Multiplayer: Front Office Football, or football?
 

(CLOSED WHILE POLL IS BEING CREATED. WILL OPEN ONCE POLL IS READY)

I've been thinking a lot about some of the comments lately at this board and elsewhere regarding people's expectations in a multiplayer league, and I wanted to throw a topic out there for a poll and discussion.

The more I've thought about it, the more I've come to believe that the tension lies in peoples' expectations. The best way I can think of to frame it is this:

Are you trying to beat your opponents at Front Office Football, or are you trying to beat your opponents at football?

I fall pretty much 100% in the former category. I am in multiplayer leagues to test my FOF2K4 knowledge and skills against the best opponents available: humans. It's just like when I play, say, Diplomacy multiplayer, for example. I know I'm not really conquering Europe. I'm not interested in trying out every real military strategy known to man. I'm interested in trying out Diplomacy strategies, and very few people would argue against doing "unrealistic" things in Diplomacy multiplayer, such as going back and forth between being friend and foe every year. However, I've noticed that there are those in sports leagues who insist on playing the game "realistically."

Now, don't get me wrong--I want the GAME to be as realistic as possible. Y'all know that I've run test after test on various games and given feedback to developers. However, in my mind, once we've decided to play the game, then it is all-out, with the exception of whatever pre-defined things the league defines in the constitution as cheating, such as hacking the game file, simming ahead, etc.

Again, I'm not trying to beat the guys in IHOF and the CFL at football; I'm trying to beat the guys in IHOF and CFL at Front Office Football. I'm not writing this to dis anyone who plays differently. I do, however, think it is an important distinction to make, and probably one that should be discussed and clearly defined with members of leagues. If Chubby runs tests and realizes that he can get a LB 28.5 sacks, 35 hurries, and 153 tackles in a season, then more power to him; he found out some information that I should have found out myself if I wanted to be the best at Front Office Football. No one begrudges a great chess player doing all he can to learn about the game of chess, and then putting that information to good use to defeat an opponent. Some people, though, would have a problem with someone blitzing the same player over and over again because it is "unrealistic." Different strokes for different folks. In football, it wouldn't work. In Front Office Football, it was good strategy (at least until a change was made in a patch).

Again, I'm not trying to call out anyone, or really harp on any one particular incident. I'd more like to talk about the big-picture issue of expectations that I've come to believe is at the root of some of the discord.

Thoughts?

I like to test my mettle within the confines of the game of football.

Beating the game design or the AI doesn't interest me. It reminds me of playing in multiplayer Strat leagues and going up against guys who purposely draft a guy who had 3 atbats all year against lefties (and just happened to get two hit in those atbats) for use as a pinch hitter. That's not managing real baseball, that's taking advantage of a hole in the system.

Ditto. Although I will sit my older more talented veterans because I'm not happy with how pre-season playing time is handled in FOF at times. I don't think it is a realistic representation of the NFL. However, I'm looking for an experience that aims for as much realism as possible.

That's a perfect example of what I'm talking about in this thread. It would be easy to make a rule up front that no player with less than, say, 20 at bats against both sides can be used more than , say, 1.25 times the number of plate appearances he got in real life, if the league is formed as a "realistic" league. However, in a no-holds-barred league, that's just good strategy.

The assumption, which I think is obvious, is that the AI has to be good enough or at least, you can make the AI good enough by house rules. I think that's a fine line because in some games, playing MP involves different approaches that does not necessarily mean that it would be harder for you to win (take playing H2H in Madden against a stupid person). Specifically on the topic of FOF (or OOTP or FBCB or whatever), it appears that human opponents do offer more of a challenge simply because of roster and transaction management.

In my mind, I'm here to "play football" and try to beat my opponents at the game of football against some of the best FOF players in the world.

I don't dissociate FOF from Football as a matter of fact since, in my mind, playing FOF is my own way of playing the game from the perspective that I have always wished to contribute (without, of course, ever having an opportunity to), and that is, as a General Manager.

Therefore, building a team, improving it over the years etc...I'm not "playing FOF", in a litteral way, I'm playing "football"...strategic football, and the competitive nature within me most definitely wants that I got out and try to beat the opponents I am facing.

Sure, I say to my wife "I'm playing FOF"...or she says "are you FOFing tonight ?"...and, of course, that is the plain truth: I am playing a strategic PC football game called Front Office Football.

But there again, deep down in the back of my mind, I really feel like I am being the GM and thus I am playing football against the other guys to win.

DK, how do you reconcile the parts of the game (as with all other games in the genre) force you to do things very differently than a real GM (simply because of the mechanics of the game)?

Come to think of it, another factor for me is that "house rule" issue. I've played so many careers with so many constraints in SP games, so I see MP as a way to finally "take off the shackles" (with apologies to R.J.) and really let loose.

I'm with Darkiller and I have choosen option 1 (he has chosen 2, duno why as he looks to agree with 1). The fun for me on any sport sim is to simulate the sport not to play a game. I don't do unrealistic stuff and i play them as roll games, if i set house rules is just to try to adjust the game engine to the real football experience as much as i can, but if i need to setup a lot of house rules i get frustrated. I like also to play MP with other players that think like me and want to play on a realistic way, not that try to push the game engine to the limit just to beat other GM's. Nothing against that, but i wouldn't enjoy playing with them.

Bucc, I think the answer is easy for me: I have to admit that I am actually a psycho when it comes to FOF and the way I behave believing I am indeed the San Francisco 49ers or the Paris Musketeers GM: I can have some sorts of inner conversations when I "talk about my team" to the media, of have the QB speak for himself in front of the crowd etc...For instance, sometimes in the morning when I take my shower before going to work --and I know I have a huge IHOF game later on in the day-- I speak (again, inner conversation within me) about the upcoming game, I am being "interviewed" and I give my own preview of "what I expect to see from the offense against that 31st ranked Defense" etc...

Basically, all the things that I cannot do in the game, I "do them" orally in my fantasy conversations...(don't know if this is very clear lol)

It probably sounds stupid (and foolish) but I guess this is my very own way of feeling totally immersed...off of the game and, to answer your question, join the missing parts of what the real GM job actually is.

I think that if you (as in anyone) try to beat the game more than anything, you miss the point of playing FOF. You jumped onto playing a game that simulates football and gives people a chance to play their self-designed and selg-built football teams head-to-head, but in stead you decide to forget about that and try to twist as much 1's and 0's to make the other 1's and 0's go your desired way. Sure, it makes sense that people search for flaws/exploits/whatever you call it. I know I looked at creative ways to beat the rest of the leagues I'm in. But at the same time, I try to keep a balance between realism and trying to outsmart the other players, realizing that my own 'how to win in FOF' strategy already exceeded the preset plan to 'play football my way'.

In the end, there will need to be some compromis, kinda like the good old single player house rules about what is permitted and what is not. Not every FOF league is the same, but the dozen or so I've seen more than just the name of, I think all take their playing serious and are always in trouble finding a way to get to the compromis between realism and exploiting the fact that FOF in the end is just a game, based on dixed numbers, random numbers and formulas to mix those two, meaning there will always be a way to go into extremes and finds ways to 'beat the remaining flaws'. And it's never easy, because the big mirror to all, the real NFL, does some interestic unrealistic things themselves.

Bottom line should be the fun factor, and not just for those who are winning are for yourself. When you join a multiplayer league, you become one of many. Together you fine tune what is and what isn't concidered football-like in the minds of the entire league, to make sure together you can have a fun experience. That has been my major influence in signing up with leagues, in both cases I was presented a list of people to play against and including a lot of people I'd love to play a game with, preferably with me winning.


Don't write yourself down now, you managed a respectable .500 last season to improve to .470 life time against Europeans. ;)

For what it's worth, Darkiller, I think it's really cool that your wife asks if you're "FOFing tonight?" :)

I play to have fun and take a break from real life, everything else is secondary.

Like Bucc, I don't actually do MP but if I did, like CraigSca, it would be in a "realistic" fashion.

I have been tempted to enter the world of MP FOF2004 but have decided not to do it. The reason is detailed well in the thread about SkyDog's, for lack of a better word, "special" gameplan and that is that different people want different things (that is realism vs what the game engine allows).


This quote in particular is what ends up keeping me away from MP (and yet almost everytime an opening is posted in this forum I am tempted to respond and give it a try). The thing is I want a "football" game while someone else in the league is running tests to see what advantage they can get. Or someone with computer skills I don't posess is exporting data into access,excel, writing their own program, or whatever and finding things in seconds that would take me days to find. I am not trying to disrepect anyone or the way they play, to each their own.

I used to play some war games online, specifically East Front, West Front, and Combat Mission. "Real" vs "Game engine allows" issues were always there too, along with players on each side. That being only one player vs one player was bad enough when you played against someone of the other mind set, but having 30 different minds competing in fof or any MP sports game compounds the issue expotentially.

So, for now I'll stay in my happy solo world making all the decisions. Maybe someday I'll take the plunge and give MP a try but when I do I'll go in with my eyes wide open.

Bucc, that kind of surprizes me, not from your personality, but more because I've seen you play your role pretty well over time. Not to pin this down to one or few people on the 'win at FOF, not football side', but from what I've seen in the IHOF is that overtime the people with the "I don't role play" 'attitude' all have been succesfully pulled over to the other side and to play along.

Heh. I remember having an 1986 APBA baseball draft with friends one year and while they were taking players like Roger Clemens and Wade Boggs in the first rounds my first two picks were Dave Valle and Rob Murphy.

Growing older though and playing in multiplayer games it gets old when people exploit loopholes in the game. I am never really clear where the fine line is between playing to win and cheating.

I had to think about that one. I think the differences is subtle. What may appear to be playing a GM role to some, may actually be just trying to be a winner in the damn game. But you are probably right in that we play along (like with the whole Rizzo thing) because what else is there that's fun? In the end, one can invest the time to make more out of the game than what's there or one can just go through the motions (or a third way is to try to get into the game engine).

My interest in MP for virtually any game ended quite a while back, but a couple of posts here really sum up my approach to the question pretty well.


Great example of the sort of game-specific quirks that can arise with a system.

Combined with

Bolded is where I draw the line on reasonable/unreasonable. If I know in advance that there's restrictions on playing the game system versus trying to avoid the various wrinkles in the game system, then I have the choice whether to play in the league & abide by the rules or avoid the league altogether.

Absent a restriction on something however, well, then what is not forbidden is permitted ... especially if it helps me to win ;)

Good thread idea.

I personally would like it if the game AI and/or rules made FOF mirror pro football 100%. But that's not the case. The best case scenario for me would be a league in which the best strategic choices to maximize your chance to win in the computer game would be exactly the same as the strategic choices that win most often in the real world.

But since the game isn't perfect (yet), I will do whatever it takes to win. However, when it makes sense to close an exploit, I'm usually all for making a league rule to close it and focus the league on winning the way the pros win football games in real life.

Passing deep every play in the preseason takes away from immersion.

It does for you, but not for me. The challenge of figuring out how to counteract by minimizing plays would be a fun one to me, one I'm quite sure I'll take on at some point.

I think that's one of SkyDog's points. What does the way he plays pre-season have anything to do with your immersion and the running of your team? Should we then criticize the foolishness that DK and MIJB do in running and writing about their teams? Or perhaps all 32 owners should play the game and be immersed in the same way?

That's a moot point. I've not just been writing about my team, but moreso about the rest of the league, to increase the fun factor for all involved. You can't tell me that (for example) the season previews made your IHOF experience less fun. In the end it's about having fun, no?

In contrast, what Kodos describes is the opposite, something that harms the fun factor (not for all, but for some). It's maybe a bit uncalled for to take that particular issue, but the extreme game planning with the idea not to win games, but instead wack up some stats categories without any serious meaning to those stats, that's typically something most FOF players don't like to see in the leagues they play in.

I'm definately with Darkiller, Icy and the rest who play "football".. I do the same in FM.. rather than always buying the players I KNOW will become stars when I start a new career in the lower leagues, I find new players the "realistic" way by sending out scouts.

I want a GM experience, not a game-mechanics experience.. that's why I was so against it when someone wanted a way to test-sim his games before playing them in a MP-league. That just felt wrong...

I picked 2 because I know I don't want to risk injuring Virgil in the IFL-preseason games :), but other than that I feel like the IFL is "the real" thing and the Vermont Mountaineers are my team, not a FOF-game... if that made sense.

To those who voted for the first option:

I'm genuinely curious here. Do you play non-sports games in multiplayer? When you play them, do you try to stay within whatever realism is for what the game is simulating? If not, what's the difference for you? Is it that FOF is simulating something more concrete to you than, say, a war game, and therefore you don't have to be realistic in the war game to have fun?

For me, I think the key is how complex the system is in FOF. There are so many different things going on, they beg to be tested, deciphered, and explained. Coming up with test plans, gathering the data, figuring out how certain things work, and then developing and implementing strategies based on what I've learned is a fun challenge for me. The fact that I've had the game for nearly three years, have played it extensively, and am still learning new stuff about how players develop, coverages, pass distances, and more is a great thing to me. I'm pretty sure I've said it before: resource management games are ultimately just giant optimization problems. The more I think about it, the more I realize that for me, the stunning number of variables and unknowns in FOF is what really motivates me to test, evalute, decipher, strategize, and then test some more.

Yes in my case and maybe that explain you better why did i choose option 1. I'll put you an example about my favorite online game, WWII Online.

The game is an massive online WWII simulator, you can play as ground soldier, or tank command, or pilot, or warships commander etc. Some guys play it just like any other online shooter, to get tons of kills and lead the stats but most of us play in squads where we role play like a real army. We have ranks and obey the officers orders, we read strategies books and try to use them like they were use in the WWII, we expend hours not even shooting once, just getting into the positions, waiting for the air support etc.

Some guys that have joined our squad are frustrated by that and leave it, as they "don't want to obey orders from a guy who pays the same monthly quote than them and they prefer to hide under a tree to just kill everybody close to them in 30 miuntes and then log off". I underestand and respect them, but they can't play in our squad as that would kill our role playing exprience. In fact i'm not subscribed right now to the game as i can't play 2 or 3 straight hours per day right now and don't want to ruin others squad mates experiences.

The same applies for every game i play, the FM example put by coder is perfect too. Some guys read guides and the first thing they do when they start a game is to sign the best and cheaper known prospects while i never sign a player i have not scouted first. Also if i'm in a lower league team, i don't scout players outside my country even when i could, as i think it's not realistic for a small team to send scouts as far.

Realistic over game engine detective for me. As long as like minds are in each league, it's all good. With that said, I am ok with guys testing for their own advantage as long as it results in realistic stuff. For instance, if SD tests pass coverages and finds out 3-deep is good against the short or long pass, then it's ok to use that that as his coverage in MP (because Jim will not tell us -- there, got my dig in). But not ok to test and find out that if you tap the "z" key 5 times quickly when making your gameplan guarantees a win, and then use that in MP. I just think some strategies get close to the latter sometimes.

I believe SD should quit playing MP, however, and devote his entire time to testing on FOFC's behalf.:)

You should take the plunge. I felt the same way and it's way better than SP. I don't even play SP anymore. As for potentially being up against a game engine detective, don't worry. The game is so random and is one of percentages that you can still win against anybody. Even Jim can't win all the time and he designed the damn thing. Look at like playing against the house at the casino -- you can still clean up sometimes and walk away a winner. The injury bug is the great equalizer.

Hmm. I'm not really sure on this. I guess in FOF, I'm not really in "gamebuster" mode. I just do what I do, and that's pretty much it. In FOBL, I have tried more to figure out the system so-to-speak, but really haven't found that many angles to play with OOTP5 (worth noting we do all contracts outside of the game).

Can't say I've been really cutthroat in IHOF or FOFL. If anything, I am way on the other side of the spectrum...I don't even negotiate contracts (renegotiations anyway). If I can deal with what the player is asking for, I sign him. If I don't like the numbers, I don't. Haven't really looked for angles with gameplanning either. I don't run the ball 400 times behind the same guy, I don't blitz an uber-player all the time. I may pass downfield often, but I figure that's just risk/reward.

In turn-based strategy games, I would likely use every advantage I could get. Like the settler bug in the old version of Civ, for instance. I can't really speak to house rules in FOF or OOTP, as I don't really ever play them single-player.

SkyDog,

I think your premise for this is exactly accurate. The fact that different expectations are what causes the tentions in leagues when someone stretches the limits of games. I personally voted for option 2 because I do sit my starters during the pre-season. However, I don't know that you should have even included that. If in the NFL there was no rust involved, they would sit their starters too. So, I don't know that it is really stretching realism at all.

Anyway, I think these poll results should show why your actions have met such animosity in the various leagues that you and I are both in. A mere 15% play the way you do. that's a pretty small minority.

I think you play MP for the challenge of human players in order to play football here. If you're playing some numbers game to "beat the game" I just don't understand it.

Here is an example of another game for me. I play the game Battlefield 2. It is a First Person Shooter. On some of the maps, there are spots where if you know JUST the right place to go, you can actually get inside the wall of a building. You cannot be shot, but you can shoot others.

On a LARGE majority of servers, people are banned for using this tactic. To me it is similar to the gaming the system that you do (although I will admit nothing you do gives you "invincibility" like this does, but it's the first example that came to mind).

I think what you run into here is a SMALL minority of people "ruining" the phone for the large majority that really want something that resembles "real" football as closely as possible. Does the game have limitations to doing this? Of course. Good luck to making the PERFECT game. However, when I join a league, much of my reason for joining it is the people in it. Part of that being I like to pick a league where people are not going to "exploit" the game but are going for fun, "real" football. When I was in a Madden league when Madden 2002 had on-line Franchises, I hunted for one that (painfully) called itself "str8". Essentially, they would do their best to play "realistic" football as possible - even though it was not the best way to win a game.

To be frank since you brought it up, many of the things that you are doing in MP make me pretty mad. However, I have held it back in both of the leagues that we are in together because the league majority seems to be ok with it. But, for me, it is reducing the enjoyment that I get out of the league when you do it. You seem to not understand how this takes away from others, but how does it not take away when my chance for injury is increased when I play you in pre-season? How can I go for QB record chases if you are piling up ungodly numbers? How can I win the championship if you have a super-gameplan that exploits weaknesses in the engine itself? I know you haven't reached some of these goals, but I can tell you are trying to. And that just pulls away from my enjoyment personally.

I join FOF MP leagues to play FOOTBALL. Not to attempt to game a spreadsheet that has 0's and 1's that can be maneuvered to your advantage. I personally don't see any enjoyment and that and am baffled by those who do.

I went ahead and put myself in category 1. However, I'll put the caveat in that I don't get frustrated when people do the small things that would qualify somebody to be option 2.

My guess is that many of the people in option 2 are merely inactivating starters for pre-season, which I think everyone in FOF MP but Turftoe does ;).

They're also leaving mentors active when they're injured, just to get the ratings boosts, don't you think. ;)

Ok...I will admit to keeping a mentor active in FOFL who had a 22 week injury. He didn't do a damned thing for my rookie DT though.

SkyDog -- I just find it strange that you are so gung-ho to have realism in many facets of the game, but then in others you have no interest in it at all. For instance, you are all in favor of realism when it comes to the injury setting (you always vote for raising them to "realistic levels" in IHOF), but when it comes to actual games being played in a way that no team in the history of football has ever played them (throwing deep every single play), that seems to be okay to you. And to do it for such a small reward--it just doesn't make sense. We already have one Chubby in the league. That is more than enough.

That was the reason I chose option 2. Otherwise it would be option 1.

Maybe, this isn't something I've ever really even been in the position to consider (I do not believe any of my mentors have had "out" injuries oddly enough), so I never really thought about it.

That being said, in the real NFL someone on IR could be on the sideline "mentoring", so I don't necessarily consider this action to be unrealistic personally.

FWIW, mentors have been good to others, not to me.
I can't recall seing a single Paris mentor player "helping" one of my own in its development...

Even having starters inactive for the pre-season is happening. What stars play in the last pre-season game? Most of them shut it down after the 3rd pre-season game.

Well, and as someone else mentioned, you really can't manage PT in the pre-season in FOF like you can in the NFL. In game 1 and 2 in the NFL the offensive starters often play 1, maybe 2 drives. You just can't have that kind of control in FOF. And, to be honest, I think Jim putting a bunch of work into "fixing" the pre-season might not be worth the effort beyond maybe a general "rust" factor that would be applicable after injuries, etc. also and not just the pre-season.

No argument, I'm just saying that options 1 and 2 in the poll aren't necessarily different. As a Rams fan, I remember several pre-season games where Faulk, Holt, and Bruce were all inactive for the game and they weren't injured.

Dark,
Thank you for being bold enough to bring your ego-gratifying, vicarious living, inner fantasy world "out of the closet". I confess, I, too, hold press conferences in my shower.

There, I've said it.

BTW, I'm definitely into realism in football simming, vs. beating the AI engine. Now, if a player wants to reinvent the run-n-shoot (or, see my Rebel dynasty for the "short-down" offense), I'm all for that. Creative gameplanning is fine so long as it's within the bounds of realism (I know that's subjective), but I would not want to be in a league with someone who, say, never ran the ball, or never threw a screen, etc. Keeping in mind, however, that last year the IRL Broncos chose to blitz the Eagles nearly 100% of the time in the first half, bringing 8+ guys on the rush. Anomolies and playing to beat a certain opponent (no team should ever 3-deep or 4-deep zone against my "short-down" offense) are part of the battle of the minds. But I'd hate to see it become a battle of the programmers.

Right...but in FOF, ct's tests showed that if he's inactive, he can't mentor, so people leave him active.

I don't have time right now to give you a full response to your long post, but the bottom line is a matter of perspective. When I look at FOF, I see a football game first, but I also see layer upon layer of massive optimization problems that need to be solved. Many of those problems will never be solved by the AI. Playing against other humans affords me the opportunity to test my mettle against human minds. My reaction to Chubby's contracts and the Joe Teeters monster season was, "Dadgummit! I let him outsmart me!" Yours, I guess, would be to get frustrated with Chubby. I completely understand where you're coming from. How can't you see where I'm coming from?

I understand where you're coming from, I just personally don't see how you can possibly think it's fun... I had a hard time thinking of how to explain that in detail earlier, but it just came to me...

So, 15% of people are playing the way you do. So, theoretically in any league that means about, oh, 4 people are playing the way you do. Let's even say a league, like IHOF, may have 5 or 6. So, you are really seeing how well you can do this against 4 or 5 other people while the rest are playing for fun. I view it kind of like what's the challenge in beating your 12 year old, 4'10" nephew in basketball? I just don't get how it's fun.

If you're in a league where 32 owners are going balls out and trying to exploit every given inch they can, ok, I can see that. But that's not the case here.

So, I guess I get the intellectual challenge to an extent, but based on what I said above, I don't see how it's "fun" or really even that big of a challenge in the end.

Edit: Oh, and on the mentor thing, my point is that you are exploiting a flaw in the game to create "realism" vs. exploiting a flaw in the game to create something unrealistic.

Ditto. I make starters inactive, actually, more because I can't really control how long they play in preseason - ideally, I'd play Reagor, Sutter, et al for a series or two; but without inactivity, there's no real control over it being a series, the whole game, nothing (but special teams!), etc. Honestly, I'd rather see more fine-grained control over playing time in the preseason and no inactive roster at all.

Voted 2, specifically for starters inactive in the preseason and injured-reserve low-level players with colds. I /think/ that covers it.

I will fight anyone that tries to say this doesn't happen in the NFL ;).

My problem with this attitude though is that it is impossible to compensate for this mid-stream. If you decide to blitz with 8 guys all game long, IRL I am going to see this and start using some plays that will take advantage of this. That would force your players to back off a bit and take some of the pressure off.

In FOF, we don't have this luxury. If you exploit the system, you are not really beating the other players, you've just beat the system. These are two very different things. It is similar to what wade moore described above. Yes, you are winning the game, but you are doing so by exploiting things.

That said, if you find an exploit, bring it to everyone's attention and then use it, I don't have a huge problem because everyone is using the same toolkit. Where I have issues is where you find something, exploit it, and don't tell anyone.

Heck, we've seen how protective some people are of their info with different threads in the strategy forum.

I think that philosophically they like to think they're not, but practically, they are "playing against the game" more than they realize. They may not run multiple tests to try to determine exactly how switching from 3-deep to 4-deep impacts things, but they do little things. I'll have to think longer to say exactly what those things are.

Sky Dog - What if you found an "I Win" strategy, a strategy that allowed you to automatically win every game. Would you use it?
After going undefeated and winning the super bowl in every mp you play for 3 or 4 years in a row, how would you feel?

If you knew how much I rely on the "recommend" button you would be frightened ;).

Either way, I'm looking forward to your response as I really do enjoy this discussion as-is where people are actually listening to each other ;).

Oh, I'll certainly agree to the "playing against the game" aspect. Which is why I really know little about what goes on outside of my team (I couldn't care less about the 80,000 trades the wacky Euros are making). The only thing to pay attention to is how well you're playing against the game as opposed to others, which is measured in the standings. Yes, I guess there is direct opposition if you play gameplanning mind games. But outside of that, the main competition is in FA (which I still think has been relatively minor) and the draft (which is why I think Jim has been giving us drafting tips, to give him more of a challenge).

FWIW, I'll contrast what I said above to OOTP/FOBL. I feel like at least in the version we're in (v5), we pretty much know what players will do, and many of our settings are off (individual pitcher hooks, individual steal settings, etc). So there's not really much to do to try to beat the game. The focus becomes more of a player acquisition issue, where the bulk of the strategy is in FA (again, our own brand of it), and trading players/cash/picks. Many owners have opined that it's not really about baseball, but more about playing our financial system with some fake baseball going on in the background.

I think that is what a lot of people that take your viewpoint would say. To you, the game is I run X play, he runs Y defense, we look at the chart and if the random roll is between Z(1) and Z(2), it benefits me. If it is between Z(3) and Z(4) it is a bad play. So I should run more of these type of plays, etc.

Where I have the issue with this is that the information is not public knowledge. If we knew that blitzing the SLB in a 3-4 on a likely passing down would result in a sack 75% of the time if his PR Tech was 80+ and his PR Str was 80+, the offense would know to try for shorter passes, or use a formation that was more of a conservative formation. In a RL situation, we'd see you doing this and would combat that. The problem with the system here, is that we don't know how to combat that.

There are some things we know about the game. Better coaches, better players, and better cohesion will translate to better results over the long haul. We know that a game plan that is well suited to your players will result in better results over the long haul (I.E. that 75 rated CB that is only rated a 35 in BnR coverage shouldn't be used in a BnR scheme).

What we don't know for sure is what type of passing attack is well suited to attack a BnR, Zone, M2M style coverage. We don't know whether a DB rated a 45 in BnR is better in coverage than the WLB rated 85 in BnR. Which combination gives the better result for the defense?

The players that try to crack the system (minsal bug, the Teeters bug, etc.) are doing things that wouldn't fly in the NFL because of the way the system is set up. People would be able to react accordingly and stop these things from happening. In that respect, yes, we are playing against the computer more than people would care to admit. However, we are both playing against the same set of rules against the same tables so we are still playing against a human opponent. All that the computer is doing is calculating the variables and applying those to the result tables. It is no different than playing an old fashioned board game like Third Reich, Empires in Arms, Civilization, etc.

The problem is, once a game, contract, etc. is initiated, the other players have a relatively slow reaction time.

But everyone has the same opportunity to figure those things out (as best they can). If somebody figures out one of those variables, it could also have been figured out by any other player (subject to their cognitive abilities).
It's not as though a strategic exploit, such as the blitzing SLB example you gave, would be uncovered through some process available only to one person in a league, presumably they haven't broken into Jim's house & stolen his programming notes or anything.


That sounds more akin to a coach not being smart enough to figure out how to stop Play X (which does happen IRL).

I think the problem with the draft is just how random it is. I have found that a player that has a low stat, but good combine scores in the area that falls will probably boom (Frohbieter for example). Tied to this, a guy that has great bars backed up by great combine scores is less likely to bust. But, you can still have those guys that defy logic like Duane Gibbons who was a random bust. You also have those random booms that defy logic. Then, you have guys whose ratings are exactly what they were supposed to be, or declines slightly.

My drafts tend to have a player who has a moderate boom every few years, but most players decline a point or two in potential the first year and then remain stable, or even have a 4-5 year boom. The Grizzlies in the Imperial FL have had a very good draft record, with all our QBs but one that we have drafted have boomed, or steadily increased their ratings, and two LBs that have boomed after a few years in the league. We have had the most problems at safety where most players I have drafted there have busted. But this year I have two that have shown significant increases. Oddly enough, I have a number of solid CBs drafted there. I have been scratching my head about why I can draft CBs, but can't draft a S to save my life.

You may see trading as wacky, to others, including me, trading is a key element in beating the rest of the league. I'm a control freak, want to avoid the randomness in FOF as much as I can. Trading is the one thing that gives me as much control as I can get, the game won't do anything random to stop me. From time to time I end up making 'unrealistic trades', still all in an attempt to get where I want to be: the league champion.

Sadly in the IHOF it got me no closer than a conference final. Interestingly enough my GEFL championship team was for 80% based on my inaugural draft strategy. In fact only my quarterback and top receiver were acquired through trades.

I disagree. Some of us have a life to attend to. This isn't a game like Quake where by playing you can really hone your skills and you can consistently dominate lesser players head to head. If someone can beat me there, more power to them. Here, we should have more documentation than what we have.

How mentors work should be public knowledge. I should know ahead of time that a mentor isn't going to work while on the inactive list vs. being an active player with a spot on the depth chart. There was initial debate about this subject, but now we know how it works due to some people's research. We shouldn't have to research this.

That is part of where my beef is. We should have more documentation about what the settings actually do. If we did, much of this discussion would go away. As it is, I can have anecdotal evidence about something, but how the heck am I going to get conclusive evidence about what is happening, whether what I am seeing is a short term trend, or outlier in the data, etc., etc.

Some of us don't know how to set up the tests either. How do you hack the files to get a proper set up for your test? I can understand why someone who takes the time to do this feels that the information is proprietary, but should they have a leg up on us because they know how to do all this stuff? Should they be able to put together a better game plan because they know that getting downfield means the ability to generate YAC vs. actually running deep routes?

"you play to win the game" - Herm Edwards.


I don't really see #2 as a viable option. Either your going to try to simulate the NFL or yor aren't. It's a copout IMO to say you are but then do the opposite in "certain situations".

When FOF is an exact replication of the NFL then sure, I'll play to mirror the NFL. Until then, I'm playing FOF against other people as those are the rules that govern the outcomes.

and as far as Teeters go Warhammer, I simply tried to copy what albion was doing with Boggs. I even told DK when I traded for Teeters that I had big plans for him...

Then, from the standpoint of relating it to real life, they're putting in more hours than you and increase their chances of success because of it.


I wouldn't argue that point for a second.


Yes, absolutely. They've acquired more skill.

Again, I draw that line on the fact that, AFAIK, this isn't a case where Gindin has handed out insider info to a select few or anything (which has happened in some MMORPG's), this is information that can be gleaned by anyone willing to put forth the effort to do so, restricted largely by their ability to comprehend the info & formulate how to use it to their advantage.

I'd report it to the developer immediately. That being said, I seriously doubt such a strategy exists for FOF.

I absolutely agree that this is a big part of the problem with FOF and powergaming. The complexity of the game combined with the paucity of documentation of how the moving parts work seems almost intentionally designed to reward power gamers over realism gamers....

Heh, like bsak and the RWBL, apparently. :D

I know there is a line somewhere.
I am just wondering what you would consider "playing fof4" and what you would consider an exploite.

I thought of four more at lunch. These are all accepted practices in FOF multiplayer.

1. We now know that high-endurance backs are limited in the number of carries they can get, so we value guys with medium endurance above guys with high endurance, if all else is equal.
2. We offer FA contracts based on a guy's ratings, not on his on-field performance (guys that boom in FA-2 in particular).
3. We don't offer contracts to guys who bust right after the draft.
4. We place extra value on guys who have gained a small number of ratings points per year, even if they haven't played very much or very well, because we know that's a very strong indicator that he'll boom later on.

I agree with the guy who commented about FOF and "power" gaming. That's a good point. I understand not documenting the ins and outs of some things, but I think there needs to be basic documentation about, say, the strengths and weaknesses of each coverage scheme. Just a basic chart like this:

COVERAGE	DESCRIPTION	STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES
M2M (Loose)
BnR
2-deep
3-deep
4-deep

would make a difference. As it stands now, it takes setting up a pretty time-consuming system of tests to figure out this information.

I just checked in from work, and have enjoyed this thread. I have found that Skydog and I agree on most things, but this is just one area that we have different views. He is correct, it is how you approach the game. I recall he did not have any interest in historical rosters. The names were not important to him, but for me, the names of the players is what made me feel connected to the game, and sparked all kinds of what if scenarios for my imagination.

In the multiplayer league, I want to play GM football against other guys who enjoy this game. I really don't want to know some of the the things that some guys uncover. The mystery of the game mechanics is something I personally want to keep secret from myself. I only do what I would try to do as a real life GM of an NFL team. This includes my trades, negotiations, and game play. An exploit has no appeal to me, because it does not improve my skills as a GM. I want to test myself, in as close a football atmosphere as possible, against guys who want to do the same thing. Breaking down the game code metrics to win has no appeal to me, either. Drafting a 3rd round RB out of SMU who goes on to rush for 15,000 yards, knowing my QB has a nickname called The Sheriff, or watching the excitement in Darkiller before a big game is why I play in the multi-player league.

Fixed. The more I know about your gameplan before we play, the better. ;)

That's news to me. And probably a crystal clear example of what we're talking about here.

Game requirements: Windows XP or greater, 1.2 Mhz Pentium chip, inticate programming knowledge to extract pertinent data from program so you can figure it out.

I jest, but your access, excel, cracking skills should not determine how good you are at a game.

The game is supposed to be about how much you know about football. It is supposed to be about taking your roster's skill set, and setting up a quality game plan from that. If people do not understand what each of the settings do, is it really that big of a challenge to beat them?

I understand that there are bound to be some mysteries about how things work. All that I ask for is that they are made public knowledge to benefit the community as a whole. Unfortunately, not everyone shares my idealism.

WH's remarks allows me once again to say to Jim: please increase documentation greatly. I don't even get why it isn't. I think your sales would probably increase, so there's your motivation. I'm not asking for a cheat guide just some real basic stuff. The classic example is the double coverage option in gameplanning.

Top 5 rushing attempts last season in the IHOF:
Ray Ray Lyle (491): 52/54
Randy Reagor (442): 70/80
Kurt Basso (433): 50/52
Joey Babbage (365): 89/89
Ronnie Kemp (361): 94/94

I'm not convinced that high-endurance has less of a chance, yet.


Ratings = scouts. Are you saying that watching what a player does in practice, how he runs routes, etc... i.e. what his ratings represent... don't make any difference in how a player should be evaluated? Do players who sign after the draft (i.e. FA-2) in the real NFL not typically work out for teams?


Given. This is much more common than it should be (and I don't do it).


Granted as well, but I put this alongside watching a guy continue to grow as a player since college, and the scout basically saying "Yeah, this guy keeps getting better than I thought". I don't see any reason to not take that into account, for realism.

Worth also noting (because of the dropoff between 3 and 5) that Kemp has three 400+ carry seasons to his name, and this was a "down" season for him.

If we had this, I would be thrilled!

This is the type of thing I am talking about though. I might see that I need this information and that there seems to be some correlation with what I see on the field, but how do you set up a test for this? How do you hack the player file, etc?

I seem to remember him being injured or something. I remember him not playing against me in one of my games with the Vipers this season.

This is starting to become one of the best FOF threads ever. A good solid friendly discussion on an important issue. I am hoping Jim sees this as an opportunity to tweak some things to eliminate a lot of the contentious issues here. Better documentation would be a start. Did I say that already?

We're going to again show how this is different viewpoints.

You say these are all accepted practices? I don't know that the are...

#1 - I think this only applies to a handful of IHOF owners. I don't think this is a big community accepted thing. I know that I for one do not evaluate this way. And, as Celeval mentioned, it may all be blown out of proportion quite a bit anyways.

#2 - My FA offers are based around both ratings and performance. Personally, I think some of the worst off-season moves in IHOF have been big FA offers to guys who have ratings but not performance (i.e. your former DE Terrel Rodgers) who then do the same. part of the reason that my team has several lowly ranked guys who have played very well (i.e. Harry Glass) is because I look at performance as much if not more than ratings. So, it may be what "most" people do but it isn't necessarily the smartest way to do it. Besides that, as Celeval mentions, it's not like NFL GM's are going 100% on stats. They have scouts telling them about the players. That is what we have here, I don't see how this is "unrealistic"

#3 - Some do, some don't. Again, if NFL scouts knew someone stunk before contract signing time, they wouldn't sign them either. This is fishing for somehow that we're not being "realistic" when we're just limited by the game and what it does. That being said, in IHOF I have advocated rules that would force people to sign draft busts as I do see the flaws in the realism here.

#4 - Some do, some don't. I again think you're talking about a handful of owners, mostly in the IHOF. I tend to not get worked up over these guys as you're talking about a small % that really pay off. But even so, it's not like you don't have these kinds of guys in the NFL. Again, you have guys that play on practice squads and show improvement, then show themselves a bit more as a 3rd and 2nd teamer, and despite not having the "physical skills" they play hard and do well, later on making it as a full starter. Your inability to "role play" this I think is limiting your ability to see how it compares to the NFL. Being that it is a text sim with no video or anything to see players, Jim has to model it a certain way. This seems to be one of those things that you can find parrallels to in the NFL it's just not modeled 100% the same because that's not possible.

So, in your examples, I just really don't agree with your premise. Your mentioning things that are modeled loosely on something in the NFL, even if not implemented in the best way possible.

What I am referring to are actions that are blatantly "not realistic" or "gaming the system". Whether it be artificially creating more plays in the preseason to make your green bars go more to red by completely unbalanced gameplans that have no intention of scoring positive results on the field of that game or game plans that exploit flaws in the way you can gameplan defensively to give your team an unrealistic advantage that could not be had in the NFL.

I'm not sure if asking your owner what the exact amount he will pay for a coach and then immediately throwing that amount at your target would be necessarily realistic, but that's probably the smart thing to do in MP.

I must plead guilty here, but again I think that is a combination of many things but one of the main being that there is ZERO reason not to do this. I think we can all agree that this is one of the most, if not the most, limited part of the MP experience.

Agreed. I look at on-field performance at least as much as I do ratings now. Stupid Terrell Rodgers!


I was the person who originally suggested mandatory draft-pick signings.


Agreed.

Wade and I are peas in a pod.:)

Jim told us plain as day that it does, by offering to trade Ray-Ray straight up for the other guy he didn't take in the draft (can't remember who it was) to "compensate" for him using that knowledge before all of us knew it.

And that, I do believe, is ultimately the root of where you & I disagree on this.

The "game" you just described doesn't exist AFAIK. Or if it does, it's a trivia contest or something.

Not even IRL does "how much you know about football" translate directly to winning (since rosters aren't identically matched, nothing controls mistakes by players, etc).

Regardless, pretty good discussion IMO.

Agreed, good discussion.

Mistakes are supposed to be a part of the game, I just look at the game planning role as trying to put players in a situation where you can minimize their mistakes and maximize their skill set.

Talking about knowing the game, I mean strategy, not that "Too Tall" Jones wore #72 or something. Knowing how to put your roster together, etc.

I can't tell you how many times I have seen players wonder why they are giving up tons of yards passing because their secondary is good, etc. Then you look at their ratings and they don't match up. One player is a jack of all trades, master of none, another is good a BnR, the others are good at M2M, and he is running a zone scheme, etc.

Reread the quote.


He doesn't say anything about mid-range endurance being better. Just "uneven enough not to matter"; i.e. the high endurance doesn't necessarily give enough of a boost to matter. Doesn't say anything about mid-level endurance better than the high-level endurance, that's just silly.

Shhhh...be quiet! They might hear you!

;)

I am curious what the winning percentage is of those who "dig deep in the guts of the game" versus those who role play in multiplayer.

Well, just look at Tucker...

*ducks*

They aren't mutually exclusive. I do dig deep into the game, but stay realistic in my actions. I think I've got a pretty darn good feel for the way scouting works, and base some of my drafting on that. I've got my own ideas around gameplanning for a particular opponent that work well at times and bite me in the rear at times. I've got a pretty good idea of how players react to different styles of contract offers, sometimes based on what they're asking to begin with. I've dug pretty deep to figure some of this out. Doesn't mean I'm not roleplaying in MP at the same time - if I find something that's unrealistic, I'm not going to make use of it.

What a softball I just threw!

Bottom line for me is that I play a game for enjoyment. Part of my enjoyment is realism, so I try not to approach FOF as a system to be manipulated. Does that put me at a competitive disadvantage? Perhaps. But if I had to tear into the algorithms and analyze the numbers any more than I do now, it would cease to be fun.

Coug just explained how I feel in a MUCH shorter statement than I did.

Two thoughts.

wade, you are never going to get a league of 32 owners on the same page. No matter what rules are in place, there will be some that are in it for the prestige or at least, just something to do without giving it much thought. There some of those in IHOF as well as all other leagues.

The second thought is what Senator alluded to. I believe that there is enough randomness and unpredictability in FOF (as in most other games) that no matter how much you want to beat the system in MP, it will not guarantee success. Even though Jim holds back when playing in IHOF, even he can be surprised at outcomes of certain games.

But let's say beating the game gets you 15% better than average results, what then? You still have to have the players that are better than most everyone else (ie. the stars of the position). The key to MP, from my observation, is how well you draft, you acquire FAs and you trade. How do you think NPL remains competitive year after year while Tucker or many other teams have not?

This bulk numbers are meaningless to me unless I see the total overall % of the team's carries by the back.

You don't have to hack the player file. That sort of thing would be considered cheating universally, I would think.

I've given a lot of thought to testing the coverage schemes. Coming up with all the test cases is pretty daunting. There are so many things to consider. What if changing up coverages doesn't matter? Does the offense become very familiar with that coverage if you use it all game long? How accurate are those scouted numbers for individual ratings? I've done some basic testing, basically taking the same team, setting it on all M2M for a season, running that same season 10 times, logging stats each time, then setting it on all 2-deep, running that same season 10 times, logging stats each time, etc. I've learned SOME things about coverages, but I'm pretty sure there's more there than I've figured out.

As for Tucker, my testing had been pretty limited, compared to what I've wanted it to be, but it has increased tremendously this summer, particularly in the last couple of months. I made the mistake of posting my findings on combine scores, volatility and the like to this board, thinking that others would post their test results on other things in return. It didn't happen very much at all for a very long time. Then, I made the mistake of never testing the preference draft, and I got CREAMED in the one in IHOF. I'd basically never done one of those, and made some assumptions of how it worked. It worked very differently from how I expected it to work, and was patched later on. I'm quite sure that the testing I had done on game plans helped me out for the first couple of seasons, but the bottom fell out when I had two random busts of very high draft picks that I traded for, and my QB situation never panned out like I thought it would in those early years. I think you'll see some better results this year, assuming that injuries don't kill me. The bottom line, though, is that you can't get blood out of a turnip in FOF, which is a good thing. My suspicion is that someone who knows it all about FOF might be able to get, say, 12 wins out of a 10-win team, and someone who really sucks might get 8 wins out of the same team.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm not hiding results from any tests. :D

(nor did I ever test the preference draft, I just liked the idea of starting with a young team and seeing it grow)

Now, I figure yes, if I tinkered enough in SP I could find a lot more out (especially as Celeval points out on contracts, where I admittedly know nothing). Heck, if I paid more attention to IHOF and FOFL, there is probably much information to be gleaned. Maybe when I meet more adversity I will, but right now I just don't have enough of a will to figure this stuff out.

You don't need to go anal, you've already figured it out.

IHOF Owner/GM, Frederick Red Menace, 2004-present; NAC Mid-Atlantic Champs '04, '07, '08, '09, '10, '11; NAC Champs '09, '10, '11;IHOF Champs '09, '11

Not that I know all that much either, but some... the fucked up thing is that the most egregious cheating that we've seen in MP leagues involves people specifically running contract offers $1k at a time to find the lowest point the player would take. Hell, if you spent that much time in a SP career doing it, you'd probably know enough about player preferences to guess pretty well in MP to begin with without cheating.

in this post
http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...6&postcount=93

All i see is CT's quoted field, and do not see this part
until i click on the quote button. Several other of his posts seem to be that way too, and it's only for that user, either when i am logged in or off. like his setup is limited for him to only post a certain amount of lines or something.

Only when you pay attention to a single bar. I believe cthomer alludes to looking at the whole (or at least to multiple indicators), which is why he wins. A CB that is good at one coverage but suck at all the other bars is still a CB that sucks.

These people apparently never watched the Clock Game.