitmap called 1465.bmp. Place that file in the following folder: C:\\Users\Your_Profile_Name\AppData\Local\Solecismic Software\Front Office Football Nine\saved_games\Your_Universe_Name\portraits.

My files are 150 x 150 bitmaps, but still nothing seems to be showing up. I even tried closing the game and rebooting again for change to take effect. Wondering what I may be missing?

[Ben E Lou]

One big issue I'm having is putting an injured player on IR. It doesn't seem to work. I click it on the drop down menu and nothing happens.updates [Front Office Football Nine Documentation] (http://www.solecismic.com/documentation/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=updates)

[jaygr]

For fun I tried running this on the Steam Deck. It starts up fine, keyboard and touch seem to work, and the touchpads control the mouse. That said, the window doesn't expand fully to fit the screen and about 1/4 of the right side doesn't show. Therefore, I didn't get very far as I wasn't able to start a new league because the buttons were hidden.

[Lonnie]

Is there a problem with Win11 ? Doesn't want to launch from Steam or directly.

Steam:
Steam - Game Launch Failed
Front Office Football Nine Failed to start (error code 51).

Direct:
Application load error 3:0000065432

[james17]

Really feeling stupid here. I know I saw a post somewhere that stated how to change the team nicknames and I thought I followed the directions but when I started a new league all the default nicknames are there instead.


Could someone point out to me how to do this or where to find out how to do this?

[Ben E Lou]

Has anyone figured out how to sign your own RFAs during Free Agency? I'm getting a message saying that I can't make an offer until late free agency.

[jaygr]

Really feeling stupid here. I know I saw a post somewhere that stated how to change the team nicknames and I thought I followed the directions but when I started a new league all the default nicknames are there instead.


Could someone point out to me how to do this or where to find out how to do this?

Make sure the file you are editing is the team_info.csv one. You can update for all years, but for me I was starting a 2023 league, so I only updated the 2023 entries at the bottom.

[BucDawg40]

Is there an official channel for reporting bugs of this nature? or does Jim pick these up from here - this is my first release

Best way to report this bug or any other is to email [email protected]

Let's hope he sees your issue and gets it fixed in the first patch!

[james17]

Make sure the file you are editing is the team_info.csv one. You can update for all years, but for me I was starting a 2023 league, so I only updated the 2023 entries at the bottom.


All I want to do is the 2023 entries too but I'm apparently confused by what format do I save the modified file to (.csv, Excel 97, ??). :banghead:

[Qwikshot]

I tried twice to trade for Kevin Byard for the Eagles. Both times I accepted the received offer and both times it crashed to desktop.

[Qwikshot]

I did it a third time. The first two were in pre-season, the last was during the season.

[HansMellman]

Best way to report this bug or any other is to email [email protected]

Let's hope he sees your issue and gets it fixed in the first patch!

Thanks, I'd seen [email protected] floated around somewhere as the email, do you know which is correct for sure?

EDIT - nevermind I've just seen that the address you'd listed is given on the contact page of the help file. Thanks!

[Qwikshot]

Also it appears that it doesn't set ticket prices your first season, so you get no money from tickets.

[jcard]

First thoughts...

[B] I think I'm going to like the interface, but right now it's just really different--even just little things like player cards. For example, on QBs, "likes to run" is near the top of the screen in the bar profile rather than near the bottom. My eyes still go immediately to the bottom when looking for that.[/

Being able to assign attribute-specific colors to the rating bars / values on the player card would make studying those cards much more efficient. I appreciate that (going off of the posted documentation) it seems navigating between cards has been streamlined with the arrows, but trying to quickly focus on the correct indistinct row in a block of red aphorism is (based on FOF8 experience) unsatisfying.

[sovereignstar v2]

The most jarring UI thing has to be the back and forward buttons and up/down player breadcrumbs. I don't know if it's because I'm at 4k resolution, but the four buttons and clickable areas are smaller than my front teeth. Oof

They need to be at least a little bigger and there needs to be more space between them so you don't have to be super precise with your click.

Here is what it'd look like with the buttons 150% bigger, spaced further apart. The yellow box would be the hit area.

https://i.imgur.com/4onVmBI.png

[Marmel]

I don't know if this is the place for suggestions, but on the roster page I think it is imperative to have their contract end date on the same screen as their overall ratings. Multiple times per year I do a review of my roster and the two most important things are their rating and when their contract ends. It would save me hundreds of clicks.

[MIJB#19]

The UI requires some getting used to so far.

One thing in the interface that throws me off guard is that the screens where you can and the ones where you can't sort, they look so similar. The ones where you can't sort, I keep trying but nothing happens.

I also get a bit dropdown clicking tired in places where FOF8 things were 1 click away on different tabs. For example when you want to look at receiving statistics for your RB, now you need two clicks and two mouse swipes.

The global settings button and sim button are touching each other, I accidentally hit the sim button when I wanted to chance settings.
It would probably also make more sense to have the AI settings button sit right underneath the global settings button.



The other way around, I really like that some screens now have team filters where they were not there in FOF8 and give you a chance to look at them in the past, like the Transaction Log screen.

[IlliniCub]

When coaching games I wish we had the option for it to not automatically clear the results of the last play and possibly keep that up until the next play starts

[K1ng_L1zard]

Feels like I'm crazy here but I cannot figure out how to call plays in a game?

[Dales]

I am more of a casual player than most on this forum, but obviously I like the franchise since I bought it day one.

But I tell you what-- I would LOVE for more experienced players, once they get used to the new UI and really get into all of the features and all, for some to make YouTube videos walking through the way they handle playbooks, gameplans, and all. Years after buying FOF8, I am still intimidated by all of that.

ETA- the reason I suggest vids is that a lot of us are visual learners. Or we are when it comes to games

[Dales]

Feels like I'm crazy here but I cannot figure out how to call plays in a game?

Look towards the upper right of the game screen.

[Dales]

Really feeling stupid here. I know I saw a post somewhere that stated how to change the team nicknames and I thought I followed the directions but when I started a new league all the default nicknames are there instead.


Could someone point out to me how to do this or where to find out how to do this?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Front Office Football Nine\default_data

Edit team_info.csv (there are rows for every year; first time I tried I did it only for the first year in the file which is not 2023).

You can only edit before starting a universe from what I understand. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

[Dales]

All I want to do is the 2023 entries too but I'm apparently confused by what format do I save the modified file to (.csv, Excel 97, ??). :banghead:


csv

[K1ng_L1zard]

Look towards the upper right of the game screen.

Turns out my issue was that I didn't have the option for "Show/Control Your Team's Games" checked on the schedule page. Thank you for the help.

[rkmsuf]

Trade HQ has Name, Pos, Exp, Cur, Fut, End of contract, Cap cost

It doesn't include rookies and current expiring contracts though. I really hope Jim adresses the cur/fut on the contracts screen.


not to be negative but the view roster views are broken. used to be able to see the cap info in addition to number of players.

unless I'm missing a view.

[INDalltheway]

Wow, simmed the first season just to see and Anthony Richardson would be booed out of Indianapolis after that season. 34 interceptions, 14 more than 2nd place Ryan Tannehill who had 20.

Also, Jaylen Waddle led the league with an astounding 174 receptions but was also 5th in the league with 15 drops.

That sounds like a Peyton Manning rookie season to me. I will take the outcome of that career :D

[BKL]

This is a great game, and definitely seems like an upgrade from FOF8 (also a great game). The interface is certainly an improvement over the last game! I have seen many new games where people complain about a change in interface and within a few weeks no one says anything about the UI because they have gotten used to it and it turns out to be fine. This will likely be the case here. I’m enjoying the game and new interface. Thanks for your work on this!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Cole]

I’ve been playing OOTP for years and I like the UI, so navigating around the game hasn’t been too tough for me. My biggest challenge comes from the fact that I’m relatively inexperienced with FOF in general, so it’s more about determining what info of all the game produces that I’m most often going to need to use.

My biggest gripe is as others have mentioned with the player cards I wish stats were on main page…

I also think the team logo needs to be on the player card somewhere, as the actual team the player plays for is just written in small text as opposed to your brain seeing the logo and being able to quickly associate a player with a team…

I’d actually like it if the team logo was the default player card logo, like past gsmes, instead of the state flags thing, which is kind of random.

[Gallifrey]

Has anyone successfully gotten a custom player portrait to work?

I followed these instructions from the manual:



My files are 150 x 150 bitmaps, but still nothing seems to be showing up. I even tried closing the game and rebooting again for change to take effect. Wondering what I may be missing?

I just changed the portraits to the NFL logo (in the universe). It works.
I think you mean the players default flags?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Front Office Football Nine\artwork\flags

[nickelback]

55 game plan play limit? This is a joke.

[james17]

csv


Thanks Dales!

[james17]

Hey...just started to play my first game...love the in-game play interface...a big improvement over FOF8. I actually got some excitement calling the plays for my team. And now you can save a game your calling plays for during the game. I always wanted that feature. Nicely done Jim!

[Ben E Lou]

I bought FOF1 in Fall 1998. I've been playing it for 25 years. I'll be 55 next month. At this point, I should have already known that I'm getting old, but FOF9 just confirmed that for me.


How did FOF confirm that, you ask???


Because, for the first time in my life, I increased the font size of a game from the default, and WOW, it made a gigantic difference. 14-point Arial ftw. #OldManVibes

[cupofjoe]

I don't know if this is the place for suggestions, but on the roster page I think it is imperative to have their contract end date on the same screen as their overall ratings. Multiple times per year I do a review of my roster and the two most important things are their rating and when their contract ends. It would save me hundreds of clicks.

Yes please!

[Cole]

Because, for the first time in my life, I increased the font size of a game from the default, and WOW, it made a gigantic difference. 14-point Arial ftw. #OldManVibes

Only 39 here, but in my first play through I was finding the default font a bit tough on the eyes too. I experimented with different sizes of the default font, but didn’t try a new one. I’ll give Arial a whirl :cool:

[Cole]

I just changed the portraits to the NFL logo (in the universe). It works.
I think you mean the players default flags?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Front Office Football Nine\artwork\flags

I meant changing the flags on the player card to be a custom portrait.

Unfortunately I’ve come to realize it’s some sort of issue with the files I created … even though they’re 150 x 150 bmps, they aren’t showing up … but I tried using some of Nawlinfans logos as a player portrait and it worked fine.

So now I’m trying to troubleshoot what’s wrong with my files. Sure hope I can sort it out, or the 2,200 player fictional facepack I made will be useless :banghead: :banghead:

[jamesUMD]

Only 39 here, but in my first play through I was finding the default font a bit tough on the eyes too. I experimented with different sizes of the default font, but didn’t try a new one. I’ll give Arial a whirl :cool:

Ben is right. I didn't want to mess with the font, BUT that is so much better, Arial Regular 14 for me.

[Cole]

Ben is right. I didn't want to mess with the font, BUT that is so much better, Arial Regular 14 for me.

Yes! Just tried it, and it's MUCH better!

[Gallifrey]

I meant changing the flags on the player card to be a custom portrait.

Unfortunately I’ve come to realize it’s some sort of issue with the files I created … even though they’re 150 x 150 bmps, they aren’t showing up … but I tried using some of Nawlinfans logos as a player portrait and it worked fine.

So now I’m trying to troubleshoot what’s wrong with my files. Sure hope I can sort it out, or the 2,200 player fictional facepack I made will be useless :banghead: :banghead:

Yeah, good luck! I first changed mine to that windows default person outline but got sick of it, so just the league logo. I didn't have the gusto to work with all those IDs.

[Ben E Lou]

Yup. Arial Regular 14.

[MizzouRah]

Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed 14 seems good to me so far.

[Cole]

Yeah, good luck! I first changed mine to that windows default person outline but got sick of it, so just the league logo. I didn't have the gusto to work with all those IDs.

I had that thought too, to have the league logo be the "default" photo instead of the flags, or anything else. What's the easiest way to do that (without having to make hundreds of copies of the league logo and repeat it for every universe ID) ?

I noticed when I deleted the flags, the Solecismic logo now populates as the default ... so I assume just take the league logo file and replace whatever the file name of the Solecismic logo is?

[Gallifrey]

I had that thought too, to have the league logo be the "default" photo instead of the flags, or anything else. What's the easiest way to do that (without having to make hundreds of copies of the league logo and repeat it for every universe ID) ?

I noticed when I deleted the flags, the Solecismic logo now populates as the default ... so I assume just take the league logo file and replace whatever the file name of the Solecismic logo is?

Yes. I took the flag folder I think it was and changed each flag to the NFL logo. 150x150 bmp files of course.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Front Office Football Nine\artwork\flags

If you want the logos I created to replace the player flags you can get them here;

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AloHZi8JfsbEhlW9N2Gm4BeIK98b?e=v7UW0X

[NawlinsFan]

I bought FOF1 in Fall 1998. I've been playing it for 25 years. I'll be 55 next month. At this point, I should have already known that I'm getting old, but FOF9 just confirmed that for me.


How did FOF confirm that, you ask???


Because, for the first time in my life, I increased the font size of a game from the default, and WOW, it made a gigantic difference. 14-point Arial ftw. #OldManVibes



You are still a young man, young man!

[Olsson]

Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed 14 seems good to me so far.

This looks great!

[sovereignstar v2]

Old Championship Manager fans should try Eras font. :cool:

[Ben E Lou]

BIG positive interface improvement for me: the ability to scroll through my team or through free agents on the "contract" screen WITH the ability to view bars cur/fut and requested contract/reneg on the same screen. That has been extremely helpful.

[johnnyshaka]

First draft in a fictional NFL setup...1.1 is a friggin' kicker.

[Olsson]

The 10-0 Jacksonville Jaguars travels to Houston to take on the 1-9 Texans.

Incredible finish!

https://i.imgur.com/oE8RN93.jpg

[sovereignstar v2]

First draft in a fictional NFL setup...1.1 is a friggin' kicker.

??

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/81/9e/16/819e1649bbdc5fae2e89bb1ead792050.jpg

[sovereignstar v2]

Let me help :)

Here is johnny's kicker

https://imageupload.io/ib/djLgZpowi4c0rcz_1698959818.png

[johnnyshaka]

Thanks! lol

And Denver already have a 67 rated kicker so it definitely wasn't a need. :)

[nickelback]

I feel like I broke it.

https://imgur.com/4sMpTkN.png

https://imgur.com/zzpxAHy.png

[Bobble]

Since this is an impressions thread, I thought I'd offer mine. Mainly, I'm putting down the things that were bumps in the road.

- Seems like the game is meant to be played from the Manage tab. If so, then that shouldn't be the second-last tab. It should be first. And it should be the default tab. To be honest, I was a little lost until I ended up on that screen.

- It was a pain in the butt to try to do the 53-man inaugural draft by hovering over a player to get his attributes. It also sucked not being able to get any other info like who's taken whom, who was drafted in the last round, etc.

- Overall, this game would benefit greatly from customizeable, always sortable tables. As an example, as I'm looking at the Player Participation table for the last game, I'd like to see and sort it by position and starters.

- I felt kinda blindsided by the fact that I did the inaugural draft with a 4-3 in mind and then found out my D Coordinator was a 3-4 guy. Would be a good idea to present that kind of info to the user more obviously.

- There's no way I can change my team name, eh? I'm stuck with Columbus Texans now. Should probably take some of those "regional" names out of the database (Texans, Yankees, etc.)

- In the gameplanning screen, I ought to be able to hover over a play and have the diagram come up. Right now, I'm so disconnected from my plays that I feel like I have no choice but to let the AI do it. EDIT: I see that it DOES eventually show as a tooltip if I let it hover long enough. Great. I drafted safeties that aren't great blitzers. Which plays do I select so that I have more LB blitzes and less S blitzes? How would I know? EDIT: I see the blitz frequency screen. It's covered there.

- There should probably be a better way to automatically name my saved game then "Universe 2". Feels unfinished.

- I like the QB/WR chemistry (although I don't know why TE is not included). Would like to see the same thing for O-line chemistry, defensive front, and secondary respectively.

- Wouldn't mind a tooltip over the positions to tell me what the game is looking for in each position. Right now, I'm not sure why it's got this guy as a FL versus SE, a DRE v. DLE, etc.

- I wanted to print out the draft. There's no way to do that?

- Players from the initial draft have a "Joined Team" value of 29. A 0 or 1 or 2023 are values I can understand. 29 I don't.

- I thought the little wooden doll on the Medical screen would show where the injury is. A little disappointed that it's static.

- I got caught up on the roster limits. It tried to help my realize that I needed to get down to 53 but didn't pop an error when I didn't meet the position requirements. It just wouldn't let me continue.

- Game Books are cool. I particularly like the Game Flow chart.

- The player screen is clean and efficient.

All the stuff you would expect for a FOF game is there. Seems like a great evolution of the series.

Overall, it's a lot of fun but it feels like the game is fighting me a bit.

[RGVicedo]

I feel like I broke it.

https://imgur.com/4sMpTkN.png

https://imgur.com/zzpxAHy.png

WTF kind of result is this??? the game engine definitely needs tweaking if 9000 yds passing and nearly 100 TDs can be achieved... :devil:

[james17]

Is there no way to print out a team roster, game stats?

[mbh12368]

Has anyone else run into a bug where you play a team not in your division twice? I sent in a bug report to support

[jcard]

WTF kind of result is this??? the game engine definitely needs tweaking if 9000 yds passing and nearly 100 TDs can be achieved... :devil:

Was this a full-time empty backfield offense (TEs and WRs made all 85 skill position starts)?

[thefatcat]

WTF kind of result is this??? the game engine definitely needs tweaking if 9000 yds passing and nearly 100 TDs can be achieved... :devil:


Thats 38 pts per game as well, how easy was this to do?

[tzach]

WTF kind of result is this??? the game engine definitely needs tweaking if 9000 yds passing and nearly 100 TDs can be achieved... :devil:


that means 200 TDs is possible :devil:

[thefatcat]

that means 200 TDs is possible :devil:


I wonder if Jim will just rename the patching department "the Zach Zone" !


On a serious note i'll wait for a patch to fix this unrealism !

[RGVicedo]

that means 200 TDs is possible :devil:

The real life Arena Football league record of 142 TDs can now be surpassed in FOF9 via the use of an extreme passing playbook/gameplan...
:popcorn:

[fortheglory]

A lot of the UI complaints can probably be directed at OOTP Developments as well.

[garion333]

that means 200 TDs is possible :devil:

:popcorn:

[garion333]

I simmed as far as the game would let me and have been poking around at things.

*One thing I did notice was that Defensive players had some whack PD%:

Link to image: https://i.imgur.com/HWxB7Cv.png

*One confusing bit regarding the UI is during Staff Hire phase. When I don't need to hire a coach the correct thing to do is sim one day forward. Also, after you hire a coach you still need to hit the sim one day button. The game doesn't tell you this, however. Perhaps this info should be added to the bottom of the screen (where it's already telling you whether you must hire someone or not) or a button to "Skip" up near the "Hire X Coordinator" button. I'm sure the Manual mentions something about this, but I can't access it atm since Solecismic.com is currently down.

[johnnyshaka]

First draft in a fictional NFL setup...1.1 is a friggin' kicker.

Same draft...same team took a punter at 2.3!

[johnnyshaka]

Same draft...same team took a punter at 2.3!

And then they took a Long Snapper at 3.3!

[garion333]

And then they took a Long Snapper at 3.3!

Quit drafting Special Teams, Johnny. Sheesh. :rant:

[NawlinsFan]

Quit drafting Special Teams, Johnny. Sheesh. :rant:

He has always been "special"!

[garion333]

I'm growing more and more accustomed to hovering over parts to get the popups.

However, why is the popup directly on top of the mouse pointer? In the Draft I can't go from Bars to Interview to Combine Assessment without having to move away from the current popup. That's inefficient, but the fact the popups block out the current player's info is odd. When looking at the Combine Assessment popup I can't see that player's SPD, TYD and SOL. Even when I go full screen the pop up is still blocking SPD and TYD.

When looking at a player's bars it covers Speed. So you can't see all of a player's combines while looking at his bars. :banghead:


One other gripe: Can't get to Trade screen from a Player's card. "Trade this Player" button would be a nice add to the Actions.

Okay, glad I didn't hit Submit before I realized this:

Link to image: https://i.imgur.com/HFFZgml.jpeg

Why in the world are we seeing the League Scout's view during a Draft? What is the point of having Scouting bars on your coaches if all you can see during the draft is the League Scout's view?

I already felt like not being able to see a player's card during the draft a strange omission, but to then have the League Scout be the view ... ?

[Izulde]

I see font talk.

Georgia 11 point font is my default answer to any font questions.

[Ben E Lou]

Why in the world are we seeing the League Scout's view during a Draft? What is the point of having Scouting bars on your coaches if all you can see during the draft is the League Scout's view?

I already felt like not being able to see a player's card during the draft a strange omission, but to then have the League Scout be the view ... ?Do you think that's actually the league scout view, or just an incorrect item in the display? (My best guess is the latter.)

[Ben E Lou]

Positive note on the interface: I am REALLY liking scrolling through my roter on the "Contract" section of the player cards for renegotiations/cuts at FA1:1 (or whatever date that is now.)

[Ben E Lou]

Negative note on the interface: now that long snappers don't top out at 22/22 like in FOF8, they dominate the top of the FA listings. Need a way to filter on "All Non-Punters/Kickers/Long Snappers" so that the top 10-15 players in the overall search don't show those positions.

[rkmsuf]

roster vs late free agents. really miss multiple windows.

[Zman714]

I enjoy the new game. And lots of good suggestions already in this thread. But like others wish some of the screens and options from 8 carried over. Like all the unnecessary clicks to see overall and statistics and years remaining under contract and the new trade hq is a nightmare unless I’m missing something how is one to trade up in the draft? What if I want to trade down 3 spots? I have to shop a pick and hope the team that’s 3 spots down wants to trade? I don’t understand why the old trade interface didn’t cross over as a lot of the information displayed in 9 is very very similar to past versions. Call me old fashioned but I enjoyed single player in 8 and trying to trade and maneuver players and picks around with house rules and I feel like in its current state in 9 I’m being forced to leave trading up to a dice roll of of what the ai wants to take advantage of me 😆. Again maybe I’ve missed something and this is possible then by all means correct me. Hopefully some of all the requests made on the boards get addressed by Jim as I think this could be an amazing game that sucks hundreds of hours of my life away like 7 and 8 have done for me.

[dave1927p]

The lack of a years remaining / salary expiration information with the overall/potential in one screen is a deal breaker for me. Pains me to say, but I can’t play until this is added. I’ll have to stick with 8 for now unless there’s another screen that works, but that level of clicks is too much for me.

Wish the draft history had more stats listed also. I’d like to see the awards in one screen too opposed to the new drop down list option.

When clicking on the draft info on a player card it takes you to the college alumni list. This should take you to the draft history of that year like in 8

[MIJB#19]

The new Trade HQ has some positives and negatives.
I like that teams will do a suggestion what it will require to acquire their pick. Lesson learned: you have to know in advance what pick or player you want to acquire through a different screen.

An awkward one with that screen when trading draft picks: when you ask for a team with a pick in the 1st a spot lower what it takes, they will demand your pick 1 spot higher and want some lower rounders as well. For example, a move down from 1.9 to 1.10, will cost you additional picks, it doesn't get you additional picks. I've seen it happen with other 1st round picks as well when I asked the other team about their 1st and I happened to have the pick right ahead of them.


My biggest complaints with the interface is the No/Yes buttons on the screen where you make an offer to an FA, they're intuitively flipped around and the No button will also give you the 'already offered a contract' feedback, despite that it didn't get saved. As it is now, I try to make sure there is no reason to even click the No button.

I really liked that FA's that you attempt to lowball on will tell you to wait another day to make a new offer.



The game breaker to me right now is that cohesion works backwards: keeping players around now lowers cohesion (and overall team performance in the process), while keeping as few players as possible skyrockets it (and the performance). The good news: it seems this got added yesterday to the known issues.

[jzicc]

The game breaker to me right now is that cohesion works backwards: keeping players around now lowers cohesion (and overall team performance in the process), while keeping as few players as possible skyrockets it (and the performance).

I'll pay extra to keep it that way ;0)

[garion333]

Do you think that's actually the league scout view, or just an incorrect item in the display? (My best guess is the latter.)

I'm not sure, which is the issue. I sold my soul for coaches with high Scouting, only to have guys coming out lower than I saw them. Not like they're coming out like a different player, just well below what I was seeing with incredibly high Scouting on all my coaches.

I may be overly influenced by my recent draft where I took two WRs in the 1st and then they came out not quite what I expected. The top WR looked uber studly but came out 54/368. That 54 is great, but the 68 was a bit of a letdown. Perhaps I am simply not aware of what is static anymore on WRs so I can't look at this player and know he'll boom. We shall see.

Positive note on the interface: I am REALLY liking scrolling through my roter on the "Contract" section of the player cards for renegotiations/cuts at FA1:1 (or whatever date that is now.)

Agreed. It's nice to go through them without having to open a new window every time. If Jim sneaks the "Years Left" back on the standard Roster screen I think I'll be good with how this version does contracts.

Negative note on the interface: now that long snappers don't top out at 22/22 like in FOF8, they dominate the top of the FA listings. Need a way to filter on "All Non-Punters/Kickers/Long Snappers" so that the top 10-15 players in the overall search don't show those positions.

Also agreed. Seems like a relatively simple add.

[garion333]

I'll pay extra to keep it that way ;0)

I bet you liked 2nd Edition AD&D. :P


Me too.

[GrantDawg]

I bought FOF1 in Fall 1998. I've been playing it for 25 years. I'll be 55 next month. At this point, I should have already known that I'm getting old, but FOF9 just confirmed that for me.


How did FOF confirm that, you ask???


Because, for the first time in my life, I increased the font size of a game from the default, and WOW, it made a gigantic difference. 14-point Arial ftw. #OldManVibes
That so far has been the biggest help to even begin to let me play the game. Good font and setting.

[IlliniCub]

I honestly think this will be far and above my favorite FOF, it's just not yet. Some huge steps were made towards the FOF that I've always wanted just a few tweaks, rough edges, and quality of life improvements are needed in my opinion.

[EagleFan]

Hate to say it but very disappointed with this game. The UI is ugly and VERY unintuitive. The results seem okay but that doesn't matter when I can't even navigate to see what I want to see easily. Bring back the spreadsheet UI, that was very easy to manage. I don't want it to look like an app on an ipad, that takes all immersion away for me.

[thaynes888]

I bought FOF1 in Fall 1998. I've been playing it for 25 years. I'll be 55 next month. At this point, I should have already known that I'm getting old, but FOF9 just confirmed that for me.


How did FOF confirm that, you ask???


Because, for the first time in my life, I increased the font size of a game from the default, and WOW, it made a gigantic difference. 14-point Arial ftw. #OldManVibes

LOL! Me too!

[Ben E Lou]

I honestly think this will be far and above my favorite FOF, it's just not yet. Some huge steps were made towards the FOF that I've always wanted just a few tweaks, rough edges, and quality of life improvements are needed in my opinion.Same. I have a QB with 67 good decisions, 72 read defense, and 86 speed. I absolutely LOVE being able to do a lot of RPO and some pure option runs with a guy like that. (And it worked well.)

[MIJB#19]

I'll pay extra to keep it that way ;0)
The result of this counterintuitive cohesion was that I traded most of my players away for a crapload of picks, had enough cap room to sign most of the top FAs (from the other teams) and pick many top rookies. "Cohesion" became topnotch and the team went to the bowl game.

I mean, in 3 seasons time, we went from 13-3 juggernaut upset in the playoffs in season 1, to 1-15 in season 2 due to being the only team that kept more than 15 players, to in season 3 bowl losers by adopting that roster building strategy. It was a fun way to learn how the Trade HQ screen works.

I didn't mind all that much, because, you know, besides cohesion, trading is also my thing. :D

[Ben E Lou]

Do you think that's actually the league scout view, or just an incorrect item in the display? (My best guess is the latter.)
Follow-up on this: the amateur draft doesn't have this detail in the documentation, but the 53-round initial draft does:
If you hold your mouse over the icons in each player entry, you can see more information about each player. Holding your mouse over an “r” icon reveals a pop-up with your scout's impression of that player's attributes. Holding your mouse over a “c” icon reveals a pop-up with a player's original scouting combine results.
There are no player cards available during an allocation draft.I mean, this all sounds *exactly* like the amateur draft screen. The 53-man draft screen also says "league scout" when you mouse-over. I'm strongly leaning toward it simply being incorrectly displayed for this one.

[jcard]

The result of this counterintuitive cohesion was that I traded most of my players away for a crapload of picks, had enough cap room to sign most of the top FAs (from the other teams) and pick many top rookies. "Cohesion" became topnotch and the team went to the bowl game.

I mean, in 3 seasons time, we went from 13-3 juggernaut upset in the playoffs in season 1, to 1-15 in season 2 due to being the only team that kept more than 15 players, to in season 3 bowl losers by adopting that roster building strategy. It was a fun way to learn how the Trade HQ screen works.

I didn't mind all that much, because, you know, besides cohesion, trading is also my thing. :D

Whether operating logically or counterintuitively, that is an absurdly disproportionate role for cohesion. If people like that as a game mechanic, fair enough. As a simulation element, however, it is pure sports talk radio nonsense.

[johnnyshaka]

Seeing some wonky profit numbers and it appears to be due to very large negative jersey sales numbers for a handful of teams. We're talking north of $150M in the red while the rest of the league has $100M or more in jersey sales. Oddly enough, looking at the top jersey sales report it shows several of those teams have players at the top of the list. Anybody else seeing something similar?

[james17]

One big disappointment for me is the lack of the ability to print anything. Shoot we used to be able to print rosters with contract views or player ratings and box scores and play logs. Not anymore unless I'm missing something.

[Fidatelo]

Where are you guys seeing this cohesion thing? Is it a value displayed on a screen somewhere? I know QB's have Chemistry with WR's but is there a score for the whole team somewhere?


I've just finished my first off-season after winning the Bowl and retained like 40 players so I'm a bit saddened to read that I might be on the way to a terrible year because of that :(

[johnnyshaka]

Where are you guys seeing this cohesion thing? Is it a value displayed on a screen somewhere? I know QB's have Chemistry with WR's but is there a score for the whole team somewhere?


I've just finished my first off-season after winning the Bowl and retained like 40 players so I'm a bit saddened to read that I might be on the way to a terrible year because of that :(

League -> Reports and Info -> Team Cohesion Report

[molson]

Are we sure the cohesion thing isn't a bug? Having to get rid of players to improve a cohesion rating sounds awful. Part of the fun for this game for me has always been building a team you get vested in.

What are the prospects for this game being fun generally once some of the bugs are fixed? I don't do any playcalling or coaching, I always enjoyed buildings teams, creating my team identity over the years, making a run, blowing it up, building against, etc. Will that be more of a slog/work than prior versions?

[sovereignstar v2]

There is some note in the known bugs post about checking cohesion

[Fidatelo]

League -> Reports and Info -> Team Cohesion Report


Thanks!


My team is a 96 and 3rd overall, despite being the team with the lowest number of free agents signed. So maybe this isn't as clear cut as "retaining players is lowering cohesion"? Or am I misunderstanding the value?

[Olsson]

Here's my thoughts so far..

Positives:

UI - I really like the UI and the immersion it brings to the table. Small things like being able to see the top receivers while checking the standings. Great.

Trade HQ - I've traded more players in FOF9 than I have in approx 1000 hours of plying FOF8. I understand this will divide the players, but I like it.

Stats - The stats simply aligns better to the modern nfl.

Negatives:

Low retention on AI teams - It kills the immersion when you play a team two years in a row and the only player they have left on offense from year 1 is the QB.

Cohesion - Something just seems off here.

Contracts - I need a view with both Cur/Fut and end of contract. Wether it's adding EOC to the basic view or Cur/Fut to contracts doesn't matter to me.

The negative things have already been acknowledged by Jim and I'm looking forward to the first patch.

Overall:

I have no doubt in my mind that this game will become the best in the series. But we are not there yet.

[EagleFan]

Here's my thoughts so far..

Positives:

UI - I really like the UI and the immersion it brings to the table. Small things like being able to see the top receivers while checking the standings. Great.


I respectfully disagree. The UI is awful and kills any immersion for me. It's like I was playing a discount game on an iPad or phone. I say was because I already refunded the product and don't plan on returning. I'll stick with 8.

[NawlinsFan]

I respectfully disagree. The UI is awful and kills any immersion for me. It's like I was playing a discount game on an iPad or phone. I say was because I already refunded the product and don't plan on returning. I'll stick with 8.

The blessing is we can each have our own opinion. I do disagree with yours as I see this as evolutionary, not revolutionary. This is the first rendition of what I pray is a fruitful future. One that will allow Jim to incorporate tweaks, consolidate and steamline pages and displays all while deepening and enhancing the game play, both current and legacy replay.

Sorry that it drives you away and hope your don't give up on it and will return in the future.

[MarkRidings]

After some more time with the game, I'm really liking it, and will like it more once it's patched a couple times.

As far as the UI goes, I still like it better than FOF8 (and remember we are always grading the UI for this series on a pretty low bar). Once I figured where everything was, it's pretty easy for me to get the info I want.

My one real complaint, and it's not a big one I guess, but I want more information. The strength of this game has never been the UI, but the simulation engine and the stats it generates. So I WANT ALL THE STATS!

It's better this iteration. I really like the Game Book. But as an example, we have the drive charts in the Game Book, but I'd like to see that in the team stats page, where I can see how teams rank in points per drive, % of drives scoring (and inverse, defense of this), avg starting point etc.

I love the air yds stats on receivers, but I'd like to see more detail. Like YAC, in the individual stats we can't see YAC/reception.

It's nitpicking, but if the strength of this game is the stats, and its appeal to stats junkies (like most of us are), then don't hold anything back on this front.

As an aside on this, let us export csv again (or help us decode the .dat files). This give Jim the advantage of not having to come up with everything, and the community could develop tools to view advanced stats. Though I would want more than just basic stats in the csv. I'd want drive/play-by-play/formation information as well

Just my 2cents. Either way, I'm enjoying the games quite a bit.

[Yossarian]

first day back since 2014, excited to see if I can get back into this.

But I have to laugh seeing "Height (in eights of an inch)" (i'm sure there's a reason!)

[Dales]

The 10-0 Jacksonville Jaguars travels to Houston to take on the 1-9 Texans.

Incredible finish!

https://i.imgur.com/oE8RN93.jpg

Life imitates art.

[Ben E Lou]

Here's a little immersion thing that doesn't affect gameplay, but always bugged me a little in past versions that has been addressed in this one: home towns and colleges. Sure, some players (especially top-tier ones) go to colleges across the country, but most stay relatively near home. In past versions, it was clear that the colleges and home towns were not linked. Home towns were just random. There has definitely been some attention paid to this in this version. Most players are from a home town that "makes sense" to where they went to school, and I'm WITH that. (And yeah, I admit that I get a nonsensical rush out of seeing that the Dawgs went right into the USC Chickens' Den and stole HOF QB Argelan! :devil:)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ecn2fg5ipd340aqqvkfe3/colleghometowns.png?rlkey=omdbgw5310d9tdjbhw39txl9u&dl=1
Dropbox - colleghometowns.png - Simplify your life (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ecn2fg5ipd340aqqvkfe3/colleghometowns.png?rlkey=omdbgw5310d9tdjbhw39txl9u&dl=0)

[Ben E Lou]

Do you think that's actually the league scout view, or just an incorrect item in the display? (My best guess is the latter.)This was clarified in 9.0a. Now the mouseover does say that it's "your staff's scouting report of player attributes."

[Fidatelo]

This was clarified in 9.0a. Now the mouseover does say that it's "your staff's scouting report of player attributes."


Interesting. How does that relate to the "overrated/properly rated/underrated" commentary on the next column? When it said "league scout's view" I assumed the next column was your scout saying "yeah they are overrating this guy", but now I don't really know what to make of it.

[Ben E Lou]

Interesting. How does that relate to the "overrated/properly rated/underrated" commentary on the next column? When it said "league scout's view" I assumed the next column was your scout saying "yeah they are overrating this guy", but now I don't really know what to make of it.I'm open to the possibility that it has changed, but so far the mechanisms at work here appear to be unchanged from FOF7 and FOF8.

[Dutch]

Life imitates art.

Ugh…speaking of which, the other day Carson Wentz (31/31) led the 2025 8-9 Rams over my 12-5 Bucs in the playoffs…the Rams proceeded all the way to the Super Bowl (they lost the game). FOF just knows…

[Ben E Lou]

Here's a big "PRO" on the interface: filling out depth charts is wayyyyyyyy easier with all the ratings being on that screen. Really loving that.

[NawlinsFan]

Here's a big "PRO" on the interface: filling out depth charts is wayyyyyyyy easier with all the ratings being on that screen. Really loving that.

This. I am enjoying that insight as it gives you a clearer picture of capabilities.

[Fidatelo]

I'm open to the possibility that it has changed, but so far the mechanisms at work here appear to be unchanged from FOF7 and FOF8.


Do you know how that worked or I link to the docs around it? I don't believe I ever played 7 or 8 and I can't find documentation pages/wikis for those versions on the solecismic site.

[AlexB]

They looked pretty graphically jarring to me in the screenshots. So since game was announced I’ve been working on a fictional facepack made with the ZenGM faces.js program. The faces are a touch cartoony, sure, but for me will be more immersive than flags or nothing.

I’ve also got the photos grouped by ethnicity/player size too … so pictures you select for 320 lbs + lineman will look visually different than say a 180 lbs punter.

I’ve got over 2,000 player faces ready… I want to get a couple hundred more coach /staff photos ready before I release it. But just as a heads up for folks… I’ll have it released before week’s end.

As soon as I opened a payer card is was my first impression too.

Imsee there are facepacks now, but is it possible to have the team logo appear in that slot?

[NawlinsFan]

As soon as I opened a payer card is was my first impression too.

Imsee there are facepacks now, but is it possible to have the team logo appear in that slot?

Team logos, right now, no. Many hope that Jim can/wil change this in the future. I think one issue is having it track the player when they move from team to team or retire.

I know some have just replaced it with the league logo which is easier but still not desired.

[brandonray99]

Please move or allow us to move the draft pop up window away from the middle or better yet, change it to a clickable pop up box where we can just arrow down through the prospects quicker.

Also maybe give us the option to bring back the coach draft where you had to make a profit to increase chances to get a better coach.

Would also like to see the next years cap hit like before somewhere

[Unimaginative]

I love the Milestones page--super fun to see! A small thing that I don't think would be too tough to add to it, but would be a really fun toy, is the number of games played to reach a career milestone.

[AlexB]

Would be really good to be able to cllick on a player on the depth chart to remove them from that slot when trying to work out playing time v. tiredness - rearranging them at the moment is a PITA TBH

Also be good to have a pop up over the X, Z, R, S & V receiver positions to remind whether it is flanker, split end or slot

In fact it would also be really great to have a preference system for depth charts:
List your players in order of preference (WR1, WR2, Slot 1, Slot 2, LT1, LT2 etc)
When selecting "Ask Co-Ordinators for Depth Chart" they take those listings into account, match it with their endurance and then autofill

That should then mean less overall tweaking initially, and when a player is injured, the Autofill depth charts would be updated according to active personnel, but as crucially, when any injured/suspended players return, autofilling should be very close if not identical to the original depth chart

[AlexB]

On the game screen, it makes more sense to me to swap the play diagram with the PBP text box

At the moment when watching rather than coaching the game the field position, game clock, down & distance, etc are a long way from the PBP text: swapping the PBP box with the play diagram would move them closer to each other making it easier to glance between the two rather than darting between top centre & bottom centre

Edit - or have the game clock, field position, down & distance as the first line of every PBP - that would work just as well

[Marmel]

I don't know if this is possible to add to the game, but in my current universe, I ran into an AI vs AI playoff game that would rival any NFL comeback I've ever seen. It got me thinking about the real NFL and part of the 'lore' are those legendary games that we all know. Ice bowl, 28-3, Music City Miracle, etc

I think it would be awesome to be able to somehow tag a game as legendary, maybe even give it a nickname and have some kind of archive of these tagged games.

Anyway, I'll try to post a screen shot of this game later.

[Unimaginative]

I don't know if this is possible to add to the game, but in my current universe, I ran into an AI vs AI playoff game that would rival any NFL comeback I've ever seen. It got me thinking about the real NFL and part of the 'lore' are those legendary games that we all know. Ice bowl, 28-3, Music City Miracle, etc

I think it would be awesome to be able to somehow tag a game as legendary, maybe even give it a nickname and have some kind of archive of these tagged games.

Anyway, I'll try to post a screen shot of this game later.

Love that idea. A "bookmarks/favorites" page would be a really nice addition as a whole; let us flag players, coaches, and games and save them all on one page so that we can revisit them really easily.

[Cole]

Love that idea. A "bookmarks/favorites" page would be a really nice addition as a whole; let us flag players, coaches, and games and save them all on one page so that we can revisit them really easily.

Great idea!

[Marmel]

Love that idea. A "bookmarks/favorites" page would be a really nice addition as a whole; let us flag players, coaches, and games and save them all on one page so that we can revisit them really easily.

Love how you expanded on this with players, coaches, etc...
The HOF is nice, but ends up way to full after a while.

Milestones page would seem a good place for this spin off idea.

[AlexB]

MIght be just because it was preseason, but looking through play percentages...

I have 3 DE on the roster, and all packages have two of the 3 DEs on the depth chart - no LBs or DTs taking up DE positions at all

My two main DEs played 49% of snaps and 28% of snaps, and my backup play 3% - that is a lot of snaps not played by my DEs!

If it's to do with substitutions, it's not the same on offense:
The O-swapped about as i would like to see in pre-season, but RB didn't - my best skilled RB (but with endurance 2) played 84% of plays
QB3 didn't get a look in
One rookie WR I had in most packages (56/65 endurance) to get game time played 13% of plays

A little confused TBH, but hoping it may just be pre-season

[AlexB]

Dola, have to say that once one or two kinks are worked out (which either Jim has logged or others have raised) this looks like it will be the best FOF yet.

Excited for the new patch which will hopefully fix the firesale releases so can get to grips with a career game

[Ben E Lou]

Heh. Cutdown to 60 day in my FOF8 MP league and I'm finding myself having to think twice about roster requirements. The two vs three QBs thing is messin' with my mind.

[AlexB]

There's a few QoL improvements I would like to see (which I have suggested to Solecismic), but now playing out a league, I think the game is nmissing a trick by underutilising the News section...

There is a lot of blank space on the Manage screen, and i think there is easily enough room for more news lines:

I'm liking the Milestones section, but why not add this to the News stream: it would add a bit of life to the universe, probably encourage me to click on player records to see the careers of the players reaching this milestone (as I often feel my franchise is a bubble within the NFL, and i don't really know what's going on outside of that bubble

Similarly maybe winning/losing steaks over a certain length could be noted in the news, and when they come to an end (would have to be a decent so as to be newsworthy, but would add to the involvement in the league)

Injuries to players in the top 10 reated players in each position, or top 3 statistical leaders, starting QBs etc that mean they will miss time could be added as news lines

Players being put on IR could be in the news, bring back weekly awards (even if it is only Offensive & Defensive Players & Rookies of the week) and have that as a news item would just help bring the universe to life a little more

Shock underdog victories, team/individual/game records being broken; all of these being added as line items in the news section on the Manage Screen, with the empty space reduced would all make a massive difference IMHO...

What do others think?

[Eagle1967]

AWEFUL!-- Sorry loved version 8, was looking forward to better trading, better contracts, updated rules and schedules. I have no Idea what this is, but refund has been requested, this is aweful. There is no fun factor in this. and it cant be said well this is all about statistics, as they are not realistic either. Instead of taking a game with a few problems and fixing it and updating this was created. Hey maybe at least you cant trade a 32nd pick for a number 1 pick straight up now. But i didnt have 3 days to find where that might be. Refund was requested.

[NawlinsFan]

AWEFUL!-- Sorry loved version 8, was looking forward to better trading, better contracts, updated rules and schedules. I have no Idea what this is, but refund has been requested, this is aweful. There is no fun factor in this. and it cant be said well this is all about statistics, as they are not realistic either. Instead of taking a game with a few problems and fixing it and updating this was created. Hey maybe at least you cant trade a 32nd pick for a number 1 pick straight up now. But i didnt have 3 days to find where that might be. Refund was requested.



What was the name of that song... oh yeah, "Bye, Bye, Bye!"

[korme]

I haven't really fooled around since release week. Simple question, is it easy to navigate and figure out which page to be on every day, or do you simply have to kind of just remember which page to quickly go to each sim day? It felt so clunky navigating day by day, I gave up, which is sad, because I skew young for this demographic.

[AlexB]

I haven't really fooled around since release week. Simple question, is it easy to navigate and figure out which page to be on every day, or do you simply have to kind of just remember which page to quickly go to each sim day? It felt so clunky navigating day by day, I gave up, which is sad, because I skew young for this demographic.

Just head for the Manage page (pencil shortcut), and that will get you through.

I think the tick shortcut also sims a day at a time

[mikemarra82]

Would like more input for gameplanning, feel a lot is left to the coordinators. Also feels gameplanning the O and the D are two totally different animals.

[Danny]

I havent played a sports sim in several years but purchased this tonight and will check it out sometime in the next couple weeks.

[Dewguru]

As a former Front Office Football 7 and 8 owner, I have to say I like the new UI. It took a little getting used to, however, now I can navigate around a lot quicker.

I do use Gordonzolar's face pack, as the flags are an ugly player pic solution. Would have preferred a generic helmet wearing silhouette.

I do wish the wiki/manual was better, but these forums help cover a lot of the gaps from folks willing to answer questions.

I am one who won't be going back to an older version.

[Ben E Lou]

So, the AI *definitely* knows what to do with a running QB. This is a completely AI-generated game plan from a completely AI-generated playbook. VERY impressive. Loving all those option and RPO calls! :popcorn:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tu1zh77w8q2flsi3zlmxu/runningqbplan.png?rlkey=yc5de4yp1uesld1wywxqwqjqg&dl=1
Dropbox - runningqbplan.png - Simplify your life (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tu1zh77w8q2flsi3zlmxu/runningqbplan.png?rlkey=yc5de4yp1uesld1wywxqwqjqg&dl=0)



(QB has elite running skills--90 speed, 99 hole recognition, 76 good decisions.)

[markdub2]

(QB has elite running skills--90 speed, 99 hole recognition, 76 good decisions.)

thats cool... how do you see QB run ratings?

[Ben E Lou]

thats cool... how do you see QB run ratings?
Roster—>Skill Positions

[NawlinsFan]

So, the AI *definitely* knows what to do with a running QB. This is a completely AI-generated game plan from a completely AI-generated playbook. VERY impressive. Loving all those option and RPO calls! :popcorn:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tu1zh77w8q2flsi3zlmxu/runningqbplan.png?rlkey=yc5de4yp1uesld1wywxqwqjqg&dl=1
Dropbox - runningqbplan.png - Simplify your life (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tu1zh77w8q2flsi3zlmxu/runningqbplan.png?rlkey=yc5de4yp1uesld1wywxqwqjqg&dl=0)



(QB has elite running skills--90 speed, 99 hole recognition, 76 good decisions.)


Agreed, sometimes maybe a bit too much. I have a QB that is on the lower limits of what I would think is worthy of considering trying some RPO's but the AI seems to think he is more capable. A few games in and they are sure as hell calling a fair share of RPO's with marginal results. Time to get better at tweaking these plans.

[james17]

Loving the new game. I play out all my team's games and call the plays. It's seems to be quite realistic and challenging.


Two areas of improvement i'd like to see are more negotiating in the trading process and a restoration of the printing options that FOF8 had.

[Mike Lowe]

Does anyone else see their AI- generated gameplans calling for a ton of screen passes?

Playing as the Raiders, and I'm constantly seeing completions of 5 yards where the receiver gained 10 yards after the catch or something similar to that.

[cupofjoe]

The only thing preventing me from starting my first serious save is the salary cap situation/releasing of players from the cpu teams. Once that's fixed, I'm good to go.


But I also understand that it may take awhile to rework that situation.

[markdub2]

Does anyone else see their AI- generated gameplans calling for a ton of screen passes?

Playing as the Raiders, and I'm constantly seeing completions of 5 yards where the receiver gained 10 yards after the catch or something similar to that.

i noticed this in FOF8 as well. Can u see on the play calling screen if the screen pass is the primary target or an outlet? I think the AI will generate a lot of plays where it uses the "screen" as a checkdown route, where IRL it would be something like an arrow/flat route or just a check-release over the ball type route as the checkdown

[Ben E Lou]

After a few weeks, there are things I like about the new interface, things I dislike, and things that are neutral. But far and away my favorite new thing is the ability to scroll through player cards on the "Contract" view and see their requested contract for FAs or renegotiation for my own players on the same screen. Hugely helpful and streamlines those processes. Way better than filtering by a specific contract amount, because sometimes a guy who wants just a little more than what I'm thinking I want to pay for that slot just looks like he's "worth it."

[nilodor]

I've been away from watching the NFL for a while, but does it seem like QB's run for a lot of yards in this game? I'm seeing multiple QB's with over 1000 yards in a season. That seems a bit excessive?

[Ben E Lou]

I've been away from watching the NFL for a while, but does it seem like QB's run for a lot of yards in this game? I'm seeing multiple QB's with over 1000 yards in a season. That seems a bit excessive?Last year 5 QBs ran for 700+, and Justin Fields ran for 1100+. 14 QBs had 50+ rushes last year, and it's looking like it'll be around that number this year as well. QBs are running a lot more. We could quibble over how many high-yardage outliers there should be, but there has definitely been a marked increase overall in QBs running in the NFL. (I just pulled up a random season--2010--and only five QBs had 50+ carries then.)

[MizzouRah]

While I'm finally starting to enjoy FOF9 as I figure out the various screens, I still prefer FOF8's layout. I'm sure as time goes by FOF9 will grow on me, but it's making me really appreciate what a great UI FOF8 is/was.

[Haiku]

While I'm finally starting to enjoy FOF9 as I figure out the various screens, I still prefer FOF8's layout. I'm sure as time goes by FOF9 will grow on me, but it's making me really appreciate what a great UI FOF8 is/was.

I haven't played FOF8, but it looks weird and vastly outdated. I watched a few playthroughs on YouTube and felt lost. The guy opens new windows, moves them around and stacks them one over another. It looks so unintuitive and disorganized at first glance. It resembles a financial application rather than an actual game. I would never buy it if FOF9 didn't have updated UI.

[NawlinsFan]

I haven't played FOF8, but it looks weird and vastly outdated. I watched a few playthroughs on YouTube and felt lost. The guy opens new windows, moves them around and stacks them one over another. It looks so unintuitive and disorganized at first glance. It resembles a financial application rather than an actual game. I would never buy it if FOF9 didn't have updated UI.

On the flip side many of the legacy players were just as lost initially with 9 as you feel you would be with 8 until the play it for awhile. Both foundations are strong, just different methods of presenting the information.

[Jops]

Was really enjoying FOF9, spent the last 2 hours building out my playbook, dominating the league with Kyle Allen, most fun i've had with the game in ages.

I'll just check my mail, nope, thats the "create a new universe button" 3 hours of time down the drain. Love it.

[Jops]

Update: Whilst still devastated and not in the mood to recreate the 50plays I did today, I rolled with a worse version of that gameplan.

Kyle Allen threw for 6300 yards, 51 TDs, 46 INTs, my FB had 800 yards receiving and we won the bowl.

5*

Mainly sad as on the previous playbook Allen threw about half the interceptions he did this time

[Mike Lowe]

I'm enjoying the game. I like the day-to-day concept (inspired by OOTP I'm guessing) even though I don't do much those days playing as just a GM.

I've been using the default 100 for injuries and while my Saints (GM only) are 6-2, we've lost Carr (who hadn't thrown an interception through 5 games) and a handful of knee ligament injuries. I "had a meeting" with my trainer, meaning I just took a closer look at his profile lol. He seems fine, so my only guess is that the surface in New Orleans Superdome (or whatever it's called now) is just rough.

I simmed these 8 games while on an 11-hour flight last night from London to San Diego. It was fun!

This game could be wildly popular with an interface upgrade. I know that's been talked to death, but it's a clear miss, unfortunately. It's like building a beautiful house frame with the plumbing and electrical, but never painting, putting in flooring, windows, etc. So much of the hard work is done. Outsource the rest if needed? I know it's not this easy, and I've read the replies, but I simply don't find it as an excuse.

I say this because I want Jim to reap the reward of his labor. It's frustrating because I cannot even fathom how difficult this game (and others) have been for him to write. But there are solutions to this, no matter how hard.

[markdub2]

This game could be wildly popular with an interface upgrade. I know that's been talked to death, but it's a clear miss, unfortunately.

I really dont think the new FOF9 interface is much more difficult than OOTPs. I dont understand where all the complaints for FOF9 come from when OOTPs UI is just as dense and click-demanding but its praised as a shining example of good sports sim UI...

[Mike Lowe]

I really dont think the new FOF9 interface is much more difficult than OOTPs. I dont understand where all the complaints for FOF9 come from when OOTPs UI is just as dense and click-demanding but its praised as a shining example of good sports sim UI...

The average person under the age of 40 is not interacting with anything that looks remotely like FOF 9, be it the interface or the design. That's the miss, IMO. Add in the modern attention span, and this is why we're seeing negative reviews. It's unfortunate, but it should not be surprising.

The game is good, even without MP, but I'm 44 and have played the game for close to 25 years. Most new people to the series won't give it a chance, and certainly not many in a younger demographic (although that could be said about most sport sims today, I would imagine).

To use an example that a lot of us are probably familiar with outside of sports sims...look at TurboTax. Taxes suck, are super boring, and just a bunch of numbers. But the interface makes sense. It flow. It's actually a bit pretty even in places.

[cupofjoe]

I agree that it's not an attractive UI. However, I am under 40 by a decent margin and I don't actually mind the UI haha. It takes a bit to get used to and I still haven't found everything, but I'm hooked on this game.

[Mike Lowe]

Yeah, I hear you. I guess I see how crazy popular mock draft simulators are, and I'm like, "Why don't these people just play FOF!?"

There's more to it, like how busy those people are, their interest in only the RL draft, but that disconnect drives me crazy. There's a lot to that, far more than an interface, but it's a puzzle I want to solve.

[molson]

I'm curious how people are playing this game, since we don't really have people doing dynasties anymore. Are you just fucking around with it like a simulator, or getting vested in one team and career and playing it like a game - and if so, are you calling every play, making every move, acting from the "front office" only?

I haven't been able to connect with a sim as a fun game I'm vested in years, not sure whether I'm older, or if the games are just to overwhelming and I haven't figured out the best way to set AI for stuff and control what's fun to control.

I pretty much only want to have early-era FOF level of control - transactions, maybe depth charts (but not to the level the modern games let me), very light game planning (basically just broad categories of running v. passing, going for it on 4th down, etc.) and following along.

[AlexB]

The depth charts are what are killing me on this game. I keep switching between an FOF7 career and FOF9…

Everything in FOF9 is better other than:

The draft process - the fact you can’t see the live draft board dwindling as players picked is a biggie for me

Trading, but I can cope with this. FOF7 is better in this regard, but it’s not a dealbreaker

Edit: the game day experience is much better in FOF7 too - just having gameday leaders, players of the week, etc, breathes some life into the universe. FOF9 is a bit dead in that reagrd: it’s very easy to have no clue what is happening with the rest of the league

What is becoming a dealbreaker though are the depth charts in FOF9 (and was a big issue for me in FOF8 too) - it takes too long to adjust for injuries, and trying to keep players from getting tired by switching formation usage, not really knowing what penalties having a player in red actually means, not having backups, all just frustrates me

In most regards FOF9 is better, but TBH I’m finding that FOF7 is just more fun

[AlexB]

Dola, but to answer your question , I’m trying to play the same as I always do:

I have no interest in playbooks or game planning, so leave that to the AI. Same with play calling.

I pretty much want to do everything else though, and watch the games play out, rather than just quick sim and see the box scores afterwards

[james17]

I play all my team's games out and I think the ability to call plays in the game is handled very well. It's neat to get the OC and DC recommended formation and plays but then have the ability to override them.



I just wish I knew more about the intricacies of calling defenses. I need to go to the help file in more depth.

[canuxrok]

I'm curious how people are playing this game, since we don't really have people doing dynasties anymore. Are you just fucking around with it like a simulator, or getting vested in one team and career and playing it like a game - and if so, are you calling every play, making every move, acting from the "front office" only?

I haven't been able to connect with a sim as a fun game I'm vested in years, not sure whether I'm older, or if the games are just to overwhelming and I haven't figured out the best way to set AI for stuff and control what's fun to control.

I pretty much only want to have early-era FOF level of control - transactions, maybe depth charts (but not to the level the modern games let me), very light game planning (basically just broad categories of running v. passing, going for it on 4th down, etc.) and following along.


Personally, I haven't been calling plays or even gameplanning, not because I don't find those features very cool and in depth but just because it takes much longer. I may go back to doing that at some point but for now I've just been simming and reading the play by play afterwards.



I am doing a dynasty that I just started but I've been running it on the main OS forums instead of here. At the time I started it there was like no active NFL content in the football dynasty forum and I also thought it might be good visibility for the game.

[molson]

I am doing a dynasty that I just started but I've been running it on the main OS forums instead of here. At the time I started it there was like no active NFL content in the football dynasty forum and I also thought it might be good visibility for the game.

Cool, I'll check that out.

[Passacaglia]

Just got the game over the weekend and loving it so far. But..I don't get why it's gone from a weekly model to a daily model, but didn't take advantage of that in terms of scheduling. No Thursday night and Monday night games? I'm playing as the Lions...no Thanksgiving games? No Saturday games late in the season? We've got maps telling me what the weather is in every city on every day, but we can't make some of the games 1 PM Eastern and some of them 4 PM Eastern? European cities are included in the game, so even they could be used to host NFL games, just like what's happening now. It feels like this is getting really close to immersion as if this is a real league, and adding little wrinkles like that would help.

[Passacaglia]

I wasn't planning on putting the franchise tag on my long snapper, but it's weird that if I did, the game is saying it would be over 5M. When I look at all the long snappers on rosters, the highest on the list says his comp is 2.85M. And when I click on him, his contract says his salary is 1.4M for this year, and his bonus is 200K. I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff going on in calculating franchise salaries, and I tried to see if I could verify something is wrong for safeties. That didn't seem right either, but in a way that could be correct for all I know. But that 5M for a long snapper is really showing that something is off.

[Passacaglia]

I really love the stage where you can sign players with expired contracts before the rest of free agency. That feels like a great compromise between the different ways things have been handled before. I really had trouble getting into FOF 8 partially because I felt like I needed to extend a player's contract before his last season starts if I wanted to avoid him hitting FA. But now I can let his current contract play out, then still talk to him before other teams do at the beginning of the next season. That's huge. Before it was either "you can't extend him in the last season" or "you can extend him in the last season, but you have to hope your cap situation allows it this year, even though you're doing it for next year" -- big improvement imo.

[Passacaglia]

Just got the game over the weekend and loving it so far. But..I don't get why it's gone from a weekly model to a daily model, but didn't take advantage of that in terms of scheduling. No Thursday night and Monday night games? I'm playing as the Lions...no Thanksgiving games? No Saturday games late in the season? We've got maps telling me what the weather is in every city on every day, but we can't make some of the games 1 PM Eastern and some of them 4 PM Eastern? European cities are included in the game, so even they could be used to host NFL games, just like what's happening now. It feels like this is getting really close to immersion as if this is a real league, and adding little wrinkles like that would help.

I was poking around the 2023 schedule file when I saw a bunch of dates that games would be played, and thought, "oh maybe I can make this happen with some modding at least, although it'd be a pain to set that up each year" but then I saw in the schedules file

DAY - The calendar day (1-31) when the game is played. Note that all games in Front Office Football Nine must be scheduled to be played on a Sunday.

Blah.

[AlexB]

Perservering with it... Just had a game where my QB threw 71 times, a WR had 32 targets and 22 catches, both of which would be NFL records

If it had been a different team, i would be completely oblivious to the fact: it would help bring the game to life if there were notifications of milestone events such as this on the Manage screen after they happen

[KingZal]

Perservering with it... Just had a game where my QB threw 71 times, a WR had 32 targets and 22 catches, both of which would be NFL records

If it had been a different team, i would be completely oblivious to the fact: it would help bring the game to life if there were notifications of milestone events such as this on the Manage screen after they happen
Those notifications do exist, but the game doesn't account for real life records. Also you have to run the save file for a few years for those notifications to appear.

[Olsson]

Some of the stories this game creates are crazy.

Meet Jon McBride. Signed as a UDFA 5 years ago. He's had a total of 114 attempts over those 5 years and then he goes off in the 2030 playoffs and lead the Bears to a Super Bowl.

https://i.imgur.com/dzL2afd.jpg

[cupofjoe]

One thing that I wish could be adapted is the trade value for studs on their 5th year option. For some reason, I never get good value if I trade them.

I get that it’s following the logic of giving up picks + new contract. But in real life, some of these players would get multiple 1sts.

But as I’ve said before, I know realistic trade logic is an extremely hard thing to get down in these types of games.

[Colly]

First off, I enjoy the game. So what I write next is not a criticism because it does not affect my enjoyment of the game but it's just an observation.

Depth Charts are not really depth charts, are they?

They are more about assigning starters to positions on the play structure, i.e. 113, 014 etc. From what I see, and admittedly I've only got a few hundred hours in the game the AI is taking control of actual "depth". Maybe I'm missing it but I don't know if the player can affect that choice anywhere in the game other than in the substitution screen while in play-calling mode.

I've got a few thousand hours in both College and Pro games of the DDS franchise and those are true depth and package editors.

[KingZal]

Does anybody know how the positional scores are calculated in this game? In League->Reports and Info->Positional Rankings.

I have a monster front seven, with three DTs rated 79 and above and two starting DEs rated in the 60s, but my positional score for the defensive line is 52/100. The linebacker group, meanwhile, is 100/100.

My theory is that it has to do with scheme fit. I currently run a 43 defensive scheme but most of my linemen have a 34DE or 34NT fit. Not sure whether that's affected my defense for the worse, to be honest.

[Passacaglia]

Does this happen to anyone else? My starting QB is injured, but not out. He's a franchise-type QB, so I keep him in. But he only plays a couple drives, then the backup comes in. There's no message in the play-by-play that he's hurt again, and he's not more injured than before when the game is done, it's just like his injury makes him only able to play for a little while? It happens even when he's at 97%.

[KingZal]

That's happened to me before. My starting quarterback suffered a strained abdominal muscle in Week 14, and in consecutive weeks he started before being pulled. In Week 15 he got pulled mid drive, going into the second quarter; in Week 16 he started the first two drives and my backup took over the rest of the way.

I don't remember what his effectiveness was, but I ended up benching him until he was 100% healthy, which didn't happen until the Front Office Bowl.

[AlexB]

Does this happen to anyone else? My starting QB is injured, but not out. He's a franchise-type QB, so I keep him in. But he only plays a couple drives, then the backup comes in. There's no message in the play-by-play that he's hurt again, and he's not more injured than before when the game is done, it's just like his injury makes him only able to play for a little while? It happens even when he's at 97%.

The whole injury thing is frustrating - it looks to me like the game overrides roster decisions for any injury other than Probable: if a player has a Questionable or Doubtful designation he doesn’t play even if he’s on your depth chart

I feel like I’m :deadhorse: but the depth charts and ability to get the players on the field that you want on the field were so much better (and quicker to adjust) in FOF7

[garion333]

First off, I enjoy the game. So what I write next is not a criticism because it does not affect my enjoyment of the game but it's just an observation.

Depth Charts are not really depth charts, are they?

They are more about assigning starters to positions on the play structure, i.e. 113, 014 etc. From what I see, and admittedly I've only got a few hundred hours in the game the AI is taking control of actual "depth". Maybe I'm missing it but I don't know if the player can affect that choice anywhere in the game other than in the substitution screen while in play-calling mode.

I've got a few thousand hours in both College and Pro games of the DDS franchise and those are true depth and package editors.

You are correct. The game moved to this model with FOF8, if my memory serves. It's rubbed a number of people the wrong way (see Alex's post above this post), but in some ways it feels like it made Endurance actually important rather than just a question of whether a player played tired or not.

[SgtTomorrow]

https://www.frontofficegames.com/
Jim's link on X appears to have been hijacked if someone can pass it on...

[Unimaginative]

A thought I'm having as I really get into FoF9 for the first time: it would be nice to be able to see stats over a range of seasons. Say I want to see who leads the league in Receiving yards since I drafted my stud #1 in 2032, or make an All-Decade Team for the 2030s.

[FBPro]

I bought the game on day one and have played off and on since. I have created about 3 universes I believe and it has been about a month since I've played. I say all that to say, I opened it just now and only have one league file and am wondering if anyone besides me has seen this and no I really haven't done anything unusual like deleting a bunch of files etc.

[cupofjoe]

I bought the game on day one and have played off and on since. I have created about 3 universes I believe and it has been about a month since I've played. I say all that to say, I opened it just now and only have one league file and am wondering if anyone besides me has seen this and no I really haven't done anything unusual like deleting a bunch of files etc.


I've seen a couple of complaints about saved files being deleted. But I haven't experienced it

[NYC13]

The whole injury thing is frustrating - it looks to me like the game overrides roster decisions for any injury other than Probable: if a player has a Questionable or Doubtful designation he doesn’t play even if he’s on your depth chart

I feel like I’m :deadhorse: but the depth charts and ability to get the players on the field that you want on the field were so much better (and quicker to adjust) in FOF7

Fpr the injuries, I discovered if you go into the Settings section of the Strategy page you can adjust how aggressively the AI will play an injured player. I have questionable injured players playing when I want them to by turning up that setting.

But agreed on your depth chart comments overall. It's particularly frustrating with the offensive line. If my left tackle is tired, I want to decide who steps in for him. Maybe I have a swing tackle that is effective at both. Maybe I have one guy who is a better LT with better pass protection ratings I'd want there as a backup. Maybe I want to have my young backup Center also get some experience at Guard by getting subbed in when the starting Guards need a rest. It seems like I could do this within the game itself maybe, via the Examine Lineup page, but that's kind of a pain to have to do individually for each formation type during a game

[nfg22]

Last year I bought and refunded the game. The UI seemed like huge regression. The flow of everything seemed worse. My eyes hurt just searching for information.

Then I had an inkling to try again, maybe I was too harsh.

Again I cannot get into this and I feel like I am being gaslit. There is no possible way people think this is better than old versions of FOF. Its either cope or blind fanboyism. Jim has a great legacy but this is not it. He obviously failed to adapt with the times and refuses to learn a modern(even semi modern) UI framework.

Maybe the engine is better than ever, idk. But I cant even go between menus without wanting to shoot someone. Maybe its because when I played this game 10-25 years ago I was not a programmer myself. But I cannot see this as anything other than poor decisions all around.

I know im screaming into the void because no one has posted in this thread for almost 8 months, even though it is supposedly the best FOF game by far. Anyways Im sure I will try in another year See you then.

[Haiku]

Last year I bought and refunded the game. The UI seemed like huge regression. The flow of everything seemed worse. My eyes hurt just searching for information.

Then I had an inkling to try again, maybe I was too harsh.

Again I cannot get into this and I feel like I am being gaslit. There is no possible way people think this is better than old versions of FOF. Its either cope or blind fanboyism. Jim has a great legacy but this is not it. He obviously failed to adapt with the times and refuses to learn a modern(even semi modern) UI framework.

Maybe the engine is better than ever, idk. But I cant even go between menus without wanting to shoot someone. Maybe its because when I played this game 10-25 years ago I was not a programmer myself. But I cannot see this as anything other than poor decisions all around.

I know im screaming into the void because no one has posted in this thread for almost 8 months, even though it is supposedly the best FOF game by far. Anyways Im sure I will try in another year See you then.

The UI of FOF8 is only better for you because you are used to it. For new players, it's atrocious. The new navigation system, although not great, is actually much more similar to the OOTP franchise, which is beloved by many.

[nfg22]

The UI of FOF8 is only better for you because you are used to it. For new players, it's atrocious. The new navigation system, although not great, is actually much more similar to the OOTP franchise, which is beloved by many.

That's funny because I have thousands of hours in ootp as well. Never had an issue with UI. Maybe I'm just a hater I don't know.

Jim has admitted in the past he doesn't want to experiment with new UI libraries. Maybe his time at ootp migrated him towards ootp but it definitely doesn't seem as intuitive to me in fof 9.

I also dont know how you can compare these two. One is outdated custom shite from 1999 and one is probably closer to 2018-2020 with more modern libraries. Likely QT4? Not sure.

Rounded Buttons? Nope. Spacing used? Nope. So much wasted space. The text in FOF is near unreadable, all so we can have a bunch of blank space.
Oh but you say Jim isn't a UI guy, he is a true engineer with great logic. I agree, which is why people have created modern frameworks which do progressive spacing for you, instead of custom coding every single space and text.

Its like coding a website in base HTML. You do not have to use tailwind, but maybe consider bootstrap?

https://i.imgur.com/41lVcNQ.png

https://i.imgur.com/uEuwP3o.png

[Solecismic]

What I wrote was quite different. Please quote me directly and in context.

I would be curious, since you say you're a programmer, to see something you've done professionally.

Earlier, you had claimed that you could redo the entire FOF interface using Chat GPT in just a few hours. I'd also like to see that. Not just a screen mockup, but an actual interface.

By the way, one tip with the interface that's in the documentation, in case you're honestly interested in playing the game. I thought it would be good, in the long run, for people to choose their own font families and sizes. I made this choice because the font I like best is not necessarily on every computer and I don't have the rights to distribute it.

If text is too small to read and there's too much blank space, you can use a larger font and the screen will adjust all the elements that use text. I went small with the default because different Windows versions are tricky about reporting sizes - it's not always cut and dried - trying to detect and decide probably works with Windows 10 and 11 quite well, maybe not so much on earlier versions. So my default is set to work with the smallest screen size I support.

You've mentioned Qt a few times. OOTP-FOF was in Qt - I'm pretty sure it was Qt5 - we had the same base as FHM. I used it for a long time. I didn't like the List Control - it was too rigid an architecture, too slow, and didn't have all the display functionality I needed. That's why I switched. I still haven't found anything, after many years of doing this, as fast and versatile as the ListCtrl I've created on the MFC base. And for this type of game, a good ListCtrl is far more important than any other widget. The downside of my approach is that it can't be ported to Mac.

[nfg22]

That's funny because I have thousands of hours in ootp as well. Never had an issue with UI. Maybe I'm just a hater I don't know.

Jim has admitted in the past he doesn't want to experiment with new UI libraries. Maybe his time at ootp migrated him towards ootp but it definitely doesn't seem as intuitive to me in fof 9.

I also dont know how you can compare these two. One is outdated custom shite from 1999 and one is probably closer to 2018-2020 with more modern libraries. Likely QT4? Not sure.

Rounded Buttons? Nope. Spacing used? Nope. So much wasted space. The text in FOF is near unreadable, all so we can have a bunch of blank space.
Oh but you say Jim isn't a UI guy, he is a true engineer with great logic. I agree, which is why people have created modern frameworks which do progressive spacing for you, instead of custom coding every single space and text.

Its like coding a website in base HTML. You do not have to use tailwind, but maybe consider bootstrap?

https://i.imgur.com/41lVcNQ.png

https://i.imgur.com/uEuwP3o.png

What I wrote was quite different. Please quote me directly and in context.

I would be curious, since you say you're a programmer, to see something you've done professionally.

Earlier, you had claimed that you could redo the entire FOF interface using Chat GPT in just a few hours. I'd also like to see that. Not just a screen mockup, but an actual interface.

By the way, one tip with the interface that's in the documentation, in case you're honestly interested in playing the game. I thought it would be good, in the long run, for people to choose their own font families and sizes. I made this choice because the font I like best is not necessarily on every computer and I don't have the rights to distribute it.

If text is too small to read and there's too much blank space, you can use a larger font and the screen will adjust all the elements that use text. I went small with the default because different Windows versions are tricky about reporting sizes - it's not always cut and dried - trying to detect and decide probably works with Windows 10 and 11 quite well, maybe not so much on earlier versions. So my default is set to work with the smallest screen size I support.

You've mentioned Qt a few times. OOTP-FOF was in Qt - I'm pretty sure it was Qt5 - we had the same base as FHM. I used it for a long time. I didn't like the List Control - it was too rigid an architecture, too slow, and didn't have all the display functionality I needed. That's why I switched. I still haven't found anything, after many years of doing this, as fast and versatile as the ListCtrl I've created on the MFC base. And for this type of game, a good ListCtrl is far more important than any other widget. The downside of my approach is that it can't be ported to Mac.


You got me on the ChatGPT thing, I could not actually write the whole interface in a few hours. I actually don't remember saying that but its in the history so I did.

I shouldn't have to change the text to make the game readable. I understand you may have a preference but the base preference should be readily pleasant. I don't change text on other text sims to make them readable, but I may mess with color schemes and such to get it closer to my preferences.

On the issue of the UI. Your skill(as well as mine, if we are asking about professional project) lies in the game engine. It works well. If you use QT(or other styllable framework), it should be decently easy to contract out UI styling and get a much more pleasant experience at a pretty decent price. I've done it, because I'm not good at UI.

Even then I do not think the whole flow of the UI makes sense, but again maybe that's just because I have such a sour taste in my mouth from the initial experience and won't give it a chance to learn it.

[jolo240]

For me, my minor issue with the game is that there are certain game elements that isn't in the manual. Maybe for FOF veterans it would make sense but not for a total newbie. A better manual would help a lot, specially for total newbies.

Some terms are self-explanatory (red flag, mentors) but there are some game elements that aren't in the manual. Some elements like which coach attributes matter, positon specialty, which attributes matter more for defensive players, etc.

The UI is quite old school, but I've gotten the hang of it.

[Haiku]

That's funny because I have thousands of hours in ootp as well. Never had an issue with UI. Maybe I'm just a hater I don't know.


My point was that the navigation between screens is better, and the general layout - with the menu at the top and the calendar in the upper-right is very similar to OOTP. This alone is a big improvement over FOF8 imo, but of course everyone sees things differently.

[Solecismic]

There's a mouse-over for what the attributes control. Nothing's hidden. It's hard to say what mix of defensive attributes matter in what percentages - that's dependent on what you're trying to do. Even the AI teams look at them differently in some cases.

I think you're right that there should be more written about coaching attributes. The text files in the data folder are meant to be a manual supplement, but since the coach files do not include ratings, those are absent and it isn't as clear as it should be what matters for coordinators versus head coaches.

Going back to UI - I'd be interested, nfg22, if you could provide examples of your work as a programmer and how you found a Qt expert and how that integration worked.

Since I spent a lot of time with Qt and the styling is all configurable, the advantages of a well-programmed resizing algorithm are apparent, but its rigidity of architecture and slow speed drove me crazy. I initially wanted to stick with it, but when you're dealing with 200 screens - and the data modeling requirements mean so much extra work for anything that's built differently... I felt I was spending more time on the UI than rewriting the game. It saved a lot of time to finally scrap Qt and start over on the interface and I think, with proper use of threading, FOF9 is much faster.

I've written a lot about the difficulty in expanding my company to a second person, so I'm interested in your experience, given your strong opinions about how (expletive deleted) my work is, so I hope you read what I wrote at the time - it's on a couple of the items - and are specific about what you have done differently.

We can agree to disagree on the text issue. It is undoubtedly related to my choice of development platform and desire to keep the game working back to Windows 8, but it's so easy to change the font if you have a higher-resolution monitor that I don't think it's a huge deal. My philosophy of interface, such as that is, revolves around the ListCtrl. That's what makes sims like this possible. If you're going to play for hundreds of hours, you're going to get more benefit from being able to choose the font yourself from what you have on your computer. I could write thousands of lines more about this, but I think I made the right choice given that I don't have a UI programmer or a staff. Your response, however, makes me question whether I should try and run a detection specific to Windows 10/11 and increase font size for higher res monitors only on 10/11. If that's the main reason behind the (expletive deleted) commentary, at least.

[MizzouRah]

Are the cap numbers off on the 2024 rosters?

Denver is at the top + $82,670,000 and Cincinnati is at the bottom + $13,030,000.

[Solecismic]

I've never done cap adjustments on the data files. The situation with dead cap money and how teams work around that is more about its construction than any snapshot in time.

[MizzouRah]

I've never done cap adjustments on the data files. The situation with dead cap money and how teams work around that is more about its construction than any snapshot in time.

Thanks, it's just different in the 2024 file than it was in the 2023 file as far as teams cap room starting the initial season.

I'm sure it will normalize going into season 2.

[cubsfan128]

I was having a lot of fun with the game and loved how balanced and "unexploitable" it felt, but what made me stop playing was half of my roster getting mono two years in a row and completely derailing the season each time. Felt unrealistic and stressful having like 20 players get sick and being out for upwards of a month. Is there any chance to get this toned down? Feel like it's not something that happens in real life and the only instance I can think of is Sam Darnold a few years ago and he only missed 3 games. But it seems like overkill to have it sideline like half of my roster.

Other than that the only other thing that I feel could be improved a bit is injury designations and players being ruled in or out on game day. Not sure if I just didn't know where to look but it felt like there wasn't much clarity about whether or not injured players would be playing in the game or not. For example if my starting QB is listed as probable with a low chance o reinjury and small performance hit, I expect him to be playing. Frustrating when you have a key player as probable and list them as active and they don't play a single snap in the game. But not sure if I was just missing something. Anyway I posted this in the Q&A thread as well but just posting it here also in hopes that it can be seen and maybe improved!

[Haiku]

I was having a lot of fun with the game and loved how balanced and "unexploitable" it felt, but what made me stop playing was half of my roster getting mono two years in a row and completely derailing the season each time. Felt unrealistic and stressful having like 20 players get sick and being out for upwards of a month. Is there any chance to get this toned down?


Yes, there is. You will need to edit the injuries.csv file, which is located in the default_data folder within the Steam FOF9 folder. You will have to use Excel and import the CSV data to read it properly. I suggest setting the maximum weeks out for mononucleosis to 1 or 2, which will make it no worse than influenza. You will then need to start a new save for the changes to take effect.

[MizzouRah]

This guy is decent. :p

https://i.vgy.me/mzb6Oy.png

[Passacaglia]

Wow, and still a rookie.

[KingZal]

Wow! Literally perfect coverage ratings across the board (unless your staff's scouting bars are low...)

[Passacaglia]

I feel like I've never really understood defense. A player has a position, but also a fit -- should I be changing a player to his fit to make him more effective in that position?

Along the same lines, I don't get what the AI is doing when it sets my depth chart. So many times, I'll have a good RG and a good LG, and the AI will put my LG in the RG spot and vice versa. Why? Same thing with FS and SS too. I get the idea that it may happen sometimes for some weird freak reason, but it seems to happen a lot.

[MizzouRah]

Anyone ever see a CPU team trade all of it's current and future draft picks for 1st round picks?

[jolo240]

Yep, one team always does it (for my save it's usually Houston), and they're always penalized for cap violations lol

[MizzouRah]

Yep, one team always does it (for my save it's usually Houston), and they're always penalized for cap violations lol

Mine is Houston too, lol!!!

[Jukeman]

Is there any reason roster cuts are made before preseason games start instead of at the end of preseason?

[Passacaglia]

Is there any reason roster cuts are made before preseason games start instead of at the end of preseason?

I thought it was you have to cut to 60 before preseason, and 53 before regular season.