A set of house rules for solo FOF play

[QuikSand]

I have documented a pretty long time spent here, playing this game with a wide variety of house rules and other limitations. I seem to consider it some kind of holy grail to come up with something that scores well in each of several categories of interest to me:

-challenging to play/beat
-meaningful decision making
-simple to execute

...and probably other things that are along similar lines. I'd link here to various career threads, but I'm simply too lazy. Anyhow, take my word for it - I have logged in a lot of hours in an effort to come up with a long term system.

Anyhow... I don't claim that I have solved anything here, but with the current state of the game, I think I have a set of rules that is at least pretty good on all three grounds, and is also fairly easily scale-able to players of different skill levels. So, I thought I'd put it out for comment or sharing here.

[QuikSand]

THE RULES

-No renegotiations or franchise tagging, period (all players hit the free market)

-No re-signing RFAs in the early FA period (they too must hit the open market, in the late FA stages)

-No more than one offer outstanding to any player (including your own) in any stage of free agency

-After signing a player to a deal other than either (a) his exact request or (b) a minsal deal, skip a stage before submitting another offer to any player

-No signing of any players in any other way than the 16 stages of free agency, and the rookie draft

-No acquiring future first round draft picks

-No WR rated >50 overall or >50 in BPR may be signed or re-signed

-Start each season with dead cap space equal to 1/3 of total cap

[QuikSand]

The adjustment for skill level can come in either of two places -- the ceiling at the WR position, and the cap space limitation. I've found a pretty sweet spot using 50 and 1/3, but either or both ought to be easy to adjust to create the level of challenge that you're looking for. (I do find that extreme cap limitations tend to make for less impactful decision-making, to me, so I'd be reluctant to cut it back too far)

[QuikSand]

Some evolution of the idea here: FOF 2007 - Highlander Challenge, Take Two - Front Office Football Central (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=81272)

[lastcat3]

Do you have your franchise settings at the hardest level. There are three different settings I believe. You didn't mention anything about actually putting your franchise at the hardest level.

[QuikSand]

Highest level, sorry, sort of an oversight I guess. I haven't used anything but the hardest level for a very long time.

[Dutch]

Pretty clean and easy set of house rules.

I like the concept of only getting one shot per stage. Particularly since good players will likely wait 3-4 stages or so before they sign. I could see that creating some really tough and interesting decisions.

[Ben E Lou]

-No WR rated >50 overall or >50 in BPR may be signed or re-signedfor some additional ease, I could modify my draft file generator code to give you draft files where the last name is appended with "_no" for all QBs and/or WRs created with talent above x. I'm doing that for my current SP career. It just gives a *little* more flexibility, just in case a previously-crappy guy has a random breakout.

[aston217]

These are great! I can see the WR rule being difficult to keep track of without modifying the draft files.

[QuikSand]

For what it's worth, here is how I am implementing the WR rule:

-I can *draft* anyone I want at the WR position, at any point... but knowing that that good-value high-BPR guy won't be re-signable after his rookie deal means at the very least you're taking a hit in cohesion (even if you still decide that it's worth the pick to grab the guy)

-Signing or re-signing is pretty easy. I have my ceilings set at 50, and that's awfully simple to manage -- I don't worry about what might happen a year after I sign a guy, I just keep it simple and enforce the rule at the time of signing/re-signing.

[QuikSand]

I like the concept of only getting one shot per stage. Particularly since good players will likely wait 3-4 stages or so before they sign. I could see that creating some really tough and interesting decisions.

While it doesn't apply to the rigid side of my brain, I love this rule in practice as well. I am pretty routinely making tough decisions about two different things:

-which guys are my top FA priorities, and which guys I could afford to return are ones I will basically allow to walk if they want to

-how aggressively to pursue a player, knowing that it's somewhat tough to field a full roster under these rules, having a low-dollar offer sit there for 4 stages actually causes some pain, but offering more money often means I have to skip a stage after he signs

I also find that the value lf low round draft picks is much greater under these rules -- I almost never sign any undrafted rookies, so grabbing at least a few fairly cheap 3-year roster fillers in every draft has much more value than just about any other system I've played under.

It's not perfect, I'll readily admit. Not sure that I will ever find that holy grail. But right now I am enjoying my solo game a fair amount - and I'm up to 2090 or so, with about the last 20-30 seasons played under these rules - taking maybe 2 hours to run an entire season, which is a pace that works pretty well for me. My teams occasionally miss the playoffs, when we really click it's usually because certain things really worked out well, and I am routinely facing offseasons that rip apart my best-laid plans. That's the stuff I like dealing with in this game.

[aston217]

-Signing or re-signing is pretty easy. I have my ceilings set at 50, and that's awfully simple to manage -- I don't worry about what might happen a year after I sign a guy, I just keep it simple and enforce the rule at the time of signing/re-signing.

Would this theoretically prevent you from signing an undrafted rookie with a potential of 64 but you know he's going way down, and allowing you to sign a 4th year creeper coming out of someone else's RFA list, who's at 48/48 but you know is going up? (Admittedly, the latter is probably hard to find with a 50BPR cap as well).

[QuikSand]

Theoretically, I suppose both are possible. With a hard limit on BPR, and that being both the most important WR rating and one that is essentially fixed, I haven't found too much temptation to get into either angle. I occasionally land a pretty good 4th year player here or there, but since late FA is the only time I can re-sign my own guys, any poaching former RFAs from other teams comes at a meaningful cost. I can generally only count on landing three guys after the draft in any year, and there's just about always plenty of guys that I want from my own roster, as you'd imagine.

[QuikSand]

I fired up my long-time career for a few seasons under these rules, and sadly have a team that's staying in the bye tier most every year now, despite having a QB rated under 40.

I don't really like cap crushing (I'm currently killing $50m in cap per year with a $154m total cap number), as I feel it really distorts the game too much in many ways, so I'm looking at some more complication-increasing rules:

-no signing <5th year free agents until late free agency

-bonus must be exactly half of custom FA deals (cool market manipulation)

-no drafting WR who exceed my guidelines (not sure how to implement this yet)

[QuikSand]

An amusing thing that comes to mind here... sort of "insider" humor for FOF junkies.

To effect my $50m in dead cap, I offer a worthless player a deal with a monster bonus and cut him. Lately I just go to find guys from my alma mater, for no real reason. Anyway, I love seeing this happen in game, via a fictionalized phone call:

Team: So, we'd like to sign your client, the stiff punter.
Agent: Again?
Team: Yeah, same deal as the last two years.
Agent: You give him $50 million in cash to keep, and then cut him loose the next day?
Team: Yes, that's what we would like to do.
Agent: Go fuck yourself, we're not falling for this shit again. <dial tone>

[AlexB]

:D

[Ben E Lou]

An amusing thing that comes to mind here... sort of "insider" humor for FOF junkies.

To effect my $50m in dead cap, I offer a worthless player a deal with a monster bonus and cut him. Lately I just go to find guys from my alma mater, for no real reason. Anyway, I love seeing this happen in game, via a fictionalized phone call:

Team: So, we'd like to sign your client, the stiff punter.
Agent: Again?
Team: Yeah, same deal as the last two years.
Agent: You give him $50 million in cash to keep, and then cut him loose the next day?
Team: Yes, that's what we would like to do.
Agent: Go fuck yourself, we're not falling for this shit again. <dial tone=""></dial>24-carat GOLD!