If there is a TCY2 and it has multiplayer, how would it be handled?

[Kodos]

Would there be a separate commissioner for each conference, or one commissioner running the whole show? Would it even be reasonable to have 100+ owners in a single league? :confused:

[VPI97]

I call dibs on VT.


Just sayin'

[KWhit]

I think it would be very difficult to have a league in TCY or BBCF that works anywhere near as well as the ones we're used to in FOF or OOTP, etc.

I think one of the problems is that there will never be enough owner's to consistantly fill the league, so there will be some conferences that will be full and very competitive (SEC, ACC, etc) and there will be some that only have a couple of owners in them. These second-tier conferences will be filled with AI-controlled teams who will not be able to compete with the human owners, resulting in an unfair advantage for some players.

It will be very difficult to have anything close to an even playing field (which is important to keep folks interested long-term).

[Kodos]

Plus, I'd want to be the Hoosiers, so I'd be sure to be screwed. :)

[WSUCougar]

Plus, I'd want to be the Hoosiers, so I'd be sure to be screwed. :)
It's a sim, not a fantasy RPG.

[Anthony]

shotgun Miami (Florida) for a TCY2 league. just covering my bases.

[WrongWay]

Why, how do the College Basketball MP sims work? I think there are currently 2 different games already out there.

[QuikSand]

I think the only way it works is if there is one Great Leader, who essentially runs the league by fiat. He (or some initiating group) set up the rules, and you decide you either want to play or you don't. He sets a schedule for file exports, and you either get yours in or you don't.

I don't think you can really have a democratic process to accommodate dozens and dozens of people online.

[Radii]

I think that anyone designing multiplayer for a college game needs to take a close look at the MP leagues out there for college games currently and see how they work. Obviously I would point to our FOFC FBCB league for college basketball for starters.

I do think that over time the human controlled teams will rise to the top, and i don't particularly see a problem with this. Just 2 or 3 human teams in a conference is enough to keep that in check, and that will take time. Eventually in our league, I think that gstelmack and I as consistant coaches of UNC and NC State will overtake Duke and build consistant ACC title contenders but it will take a lot of time. Hopefully our newer owners in the ACC will do that as well but it will take time.

I think the game itself needs to be designed and heavily tested to see how it will handle 100 owners in a MP league. We have found flaws in FBCB's multiplayer design that pretty much limit us to about 40 coaches. There is no way in hell I could manage more than that, and it's game design that causes it. The game has to be designed with a MP commish in mind to make it managable for them to work with 100 coaches.

I think as far as a league itself goes the most interesting topic is coach movement. Since we're limited to about 40 coaches in FBCB then it's really not a big issue for us... with over 300 college basketball schools and only 40 human owners we can easily accomodate everyone and their individual game desires(guys can coach small schools and work their way up, guys can take over their favorite team and run them into the ground, get fired, stay at that school and keep going, etc, b/c you can take over a top tier school any time you want). but if you start up a MP college league you're going to start out with 60 of the schools taken, easily. How do you handle firings? Teams in smaller schools moving up? Guys who coach their favorite team and will quit the league if they lose that job and can't coach that one school? That is the most critical decision to running a MP league on that scale IMO.

I also think, like QS said earlier, you need one final decision maker(or co-decision makers, or whatever). there is no way I could effectively run FBCB even with just 35-40 owners as a full democracy. I get everyone's input for any problem that comes up or any decision that needs to be made, but there have been a couple of times where I've veto'd the popular opinion.. .college MP is just a lot different than the pros, i feel more of a sense of the "direction" of the league than I think I would in the pros, in a pro league I feel like a commish has to work very hard to maintain competitive balance and keep numbers from getting out of hand, but in a college league each team has drasticaly different goals and the game plays differently to each coach as a result, and the commish has to work to keep the entire league going in the right direction while keeping as many of the coaches happy as possible.

[Passacaglia]

What I would love to see is each conference treated as a separate entity. They can decide who to let in -- of course, this would require dynamic conferences, which BBCF doesn't have. If it were the old days, and the league were full, the league could have alternates (or some impartial person) that are in charge of bowl games -- one person could be in charge of The Gator Bowl, for example, and invite teams to play in it. As far as admin stuff, I'd assume there has to be one person who can handle all the files.

[VPI97]

I think the game itself needs to be designed and heavily tested to see how it will handle 100 owners in a MP league. We have found flaws in FBCB's multiplayer design that pretty much limit us to about 40 coaches. There is no way in hell I could manage more than that, and it's game design that causes it. The game has to be designed with a MP commish in mind to make it managable for them to work with 100 coaches.
If it's like FOF, I can't see any problems. The only difference between running a 32 team FOF league and a 119 team FOF league would be the amount of time it takes to download the exports for processing.

[Kodos]

We've found our commish for TCY Multiplayer!



;)

[vex]

I call OU, just sayin ;)

[VPI97]

We've found our commish for TCY Multiplayer!
Voted Hell Atlantic?

[cuervo72]

If it's like FOF, I can't see any problems. The only difference between running a 32 team FOF league and a 119 team FOF league would be the amount of time it takes to download the exports for processing.

I think the main problem Radii has is the coach poaching system in FBCB...

[KWhit]

I think the main problem Radii has is the coach poaching system in FBCB...
What is that?

[Radii]

If it's like FOF, I can't see any problems. The only difference between running a 32 team FOF league and a 119 team FOF league would be the amount of time it takes to download the exports for processing.

I can see that. FBCB's problems are basically CPU control related. The big hole is with assistant coach hiring. There is no option to set this on CPU control. You either have to fire the head coach or have the commish manually do hiring if the coach isn't exporting during assistant hiring.

The other big problem is the yes/no CPU control options. If a coach doesn't send recruiting orders, it will give me a warning, but I have to go to that team and manually put them on CPU control. Then, until either the coach or the commish manually takes them off CPU control, the game will ignore coach instructions and continue to run them on CPU.

All inall a big hassle of manual intervention, but the assistant hiring thing where there is no CPU option at all is what limits our league size.

[duckman]

I call OU, just sayin ;)
I got dibs on Oklahoma State, just saying.

[vex]

I got dibs on Oklahoma State, just saying.
Goin down, Poke!

[duckman]

Goin down, Poke!
No chance in hell!

[Radii]

What is that?

(that being coach poaching as referred to by Cuervo).


Lets say all the assistants from the top 10 teams in the country all get head coaching jobs and those top teams have to hire assistants. It takes them 3 rounds(3 days of exports and assitant rounds) to hire them all. Well, obviously coaches that are assistants in other top 50 programs that might want to move up to a top tier program are the most desirable, so they fill those spots by hiring coaches away from other teams. Now those top 50 teams have vacancies, they hire away coaches from each other by offering raises and by dipping down into the top 100 ranks. This goes on ad infinitum until all teams have assistants at every position(in FBCB this is just 3 assitants, a scout/recruiter/assistant coach, TCY has a lot more coaching spots b/c of the regional scouts). With 30 coaches this causes assistant hiring to go on 7-10 rounds, which, if I can get all my coaches to export every day, and if I have the time to run them nightly, means at *least* 7 days of exports for this one purpose. Moving up to 40 coaches adds a few days, lets make it 9-12 days now.

Add in the problem I mentioned that is admittedly localized to FBCB... if a coach doesn't export then I have to manually try to do the hiring for him, and there is no way I'm going to try to grow the league past 40 coaches, we'd have guys quitting in the assistant round b/c it lasted for a month.

[gstelmack]

What is that?
Coach poaching is where someone on your staff can be stolen by another team. This leads to a cascade where in one turn team A's coach gets stolen, so they have to hire someone and steal B's coach, who then has to steal C's, etc. Each of these is a stage, and the game won't exit assistant hiring until everyone has coaches. Combine this capability with the complete lack of loyalty by the staff who will jump at the drop of a hat (giving up significant chunks of salary to jump to a team that is just a few points better in prestige), and you can potentially hit dozens of stages (I think we hit 10 last year). It can take quite a while, and even if human teams don't poach other human teams, AI teams will happily do so.

[vex]

(that being coach poaching as referred to by Cuervo).


Lets say all the assistants from the top 10 teams in the country all get head coaching jobs and those top teams have to hire assistants. It takes them 3 rounds(3 days of exports and assitant rounds) to hire them all. Well, obviously coaches that are assistants in other top 50 programs that might want to move up to a top tier program are the most desirable, so they fill those spots by hiring coaches away from other teams. Now those top 50 teams have vacancies, they hire away coaches from each other by offering raises and by dipping down into the top 100 ranks. This goes on ad infinitum until all teams have assistants at every position(in FBCB this is just 3 assitants, a scout/recruiter/assistant coach, TCY has a lot more coaching spots b/c of the regional scouts). With 30 coaches this causes assistant hiring to go on 7-10 rounds, which, if I can get all my coaches to export every day, and if I have the time to run them nightly, means at *least* 7 days of exports for this one purpose. Moving up to 40 coaches adds a few days, lets make it 9-12 days now.

Add in the problem I mentioned that is admittedly localized to FBCB... if a coach doesn't export then I have to manually try to do the hiring for him, and there is no way I'm going to try to grow the league past 40 coaches, we'd have guys quitting in the assistant round b/c it lasted for a month.
Sounds like there should just be an option to only hire coaches who are out of contract.

[Kodos]

Maybe it would require a different approach. Instead of technically owning a team, you actually just control the career of a coach, and all teams would have just one coach (no assistants). So basically, the career is that of a coach, not a school. A coach can move up the ranks by filling a position at a higher school, or he can be demoted to a smaller school. Or he can just stay put. Have an option to turn coach firings off.

[QuikSand]

...we'd have guys quitting in the assistant round b/c it lasted for a month.

Your post already made me quit, and I'm not even in the league.

[Radii]

the point here is that the game designer needs to put some serious thought into what it will take to run a MP league and to be able to scale it up. I'm sure all these things could be addressed by some pretty simple enhancements, but with the expereince we have a new game coming out should already take past flaws into consideration.

[vex]

Maybe it would require a different approach. Instead of technically owning a team, you actually just control the career of a coach, and all teams would have just one coach (no assistants). So basically, the career is that of a coach, not a school. A coach can move up the ranks by filling a position at a higher school, or he can be demoted to a smaller school. Or he can just stay put. Have an option to turn coach firings off.
That sounds pretty cool.

[QuikSand]

It is interesting, to me, that fairly "minor" things like coach/staff hiring in FOF, and the assistants in FBCB, can turn out to be such a major problem.

I don't think anyone would consider either to be a truly central part of the games -- but their inclusion in a multiplayer environment clearly stresses the multiplayer framework. A complex free agency system, or complex recruiting system, works just fine because it allows for nuance and there doesn't have to be a single result. Hiring a coach requires that someone eventually get the job, period, and systems of bidding and so forth just don't seem to be all that efficient at this.

[dawgfan]

I'm rather apprehensive about MP text-sim leagues - it takes a high level of dedication among the coaches and a very good commissioner to keep things running smoothly. It also helps immensely in the immersion factor to have someone capable of running a dedicated website as nice as the one for IHOF. I never got in to MP FOF because I just wasn't that committed to the game, so I don't know how well Jim currently handles MP issues - I'll let those that have a lot of experience chime in more here.

It would potentially be a lot of fun even with normal export from the game methodology, but I think ultimately the best solutions are going to be ones that utilize the 'net for much of the MP action like recruiting, assistant coach hiring, etc.

Oh, and I get Washington...;)

[mrsimperless]

Poorly.

Not intended as a knock on Jimmy, but the complexities of running a large NCAA league are going to be hard get right on the first pass I think. And I don't think he has a large enough pool of beta testers to get the kinks ironed out right off the bat either.

But if this actually comes to pass I'll just be happy to have it in any form at all. I'm sure it will improve with every iteration just as everything else Jimmy puts out does.

[QuikSand]

In general - for the routine that handles things like staff hiring (things that are essentially a go-until-slot-is-filled system), maybe there needs to be a different model.

Your export for staff hiring would not only indicate a specific offer to a specific staff person, but then perhaps other information -- like how much you are willing to spend, your overall level of thriftiness, and what skills or values matter most to you in the staff member.

In theory, then you could have a central system that first goes through the actual bids and resolves them, for as many rounds as is deemed necessary. Next, it would resolve the rest of the remaining open slots based on the preferences submitted.

[Swaggs]

For me, even though I love solo FOF, I think I would rather play TCY in a MP league because there will not be a burdensome draft process. The draft in my short-lived FOF MP experience was a killer. I love it so much in the solo game, but it is so long and awkward in MP leagues. Another positive will be that there will be no "questionable" trades between human owners.

I would think that Jim has a good model to use, if he chooses to, with the FOF coach/scout signing period. I think it could cross over to a college game fairly well.

[jbmagic]

Would there be a separate commissioner for each conference, or one commissioner running the whole show? Would it even be reasonable to have 100+ owners in a single league? :confused:

if you cant get that many owners, you will have to set the rest to computer control.

[jbmagic]

the point here is that the game designer needs to put some serious thought into what it will take to run a MP league and to be able to scale it up. I'm sure all these things could be addressed by some pretty simple enhancements, but with the expereince we have a new game coming out should already take past flaws into consideration.


lets hope Total college basketball and Bowl Bound College Football is done well for MP.

[Buccaneer]

That's interesting about MP FBCB. I'm glad I just stick with SP for sports sims.

[Anthony]

Maybe it would require a different approach. Instead of technically owning a team, you actually just control the career of a coach, and all teams would have just one coach (no assistants). So basically, the career is that of a coach, not a school. A coach can move up the ranks by filling a position at a higher school, or he can be demoted to a smaller school. Or he can just stay put. Have an option to turn coach firings off.

you got my attention. keep going...

[cuervo72]

I don't think anyone would consider either to be a truly central part of the games -- but their inclusion in a multiplayer environment clearly stresses the multiplayer framework.

I don't know about this...for FBCB, scouting and recruiting is a pretty major portion of the game (possibly even the most interesting portion of the game for many). From what I've heard (I've not stuck with it to actually observe it), the abilities of your scout/recruiter can make a big difference on your evaluations and who you can woo to your program. Not as certain on the effect the assistant coach has on player development and performance (though I'd say they have some. Actually, it would be interesting to study this for both FBCB *and* FOF).

[cuervo72]

Maybe it would require a different approach. Instead of technically owning a team, you actually just control the career of a coach, and all teams would have just one coach (no assistants). So basically, the career is that of a coach, not a school. A coach can move up the ranks by filling a position at a higher school, or he can be demoted to a smaller school. Or he can just stay put. Have an option to turn coach firings off.

IOW, how FBCB handles it.

[Airhog]

I want dibs on the beta testing team :D

I do like QS proposal. Maybe not be able to hire someone directly. But merely be able to set what kinds of skills you want via sliders. Then the school you coach for would decide how much they are willing to spend. Have the AI handle all of the bidding and require only one export.

[wade moore]

What I would love to see is each conference treated as a separate entity. They can decide who to let in -- of course, this would require dynamic conferences, which BBCF doesn't have. If it were the old days, and the league were full, the league could have alternates (or some impartial person) that are in charge of bowl games -- one person could be in charge of The Gator Bowl, for example, and invite teams to play in it. As far as admin stuff, I'd assume there has to be one person who can handle all the files.
This is similar to what I was thinking..

Each conference has a conference commish, and then there is an NCAA commish...

The problem I ran into mentally, is how are out-of-conference games handled? When I start thinking along those lines, I realize that you probably just need to have one commish and run with it...

in the end though, I tend to agree with VPI.. as far as the commish aspect, this just means more teams...

[Ben E Lou]

Quik's idea makes a lot of sense. Something along the order of the preference lists that are used for the initial draft in FOF. It would need to be more detailed and thoroughly tested so that people would feel satisfied that appropriate offers were tendered, but such a system could save a lot of time and work out well, particularly if it were blended with "live" hiring:

Day 1: Staff Hiring Stage 1 (individual offers to individual coaches)
Day 2: Staff Hiring Stage 2 (same as day 1)
Day 3: Staff Hiring Stage 3 (Quik's "preference list" type model)