Single Player House Rules

[Clockwork Orange]

Hey guys -- wonder if I could ask for a bit of help putting together some decent SP house rules. I read a giant long thread with some great ideas, many of which I like, but I don't think I'm going to be getting into tracking action points or something complicated.

As background, I don't use any of the extra tools or utilities (too fearful of technology to try to mess around installing them especially since this is a PITA enough with me on a Mac). I take a screenshot of my players before and after training camp every year so I can see who is on their way up or down, but that's about it. I have a rough sense that good combine scores trump good bars, but don't really want to get any more sophisticated than that or it would take the fun out of things for me. I gameplan once in a while, but Rex everything for the most part (sometimes after something particularly egregious like goal line defense at midfield I'll make some changes). I do play through the occasional big game, for immersion, though I don't like how much easier it makes things.

Playing it straight and allowing myself the full cap, I tend to have strings of 15-1 super bowl seasons. Hence the need for house rules.


STARTUP RULES

* Either take a historical file and play an expansion team that didn't exist at the time (e.g., Carolina) or set up a new franchise and hold a selection draft. Doing the latter, for the first 45 rounds you select a player and then cut him (I selected the lowest-potential QB). In the 2002 expansion, teams were allowed to protect 48 players, but Houston was allowed to pick from every team, so this seemed a reasonable compromise.

TRADES

* Only computer-initiated trades and they must be accepted or rejected as is. In practice this means little trading. Has anyone come up with anything fair that doesn't let you rape the AI?

FREE AGENCY

* No signing anyone with a potential over 50 in FA if they were released. I assume these are the product of the AI not being able to manage the salary cap properly.

MAJOR CONSTRAINT

* Obviously, this needs some form of major constraint. The big long thread had action points, which was cool but I often play while a lil intoxicated and I don't feel like keeping track of all that.

* I tried mandating that my team break even every year but it's hard to manage toward this because you don't get much of a sense during the season on what your actual cash outlays are, so you end up getting bogged down in a lot of adding up individual salaries for 53 guys. Plus the revenue model isn't all that transparent. Attendance seems to increase by 500 for every win up to a point, but there's not a huge impact from playing well on attendance, and I don't want the key feature of the game to be how I price luxury boxes.

* Is there a way to make breakeven workable, maybe with things I'm not thinking of?

* How about restricting myself to a % of the cap? So I'd always have to have, say, 25% of cap room free or $20 MM free or whatever. I think some MP leagues do things like this -- is this easy to make it work in practice?

* If I can't find any global constraint like cap or profit, I'll be stuck with a lot of tactical constraints (like I'd already need to have anyway for trades and free agency, maybe others, see below).


OTHER TACTICAL CONSTRAINTS

Are there other things I should add to make things less exploitative? Are there well-known exploits that I should be aware of so I don't do or abuse them? E.g.,

- CONTRACTS

* I feel like it's too easy to wrap up guys to Long Term contracts...should I, for example, set a rule that I can only sign people to the length of contract they initially suggest? That would suck a bit, since it takes out some of the fun of real-world GMing.
* Or, should I make a rule that the signing bonus must be at least X% of the value of a multi-year contract? That would seem more realistic. Any ideas on this?

- FREE AGENCY

* It's too easy to outbid other teams for free agents. It might be less easy if I restrict my cap room though. in the past, I'd tried mandating a one-round grace period after I made an offer. So if I make an offer in stage 2, I can't improve that offer in stage 3. But I'd often still get the guy I wanted, so I moved it back to no changing bids until stage 6. I could keep that or have no changes of bids at all.

- EXTENSIONS

* It feels too easy to lock my players up to below-market extensions. Anyone have any house rules here? Like only a min X% raise? Only before their final contract year? (or only IN their final contract year?). In RL it's all about the signing bonus, so maybe fixing a minimum % signing bonus (as per 'contracts' above) might help?

- ANYTHING ELSE?

I really want to immerse myself in SP all over again. I used to love the game before it got too easy.

[Clockwork Orange]

aw please..throw a dog a bone?

[DrAFTjunkie]

TRADES

1)* Only computer-initiated trades and they must be accepted or rejected as is. In practice this means little trading. Has anyone come up with anything fair that doesn't let you rape the AI?

2) FREE AGENCY

* No signing anyone with a potential over 50 in FA if they were released. I assume these are the product of the AI not being able to manage the salary cap properly.


3) CONTRACTS

* I feel like it's too easy to wrap up guys to Long Term contracts...should I, for example, set a rule that I can only sign people to the length of contract they initially suggest? That would suck a bit, since it takes out some of the fun of real-world GMing.
* Or, should I make a rule that the signing bonus must be at least X% of the value of a multi-year contract? That would seem more realistic. Any ideas on this?

4)- FREE AGENCY

* It's too easy to outbid other teams for free agents. It might be less easy if I restrict my cap room though. in the past, I'd tried mandating a one-round grace period after I made an offer. So if I make an offer in stage 2, I can't improve that offer in stage 3. But I'd often still get the guy I wanted, so I moved it back to no changing bids until stage 6. I could keep that or have no changes of bids at all.

5)- EXTENSIONS

* It feels too easy to lock my players up to below-market extensions. Anyone have any house rules here? Like only a min X% raise? Only before their final contract year? (or only IN their final contract year?). In RL it's all about the signing bonus, so maybe fixing a minimum % signing bonus (as per 'contracts' above) might help?

6- ANYTHING ELSE?


1) I tried only accepting AI initiated trades, but found it boring. The only alternative I can suggest it that when you negotiate to the point that the AI is willing to accept a trade, just add significantly more.

2 and 4) For the most part, I adhere to the no signing anyone over 50 thing, but if I really REALLY want a certain player, I'll increase his bonus to the point that he is the highest paid player in the league at his position. Even then, I'll never sign anyone over a 60, and he can't have ever been an All-Pro. I allow myself one such signing every three seasons. Also, I don't allow myself to ever up any offer to compete with other teams. In fact, I sim FA 2-12 in one fell swoop. Even with the exaggerated offer, I still miss out on said player quite often due to loyalty to their own team.

3 and 5)Yes, I only sign (sub 50) players to exactly what they request. I've recently had the idea with increasing their bonuses with some formula based on years of service, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. The loyalty factor in this game seems skewed. I have a hard time believing that even the most loyal player will refuse an offer that is literally 1/20th of his current team's offer. To counteract the loyalty factor when re-signing my own players, I increase the player's signing bonus based on his loyalty number. If he has a 50 loyalty, I increase his signing bonus by 50%, if it is 100, it's 100%. Also, I won't ever re-sign a player in the last year of his contract after TC. This ups the risk factor. What if he's a volatility casualty; what if age catches up with him; what if he suffers a severe injury during the season? Oh well...

6) -No staff offers 'til week 3. You'll usually end up with a meh scout and will frequently lose coaches. Also, no lowball offers during this stage. If the D coordinator wants 2.7 mil a year, he gets it, despite the fact that you could get him for far less.

-Cut back on interviews by at least 50%.

-If you've got a player in the last year of his contract who, for one reason or another you have no intention of re-signing to a new deal, cut him.

-Sign stupid QBs who don't know many formations, and will have a hard time learning new ones.

-Don't succumb to the demands of a vet holdout. Trade him for a 5th, and if there are no takers, cut him.

[Clockwork Orange]

Thanks so much for this! This is really helpful! Anyone else who plays SP, feel free to chime in...I imagine we can learn from each other's house rules.

1) I tried only accepting AI initiated trades, but found it boring. The only alternative I can suggest it that when you negotiate to the point that the AI is willing to accept a trade, just add significantly more.

Do you have a rule of thumb you use here for "significantly more"? My understanding is that the AI undervalues draft picks especially, and all the more so if it is a bad team = high draft choices. Have you noticed this? Do you allow yourself to trade for trade picks ever?


2 and 4) For the most part, I adhere to the no signing anyone over 50 thing, but if I really REALLY want a certain player, I'll increase his bonus to the point that he is the highest paid player in the league at his position. Even then, I'll never sign anyone over a 60, and he can't have ever been an All-Pro. I allow myself one such signing every three seasons. Also, I don't allow myself to ever up any offer to compete with other teams. In fact, I sim FA 2-12 in one fell swoop. Even with the exaggerated offer, I still miss out on said player quite often due to loyalty to their own team.

I like this. So you do your offers in FA2 and that's it? I think I might try that - or maybe only participate in rounds 2, 7, and 12 to give myself a chance to go for some guys but if I don't get them to go for some backup options.

Also, I won't ever re-sign a player in the last year of his contract after TC. This ups the risk factor. What if he's a volatility casualty; what if age catches up with him; what if he suffers a severe injury during the season? Oh well...

So you allow yourself unrestricted extensions as long as it is before TC of their final year and you pay them exactly what they ask, multiplied by a formula relating to signing bonuses and loyalty? Nice and simple, I can use that.

I heard that in some MP players, they only allow you to extend in the final year - this seems to be the opposite. I wonder why that MP rule sometimes exists (if it actually does and i'm not misremembering)


6) -No staff offers 'til week 3. You'll usually end up with a meh scout and will frequently lose coaches. Also, no lowball offers during this stage. If the D coordinator wants 2.7 mil a year, he gets it, despite the fact that you could get him for far less.

Nice. Easy to follow and effective. Going to use this.

[Clockwork Orange]

For a global constraint, do you guys think that something like this would work?

Before FA1 (or when?) the team must sign any random player to a 1-yr contract with a signing bonus of X% of the total cap available for your team for that year, and then cut him.

In such a case, X could be your difficulty slider. You'd still need a couple of rules to cover other loopholes like we've been talking about in this thread, but this seems like it might work somewhat?

OK, one potential problem here is that the impact of prior contracts could be such that in a given year, you can't even do the X contract. I guess that could force you to cut people but that's a bit messy especially if the problem was created by book-keeping.

Hmm, how about doing this every 5 years, with a signing bonus of 5 times x% of cap (or 5 * cap * X). That way you'd only have the potential disruption once every 5 years which is a bit better.

There might be a maximum signing bonus, but you can simply use more than one player for this since you're cutting them anyway.

It will make your finances look ghastly once every 5 years, but is that really going to matter in SP especially if you're restricting yourself to hiring coaches in stage 5 anyway?

Any experienced guys have feedback on my plan before I waste a whole bunch of nights trying it before I realize the flaws? :)

[QuikSand]

Playing with a reduced cap is a pretty solid shortcut to a challenge career, without a ton of things to remember. It has its shortcomings, but it might suit your needs okay.

[Clockwork Orange]

Playing with a reduced cap is a pretty solid shortcut to a challenge career, without a ton of things to remember. It has its shortcomings, but it might suit your needs okay.

Thanks so much for your reply. I've read a lot of your posts :)

What kind of shortcomings should I be thinking of, if I can bug you a second time?

And do you see any problems in the WAY I was planning to reduce my cap? (as opposed to, say, constantly trying to remember to keep to keep a certain amount of it free)

[aston217]

Unfortunately I don't think you CAN escape the fact that after a couple seasons, the average age on almost every team will be something like 24.5, populated entirely by rookie free agents because every AI team is in cap hell. And the FA pool will be obscene. If there's a way to get around this, I'd LOVE to know it. This causes the big problems more than anything. If Jim could just fix the contract AI model so it isn't completely horrible, I might go up against teams that don't have 11/24 starting LTs (among other things).

What I've done is to tend to let some higher rated players go, pretending I can't afford them. When I want to trade someone, I make it tilted in the AI's favor. I try to help these guys out ;)


Here's one idea I've had more recently...in preseason, anyone who gets an IR-able injury has to go on IR. You'll have to deal with a few more injuries this way and if your players get 'Out - 4 weeks' they'll be out for the year.

[Clockwork Orange]

Unfortunately I don't think you CAN escape the fact that after a couple seasons, the average age on almost every team will be something like 24.5, populated entirely by rookie free agents because every AI team is in cap hell. And the FA pool will be obscene. If there's a way to get around this, I'd LOVE to know it.

I never really noticed this, partly because I wasn't paying attention. It seemed that every year 1-2 teams would blow up from cap stuff -- at least as I define it, which is seeing a bunch of quality players released for no other obvious reason. I always kind of assumed that (all things being equal) a released star was for cap reasons and a contract expired star was on the market because he wanted to test his value on the open market. But maybe it's all cap crap.

Would dramatically increasing the cap solve the problem you mentioned, at least theoretically? (and not allowing yourself to use the full amount obviously). Or would the AI just offer ever-more-massive contracts to match and get itself back in cap hell?

[DrAFTjunkie]

Playing with a reduced cap is a pretty solid shortcut to a challenge career, without a ton of things to remember. It has its shortcomings, but it might suit your needs okay.

Yeah, I used to do this, but I just wasn't feeling it, just a personal preference thing. I guess I'd rather pretend to be a team with a horrible GM than a team with less money to spend. I don't really mind all of the restrictions because they're like 2nd nature to me by now.

[Clockwork Orange]

Thanks for the discussion here -- anyone who wants to chime in, would be much appreciated!

I'm using this as a basis for my SP career in this thread (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?p=2434668).

[QuikSand]

A quick follow-up on this thread.

I was recently looking for something along similar lines -- simple to follow, but still challenging. I'm still fiddling through my career under these rules, but here's something to try on for size:

-No renegotiations, period (they all hit the free market)
-No re-signing RFAs in the early FA period (they too must hit the open market)
-No more than one offer outstanding to any player (including your own) in any stage of free agency
-No signing of any players in any other way than the 16 stages of free agency, and the rookie draft
-No other obvious shenanigans (like swapping future draft picks)

At least for my usual style of play, I'm finding the unpredictability of the open free agent market to be a serious factor in filling up my roster, and it's hard to maintain the continuity that I'm used to. I'm also actually interested in contract duration, which is pretty much new to me in FOF as well.

Worth a look.

[Darren29]

Something I tried a while ago was to set the cap increase to the maximum possible and very few AI teams got into cap trouble that way.

Other rules I use are:

Don't sign any staff until the final staff stage
Can't sign any FA's with a rating above 40
Can't sign any FA's until FA5
Have to offer all FA's exactly what they ask for (both in terms of years and $$)
Can only renegotiate in the last year of a player's contract and again give them exactly what they ask for
Accept all trades which are not for starting players (ie. so when the AI offers you a 6th for a 50/50 rated C you can decline)

There might be some others, but I haven't played SP for a while so can't remember.

I started playing with these rules to focus on drafting and you end up with a pretty much home-grown team. But after a while this got too easy too and when you can win multiple SB's with a 40ish rated QB it can get a bit boring.

I tend to use SP purely to test gameplans now, but I've got some which seem to work well at the moment, hence not playing SP for a while.

[QuikSand]

Playing a bit again lately, and I'm coming to a reluctant conclusion that a WR-specific rule is probably in order. I'm sick and tired of seeing guys still available at pick 30 in the draft who would have gone in the top 3 in a "real" (i.e. serious MP) league... and guys available at pick 100 who would have gone in the top 15, not to mention the massive undervaluation of WR on the open market.

I know Ben has used some WR-focused rules in the past, and while I recoil at the notion of it, I think it's probably for the best overall. I'm thinking something like: No WR on the team with an overall rating over 50, nor a BPR rating over 30.

This will probably emasculate the ability to run a mammoth passing attack, and will also greatly lessen the ability to learn a lot from this career that transfers over to a more normal setting. But this is where we are in this game -- the BPR rating is just massive overweighted in implementation, massively undervalued by the in-game AI, and making use of that glaringly obvious fact is tantamount to an "AI exploit" at this point.

[aston217]

I think hard and fast rules aren't the way to go there.

Just have a rule of thumb: don't pick great WRs. AIs have trouble building their roster, so let them have the obvious good players. Try to look for other decent players, the kind you would find in MP leagues based on where you are picking, and limit getting good receivers in FA when you know they are undervalued.

Maybe avoid the obvious masks that the AI can't recognize. Alternatively, you must select those guys in the first three rounds. Once you hit round 4, no snooping for that 3.6 rated CB with the high PH and INT pair.

[QuikSand]

I have had some luck with a "rule" that isn't even a rule, really. To speed things up, I tend to turn the depth chart over to the staff - just keeps me from having to go in very often just to replace the backup WLB from one bum to another bum, that sort of thing. But it also means that if I draft that low-bars, high-ceiling guy in round 6 of my draft, odds are on most rosters that he's going to be and stay buried on the depth chart, and won't get much chance to develop. That implicitly ends up meaning that I don't get too much value out of guys like that, save for very unusual circumstances (like an unexpected roster void at a position where such a guy happens to come along). As a result, I end up spending many more of my late round picks on affinity fill-ins than I do searching for deep sleepers.

Never really thought of this as a rule, per se, but I guess it's a meaningful way that I hamstring myself playing SP.


As for the soft rules... I just have trouble with the concept, as I feel like every soft rule (1) invites clarifications in my favor when it becomes important, and (2) eliminates any replication option if a set of rules really tends to work out well. I realize that the holy grail here is probably never going to land in my lap, but it's my preference to keep trying.

I'm planning to give a whirl at a set of rules that mostly follows my items in #12 above, adds in a one-stage pause if I sign a free agent to a good contract (anything other than minsal or his request), and some tough hard limit at the wide receiver position. Will see if it pans out into something workable.

[QuikSand]

Quick update from above. Too easy. Power team fairly quickly rebuilt again.

Thinking the key is a cap limit, on top of the basic setup before. Too easy to sign quality FA talent, need to cap that somehow, force more choices.

[stevew]

What is a challenging cap nerf? I'm thinking something like 30-40% dead money per year might be challenging. Also I wish the game dynamically tracked cash expenditures for the current year. I'm guessing a cash vs cap setup might be interesting. Like if you could only spend X total dollars in salary/bonus combined. Like you were running any team not named the Redskins.

[RedKingGold]

Quick update from above. Too easy. Power team fairly quickly rebuilt again.

Thinking the key is a cap limit, on top of the basic setup before. Too easy to sign quality FA talent, need to cap that somehow, force more choices.

What is a challenging cap nerf? I'm thinking something like 30-40% dead money per year might be challenging. Also I wish the game dynamically tracked cash expenditures for the current year. I'm guessing a cash vs cap setup might be interesting. Like if you could only spend X total dollars in salary/bonus combined. Like you were running any team not named the Redskins.

In theory based on the above, wouldn't a rule that you can never offer a signing bonus to any UFA make an interesting house rule? That would be pretty close to a cash minimum idea, and you would automatically need to overpay for FA's in salary to come close to AI offers with bonus/salary.

[kserra]

I love solo play with the game...

for years I've had few hard rules, except:

My team (Lions) can only have players on the team that are from the Big Ten (ok, 12 now, but you get the point), plus any other Michigan school (CMU, EMU, WMU, etc...)

so my first year is spent trading or releasing players without the appropriate credentials... this results in maybe 5-7 actual guys where I can get draft picks...

This gives me a nice supply of draft picks for the first few years to restock my team, which makes the draft incredibly fun...

I set the salary cap and its increases to the max

In free agency, I can only offer a player a contract one time... no exceptions.

I let my coaches do all the game planning... I'm the GM, my job is to give them the players, they do the coaching. I might watch key games, but that's as involved as i get during the gameday, instead, I enjoy a beer and watch my guys and my coaches do their thing...

Results? usually very good, outside of the first few years, but by no means am I winning the super bowl every year or two...

the draft and my limited supply of players, allows me to really key in on certain guys, and not worry about the clutter of all those non-worthy guys who dared to play at a non-Big Ten school...

In addition, I just use the smell test... if something just doesn't seem right, I don't do it... I won't trade my 1st pick in 2014 (when I should be good) to a team for their 1st that year when I know they will be terrible... etc...

Simple, fun, and I don't need to keep three pages of rules by my side at all time.

Kevin

[revrew]

Once you've fiddled with many of the more "realistic" house rules, it can be fun for a while to try an off-the-wall solution, such as the one kserra proposed above.

I played a couple of dynasties with similar house rules years ago. For example, the Des Moines Dragons could only draft/sign/trade for players from Iowa colleges and universities. (that was TOUGH! - Not like I chose Florida or Texas only).

"The South Shall Rise Again" dynasty only allowed players from the Confederate States.

You can fiddle with their hometowns, too, though the sorting is a little tougher on that one in draft time.

[QuikSand]

I too have had fun with the regional limits idea, but for me the fatal flaw there is that I don't feel my success had too much to do with me. I had an all-NY school team suddenly turn good not because I got better, but because I lucked into a handful of key studs from my pool of colleges in one stretch. so, it was challenging, but not really all that rewarding when it came together. Limited rosters like that also become exercises in cohesion building for me, which is laborious if not rewarding.

[Southpaw330]

My House rules are as follows:

1. No trading unless initiated by CPU.

2. No signing of a FA from another team above vet minimum(can't have signing bonus).

3. No FB under 250 lbs.

4. No TE under 6'4" and 260 lbs.

5. No WR under 200 lbs.

6. No C under 6'4" and 300 lbs.

7. No G under 6'4" and 330 lbs.

8. No T under 6'5" and 330 lbs.

9. No DE under 6'5" and 300 lbs.

10. No DT under 6'4" and 330 lbs.

11. No LB under 6'0" and 245 lbs.

12. No DB under 200 lbs.

13. No Height/Weight Requirement for QB, RB, P, or K.

14. A player under the weight requirement may be drafted or signed but must be released if he can't bulk up to weight requirement.

15. No offers to Coordinators over $2 million per year.

I like bigger players.