FOF7 Small Questions Thread

[mattlanta]

Just started this game up and figured I make one thread with all my small questions in it instead of creating 100 different threads...

1) Which receiver on the depth chart is considered the "slot" receiver? Is it flanker #2 or split end #2?

2) Where do I find the option to switch my team from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4 defense?

[gstelmack]

1) You can adjust that in the formations screen. The 3 WR formation by default slots in FL #2, but you can change it to SE #2.

2) It's the Game Plan - Miscellaneous Settings.

[mattlanta]

Thanks, gstelmack!

Here's a stupid one -- where do I sign free agents? I noticed three of my RBs went down, and I'm just messing around with this save so I just simulated it (more interested in seeing how the offseason is) and noticed the CPU had signed Pierre Thomas on my team without me knowing.

So...

3) Where do I sign FA's?

4) Is there an option I can turn off so that the CPU doesn't automatically sign FAs for me?

5) Which linebacker in the 3-4 defense is the one that blitzes more often, is it the SLB or WLB? Thanks.

Thanks!

[yabanci]

3) roster commands>view rosters>recommend players (bottom right, search free agents)

4) game options>edit single player options>staff automatically signs players to fill roster (set to no)

5) in the 3-4 defense, the WLB automatically blitzes

[mattlanta]

Thanks so much!

Here's another:

6) How do I fire a coach? Mike Smith is my head coach but I'd like to promote Dirk Koetter. I'd also like to fire my S&C coach and hire a new one.

[yabanci]

6) have to wait until the staff draft stage in the offseason, then type F1 on the staff draft screen for instructions on how to promote/fire etc.

[mattlanta]

Alright, last one before I go to bed is a general one...

7) What are some tips on drafting? I'm talking about projecting players and where they'll go, to be specific. Is the interview process the only way to get a better picture of how a prospect will be? Thanks.

EDIT: Okay I lied, this one is the last...

8) Has anyone ever messed around with the training camp schedules yet? Would you guys recommend me increasing team functions to almost 3 hours to prevent my QB and OT from conflicting one another?

[yabanci]

getting into big questions here :)

7) if you're talking about projecting the order in which the AI teams in solo play will draft players, the adjusted grade is probably your best guide, with an understanding that the AI will often reach for the higher graded quarterbacks. If you're looking for tips on who you should pick, most people will tell you combine scores are the best predictor of a player's future potential. Interviews will give you a better picture of a player, but accuracy will vary depending on the interviewing and scouting abilities of your coaches; it's no sure thing. Downloading and using gstelmack's Draft Analyzer program (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=88538) is useful to show how a player's combine and other scores relate to other players in the draft.

8) with training camp, type F1 for help on what each function will help with. For example, time spent on team functions improves team cohesion, reduces the effect of team chemistry problems and may lead to increased loyalty among players. But the best way to get rid of the conflict is to get rid of one of the players.

The help file is great, you can type F1 on any screen for all the details or look at topics in the index, and there are some articles about key concepts in the game.

[mattlanta]

Thanks a lot, every one! I think I'll be simming one or two more seasons tonight and hopefully I'll get a real season going along this weekend. Maybe I'll make a dynasty thread out of it.

[mattlanta]

6) have to wait until the staff draft stage in the offseason, then type F1 on the staff draft screen for instructions on how to promote/fire etc.
I tried that and it doesn't say anything about how to fire a head coach to promote your offensive coordinator. Mike Smith still has 2 years left in his head coach contract. How can I terminate that and promote Dirk Koetter, my OC, to HC?

[gstelmack]

Hiring a new coach at a position fires the old one if you still have one under contract. So during the head coach round of the staff draft, pick your offensive coordinator, and it will fire Mike Smith for you.

[fumblestruck]

Hiring a new coach at a position fires the old one if you still have one under contract. So during the head coach round of the staff draft, pick your offensive coordinator, and it will fire Mike Smith for you.

I've been wondering if you fire a coach with years remaining on contract does it have a financial impact on your team? Are you on the hook for the remaining years and therefore you will be less profitable than if you waited for the contract to expire?

Granted if you are looking to make a move, it probably won't be a significant problem, but just thinking you probably don't want to keep axing coaches if you are still paying out their contracts for a few seasons. I reckon that would add up if we still need to pay them for the rest of their contracts.

[QuikSand]

I've been wondering if you fire a coach with years remaining on contract does it have a financial impact on your team? Are you on the hook for the remaining years and therefore you will be less profitable than if you waited for the contract to expire?

Yes, though I thin it all hits in the subsequent season, just like dead bonus money does.

[MajorSupreme]

After watching teams like the Jets rotate and bench their QBs multiple times, I noticed I do not really see that very often in this game. Is there a certain point where the CPU turns to the other QB? I've seen guy throw 16 interception to only 5 touchdowns and their back up is either just one scout rating under or has more potential. Yet, they remain second string. Does anyone else see this?

[mattlanta]

For those that play in the MP leagues... Do you guys come up with your own strategies or do you ever just let the computer do its own thing? I'm curious what the MP is like.

[bigc45157]

MP is the "truth"

I really like playing alongside/against other live owners.

[yabanci]

After watching teams like the Jets rotate and bench their QBs multiple times, I noticed I do not really see that very often in this game. Is there a certain point where the CPU turns to the other QB? I've seen guy throw 16 interception to only 5 touchdowns and their back up is either just one scout rating under or has more potential. Yet, they remain second string. Does anyone else see this?

You're right, it is rare in FOF. Whereas a coach in real life might switch quarterbacks for a variety of reasons, anything from gut feeling or plain frustration, personality issues like lost confidence, fan/media/GM/owner pressure, etc., the CPU coach in FOF is purely analytical.

Basically, the CPU coach always goes with his highest rated quarterback (based on some weighting of current/future potential, not necessarily the highest current rating alone). Even if the starting quarterback is putting up poor statistical numbers, the ratings tell the CPU coach the lower rated quarterback would be worse; none of these "human" factors are taken into account.

As you note, sometimes you see things that don't seem to make sense, such as the CPU sticking with a quarterback rated almost the same or even a little lower than the backup. Most likely this is scouting error -- maybe the CPU's scout is overrating one and underrating the other and/or your scout is doing the same.

There is one situation where the CPU will bench a quarterback for poor performance and that is within a game. When a team's two top quarterbacks are closely rated, the starting quarterback's playing time in the game plan will be set much lower, which means the starting quarterback will get pulled earlier and more often.

Sometimes this leads to a permanent switch in quarterbacks during the season. If a closely rated backup gets extra mop up duty, some starts due to injury, or even a small ratings increase with the help of a mentor, the backup's ratings can cross that line where the CPU will see the former backup quarterback become the "higher rated" quarterback.

This is one of the things i love to watch in solo play. It actually happens at every position.

[MajorSupreme]

You're right, it is rare in FOF. Whereas a coach in real life might switch quarterbacks for a variety of reasons, anything from gut feeling or plain frustration, personality issues like lost confidence, fan/media/GM/owner pressure, etc., the CPU coach in FOF is purely analytical.

Basically, the CPU coach always goes with his highest rated quarterback (based on some weighting of current/future potential, not necessarily the highest current rating alone). Even if the starting quarterback is putting up poor statistical numbers, the ratings tell the CPU coach the lower rated quarterback would be worse; none of these "human" factors are taken into account.

As you note, sometimes you see things that don't seem to make sense, such as the CPU sticking with a quarterback rated almost the same or even a little lower than the backup. Most likely this is scouting error -- maybe the CPU's scout is overrating one and underrating the other and/or your scout is doing the same.

There is one situation where the CPU will bench a quarterback for poor performance and that is within a game. When a team's two top quarterbacks are closely rated, the starting quarterback's playing time in the game plan will be set much lower, which means the starting quarterback will get pulled earlier and more often.

Sometimes this leads to a permanent switch in quarterbacks during the season. If a closely rated backup gets extra mop up duty, some starts due to injury, or even a small ratings increase with the help of a mentor, the backup's ratings can cross that line where the CPU will see the former backup quarterback become the "higher rated" quarterback.

This is one of the things i love to watch in solo play. It actually happens at every position.

I see, and it make sense. Is there anyway to edit the QB playing time or other team's depth charts via 3rd party editors or something?

[yabanci]

I see, and it make sense. Is there anyway to edit the QB playing time or other team's depth charts via 3rd party editors or something?

No. The only option would be to set up your single player league as a multiplayer league with you as the commissioner. You would set your team to human control and the others to computer control.

If you wanted control over another team's depth chart, you could set that team to human control during the season, set the depth chart yourself, and click recommend entire game plan for every game, then set it back to computer control for the offseason. It's a bit of a pain in the ass and definitely more work, but might be worth it if having control over other teams on occasion is important enough to you.

One caveat though, I don't know whether in FOF7 multiplayer the computer controlled teams are as aggressive in resigning players and free agency, for example, as they are in single player. In FOF2007 they were not and largely sat out free agency, but that might have changed.

[bigc45157]

To get more realistic movement you should hop on in a MP league!

[Julio Riddols]

For those that play in the MP leagues... Do you guys come up with your own strategies or do you ever just let the computer do its own thing? I'm curious what the MP is like.

A little of both so far for me. The CPU does a good enough job that all you need to do is build a decent team and you'll be competitive. At the same time, learning how to get the most out of specific personnel makes it easier to do well with less at your disposal when you game plan yourself.

[molson]

1. Yabanci kind of touched on this I think, but does playing time effect player development, and how? Is there any advantage to giving the young projects an extra start or two at the end of the season, or to have them in a backup role, as opposed to being inactive? In other words, do games played and/or snaps played impact development at all?

2. Is there a home field advantage? If so, do we know if it's flat for all teams, or are there factors impacting how much of home field advantage a team has?

3. I know mentors help young players whether they're active or not - but does multiple mentors at a position help even more?

4. Does being "tired" impact performance or increase injury risk, or both?

5. This may be tough to measure, but does anyone on special teams matter other than the gunners and kickers and returners? Should I worry about the everybody else when it comes to deciding whether to encourage special teams participation on an individual player level?

[Ben E Lou]

1. Yabanci kind of touched on this I think, but does playing time effect player development, and how? Is there any advantage to giving the young projects an extra start or two at the end of the season, or to have them in a backup role, as opposed to being inactive? In other words, do games played and/or snaps played impact development at all?

2. Is there a home field advantage? If so, do we know if it's flat for all teams, or are there factors impacting how much of home field advantage a team has?

3. I know mentors help young players whether they're active or not - but does multiple mentors at a position help even more?

4. Does being "tired" impact performance or increase injury risk, or both?

5. This may be tough to measure, but does anyone on special teams matter other than the gunners and kickers and returners? Should I worry about the everybody else when it comes to deciding whether to encourage special teams participation on an individual player level?
1. More playing time increases development speed.
2. Yes. Home Field Advantage is increased in FOF7. I don't know if it's intentional or the result of closer games in general causing the home field to matter more, but home teams are winning roughly 60% of their games in FOF7. It was around 55% in FOF2K7. I've never bothered to tease out if it matters from team to team, but I'd tend to doubt it.
3. Untested to my knowledge.
4. Performance for sure. Injuries would be difficult to test.
5. Yes. Other players matter.

[Solecismic]

That would be a fairly major switch. I didn't touch the home-field adjustments for 7. So I'm surprised there would be such a huge change in what you're seeing.

In the NFL, the home team won 60% last season and 59% so far this season.

[Ben E Lou]

That would be a fairly major switch. I didn't touch the home-field adjustments for 7. So I'm surprised there would be such a huge change in what you're seeing.

In the NFL, the home team won 60% last season and 59% so far this season.Heh. That's interesting. More details...

CCFL was on Version 6.3 for 2009 and 2010, version 6.4 for 2011-2037, version 7 for 2038 to date (in the 2045 season)

2009: 58.2%
2010: 53.9%
2011-2037: only made 59% 2 of these 27 seasons. Overall was 55.48%
2038: 56.4%
2039: 52.7%
2040: 58.2%
2041: 62.7%
2042: 60.4%
2043: 60.2%
2044: 57.4%
2045: 58.7%

Overall 2038-2045: 58.3%

FOOL has completed three seasons, two on 7.0, one on 7.1:

2013: 62.9%
2014: 61.1%
2015: 60.7%

Overall 2013-2015: 61.6%

And of course IHOF has data from both FOF2K4 and FOF2K7. There doesn't appear to be much change between those two:

FOF2K4 (2004-2012): 55.8%
FOF2K7 (2013-2041): 55.0%

And there was a thread about this a few years back. I checked an FOF2K7 SP career and got 54%. Someone else got 56%.

home field - Front Office Football Central (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=61740&highlight=home+field)

My longest FOF7 SP career that I have in a database is 43 seasons (2013-2055). The home team has won 59.0% of games in that career.

Maybe better late-half logic favors the home team? Maybe closer games? Who knows? But what seems clear is that home teams are winning at a higher rate in FOF7 than FOF2K4 or FOF2K7.

[Solecismic]

Seems like really small sample sizes there. When I'm in the latter stages of testing a release, I'm doing runs of 80-100 seasons. Even that's not enough.

[Ben E Lou]

Seems like really small sample sizes there. When I'm in the latter stages of testing a release, I'm doing runs of 80-100 seasons. Even that's not enough.It's not a sample size issue. The 55% number was consistent across multiple leagues in checks run by multiple people. (I believe there's another thread somewhere where maybe Stelmack found it to be 55% in FOF2K4 or FOF2K7.) I'm quite certain that if I went to the trouble of digging through everything and extracting the data, I have several hundred FOF2K7 seasons archived where it will come out right around 55%, and at least 200 FOF7 seasons where it comes out to right around 60%.

And it's not like there's a big year-to-year variance that might indicate that the 29 season/7000+ CCFL FOF2K7 games that come out to 55.5% have any hope of having a dramatic climb to 59%/60% if we increased the sampling to 290 seasons/70000 games. As I mentioned above, during those 29 seasons only twice did the number hit 59%: 59.4% and 60.5%. And it dipped below 52% three times. To contrast, in the 42-season FOF career that came out to 59.0%, the average is never below 54.7% in any given season (and never above 63.7%.) That's not a terribly wide range in either case. Also, the CCFL career was below the FOF7 minimum-in-my-career of 54.7% in 10 of the 27 seasons. It's just not plausible that we got numbers below the FOF7 range from FOF2K7 that frequently when the year-to-year changes are as minimal as they are. There's got to be another reason for it.

[Solecismic]

Interesting, isn't it? Lots of variables at play that could affect independence, including roster strength distribution. I'm just always surprised at how things can change even with millions of trials, like pass play results. I think I need to make an adjustment, then I see a 20-year period that looks very different. Between us, I think we've simulated more NFL games than the NFL could run if it went back to primordial days. But you could be right. Maybe some engine changes with 7 had an effect. The play-calling algorithms don't use home-field, though.

[mattlanta]

Quick question, what are some of the longest running FOFC online leagues? I might be looking to join one soon.

[chinaski]

Quick question, what are some of the longest running FOFC online leagues? I might be looking to join one soon.

The CCFL and IHOF are two of the longest running ones that I know of, theyre linked in my signature. Plus they're backed by all of Ben's web reports, which imo are essential.

[clist123abc]

I had a couple questions regarding drafting as i don't seem to get it right. I've always been confused by the general grade and the adjusted grade. What is the point to having two grades?
Another question is about the development level - Let's say two prospects have the same grade, can you infer that the less developed prospect has higher potential? In my early drafts i used to prefer the more highly developed prospect only to find out that while he might have a 15 or so current rating his potential is a 25 while the undrafted might have a 10 current and a 35 potential.
Another question is about the defense scheme. I've noticed most teams run the 3-4. Do most people stay with that or do you change to 4-3. If you stay with the 3-4 how do you find adquate SILB's? It seems like a decent starter level talent is hard to find either in FA or the draft.
Anyone have any house rules they use such as not bidding for FA's until after the draft and drafting on need in first two rounds?
Anyone gotten fired yet?

[aston217]

The adjusted grade includes the position weight -- i.e, you'll see QBs have inflated ADJ relative to GRD and kickers/punters have deflated ADJ.

To your 2nd question, not strictly. However, the exact same prospect with 55% potential PROBABLY gets generated with a higher grade than if he had 20% potential.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

I have a small question. In OOTP there is a screen that shows a team's financial commitments up to ten years in the future. Is there an equivalent screen to that in FOF? Meaning can I see two or three years down the road what my projected team salary is going to be compared to the salary cap?

[superman]

I'm sorry if I am doing this wrong but first time using the forum. Have a question on how I can set FOF to have where I sign draft picks instead on them already being signed

[Ben E Lou]

I'm sorry if I am doing this wrong but first time using the forum. Have a question on how I can set FOF to have where I sign draft picks instead on them already being signedYou can't. It's a feature change for FOF7 to reflect the NFL's new-ish slotting system for draft picks.

[Ben E Lou]

I have a small question. In OOTP there is a screen that shows a team's financial commitments up to ten years in the future. Is there an equivalent screen to that in FOF? Meaning can I see two or three years down the road what my projected team salary is going to be compared to the salary cap?Nothing like this, and given the combination of non-guaranteed contracts and how often contracts should be renegotiated, I don't think it would be useful at all beyond "next year" and even the "next year" numbers that FOF does provide (via the "Cap Used Next Year" number) don't mean much in many cases. Right now in the FOFL, the salary cap is $277.4M and my "Cap Used, Next Year" number is $531.1M. However, just a few renegs and cuts of guys with silly contracts, and I'll be under the cap pretty easily.

I started coding a page to do this a while back, but abandoned it when I looked at the numbers and realized that they weren't useful. It's there for some of my leagues, just not linked. Here it is for your FOOL team: FOOL Chicago Bears 2016 (http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fool/ben/teampagecontracts.php?teamid=5)

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Thanks for the link. Bookmarked it. It is useful to have one place to see all this stuff to anticipate when and who I need to renegotiate.

[BG153]

I have a question of my own if I may ask.

Is there a way that I can withhold from selecting a team, and progress through the league solely as an observer?

[aston217]

I don't think so, although you could

1) set up a MP league and play as the commissioner without importing files

2) make everything computer controlled via your settings (probably much easier), though you still have a team this way in some sense.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

I got another question about staff.

Looking at the responsibility staff chart that was made by somebody on FOF it would seem that the coordinators interview ability affects how accurate the bars are in a draft and the head coach's interview ability affects how accurate the underrated, overrated statement is. Do I have it right? Or does it work in a different way?