Suggestion for Text Sim Developers - a micromanagement "middle ground"

[QuikSand]

I enjoy text sims more than any other genre, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the many who have developed the games I have really enjoyed. There's no doubt in my mind that I have garnered far more in value from the games I have purchased than I have had to pay, even including the amount I have paid for games I didn't enjoy. I am very committed to seeing this genre continue to expand and thrive.


In just about any text sim, there seem to be different degrees of hands-on management options. One obvious extreme here is the GM-only option, where the player has no real control over day-to-day stuff and simply functions in something like a GM role. The other end of the continuum is to be in charge of everything, to make all the decisions, and to play slowly to be in completel control. In my judgment, both of these two extremes are well served by the current setup in most text sims.

Where I think there's meaningful room for improvement is in between. Specifically, a user who is fairly close to the "hands off" situation, but who would like to make a certain number of key decisions, and have the AI/staff take over the balance, in the interest of rapid play.

Since we're all familiar with FOF here, I'll use it as an example, even though it's not the game that has this issue forward in my mind at the moment.

In FOF -- say I'm playing a career where I'm mostly interested in managing the draft and developing my young players. If that's my goal, then I probably don't want to spend a *lot* of time doing detailed gameplanning and the like -- so I mostly want to play GM, acquire my players, and see how they play and develop. If this is what I'm after, I'm in a fairly tough situation in FOF -- I'd ordinarily be inclined to turn thing like depth charting and gameplanning over to my staff. However, if I do care about young player development, then It's likely that I'm going to want to make sure that certain players get playing time when I want it.

Right now, there's no way to do this quickly, unless I turn off injuries. In FOF, if I definitely want a handful of young, developing players to be starters to promote their development, then I need to override the AI depth chart decisions that would put these guys behind more-developed older players. Problem is, bay doing the depth charting myself to ensure these couple of things are handled the way I want -- now I have to be hands on with everything else in the entire depth chart. When another player elsewhere gets hurt, I have to go in and tweak the whole depth chart -- if that's a player involved in multiple spots, then I have to go in and tweak multiple pages of setups. Even if I'm just choosing the "recommended" settings, it's multiple steps to go through, just to get a proper lineup set. And with normal injury settings, this means I'm digging in like this several times, to make this series of tweaks, just to get through a season. No, it's not a massive burden, but it definitely does seem like a good spot for a well-suited shortcut.


The compromise that I'd like for a situation like this (and this is hardly a novel suggestion, it has been requested before for FOF at least) is the ability to make a few specific decisions, and "lock" them before turning the rest of the decisions over to the AI. I remember when FOF first introduced the "lock" button in the depth charts - many people thought this was what it was intebnded to accomplish, before realizing that its purpose was smaller in scale, to just lock one decision before actively requesting the "recommend" for that particular page.

Maybe this could be a tag similar to the special teams usage in FOF, but that might not be an ideal way to do it in all games. Maybe a second "lock" button that accomplished a sort of global lock, overriding AI decisions from that point forward, except in the case of a major injury. I'm not sure how to effect this best in FOF or any particular game, but I think it's an unmet need in the genre.


There are text sim players who lie in a zone fairly close to the hands-off end of the management continuum, but for whom the difference between completely hands off and managing just a few key things is pretty important. Right now, I feel the genre overall is missing that spot, and making these players either go through more work than should be necessary, or else give up and not have the control they would prefer, in the name of simople and rapid progress.

Food for thought for the developers who frequent this forum. I hope this helps to articulate a general frustration that some users probably have from time to time, and which seems fairly resolvable.

[Drake]

I can't tell you how many times I've wished for something exactly like this.

[JPhillips]

I like this idea. I think it could be implemented with a "Make Starter" button on the player card.

I would really like this option in Gary's basketball game. I always get very frustrated playing on Pure when the coach won't play my young guys and I can't do anything about it. A GM should at a minimum be able to tell the coach to favor draftees.

[Ksyrup]

This doesn't really address the micromanagement middle ground point, but iit is related in a way. One area I would like to see FOF improve on in general, and I think this goes hand-in-hand with the 'lock' idea, is in simming a league's history for years before taking over a team. The way it works now stinks, frankly, and I end up just starting from 2006 every time, even though I don't want to. And it's not just having to manually get through each stage, but the fact that I get tagged as having GM'd a team I didn't really do anything with.

One of the main reasons I loved OOTP6.5 (and other versions of the game) was the ability to jump in and out of team management whenever I wanted and to sim 100 years or more of history if I choosed to. That's missing with FOF.

But with the specific issue you raise, I agree. And I'm thinking of it from the other perspective as well. What if I just want to coach and leave the "grocery shopping" to the AI? I guess the draft works well enough on its own (although I don't know, does my AI GM use his 60 interviews?), but free agency would be a glaring void. I think what we're looking for is flexibility so that each part or "stage" of the game could function on its own if we chose to leave that particular part to the AI and focus on other parts that interest us more.

[Ben E Lou]

The compromise that I'd like for a situation like this (and this is hardly a novel suggestion, it has been requested before for FOF at least) is the ability to make a few specific decisions, and "lock" them before turning the rest of the decisions over to the AI. I remember when FOF first introduced the "lock" button in the depth charts - many people thought this was what it was intebnded to accomplish, before realizing that its purpose was smaller in scale, to just lock one decision before actively requesting the "recommend" for that particular page.Funny, I put together a list of suggestions for future updates to FOF a few days ago, and this exact thing was on the list I sent to Jim, because I'm in precisely the same boat you are. I'd prefer to make a few changes to the AI recommendations, then let everything else run as-is.

Similarly, for the love of all that is good and pure, can we PLEASE have separate settings for global AI management of offense and defense in every single game???? I want to set my offensive gameplan at the beginning of my career, then acquire players to fit my system (be it college or pro), but let the AI adjust my defense every week based on my opponent and personnel. Others (defensive guru MIJB comes to mind), might want to do just the opposite, but right now in FOF and other games, it's all or nothing.

I've suggested it to Arlie as well, because (at least in the last version I played), BBCF suffers from this exact same issue, to the point where i ended up just doing recruiting, and QuikSimminghttp://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fofc/trademark.gif my way through the regular season. My preference would have been to lock in a few key freshmen and sophomores, but I didn't want to stop each week to do the recommend thing.

[Raiders Army]

Funny, I put together a list of suggestions for future updates to FOF a few days ago, and this exact thing was on the list I sent to Jim
So what else was on the list? :D

[AlexB]

So what else was on the list? :D

Including a terrible pun nickname for every created player? :p

Other than the above questionable tendency, SD (unsurprisingly) does usually hit the nail on the head

[CraigSca]

I've thought about this from a baseball point of view as well. Instead of picking lineups vs. righty and lefty, you instead tell the manager you want:

a) "so-and-so to play this position"
b) "make sure you play so-and-so (and have the manager pick the position)"
c) "make sure you play so-and-so, and bat him 4th"

To put in a few rules like this, you can easily mold the team to your liking without having to tediously micromanage the lineup everytime someone hurts his big toe. It's also much more realistic from a "front office" point of view - giving the coach or manager guidance without actually stepping into that role.

[QuikSand]

One follow-up note... while I used the young players in depth chart as a clear example of what I'm talking about, I wouldn't want this to be interpreted as solely looking for that specific twist.

In FOF, here's another perfect example -- I might have a secondary that is well built for using zone coverage, and I'd like to have my secondary coverages reflect that -- either set to predominantly zone, or exclusively so. But I wouldn't mind having the AI set everything else like the run/pass expectations, blitzing, and so forth. Right now, I think the only way to do this is to click several recommends, and then go in and readjust all the coverage percenatges. It's pretty tough to accomplish this mostly hands-off stance, where I essentially want to give some global direction, and leave the details to the staff.

One more example of the same principle - I think this concept arises in gameplanning, depth charting, and so forth.

[Drake]

Yes, yes on the separate global lock for offensive and defensive gameplanning.

[Icy]

What about making it like the prefrence draft lists? where you set tendencies using sliders like:

Start Veterans <--------> Start young players
Run heavy gameplan<-------->Pass heavy gameplan
Etc

[Gary Gorski]

I like this idea. I think it could be implemented with a "Make Starter" button on the player card.

I would really like this option in Gary's basketball game. I always get very frustrated playing on Pure when the coach won't play my young guys and I can't do anything about it. A GM should at a minimum be able to tell the coach to favor draftees.

What about making it like the prefrence draft lists? where you set tendencies using sliders like:

Start Veterans <--------> Start young players
Run heavy gameplan<-------->Pass heavy gameplan
Etc

This is the approach I've taken with Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball. There are two modes you can play in - either "local" or "global". In global mode you have the ability to control whatever you like as the GM. You have the option of checking a box to let the coach handle the roster decisions like playing time etc and there is also options that you can turn on to let the AI handle portions of the game like in TPB.

In "local" mode you choose which role you want to play - either GM or head coach and can only make decisions appropriate to that job. You can always fire your coach and name yourself both GM and coach if you want. But barring that I decided to add something like what JPhillips was talking about.

Each coach and GM has a specific profile with things like "play veterans" vs "play young players" so if you want the kids on your team to get more PT than they are getting you have two options. You can either fire the coach you have and look for one who's philosophies work better for you or you, as the GM, will be able to offer suggestions to the head coach on what you would like to see done for specific players. These are only suggestions - the AI coach will decide whether or not to implement them and you will run the risk of upsetting the coach over time if he's a more established coach and doesn't want you or anyone else telling him what to do. This hopefully will help be more of that middle ground and make DDS: PB enjoyable for people looking for that.

[Icy]

This is the approach I've taken with Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball. There are two modes you can play in - either "local" or "global". In global mode you have the ability to control whatever you like as the GM. You have the option of checking a box to let the coach handle the roster decisions like playing time etc and there is also options that you can turn on to let the AI handle portions of the game like in TPB.

In "local" mode you choose which role you want to play - either GM or head coach and can only make decisions appropriate to that job. You can always fire your coach and name yourself both GM and coach if you want. But barring that I decided to add something like what JPhillips was talking about.

Each coach and GM has a specific profile with things like "play veterans" vs "play young players" so if you want the kids on your team to get more PT than they are getting you have two options. You can either fire the coach you have and look for one who's philosophies work better for you or you, as the GM, will be able to offer suggestions to the head coach on what you would like to see done for specific players. These are only suggestions - the AI coach will decide whether or not to implement them and you will run the risk of upsetting the coach over time if he's a more established coach and doesn't want you or anyone else telling him what to do. This hopefully will help be more of that middle ground and make DDS: PB enjoyable for people looking for that.


It sounds really great, so...................release the damn game!!! :D

[Buccaneer]

So there are lessons (and design decisions) that we can pick up from baseball and basketball games that can be applied to football games afterall? People have complained about the all-or-nothing design of FOF for years but it was never very clear whether it was the design decisions or simply the nature of football sims. It sounds like QS's ideas would fit into a FBCB-style football game. This would be an alternative to a FOF-style game where it presents as much as humanly possible (BBCF and TPF probably fall into this category as well). What I see is not taking FOF and streamlining that game but starting with a FBCB template and add what is needed.

[SteveMax58]

Edit: Written before seeing Gary's post.

I would like to see today's sports sims allow players to play in a few ways...I'll try not to get too long-winded with this.

1)GM/Coach Mode: Upon starting a career/franchise I'd like to have the game assume you "may" want to coach a team at some point, as opposed to being only a GM forever who undermines his coach by changing his gameplan up on him(while he wasnt looking?). So when I create my "GM profile"(name, team, etc.), I'll select my "Coaching profile" which will be used for my "auto gameplanning/strategy" selections (which I can then tweak), should I choose to also become the coach at some point(i.e. I must fire the coach in place to assume full control of playcalling). I guess you could presume the opposite (coach only, no GM) may be desirable as well...so just getting this out of the way in the beginning helps this process along(you could always change it later in your "Profile" settings).

If I hire a coach, that coach's "style" will be used for strategy & gameplanning (as IRL, I'd better find one that suits what I want), or perhaps I choose the OC's "style" for offense's playcalling/strategy, and the DC's "style" for defense(I'm picturing a dropdown for these). I (as the GM only) can still make suggestions about the team I'm "building" based upon my "GM Profile", which is a "hint-hint" to the coach that "Hey...I'm building this team to throw deep, run only when necessary, and play an aggressive blitzing defense" (a thought might also be to make the GM Profile affect your relationship with the owner, or whether he hires you in the first place). The hired coach can adapt his style accordingly, or choose to ignore my wishes (if styles are different, perhaps experience & "stubbornness" might dictate this tendency in the coach). If he goes against me & goes 13-3...great, and maybe I should adjust my personnel decisions to his "style". If he goes 3-13 & tried to listen to me(evidenced by the gamelogs/formations selected, etc.)...maybe the owner fires me for the problems with the franchise. If we go 3-13, and the coach went against me all year...then maybe the owner pushes the blame on the coach & asks me to fire him.

2)Coach Mode: Similar to the above...only I have the option to be "only" a coach (i.e. resign my GM role if applicable), and be subject to the Owner & GM's desires & philosophy for success. I can control playcalling, gameplanning, strategy, player usage, etc.... or I can delegate portions of this to my coordinators & tweak, or the AI "recommend" is based upon my "Coach Profile"...not just the most optimal solution to the equation(i.e. how to beat the opponent), or irregardless of whether I am running a 4-3 or 3-4 defense, we dont use Shotgun, etc.

3) Owner Mode: Perhaps easily surmised if you've read this far...but this is where I can hire GM's to run my team's personnel decisions(or not hire one), set my "Owner Profile", and just merely handle what I'd like to handle...stopping short of playcalling. I cannot be fired, but if we stink long enough...perhaps I can be "run out of town" & forced to sell the franchise or re-locate due to our "wearing out our welcome" in a city. Food for thought.

I dont want to keep rambling on...but I'd like to see these types of options & elements to more games. I used football as an example, so certainly adaptations of these thoughts would be nice for other sports as well.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

One of the main reasons I haven't purchased the new FOF is the addition of draft interviews. I am more a less a macro GM type player and I love the draft, but having to manually interview up to 60 players in order to achieve draft success is just too tedious.

[DaddyTorgo]

Gary I (lovingly) echo Icy's comments. Release the game! I'm drooling over here!!!

[sabotai]

One of the main reasons I haven't purchased the new FOF is the addition of draft interviews. I am more a less a macro GM type player and I love the draft, but having to manually interview up to 60 players in order to achieve draft success is just too tedious.

FWIW, I sometimes don't bother with the interviews (sometimes I forget) and have done fine in the draft. You don't have to use them to have success, it just lets you see a bit more of some of the players in the draft (oftan times the ones I do interview aren't available by the time I want to draft them anyway). All in all, I'd say maybe 1 in 7 or 8 draft picks I make is someone I interviewed.

But working off this, it would be nice if you could make a few suggestions to the AI and have it do all of the interviews. Like "Interview projected mid-round running backs" and "Interview 1st round defensive tackles". Something along those lines.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

Exactly, because I dont want to lose any benefit from interviewing players and I have no interest in doing that myself.

[Daimyo]

The thing I'd like to see is middle ground between letting the ai make all decisions and the human having to make them all. Basically a set of sliders (similar to the pref draft sliders) so you could set things run vs pass, develop youth vs play vets, every down RB vs RB by committee, base formations/coverage preferences etc, etc. The AI would still handle all the gameplan decisions, but at least you would set the top level strategy for the team.

[ozias]

Some great thoughts here.

I know I don't post much, but why not have a complete order list.
Similiar to what's there already.

You could have somehting like this....

RB1- RB Jimmy
RB2- RB Steve
RB3- FB Tully
RB4- RB Zeke
RB5- FB Keith
RB6- TE Rod

And no matter what, they would always be in that order, so if RB1 does get injured and can't play, he would automatically become inactive,RB2 would then automatically becomes the number 1 guy and RB4 would become active, so you still have 3 active. The RB6 spot would most likely be your worst TE, and he would only become active if RB1, RB2 and RB3 went down to injury. If you carried 4 RB's top begin with, then the RB6 would be filled by him instead, or any way you like them.

So now the only time you would have to mess with them would be if 4 or more went down with injury. All positions could be filled in this way, where the final 1 or 2 spots are filled with players that would only come in if most everyone else went down to injury.

The positions where they are on the left or right side could be setup seperately or together.

OT1- Always your LT
OT2- Always your RT
OT3- Always LT
OT4- always RT

So Odd number always play the Left side and Even play the Right side. Guards, Defensive Ends, Defensive Tackles, ILB, OLB, CB's could use the same format, but have a checkable option for you to decide if you want your Best Corner to always cover their best WR.

So now..

OT1- Al your best OT
OT2- John next best OT, clickable option to move to left side if #1 guy goes down to injury.
OT3- Keith next best Left OT
OT4- Henry next best Right OT

Since OT1 and OT2 are your starters, they would play most of the time, and OT3 and OT4 would come in for substitutions, and they could have the same clickable option to play the other side if needed. The list could even have your backup Guards listed as the emergency players if all of your OT went down to injury.

I've carried 3 C's, 4 G's, and 4 T's so you could have a list for each position on the line, and once setup the bottom guys would automatically be inactive, and the order would never change except during extreme injuries, where you have to go into the FA pool and hire one to fill out your roster, and that could be added to the bottom of the list, as OT5, and he would automatically become inactive if one of the better ones heals.

So for this instance of linemen you could have a list from 1-8(or more), for all three positions, even though you may never fill it in all the way to 8 unless injuries killed your OL.

The list would allow you to have the players in the order you want them, so your #1 guys are always #1, and if they are hurt bad enough, they automatically become inactive. There could even be an option for you to specify how bad an injury needs to be before making them inactive. So if you like to play players who are questionable, your inactivity would only kick in when the player is doubtful.

Hopefully you guys will get my meaning.:)

Oz

[Buccaneer]

I was thinking about this more today and came up with perhaps a good illustration of QS's point with the way I play OOTP. As some of you know, I play a 25-year historical career in OOTP5 every year as I have been since 2002/3. It is a fun experience to do (takes about 6-8 weeks) because I have found a good balance or "middle ground" allowing me focus on the elements of the game that are fun to me while feeling that my decisions directly affect my success and failures. Here's how I play (including in parenthesis the role that I am playing):

1. Setup historical league (Commissioner) - this takes some time because I have to think about the team I want to choose, the starting year and plus all of the league setups, esp. choosing the right logos for each team (this is actually my most favorite part of the game but it's a personal thing)

2. Analyze rosters, move players around (GM)
3. Set lineup and rotation, and depth chart (Coach) - since OOTP5 does not care about R/L, I don't care about them either, which allows me to solely focus on putting the right players in the right place
4. Sim a month, check performances (GM) - update my season logs, make notes on team and leagues
5. Repeat #2-3
6. Look to trade (GM) - I do this after every monthly sim as well as close to the deadline. By far my most time consuming and fun element to do within the game, even though I usually don't make more than 2-3 trades a season
7. Repeat #4-5 (or up to #6, if before end of July)
8. Print out stats (particularly HTML Roster Report) at the end of the regular season (GM) - this is added to my logs for the season, particular looking how each of the starters rank in the league leaders and overall OPS
9. Run playoffs (Coach) - here I go game-by-game
10. Do contract negotiations (GM) - another fun part since I look at the season performances to decide whom to keep, tag for trade, release or not to re-sign - keeping in mind my potential budget and financial house rules.
(10a. Perform any changes to the leagues/stadiums/logo changes (Commissioner) - for the few expansions and stadium changes as per real life)
11. Do a full roster analysis at the start of the new season (GM) - this helps in determining who my starters might be, who are the backups, who gets sent down/called up and most importantly, where my holes that I need fill via free agency, drafting and trading - all keeping in mind my current budget and financial house rules.
12. Conduct free agency (GM) - my second most favorite element. I would say I go into the market to look for players about half the time. The other times that I don't has to do with my budget constraints since in historical leagures, there are always a few good players available.
13. Conduct draft (GM) - another fun part, esp. historical league drafts play differently than fictional league drafts
14. Conduct Spring Training (GM) - totally worthless and the only screen/stage that I have to see that I don't want to.
15. Go back to #2 and repeat

A nice steady flow, much like FBCB, that is GM-centric but with just enough critical details to be successful. I think the key, in thinking about playing GM-centric and OOTP5 and FBCB, is limiting the number of screens I see and limiting the information I see to only those that I want to see, if that makes sense.

I also make the same point about strategy games in general. There have been numerous strategy games I've played that I didn't like because it gives me too much information (or too little) - whether they are essential to what's going on or worse, just information for the sake of information/immersion/poor design/etc. - that I have to sort through and log what I think are the ones that I have make decisions upon and to see trends and it slows the game down or buries it in needless micromanagement.

Civ4 is good example of how it should be done. There are a lot of elements to the game but on the many screens, it only shows the critical information that are needed to play and make decisions upon - no more, no less.

Ok, I'm losing my point here. I think that the "middle ground" design is a good one. You need, for "one more turn" strategy and sports games, just enough information to make good decisions and that sometimes involves specific "coach-level" details in order to properly play at the "GM-level". What it boils down to is if a game can be successfully played by focusing on 15 pieces of information (hypothetically), then that is all it should show you, not 59 and not 3.

[Mac Howard]

In just about any text sim, there seem to be different degrees of hands-on management options. One obvious extreme here is the GM-only option, where the player has no real control over day-to-day stuff and simply functions in something like a GM role. The other end of the continuum is to be in charge of everything, to make all the decisions, and to play slowly to be in completel control.

While you could clearly draw a line covering the range of management options in text sims I'm not sure that somewhere along that line you don't change the entire purpose of the game. At one extreme you have a pure stats analysis/manipulation game and at the other an out-and-out role-playing game. I think the middle ground may produce something schizophrenic, neither the one nor the other and satisfying no one. You could have a game that had a facility to choose either option but I wonder if that game would satisfy in the way a game dedicated to that option would.

[Antmeister]

Quiksand, you have a good point and I think I follow along the same lines of SteveMax58 in regards to the solution. The problem that I see is that there are no defined roles within a number of text sims. I would have to say FM probably does the best job. In other words, I would love to see options defined on the role you play in the game. From that subset of options, you can still have the ability to give up some of that control to other positions.

I am going to use FOF for this situation since I had always wanted to see and FOF/TCY mashup. SteveMax58 follows along the same line of what I believe should be at least the main options in the game, but from there it can be broken down even more:

Owner: Give suggestions for players to watch pre-draft. Suggest or demand up to 4 players after the interview period. And from week to week focus on off the field stuff like charities/donation (for player/fan interaction), advertising (for fan turnout) and getting emails from the GM and coach concerning picking up new players, players in trouble with the law, conflicts with staff members, etc.


Head Coach (Select between Offensive or Defensive Minded): Deals with player issues on the field. Responsible for depth charts, game plans and formations. Can relegate some of the duty to Offensive and Defensive coordinators. Determines who the scouts interview pre-draft. Views who the GM see as potential stars in the draft and depending on the GM profile will determine if whether the coach will get the players he wants. A head coach to choose to do all, part or none of the Level 1 and 2 jobs below.

Level 1 - Offensive Coordinator: Is responsible for setting up the offensive game plans and formations and can only suggest who starts on offensive only to the head coach. Depending on the profile of the head coach, you may or may not get to call all of your plays on game day. If you do really well, someone may hire you to as coordinator for other teams or possibly a head coaching position. Bad coordinator can be demoted to position coaches.

Level 1 - Defensive Coordinator: Same as above, but for the defensive side of the ball.

Level 2 - Position Coaches (Offensive Side): Choose from Receiver Coach, Running Back Coach, QB Coach, Offensive Line Coach. Between games focus on skills to concentrate on to improve success. During the game, make in game adjustments in relation to the game plan/formations. Can only be promoted to Offensive Coordinator. Slight chance of be called up as Head Coach with great success.

Level 2 - Position Coaches (Defensive Side): Choose from Defensive Line Coach, Defensive Backfield Coach, Linebacker Coach, Special Teams Coach. Same as above but can only be promoted to Defensive Coordinator.

GM: All that great stuff like trading, drafting, replacing player, free agency. Does not get to make game plans, depth chart decisions. Just a personnel guy.

TCY Head Coach: Choose whatever school you want and hope for that job in the NFL. Most likely you will get jobs for Offensive/Defensive Coordinator, but if you are really good, you can get that Head Coaching position. Heck, if you are a great recruiter, maybe even let them hire you as a GM.

To me, I can appreciate working my way towards something. As it stands now, I feel good when I do a great job as partial owner/GM/part time coach. But after a while all you appreciate afterwards is the history you built and not necessarily the accomplishments along the way.

[Buccaneer]

But after a while all you appreciate afterwards is the history you built and not necessarily the accomplishments along the way.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

Quoted for truth.

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah. take my current FOF career. I had drafted back-to-back years a stud QB and a stud RB. the QB never lived up to his rating but I kept him, but the RB eventually demolished the old RB career records.

Now I could have reloaded countless times (well below the cap) and made a run at a championship but I remained content with 4-12, 6-10 seasons and strong run-blocking and a run-heavy gameplan in order to boost his stats and pad his records.

[Antmeister]

yeah. take my current FOF career. I had drafted back-to-back years a stud QB and a stud RB. the QB never lived up to his rating but I kept him, but the RB eventually demolished the old RB career records.

Now I could have reloaded countless times (well below the cap) and made a run at a championship but I remained content with 4-12, 6-10 seasons and strong run-blocking and a run-heavy gameplan in order to boost his stats and pad his records.

Although I have never done that, I still know what you mean. I actually look more forward to see if my player is going to go after all those records rather than worrying about my own character's legacy as a coach or GM. This is why I think FM is so popular. You can struggle up the ranks with yourself as well as the team and you feel like you accomplished something when you finally win it in the highest ranking league. Along the way, you go through varying degrees of difficulty from salaries, competition, player attitudes, etc.

[DaddyTorgo]

i'm going to take back my bashing of my QB Terry Hopper. Turns out that he's 5th All-Time in Yards with over 42k (Alex Smith leads with 56k) and completes a respectable 62.5% of his passes. His main problem is his 205-180 TD/INT ratio and the lack of quality receivers he has had to work with limiting his YPC to 9.88

Rushing-wise though, Ian Higgins is the real deal so far. Just shy of 17k yds in 12 seasons @ 4.22 ypc and 119 TD's