Is this Game for Me?

[Taz13]

Hi Guys,

I have been looking for a football sim where I could GM for a team. My question is --- is this game for me?

I have done a lot of reading on these forums and it has made me question whether I would be any good at this game. The reason I ask is that I watch football each and every Sunday, understand the rules, know the teams, etc., but having never actually played the sport growing up I don't necessarily understand what a certain play is (formations I have a basic idea) or what, but not the actual play names, etc. Is this a large part of the game week in and week out?

I have played other texted based sport management games (OOTP, PureSim, DDS:PB, etc), but I also feel I have a better understanding of game day preparation for those sports.

Thank you for the time to help me make a decision on this one.

[RedKingGold]

Welcome to the forums.

If you have an interest in football and in text sims, I would definitely try FOF out. I believe it is currently the best football text-sim on the market and has been the only "game" that I've played consistently over an almost 10-year period.

My personal opinion is that FOF is easy and fun to learn, but hard to master. Much of the conversation about "difficulty" in FOF is in the multiplayer arena where humans compete against other humans in leagues. However, starting as a single-player game is not that daunting.

It seems like you've played some text-sims and understand what they offer. FOF turns off some because the appearence is very barebones and dry compared to flashier menus and graphics on other sim games. But the engine is statistically accurate, the AI is generally solid, and it should give you a good buck for your money.

In terms of your concerns, I'm more into the "GM" sim than the "Coach" sim. I think FOF is pretty much that way as well. While a good gameplanner can have an edge (especailly over the AI), many teams have great success (in both single-player and multiplayer leagues) with smart drafting and AI gameplan management. So, if you are worried about not knowing formations or what specific plays are, you need not need to know them to enjoy FOF.

If you ever have any questions, the FOFC Community is usually pretty quick to respond and help you out. Also, there is a wide variety of strategy tips available in this forum using a simple search.

[Firefly]

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about knowing plays or not. You have an option, in single player, to either call the plays, or make a gameplan and let the coaches call the plays. Gameplanning doesn't involve selecting actual plays, just run/pass/blitz/double coverage sort of stuff.

[sovereignstar]

Buy the game, play it for a day, then get into a multiplayer league stat.

[Taz13]

I appreciate the responses. I have just purchased the game and will be trying to see if I can get this done correctly.

Please let me know if there are any user mods/utilities that might aid in the game playing experience.

Once again, thank you for the information.

[Hurst2112]

Historical Draft Files are a fun way to spend a single player career. I think there is a link stickied with various draft files, roster files, etc.

EDIT:

This link is what you need.

http://operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=63429

[jdavidbakr]

I appreciate the responses. I have just purchased the game and will be trying to see if I can get this done correctly.

Please let me know if there are any user mods/utilities that might aid in the game playing experience.

Once again, thank you for the information.

Lots of great utilities have been written, once you're familiar with the game you can have fun going through the reference thread and checking out all the fun add-ons that the community has made.

[Sgran]

You should definitely read up on the forums about setting the salary cap in single player games. The AI often panicks when the salary cap is tight and releases a huge part of the roster, which makes the game unrealistic (and too simple) in the long run if the salary cap isn't far above where it should be.