FOF Problem? I NEED 6 Linebackers?

[Suicane75]

Ive played a couple of small careers, at least 20 season but i'm comeing across something thats stopping my season. I have 5 LB's, 2 Inside, 3 outside.
I try to advance but it tells me I need 3 ILB's, so i cut an OLB and sign a ILB. Now I try to advance and it tells me I need 3 OLB's.
The only way I can advance is to let the Computer take over and it plays 6 LB's while only playing 3 Safeties, which I hate.
Am I doing something wrong here or is this a common thing?

Im playing with Patch B.

[TLK]

You need 3 ILB, 3 OLB (6 LB's total) and a minimum of 3 S's.......

[Suicane75]

You need 3 ILB, 3 OLB (6 LB's total) and a minimum of 3 S's.......

hmm, i could of sworn ive played this version with 5 LB's the same way i've played other versions. Well that certainly negates my 4 quality Safeties.

[Ben E Lou]

Actually, if you play a 4-3, you only need 2 ILB's, and 3 OLB's.

[Samdari]

Some people have reported the AI switching their defense during training camp. If you are set for a 3-4, you do need 3ILB, 3 OLB, but only 2 ILB when running a 4-3.

[QuikSand]

Wouldn't it be cool if the game came with a help file that told us:

Before adjusting your depth charts, you need to have a minimum number of players at each position. The minimums for each position are as follows:

Inside Linebacker: 2 (3 if you play a 4-3 defense)
Outside Linebacker: 3

[cthomer5000]

when running a 3-4 you need:

DT - at least 2
DE - at least 3
ILB - at least 3
OLB - at least 3

when running a 4-3 you need

DT - at least 3
DE - at least 3
ILB - at least 2
OLB - at least 3

[cuervo72]

Wouldn't it be cool if the game came with a help file that told us:

Ahh, the legendary QuikSand patience.


(I'm with you here)

[Rhone Ranger]

I would like to see the position minimums removed from the game. :)

Here are my reasons, in brief, with explanations following:

1. They don't match the real NFL.
2. They make it difficult to shield injured players from inappropriate use by the computer coach.
3. They are inflexible and inconsistent, not allowing minor position shifts even though those same shifts are allowed on the depth charts.


Don't Match the NFL

This applies to many positions but I'll focus on quarterbacks because they're a good example.

FOF requires 3 active QBs on game day. Due to the (reasonable and realistic) frequency of injuries, this often means that a team really needs to have 4 QBs on its roster (i.e. one to fill in as the new 3rd-stringer when the starting QB inevitably goes "out" with an injury for at least a couple of weeks) unless you enjoy the sort of constant juggling of lesser players that you must do every time one of your QBs is injured (which happens often enough that I'd prefer just to make the 4th QB a permanent roster spot).

However in the real NFL, most teams have just 3 QBs (not 4) on the roster even when one of them is hurt (though some will keep a fourth on the practice squad, but FOF doesn't have that which is fine). And there are some teams that have only 2 QBs! Their "third QB" is generally someone like a WR who played QB in high school or college and is thought of only as an emergency fill-in.

So while teams in the NFL can get away with having as few as 2 QBs, in FOF I must have 3 and, practically speaking, I'm really forced to have 4.


Problem with Shielding Injured Players

In FOF I set the global options such that I control the roster and depth charts but I let the AI set the game plan.

A problem arises when a player is injured and I would like him to sit on the bench. Even when I remove him entirely from all depth charts, the AI still plays him sometimes (presumably on special teams?) and his injury does not heal or even gets worse - exactly what I was trying to avoid by taking him out of the depth charts in the first place.

Normally the obvious solution would be to make the injured player inactive, ensuring that he's benched and resting. But position minimums often prohibit this.

If I have only 2 MLBs on my roster and one is hurt to the point where I want him to take the week off, FOF will not let me deactive him, even though I have my alternate MLB ready to start in the position and can easily use a spare OLB as his backup.

In fact, FOF won't let me deactivate the player even if his injury status is "out" and he cannot play anyway!

FOF essentially forces me to have one more than the minimum at (nearly) every position on the field, so I have a one-man "cushion" that allows me to deactivate at least one guy. I'm forced to have 4 CB? OK I'll take 5. Minimum 2 ILB? OK I'll take 3. Gotta have 3 safeties? OK give me 4.

This cushion becomes especially critical when I have an injured star player and simply cannot risk the AI dumbly playing him on special teams when I want him sitting at home on his sofa instead, resting and healing up.


Inflexible and Inconsistent

On the depth charts, I can have a cornerback play as a safety or vice-versa. Any linebacker can play inside or outside. Doubtless there is (usually) a significant penalty for doing this, so it's not advisable most of the time, but it's allowed, as it should be.

Why isn't this same logic applied to the position minimums?

The minimums force me to have 2 active ILBs, even if I have plenty of OLBs who could play as ILBs on the depth chart.

A particulatly annoying one is the way RB/FB are handled. I have a star FB who is such a good runner that I often play him at running back. And yet the game forces me to have 3 "pure" RBs active, even though the third one does not get put on the depth chart (because the FB is taking one of the RB slots, and doing a very good job at it too). So this third RB, active but not on the depth chart, ends up being a waste.


Proposed Solution

OK here's the cool part. The solution is really easy. In fact it's already built into the game! Hardly any work on Jim's part is needed. :)

Here's how: just remove explicit positional minimums from the game and let the depth charts handle the issue as they already do.

Before you decry me as a crazed radical, please note that this will not remove positional minimums from FOF altogether, because the depth charts already enforce a sensible set of minimums. They just do it in a broader, more realistic way.

The depth charts allow, for example, the DE position to be played by DTs and OLBs as well as DEs. Here is a list of the positions in FOF, and what alternate positions FOF allows as replacements in the depth chart:

QB: none
RB: FB
FB: RB TE
TE: FB
WR: RB
C: G T
G: C T
T: C G
DT: DE
DE: DT OLB
ILB: DE OLB
OLB: DE ILB S
S: OLB CB
CB: S

(Incidentally this indicates that DEs, OLBs, Ss and RBs are flexible, all-purpose kinds of guys).

The game rule should be this for minimums: if you can fill out your depth charts, then you're good for game day.

The depth charts prohibit absurd position shifts, like putting in a cornerback to play defensive end, and they also prohibit you from placing the same player at two different starting positions.

The depth charts already enforce a sensible structure of "minimums" for the game. So let's just leave it at that and remove the overly-restrictive explicit minimums specifically attached to single positions.

(However I'd still like to be able to set "no one" as the third slot in the QB depth chart! :p).

[Ben E Lou]

I agree with, and have experienced, virtually everything in Rhone Ranger's post. Such a change would definitely serve to speed things up.

[QuikSand]

I know that the position minimums are there in the game not for realism or because of some whim, but for the game routines themselves. When testing the game (especially looking at multiplayer and the various things that could come up in that environment) Jim was insistent that position minimums absolutely had to stay for the sake of the game's own decision-making.

I'd rather thay weren't in the game, too -- I don't think a lengthy argument is even needed, really. But I think this is one where (for programming reasons that I cannot understand) Jim is up against a barrier that he likely cannot overcome.

[Rhone Ranger]

If the programming "barrier" is that the AI players need the minimums as a guideline for "smart" management of their teams, then the minimums can certainly be kept as a rule for the AI even if they're removed for human players. If someone else - AI or human - wants to stick to having 3 QB, 3 RB, 1 FB, etc., that's fine with me.

It's a bit difficult to see how there would be a "barrier" involved when I, as a human player, want to have no minimums.

For example, consider the two parallel situations:

Situation #1

I have two MLBs on my team but they are both injured. Status is "Out", meaning they cannot play. However I keep them both "active" because FOF forces me to, even though on the depth chart I place some OLBs in the MLB slots.

FOF allows this.

Situation #2

I have two MLBs on my team and they are both healthy. But because I am a mean and spiteful manager, I want to deactivate them both so they cannot play. On the depth chart I could place some OLBs in the MLB slots (as in Situation #1) but because it violates the "minimum"...

FOF does not allow this.


As far as ability to play is concerned, there is no difference between a deactivated player and a player injured to "Out" status. In both the above situations, the group of active, able-to-play players is the same. So is there any real difference, either to us as gamers or to the "under the hood" AI whether there are arbitrary minimums or not? There does not appear to be, because FOF does seem to function properly when a position minimum is nonsensically filled by "Out" players. And if it can handle that situation, then it should be able to handle the analogous situation where those same players are not available due to being deactivated.

[sabotai]

From the way it looks to me, if Jim were to take out position limits, he would have to completely redo the AI. Especially if the limits also play a part in other AI decisions (non roster management). For programming reasons I can understand, Jim is up against a barrier that he could overcome, but it would take a lot to overcome it. A complete redsign and reprogramming of many parts of the game, not just the AI, would be required.

For someone just starting out, designing and programming a football sim from scratch, it probably wouldn't be too hard to make an AI that does roster management well without roster limits. It would, however, be completely dependant on the design of virtually every other component of the game. That is why for someone who already has a deep, established product, it would be very hard to to do it. You would have to force the AI to do something that it orginally wasn't designed to do in a framework that originally wasn't meant to support it.

As for letting the player not abide by limits and forceing the AI to, we start to get into the area of "player-advantages". It would easily be an advantage for the human player to not have to follow limits while forcing the AI to.

Now, as far as multi-player goes...there we might be able to see a chance for this, because the idea would be that if a team was AI controlled, it would only be controlled by the AI temporarily. MAYBE it would be possible for Jim to let the human players not have to follow the limits in multi-player games.

[Rhone Ranger]

As for letting the player not abide by limits and forceing the AI to, we start to get into the area of "player-advantages". It would easily be an advantage for the human player to not have to follow limits while forcing the AI to.

It could be made a global option, then, applying only to the human player. If you want to be "strict" then you turn the position minimums on, otherwise you leave them off. Anyone who feels the game would be more challenging or more fun with position minimums would be free to keep them.

I already play the game on the hardest skill level. I'm not asking position minimums to be removed to make the game easier versus the AI. I would like them removed because, for me, they cause seemingly unnecessary hassle and don't appear to add anything to realism. I would enjoy the game more without them, and it seems that FOF is already capable of dealing with the change (for the human player at least, perhaps not for the AI but I don't care about the AI) as I described in my previous post. So it's likely that the change would be easy for Jim to implement.

[Suicane75]

Wouldn't it be cool if the game came with a help file that told us:

Well, I was already on the board cutting and pasting to my Dynasty when the problem came up so I figured I just decided to post the question. Keep your britches on.

[thealmighty]

Rhone Ranger, don't know about the AI problems (though I can see how it may well be troublesome), but I agree 100% with the problems you note.

On my eNFL team, I have had to leave players active numerous times when injured (most notably Genaro DiNapoli, who was my starting center,injured for several weeks. He got to probable but I wanted to keep him out but due to injuries I had to have him activated. Guess what, he was hurt again.). Wish I could have the choice.