Single Player - How long to Play a Season

[henry296]

It takes me about 3 hours to get through a full season including free agency, draft and playing the games. I quick sim the regular season and will watch any post-season games. I'm curious how long it takes you.

[irabowman]

If I sit here and actually play I'd say 2 hours for a season. My problem is I get distracted a lot and watch too much TV which puts me closer to 4 hours.

[sirotka33]

I like the watch the PBP of every game on 8 or 9 speed. So, simming one season can take upwards of 10-15 hours including drafting/free agency.

[Ben E Lou]

Never timed myself, but I'm guessing...

EVERYTHING PRE-FA: 3 minutes

FA1:1: 5-20 minutes (I play SP with a house rules that requires all renegs to be done in FA1:1. Time varies widely depending on how bad cap situation is. If it's really bad, I'm using spreadsheets to decide who gets cut and who gets extended)

FA1:2-12: 0 minutes (quick sim these without making any offers..once I've had a few drafts, I never have enough cap room to bother with trying to sign FAs.)

Draft: 5-20 minutes. I never trade picks in SP, but sometimes I overthink it when I have a loaded team, "need" some specific position, and I see no potential 60+ types at that position in rounds 1 or 2, so I end up wasting time looking through more of the list. It generally goes like this:

OPTIMISTIC INNER MONOLOGUE: "MAYBE my Analyzer weights are missing someone!"

REALISTIC INNER MONOLOGUE, AFTER 10-15 MINUTES OF SCREWING AROUND LOOKING AT CRAPPY PLAYERS AT POSITION OF 'NEED' AND PLAYERS ARE OTHER POSITIONS WHO AREN'T PROPER WEIGHT TO POSITION SWITCH : "No, Ben, they're not missing anyone. It's just a crappy year for safeties. Play that 43/43 guy you have and draft the soon-to-be 65-rated linebacker and move on."

FA2:1-5: 2 minutes (another house rule...all offers must be for one year, to rookies only, and submitted in FA2:1, and I can take no more than 60 to TC, so I'm typically just offering 5-10 guys)

TC: 5 minutes once I'm into a career (I only weight train guys in the first year on the team, and I use the same playbook every year now.)

Preseason: 5-10 minutes, including setting depth charts for the regular season at the end of Preseason and any game plan tweaks

Regular Season & Postseason: 3 minutes (quick sim, injuries off...usually spend 2-3 minutes afterward looking over stats, awards, etc.)

So total looks like maybe 30-60 minutes, depending on the circumstances.

[AlexB]

Based on FOF7 wayyy more than 5 hours.
Planning & FA 1 hour
Draft 30 minutes
Pre season 5 minutes
But.... I watch Solevision for every regular season and playoff match so that adds another 8-10 hours?

So I'd go for 10-12 hours per season

[garion333]

With FOF7 I consistently could get through a season in less than an hour when I wasn't concerning myself with anything in particular (ie. gameplanning, making sure certain players start).

FOF8 is a bit slower as there's a little more leg work involved in schemes and scouting, but I can still blow through in about an hour. The UI also slows me down, still.

[SocratesJC]

I imagine I take around the same time as Sirotka and AlexB (or even longer). It usually takes me a week or two to finally finish a season. I don't watch every game like Alex does (I assume he meant all teams every week). I do play every one of my games manually though (that is the most entertaining part for me).

I somehow find myself sifting dreamily through all of the various stats and bars scattered all throughout the entire game every week. I weekly sift through each player dropped by other teams as well (searching for diamonds, or a nice gadget player to plug a hole). Getting lost in the game is my second favorite part.

(edit: I forgot to mention that I spend time searching through game logs too, especially with the new FOF8 logs).

[www2]

About 5 hours, since i call about 50% of plays myself.....I am at season 2042....I am talking about FOF 7 ...havent got 8 jet.

[TroyF]

Never timed myself, but I'm guessing...

EVERYTHING PRE-FA: 3 minutes

FA1:1: 5-20 minutes (I play SP with a house rules that requires all renegs to be done in FA1:1. Time varies widely depending on how bad cap situation is. If it's really bad, I'm using spreadsheets to decide who gets cut and who gets extended)

FA1:2-12: 0 minutes (quick sim these without making any offers..once I've had a few drafts, I never have enough cap room to bother with trying to sign FAs.)

Draft: 5-20 minutes. I never trade picks in SP, but sometimes I overthink it when I have a loaded team, "need" some specific position, and I see no potential 60+ types at that position in rounds 1 or 2, so I end up wasting time looking through more of the list. It generally goes like this:

OPTIMISTIC INNER MONOLOGUE: "MAYBE my Analyzer weights are missing someone!"

REALISTIC INNER MONOLOGUE, AFTER 10-15 MINUTES OF SCREWING AROUND LOOKING AT CRAPPY PLAYERS AT POSITION OF 'NEED' AND PLAYERS ARE OTHER POSITIONS WHO AREN'T PROPER WEIGHT TO POSITION SWITCH : "No, Ben, they're not missing anyone. It's just a crappy year for safeties. Play that 43/43 guy you have and draft the soon-to-be 65-rated linebacker and move on."

FA2:1-5: 2 minutes (another house rule...all offers must be for one year, to rookies only, and submitted in FA2:1, and I can take no more than 60 to TC, so I'm typically just offering 5-10 guys)

TC: 5 minutes once I'm into a career (I only weight train guys in the first year on the team, and I use the same playbook every year now.)

Preseason: 5-10 minutes, including setting depth charts for the regular season at the end of Preseason and any game plan tweaks

Regular Season & Postseason: 3 minutes (quick sim, injuries off...usually spend 2-3 minutes afterward looking over stats, awards, etc.)

So total looks like maybe 30-60 minutes, depending on the circumstances.

I'm with you with everything up to the regular season. I play with injuries on, so that means a lot of tweaking during the year. (although I am considering a league with them off as I get annoyed at doing this sometimes) I also watch some games depending on how good my team is. (I'm not going to watch every game of a rebuilding year, but I might watch 5 to 7 games + the playoffs with a good team)

After adding all of that up, it puts me to a couple of hours more than you per year.

[TMA]

Curious, as a relative FOF newcomer, to learn the reasoning behind the SP house rules mentioned above.

Are these to avoid potential exploits (eg, renegs might be cheaper post FA1, FA2 free agents are too easy to sign) or just general handicapping to compensate for being at an advantage over the AI in general?