Draft file creation issue? (no combines)

[Ben E Lou]

Has anyone tested creating draftees? I *think* I'm mirroring example_quarterbacks and example_players perfectly, and everything looks fine in the game except for one major issue: 100% of the players are showing up with no combine scores, not even Solecismic. When I run the same process with the example_xxxx.csv files, I do get combine scores, so I'm thinking it's something that I'm doing that's off, but I can't for the life of me figure out what that is. Any "gotchas" that anyone else has discovered and overcome here?


(Ignore the numbers in the names. That's the overall rating. I've just added it to the name for testing/verification purposes while the league file generator is in development.)
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dscttso3bqq0vk1oar918/Screenshot-2023-11-26-16.06.52.png?rlkey=0qwp6q408kx6bcydrxs47t6j2&dl=1

Dropbox - Screenshot 2023-11-26 16.06.52.png - Simplify your life (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dscttso3bqq0vk1oar918/Screenshot-2023-11-26-16.06.52.png?rlkey=0qwp6q408kx6bcydrxs47t6j2&dl=0)

[Ben E Lou]

Dola...


The good news here is that I've confirmed what appeared to be the case: USING draft files is going to be FAR easier in FOF9, since the rookies are just added to the csvs. I just generated draft classes from 2024-2050 and did a fast-sim, and yes, it picked up every draft class with no human intervention.

[Ben E Lou]

Ha. Never would have guessed that was it, so I tried a bunch of other things before finally tracking it down, but its now at least CLOSE to being solved: I was putting -1 in the scramble slot for QBs to let the main rating assign it. Apparently you MUST put a number from 0-250 in the scramble slot in your QB file or there will be no combine scores for ANY rookies.
That said, after figuring that out, I generated 50 seasons of draft classes. 48 of the 50 have combine scores. Now it's time to figure out why two of them didn't...

[Ben E Lou]

FWIW, I *think* there's a issue with the number of draftees in the file, as in if there are too many at a particular position or positions, no combine scores get generated. I don't have the patience to try to tease out what position(s) might be impacting this, but since I lowered the numbers a bit at every position, I've had multiple runs where 100 out of 100 draft classes got combine scores, so I guess it's fixed. Hoping to have something for release maybe this weekend.

[jcard]

I’m sure I speak for many when I say that I appreciate that you share the fruits of your efforts. As someone considering a purchase, I am grateful for the information.

[NawlinsFan]

:popcorn:

[nilodor]

FWIW, I *think* there's a issue with the number of draftees in the file, as in if there are too many at a particular position or positions, no combine scores get generated. I don't have the patience to try to tease out what position(s) might be impacting this, but since I lowered the numbers a bit at every position, I've had multiple runs where 100 out of 100 draft classes got combine scores, so I guess it's fixed. Hoping to have something for release maybe this weekend.

Can you let me know how many players you're putting per position? I'm seeing lots of additional players generated for the historic files and I'm assuming it's because I have too few players per position, but I don't really know what a reasonable cutoff it. I think I used to top the file off to 800 players for draft files, but it's been a minute since I programmed that.

[nilodor]

Dola: Also are you seeing any CPU generated players?

[Ben E Lou]

Can you let me know how many players you're putting per position? I'm seeing lots of additional players generated for the historic files and I'm assuming it's because I have too few players per position, but I don't really know what a reasonable cutoff it. I think I used to top the file off to 800 players for draft files, but it's been a minute since I programmed that.
Dola: Also are you seeing any CPU generated players?So that's the issue. It seems like if I create too many players in a draft class, there are no combines showing up, but if I create too few, there are CPU generated players. First off, I can't say with ABSOLUTE certainty that it's a numbers issue that is causing the no-combine thing, but it sure does seem that way. In my last run, I knocked it down a very small amount (like maybe from 860ish to my current number of 844,) and went from only 20% of the draft classes having combine scores, to 100%.


With my current numbers, I do see a small handful of CPU players..like maybe 10 per draft class. But again, I'm not sure I have the patience to tease out if it's a specific position, combination of positions, or if generating more players is just making it more likely that some sort of outlier that the game doesn't like is getting generated (like maybe a guy with a height and weight that don't match or something??? Who knows???) One random note: it appears that the game will NOT generate extra long snappers, so make sure you have enough of them or the game simply won't proceed once you run out of them.

[Ben E Lou]

<table border="1" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr> <th>position</th><th>draftclass</th></tr> <tr> <td>1</td><td>57</td></tr> <tr> <td>2</td><td>52</td></tr> <tr> <td>3</td><td>34</td></tr> <tr> <td>4</td><td>57</td></tr> <tr> <td>5</td><td>57</td></tr> <tr> <td>6</td><td>57</td></tr> <tr> <td>7</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>8</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>9</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>10</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>11</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>12</td><td>5</td></tr> <tr> <td>13</td><td>5</td></tr> <tr> <td>14</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>15</td><td>15</td></tr> <tr> <td>16</td><td>16</td></tr> <tr> <td>17</td><td>15</td></tr> <tr> <td>18</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>19</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>20</td><td>16</td></tr> <tr> <td>21</td><td>21</td></tr> <tr> <td>22</td><td>16</td></tr> <tr> <td>23</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr> <td>24</td><td>34</td></tr> <tr> <td>25</td><td>34</td></tr> <tr> <td>26</td><td>25</td></tr> <tr> <td>27</td><td>25</td></tr> <tr> <td>28</td><td>6</td></tr></tbody></table>

[Ben E Lou]

As far as talent distribution, I'm just using the percentages from dcsv.txt from FOF8 since they aren't specified in the FOF9 files:


9 - Rare Superstar - 0.3%
8- Superstar - 0.4%
7 - Near Superstar - 0.6%
6 - Elite Starter - 1.1%
5 - Excellent Starter - 1.5%
4 - Very Good-Plus Starter - 2.6%
3 - Very Good Starter - 3.9%
2 - Good Starter - 12.2%
1 - Replacement-Level Starter (decent backup) - 23.9%
0- Roster Filler - 53.4%


And since we now have an additional "10" talent number that is worse than 0, I'm just doing an additional dice roll if a zero gets rolled, and there's a 40% chance that a 0 gets downgraded to a 10.


0 - The player is of replacement quality for his position. Expect low ratings across the board.
1 - The player is of backup quality. Ratings are generally low.
2 - The player is of starting quality. Ratings can vary. For lower-value positions (FB/P/K/LS), this is the top value that can be assigned.
3 - The player is usually one of the better starters in the league for his position.
4-7 - Increasingly rare - players are often All-Star level.
8 - The player is often the best in the league at his position.
9 - The player is a generational talent at his position.
10 - The player is below replacement quality for his position, and will only be placed on a team at the start of a new universe if he's needed to fill a roster.

[nilodor]

As far as talent distribution, I'm just using the percentages from dcsv.txt from FOF8 since they aren't specified in the FOF9 files:


9 - Rare Superstar - 0.3%
8- Superstar - 0.4%
7 - Near Superstar - 0.6%
6 - Elite Starter - 1.1%
5 - Excellent Starter - 1.5%
4 - Very Good-Plus Starter - 2.6%
3 - Very Good Starter - 3.9%
2 - Good Starter - 12.2%
1 - Replacement-Level Starter (decent backup) - 23.9%
0- Roster Filler - 53.4%


And since we now have an additional "10" talent number that is worse than 0, I'm just doing an additional dice roll if a zero gets rolled, and there's a 40% chance that a 0 gets downgraded to a 10.

Thanks, I'm doing the same. A dumb idea, can you export the draft class to a text file? Since you've included the rating numbers in the names it should be pretty easy to filter out how many cpu generated players you're getting, that might give you an exact requirement.

[BucDawg40]

FOF9 default roster breakdown:

Rating Description Count Default %
9 Rare Superstar 2 0.08%
8 Superstar 9 0.35%
7 Near Superstar 19 0.75%
6 Elite Starter 23 0.91%
5 Excellent Starter 28 1.10%
4 Very Good-Plus Starter 64 2.52%
3 Very Good Starter 153 6.03%
2 Good Starter 411 16.21%
1 Decent Backup 585 23.07%
0 Roster Filler 884 34.86%
10 Below Replacement 358 14.12%
Number of Players 2536

[Ben E Lou]

OK. This is from the new example_players.txt in 9.0d. Very useful information.


If the total number of draftable players created through this method exceeds about 10% of the draft pool in a year, draftable players created randomly will not generally have starter potential. For a draft, the game tries to generate about 27-28 players per team.

The game generates about 100 players per team for a new universe. About two thirds of those players are distributed with Overall Ratings from 0-9. The rest are roster-filler. When using a user-created player file, the game will fill out the initial player group if it needs to. It will not assess ratings before doing this. If, for example, the user provides about 50 players per team. The game will then create 16-18 players per team with randomly distributed ratings, then about 32-34 per team with roster-filler ratings.