FOF 2k4: Text sims in gen

[MizzouRah]

When I play OOTP, I tend to lean towards statistics more than ratings, but when playing FOF, I tend to lean towards ratings vs stats.

How many of you really look at stats when trying to decide to keep a player in FOF?

If you had a OL who was rated 70/70, but allowed say 10 sacks would you keep him over a player rated 45/45 with only 3 allowed sacks - games started, etc.. all being equal.

I guess I want to know if stats mean more than ratings do in FOF as they appear to in say, OOTP?? I would hope they do, and I think I need to really start looking at stats more instead of the overall player ratings.

[sabotai]

In FOF, I lean towards ratings more than stats. However, if I notice a stud OL lets up a lot of sacks, I might let him go. But with FOF, usually the stats have to be really low or really high for me to take them into consideration.

[dubb93]

Depends on the position. DB's, D-Line, and RB is all about stats to me.

Some of the other positions are about ratings. However, if I am investing alot of money into somebody that isn't performing like I think they should I am much less likely to resign them, especially if their backup is putting up better numbers in the short amount of time they see(which you would be suprised how often this happens, especially run block % and in terms of pass rush %).

[VPI97]

I tend to value players 80/20 in favor of stats vs. ratings. It's rare that I would try to sign or trade for a highly rated guy if he didn't have the numbers to back things up.

[Franklinnoble]

Definately go with ratings over stats in FOF. That, in my opinion, is a big shortcoming of the game. With baseball games, I go with stats more than ratings when it comes to free agents (although rookie drafts, there's really no choice...)

[Joe]

I always, always look at stats first. I'll only go for guys with high ratings during the draft.

[cuervo72]

I go with ratings over stats generally, though those obviously can be specific ratings in some cases.

In OOTP...wow, I never much go with stats. All ratings there, of course my only experience is OOTP5.

[Lonnie]

I would look at stats for baseball and ratings for football. Baseball has many more datapoints, so the stats can really define a player.

You could break it down by position. A QB can attempt 500+ passes a season so you may look at stats there. But a 2nd receiver may only see 50 passes thrown his way so you would probably want to depend on his ratings.

[gstelmack]

Ratings for the most part, with me trying to figure out why a guy is underperforming stats-wise before dumping him.

A key reason for this is that so much of a football player's performance is affected by what's going on around him. The proverbial FOF examples are the second CB getting all the picks because QBs avoid throwing at the primary CB, or the 3rd WR picking up all kinds of receptions / yards because he's always up against lousy CBs, etc etc etc.

[yabanci]

I hardly pay attention to stats at all when evaluating players in FOF. If I have a great RB, for example, and his YPC is much lower than I would expect, it tells me that something is wrong with the offense as a whole and/or the game plan, not that there is something wrong with the RB.

[Vince]

I tend to value players 80/20 in favor of stats vs. ratings. It's rare that I would try to sign or trade for a highly rated guy if he didn't have the numbers to back things up.

What he said.

[Daimyo]

Ratings all the way. I'm surprised so many people go for stats, especially in OOTP... that game is all about ratings even if some of it isn't as intuitive as it should be.

[MizzouRah]

I disagree about OOTP, I have some average players still starting for me because year after year they put up the numbers - see John Rodriguiez :)

Good points by all... I know I could do well in ootp without ratings, but do any of you think you could do well in FOF without any player ratings? Would be quite a challenge I would think. Now, the draft would be cool if you just had some reports and college stats.

[cuervo72]

Hmm...if I knew what league that was in, I might look. :D

Maybe OOTP v6/6.5 is a little harder to figure out, given the changed ratings system. In OOTP though, I've generally been able to predict what players might do based on traditional performance of players like that player, for certain stat categories. There are guys here and there who have performances that are just WAY off one way or another, though I don't know if that's just a fluke, if the game decides somewhere that the player is just doomed that year, or what. Sometimes there also seem to be guys who are towards the low end of their ratings, and then you can see a difference for sure.

Playing w/o ratings...that would definitely be a bit of a challenge.

(disclaimer: just about my entire OOTP experience comes from the FOBL, though I've had decent success there)

[cuervo72]

Dola - nothing like the success Daimyo had however, though I let him in on a few too many insights. ;)

[Julio Riddols]

I look first at ratings in FOF, but before I sign a player, I weigh him against another two or three guys based on their ratings and price and see which one has the better stats to back up his ratings.

I look at basically one (sometimes two) key stat(s) and ratings for every position, except for quarterback, where I probably look at 6 or 7 ratings only and pretty much ignore the stats.

If a player has only a small "sample size" in the particular stat that I base most of my analysis on, I discount their value a bit when compared to a more proven player.

Those stats and ratings would be (in order of importance)-

QB: Avoid interception, avoid fumble, accuracy, read defense, sense rush, two minute offense, third down passing.

I tend not to look at QB stats unless I am deciding whether to keep them as my starter or keep them on my team at all. A lot of times, kick holding, intelligence, leadership and personality will keep a horrible QB on the team as a third QB, just because he will most likely be a cheap mentor to whoever I bring in.

RB: Yards per carry, hole recognition, elusiveness.
FB: Key run blocks/Key run block opportunities, Avoid pass drop.
WR: Receptions/Passes thrown to them, drops, adjust to ball, big play receiving.
TE: Basically what I look for in receivers and fullbacks combined.
OL: KRB%, sack allowed%, endurance.
DE: PR%, endurance.
DT: Tackle%, run defense.
LB: Tackle%, run defense, play diagnosis.
CB: PDQ, interception rating, man and bump coverage.
SS: Tackle%, PDQ, run defense, play diagnosis.
FS: PDQ, interception rating, man coverage.

Thats pretty much how I go about things.

[Honolulu Blue]

In OOTP, I look at stats more than ratings because stats in baseball (and in the game) are more well-defined and standardized. Everyone (except pitchers in the AL) have hitting stats, all pitchers have fielding stats, and all players have fielding stats (though what they mean vary from position to position). There are definite ideas about what good hitting, fielding, and pitching stats are, and I generally go with some of those. The ratings are mostly useful for players who don't have enough stats or for some reason have stats that aren't trustworthy.

FOF, on the other hand, I look at mostly the ratings because (1) the ratings are more precise (100-point vs. 10-point), (2) the sample sizes are small - i.e., 16-24 games sometimes isn't enough to tell from just the stats who is better than whom, (3) football stats are more situation-dependent than baseball, and (4) most players don't have enough stats to be meaningful.

[MizzouRah]

Good point HB, maybe an adjustable ratings scale for the next iteration of FOF. Would be harder with a 1-5 or 1-10 scale.