Should I buy FOF 4 ?

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

oK now that FOF 4 has been out a while and that every bug has supposedly been fixed . I was wondering if I should buy it now or wait a little longer .

A major question I have is can I start my own league WITH fictious names?
and I already know that I can play in any era of football but are the salaries to par with salaries back then ?

[DolphinFan1]

Most of the bugs are fixed. Jim plans on releasing a small patch in the summer. But the game is ok to play. I play all the time and haven't had any problems.
Yes, you can start you own league with fictious names. You just have to create one player and the league will generate the rest of the players. Although the players won't be very good at first. But that will change after a few drafts.
You can set your own salary cap starting point. It will go up from there. I hope this helps.
BTW, I love this game.

[stkelly52]

I don't like starting with a one player universe because the players are all so poor. It makes the first drafts too valuable. Instead I like to start with a dispersal draft. While all of the players do represent real players, I have no idea who they are so it makes no impact on the game.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Thanks for the info .....I guess it will be worth the upgrade from FOF 2001 .

[INDalltheway]

Originally posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER
Thanks for the info .....I guess it will be worth the upgrade from FOF 2001 .
It is worth the upgrade. Just the fact that you will have the proper alignment, and soon have a patch with updated rosters I bellieve.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

If only the stats were updated....

[MizzouRah]

Originally posted by INDalltheway
It is worth the upgrade. Just the fact that you will have the proper alignment, and soon have a patch with updated rosters I bellieve.

I'm thinking the same, maybe the draft to import? Seemed like Jim was pretty excited about the draft. ;)


Todd

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

bump....he he he !

[ColtCrazy]

I've owned every FOF that's come out but this one, but I'm thinking about ordering it because I'd like to get the CD-ROM before Jim stops selling them completely.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

True True cuz I would hate a DL version of the game .

[Taur]

To me FOF4 was a step in the wrong direction. After TCY, FOF4 was a giant step backward. If you have FOF2001 I wouldn't recomend buying FOF4 unless you like the on field "Coaching" upgrades. As a Front office game there are no upgrades in the finances or ownership aspects.

TCY is still the best Empire building sports sim out there!!!


BTW- I am waiting on 400 studios Football.net to come out in a couple of months, hopefully.(MPG Baby)

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by Taur
To me FOF4 was a step in the wrong direction. After TCY, FOF4 was a giant step backward. If you have FOF2001 I wouldn't recomend buying FOF4 unless you like the on field "Coaching" upgrades. As a Front office game there are no upgrades in the finances or ownership aspects.


I'd have to say I agree (sadly). Unless playcalling means anything to you, FOF4 is barely an upgrade over 2001. This game has been disappointing so far. I hope when Jim releases a third patch this summer that it clears up some of the speed issues.

[stkelly52]

Originally posted by cthomer5000
I'd have to say I agree (sadly). Unless playcalling means anything to you, FOF4 is barely an upgrade over 2001. This game has been disappointing so far. I hope when Jim releases a third patch this summer that it clears up some of the speed issues.

I might agree with this, except that there are a few bugs in FOF 2001 that always bugged me. FOr example, I like being able to afford to hire backups. In 2001 they always had outragous cost demands.

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by stkelly52
I might agree with this, except that there are a few bugs in FOF 2001 that always bugged me. FOr example, I like being able to afford to hire backups. In 2001 they always had outragous cost demands.

But it's actually possible this has made the game easier, basically negating it's usefulness.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

I am also sick of winning 10 SB in 15 years.

[Jets80]

I would not waste/spend the money on this game right now. My biggest complaint with this game is the stats. Since I am a stats freak this game never did for me. Maybe the urge to play will be stronger once football season comes around, but for now I would suggest playing OOTP5.

[Bee]

I don't see much difference in the difficulty between the various versions of FOF. IMO, there are enough small improvements to make FOF4 more enjoyable to play but not more challenging.

Some of the things I like in FOF4 are being able to modify the starting year and the starting salary cap. The team summary page is nice, as is the scouting report for any team every week (including your own). I think the record keeping is improved. I like being able to go back and look at various information from past seasons. There also seems to be a lot more control over the "style" of play your team uses (with all the new situational screens). Overall, I think the game is better but if the only criteria you judge it by is if it is more challenging then it's not worth it.

[Bee]

Originally posted by Jets80
I would not waste/spend the money on this game right now. My biggest complaint with this game is the stats. Since I am a stats freak this game never did for me. Maybe the urge to play will be stronger once football season comes around, but for now I would suggest playing OOTP5.

What are your complaints with the stats?

[JonInMiddleGA]

What Taur said.

I didn't buy it after playing the demo, not because of the bugs, but because a number of the changes didn't matter much to me and the ones that did matter were changes in the wrong direction (for my tastes).

[Jets80]

Originally posted by Bee
What are your complaints with the stats?


There is just not enough stat tracking in my opinion. The current season stats are okay but I dont think there are good career stats and once a player retires then he's gone from the game unless he can top the very limited career leader board. I think OOTP5 has set the bar for stats and career stat tracking. I think anything less then this quality is a let down. I thought I heard a while back or read on this board that the reason there is not more stats in FOF is becasue of all the hard drive space it takes up. I think this is crap. My current OOTP5 league takes up over 600megs of space and well worth it.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Hey Bee ,How low can the salary cap go down to and how much does it rise each year .

[vulcan]

Originally posted by Jets80
There is just not enough stat tracking in my opinion. The current season stats are okay but I dont think there are good career stats and once a player retires then he's gone from the game unless he can top the very limited career leader board. I think OOTP5 has set the bar for stats and career stat tracking. I think anything less then this quality is a let down. I thought I heard a while back or read on this board that the reason there is not more stats in FOF is becasue of all the hard drive space it takes up. I think this is crap. My current OOTP5 league takes up over 600megs of space and well worth it.

Hey Jest80...long time, no talk... :)

Thats why I don't even bother with FOF4 anymore....the stat tracking (or lack thereof) issue. I even emailed Jim about this a while ago and he was the one who told me that it would take a large amout of HD space up and that it would slow the game down. I then posted his response here in the forum. I too am a stats freak....if you remember, at one time you and I wrote back and forth on this board of how we used to hand write stats from TecmoBowl...lol.

There is a new game coming out made by 400 software studios called Total Pro Football. I hope they can do it right....in OOTP5 (as you stated)...they did. You may have already heard of it as well.... later :)

[MIJB#19]

Actually, I think it's time for me to buy FOF4 as well.
I should have the time again to actually play pc games, as soon as I complete my report about being a trainee for 5 months.

[Dutch]

FOF4 is important because it give you the new schedule format. I am one of those crazy individuals who wants to simulate NFL football and the division format and schedule format was an important factor for me.

I think with the latest patches, FOF4 is worth the money. It's not great, considering this is the 4th Edition, but it's still filling that void I have for management football.

[MizzouRah]

Don't forget Dutch has some nice FOF and TCY enhancements on his website.

Now I remember something I would like to see in a future FOF - the ability to mod the game with user enhancements... that's something I love with ootp. I can change skins, ballparks, logos, etc. around to suit my tastes. For me, besides AI improvements, this would really make the game a little more 'graphically appealing' without changing the 'sim' portion of the game.

I would like to see different scoreboards for each team. Maybe some logoed helmets, team logos, and team type skins so when you coach your team, at least the colors and themes are geared towards your team. Maybe the field would be muddy when a game is played in the rain. Clicking on a player would at least have his team logo on it.

I not a graphics first person, but FOF seems really bland, imo. I know most of you like it's simple look, I just think the game needs a little graphics enhancement or give us the ability to do it.

I dream of the day FOF has little circles or x's and o's that play out the play as it gives you the pbp, that would make my life. Better yet, just squares with player numbers on them, showing the play as it happens would be even better. Some subtle sounds as well, cheering for TD, booing for a penalty.

Ok, I going a little too far here....


Todd