Variety in Research (Football Frontier Blog Entry With Some Info About FOFnext)
 

I spend a considerable amount of my time on research projects. This usually consists of delving into game logs, constructing perl scripts to parse vast amounts of data, then constructing spreadsheets to analyze the output from these scripts. I have … Continue reading →

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Some good stuff there! I particularly like...


and of course...

Changes to formations will better help with the goal of creating mismatches. Nice.

This is great news, thanks for sharing some insight with us about the future game.

Another comment....I really like the part that I've highlighted, though I suspect that some will not. I like it for the same reason that I've grown to hate higher injury settings in MP leagues. The highest in any league that I commish is 50. It's not that I dislike realism, it's that:

1. I just don't want to fiddle around with depth charts at that level of detail, but...
2. ...I hate the thought that others who *are* willing to fiddle around with stupid tasks like that are gaining an advantage over me, so I end up doing what I dislike doing just to keep up with the Joneses. I'd much rather see the game just deal with that on its own without messing with the rest of the team I've assembled.

I like it, except for this part:

I don't want the game deciding who the best player is. In the current game, there are players with attributes I prefer playing over someone who might be more overall higher rated.

Example- my starting LDE gets injured. I would rather the 25/25 pass rushing specialist with 0/0 in run defense be the next name up, than the 40/40 rated guy with bars that I really don't want as a starter in that position.

For me, I'm perfectly fine with something like this impacting everyone equally. I'd prefer that to the idea that the guys who have the patience and time to set every one of those little boxes on four different defensive screens having a distinct advantage over those who either don't want to play at that level or detail, or simply don't have the time. I think the ideal for both "sides" would be for the AI to be smart enough to put the pass-rush guy in when it's a passing situation or against a good-passing team, and the run-stopper in against a running team. Failing that, though, I'm pretty certain that I'd enjoy FOF more if that was taken out human hands, even if the decisions aren't always perfect.

If there are no beer tents I am going to have to decline purchasing a new version.

I'd rather lose every single GP screen with inputting little numbers than lose the ability to decide which players I like best. That's one of the more interesting team management decisions for me.

That said, I'm all for taking things out of our hands. It's just that what's interesting to one guy might be a waste of time to another. I would've thought choosing between players falls into mostly the former category, though...

I'm very happy about this QB thing :) I had mentioned that in another bug report to Jim a few months ago, citing some NFL teams as an example, and his response at the time was telling me how the Patriots carry three QBs with Garrett Gilbert on the practice squad. But clearly they don't always.

I do like the idea of making the defensive depth charts less involved. I do think it would be nice to be able to specify a top reserve (in case of injury) at DE/DT/ILB/OLB/CB/S, but not necessarily for every position. Even an option that favors specific skill sets for backups would work. "In case of injury, favor pass rush" or "favor balance" or "favor run defense"

Or maybe just give us a single defensive depth chart with something like 6 DL spots, 6 LB spots, and 6 DB spots. Let us tell the game who goes in when, but the game can handle match ups, etc.

I totally agree with Yoda on this one. I miss having the playing time percentages broken down for each position (like it was in FOF2007) and this change will take even more control out of the user's hands in regards to depth charts.

Please god, DO NOT put that back in there. Keep moving forward. This is a game about building a team, not mashing a bunch of arrows (jk Hammer).

:D

Really like the sound of these ideas, Jim. Good stuff.

Insert annual plea to make TCY2 with this new paradigm. Anyone up for a Kickstarter?!

Rather than reading about offense again and again and again from Jim, it might be nice to read some things he's going to do with DEFENSE.

Defense is so under utilized in this game that it may as well be called Front Office Offensive Football.

In this game, a team that focuses on building an offense can dominate a league, but a team that focuses on building a defense is, well, a little better than the average team. But, when the offensive team and defensive team collide, who will win? Offense, of course, because defense is so under developed here.

Jim, stop looking at offense for a year and focus on defense. That would be amazing!

That simply isn't true in FOF7.

+1

Burn!

Sure would be nice to have a practice squad for developing guys. It's hard to get players the snaps they need to develop without jeopardizing wins in this version.

The 3rd QB can be a PS member :)


--Vito

Plus 1000

This was an interesting comment for me. I wasn't sure if fiddling with stuff would help me at all, so I'd sort of given up on it. But maybe I should go back to being a frustrated little fiddler til I figure out what works. For me, and maybe this is not true for others, the level of fun I have with a simulator is juxtaposed with the number of options I can fiddle with. That's why I'm still playing this game and not Football Manager- there's just more variables.


This becomes a matter of quantity over quality, in my opinion. If I want a full immersive experience, I'm only going to play in one or two leagues, max. Then I have the time to delve into my roster, consider the best trades, gameplan for what works for my roster and works against my opponent of the week, tweak my lineup, write clever write ups, contribute to my league(s) on a personal level- whatever floats my boat. But if I'm in the RNFL, FOFL, FOOL, CCFL, IHOF, GML, NAFL, CFL, etc.. then damn right I don't have any time. That's a "no duh" isn't it? But that was my choice. I gluttoned out because that's how I choose to enjoy the game. I don't think the game should have to bend to my enthusiastic nature. Such an adjustment could do more harm than good.

For example, if I'm new to this simulation and I'm trolling around the various leagues, and I see that it's coming down to "join a dozen leagues, you'll hit a winner every so often, because odds," I'm just not going to be as excited. Mainly cause I don't want to join a dozen leagues. I want my simulated fun to be immersive, not a lottery.

This is TL;DR, so in short: add more variables to a simulator to improve it, not less. If that formula is defeating you, trim down on the number of leagues you're in. Dumbing the game down will cost new participants, not gain them.

In relation to more variables, etc. I am happy with less, especially on the gameplan and miscellaneous screens.

How about just a run vs pass on 1st and 10, etc.
I think you let your QB and coach ratings decide on whether he throws a screen, short dump off, short/med slants/outs/posts vs how many times you actually would go for the deep ball.

I'm sure the coding would be difficult, but if it is a pass on 1st and 10 in my 3 WR set with RB and FB in to block vs a Nickle DEF showing 2 blitzers with single safety cover:
- my stud QB would immediately have the uncovered slot WR
- if his Oline gives him time and he has good sense rush, he might wait for the stud WR to potentially beat his single coverage and hit him deep.

A team defending that QB would choose to gameplan with 5% blitz on passing downs and always play 2 deep cover safety to stop big plays, etc.

:+1:

Bullseye! :thumbsup:

This is absolutely not true for me, and it's clear that there's simply a divide on this sort of thing that exists. There are some players who like that, and some who don't.



1. I don't see this as dumbing the game down at all. I see it as just the opposite: removing menial tasks that anyone can do well if they have the time/patience for them and allowing the higher-level decision-making skills to drive success.
2. You're dead wrong if you think more boxes will bring in new participants. One of the chief complaints of newbies (and quite a few veterans) when FOF2K7 was released with its tons and tons of boxes was that there were too many settings. I realize that you're new, so you probably don't know that FOF7 reduced the numbers of options/boxes fairly significantly. The game plan adjustments screen had 2-3 times the number of options in FOF2K7 than it does now. I strongly suspect that they were reduced because of all of the complaints. I see this as another positive step in that direction.

I think the best way to explain the "other side" of this viewpoint is to look at some specific comments you made and contrast them with how some others like to play.

That formula is not defeating me. I do a bunch of stuff that is (in my opinion) menial in every league that I'm in, because either my intuition or testing has shown that these menial tasks help with success. That doesn't mean that I don't think they're menial. For example, I micromanage my rosters in the preseason in every league to maximize rust removal to a point that is utterly annoying to me. Whether I'm in one league or twenty, I'm going to think that stuff is annoying. For SOME people, time is the issue. For me, it's an issue of "I don't like having to do all this in-season detailed crap to maximize my team's performance." You cannot change the fact that a significant number of people simply hate having all those boxes that must be optimized in order to keep up with others.

I fully acknowledge that there are micromanagers out there who love doing all that stuff. It's interesting that often micromanagers can't seem to "get" that there are lots of people who get little/nothing out of the stuff you mentioned. When I have a year 8 stud QB, I'm interested in getting him up to year 13 or so, so I can figure out who's going to be the next QB to lead the franchise. I'm interested in drafting players in seeing how they do year to year, not week to week. I'm interested in career records more than single-game or single-season. I'm interested in the last 30 years of my franchise's history, and what the next 30 will look like, not the next game. If I wanted game-to-game management, I'd play Strat or 2nd and 10. They're far better at that sort of stuff than FOF ever has been, and probably ever will be.

My TL;DR version: I play FOF for the offseason, not the season. To me, season results are viewed as by-products of "good" or "bad" offseasons. I'd love to see the AI progress to the point where there is no advantage to be gained by micromanaging game plans, depth charts, formations, etc. This appears to be a step in that direction, so it has my preliminary support.

Just wonder what we are talking.

Do not trim FOF down - in no feature!
For all who want a less immersive experience, or/and are short on time - ask Rex!?

At this point, it certainly appears that this is merely a philosophical discussion of "is this a good decision or a bad decision." In other words, there's absolutely no indication in the blog post that this is an area where he's trying to decide what to do; he has already decided...There are no "I'm thinking about doing this" types of phrases there. FOFC has a long history of debating the merits of developers' design decisions, both before and after games are released, and this is really no different.

.... shouldn't TL;DR be used at the beginning of a long post... not at the end.

just sayin.

Maynard just totes called Ben a glutton. :lol: :popcorn:


I'm all on the Ben train here.

Acquiring players (and deciding how good they are) is the offseason, though. Personnel packages is a good move and I like it. However, what's the point of acquiring a specialist player -- valuable as next man up in certain packages but perhaps not the primary backup -- if you have to wrangle around and guess if the AI will ever use them, and when?

For example, maybe you have a pass catch only backup RB and you don't want your "big back" #2 to go in on those packages.

Or you have some "slot only" WR types or "blocking only" TEs. Maybe you have some defensive backs or linebackers that are either run or coverage focused and you have different packages for each scenario.

If you have a package screen, why not add designated backup slots to the positions?

Otherwise, why not remove different bar profiles entirely and just have every player be solely determined by OVR.

Not getting the train of thought here. No gameplans Ben? You seem to be all in for letting a utility hold your hand through the draft also.

At what point do we actually lock horns. That is what gameplans are about. The draft used to be about evaluation, now this program does most of that for you. At what point do we actually compete against each other?

Sounds like the game will barely require any input. No input = no emotional investment.

You know going back to my arrowing days which Subby so kindly brought up again lol. I spent time, and had emotional investment. Free agency was more fun than it is now in a twisted sort of way.

People just play in too many leagues these days. I firmly believe going all in on one or two makes the game more fun. Every result, every sim matters.

Yes I see your point to some degree. Setting guys to encouraged or not encouraged is pretty silly. There are a few similar tasks. But gameplans? That is where we prove we are better than the other guy. It isn't luck that the same guys in the CFL get the most wins over AI. Surely that is the essence of the competition now the draft is all about utilities.

The draft has already had the life choked out of it with utilities telling you the answers. For me gameplans are the last avenue where we really get to match wits. If that goes I am struggling to see the point of playing.

Not sure what you're talking about there. I barely use draft analyzer. I have my own ways of assessing the talent. And I didn't say that I wanted game plans to go away. I just want the AI to rex extremely well, to the point that there's no significant advantage gained by doing it manually for every game.


This speaks to precisely what I referred to above:I get that you like every sim. But for some reason, it seems that you cannot fathom that others of us find the sim-by-sim stuff completely tedious, and you don't seem to want to make any room for those who simply enjoy text sims for entirely different reasons. I'm largely bored by the details of the regular season. I play in multiple leagues so that I'm always in the offseason somewhere. I am happy for others to play their way, but for some reason you seem to not want to allow others to have fun a different way than you do.

*shurg* I disagree completely with that idea. Perhaps that is true for you, but it isn't for everyone. I'd argue that for many, tools like Analyzer make it more enjoyable. But again, for whatever reason, you either are incapable or refuse to see that. I really don't get that.

Serious question: What about contracts: Decisions on when to renegotiate, how to restructure offers, etc. etc. etc. Free agents to sign. Those are pretty important as well...

I know this is a tangent, but I'd argue that analyzer has restored the art of drafting by automating the tedious parts of the process.

Sure. I think what Hammer is saying is that he enjoys the parts of drafting that you and I find mind-numbingly tedious, and wants us to engage in those tedious parts like he does.

I am saying live and let live. Pushing for fundamental changes will lose people as Maynard suggested. Yes we can improve certain areas by cutting down on boring stuff, but gameplans are probably the most skilled part of the game.

You mention contracts, fa, renegs. Well it is hardly rocket science. Most experienced players will be on a pretty level playing field here. We have all had years of practise now.

I think the game is great as it is. There is room to play it in different ways. Why limit players options. Not sure why your trying to make out I am telling people what to do, or how to play. To me your extensive wish list of change is doing exactly that.

Where am I pushing for fundamental changes? You set up a false charge of "you're trying to get rid of game plans!" Nowhere did I indicate anything like that.

Eh, I disagree. I've looked around a lot, and there's a fairly big discrepancy there. It takes 6-8 seasons to build, but some players have figured out ways to keep large amounts of talent around under the cap. I think renegs in particular are some of the most unexplored areas of FOF.

1. Again, where have I suggested limiting options? I'd have to re-read the thread, but I *think* the only thing I've "asked for" is better AI, which, I would think, everyone would be in favor of. Am I missing something??? :confused:
2. Even if I did ask for a bunch of new features that limit options, that's my right as a customer, just as it is yours as a customer to advocate for whatever change that you might want.
3. If I actually did want a specific feature added or removed, I'd never post it here anyway. I DO follow my own advice, y'know ;)

At the bottom of post 24 you said you wanted to see the end of players gaining advantage from "micro managing gameplans". Perhaps I misunderstood what you were getting at.

But to me that is how guys like Timmy consistently get +5 and +6 over the AI predictions. Attention to detail. That floats my boat. That is the game to me, taking a 6 win team to 12 wins. That is what it is all about.

Taking Cheyenne to the bowl 2 years in a row when the AI says we are a 7 and 8 win team, for me that is satisfaction. Sure I would also like to build a 12 wins projected team and dominate with that team if I could. As I say I think it would be great if we could keep all options open as we all clearly value different parts of the game more than others.

Evidently, yeah. I want to see the AI improved. That's the framework for this (Emphasis added):

"I'd love to see the AI progress to the point where there is no advantage to be gained by micromanaging game plans, depth charts, formations, etc."

I'm just talking about improving the AI's game plans, depth charting, etc. These are things that would *greatly* improve SP for everyone, and the more "big-picture" guys would enjoy MP more.

Dola...but let's be fair, Hammer. You weren't just "live and let live." You (and others) are advocating that people who enjoy playing in more leagues should play in fewer leagues. Y'all need to own that. ;)

seems like jim could simplify depth charts and still let you identify players for spot use. maybe slots to name 3rd down backs, short yardage backs, pass rushing specialists, etc (i'm sure there are more, but honestly i can't think of many more specialty positions i'd like to identify)

i think most people would like to identify players like that, but would happily give up backups wilb's and fb's.

From personal experience it seems to me guys who really dedicate to a league enjoy it more. Just my observations.

I guess I believe when a commish puts in his heart and soul to a league it deserves respect in terms of player participation and commitment.

If your playing in 10 leagues and still participate, answer pms, submit exports and don't miss draft picks then fair play. Not a problem. If your guilty of these faults as a player your a liability and not giving your league the respect it deserves IMO.

Just to be sure I don't end up looking like the total hypocrite here, if the game does become less busy during the season and we have less to fiddle with, I'm sure I will join half a dozen more leagues and just play the lotto too.

I want to get in the CFL, and I'm on the wait list, but I'm hesitant cause I feel like I would need to drop a league to give it the attention I want to give. With an update that Ben says will no longer give the fiddlers an advantage, my perspective is going to change. No idea if that includes enjoying all those new leagues I'm in, or if I wake up one morning and say "I heard I can be Boba Fett in that new Star Wars game..."

I know the decisions have already been made, so I was not responding to the original posts in an effort to change or reverse anything. Nothing that's been said here has changed my mind either. Sounds like it's been known for awhile that there are the "immersive fiddlers" on one end and the "team builders" on the other (I'm simplifying here). What's kind of a bummer is that since this was known, maybe the game could have kept all the options, but the leagues could have been varied. Look at the GML. Seems like the perfect league for what you're describing, Ben. And you are at the top every season. There could have been more leagues like that, and then some leagues for the fiddlers! What would have been wrong with that? A GM could just choose what leagues he wants to be in based on settings, rather than join them all and begrudgingly fiddle with the busy ones.

Anyway, hindsight is 20/20. 5 bucks says I love all the new changes and I see you in all my new leagues, and I STILL lose in all of them as I do now! :p

Oh, I've been saying this for years. The issue is that many of us don't fully understand our own personal preferences well enough at the time we start in MP leagues; It's something that each individual learns over time. As a result, early on we join leagues based on prestige, an owner we "know", a web site, etc. etc. etc, and not on the "personality" of the league. And once we've joined and invested time, we're not likely to leave simply because others in the league like to play differently. (Well, and we're also competitive. I do micromanaging stuff even in GML and FOOL that I don't enjoy at all, but that I know to be necessary to help maximize team performance.) There are leagues like IHOF, formed in 2003. Some of the original members are still there, and frankly, some of us enjoy FOF very differently. I'm not leaving a league that I've been invested in for 12 years over stylistic differences, and neither are those who play differently from me.

Yup. If I knew then what I know now, the original IHOF invitation that I sent out minutes after FOF2K4 was announced in Fall '03 would have read very differently. And as I've learned my own enjoyment/pain points, it has changed how I create new leagues and select ones to join. For example, when I started the CCFL and the FOOL, I created the vast majority of the rules/scheduling *before* I invited anyone to join, thus establishing a bit of a "culture" that people were signing on to. At the time it was created (2010), the CCFL was by far the fastest-moving league around at 6 gamedays per calendar week and six calendar weeks per season, and it used a "salary cap crunch" that forced hard decisions on GMs in terms of contracts, keeping players, renegs, etc. It was clearly designed to be a league for people more interested in (by the way, I like your terms) "team building" and that whose regular seasons would move too fast for the great majority of "immersive fiddlers" to do a lot of fiddling. In 5 calendar years and 43+ seasons, I don't recall a single significant squabble over how the schedule should look, changing the injury setting, etc. Contrast that to IHOF, where there have been more than a few of each "type" you mentioned, and there have been tons of such squabbles.

And then of course there's the FOOL. The Front Office Offseason League was commissioned to run with a one-day preseason, one-day regular season, and one-day postseason. We've churned through 24 seasons in less than one calendar year. It's the perfect league for people who want to see teams evolve, move from one QB to the next, etc., and it has maintained a waiting list of a good length for quite some time now, but it's not the sort of thing that people who want to get into a lot of details would have any interest in joining.

But most FOF MP leagues have existed for a long time and don't really have a truly distinct "personality" of one vs. the other. Or if they do, at some point they've had to accept anyone who was willing to join, thus creating a situation where there are a competing interests.

My preferences have changed over time. I played this game a different way years ago when I started out. I'm a lot more "whatever" about things, especially when it's stuff that I've done too many times.

For example, to me managing all 53, 60, 70 spots on the roster, including injuries, including through the preseason, is at the heart of this game. I wish we had practice squads just so we can be working with more players. However, I won't be sorry to never have to worry about GPing again, though I used to love the challenge. I used to love changetracker and some people still use PlayerTracker as a guide; now I just use in-game info and leave it be. I'm fine with not having fine-tuned controls for the staff draft process; just sim it and see what you get back. (I can hear the protests about the last one already...)

In general, I'm getting more "hands off" as time goes by. I think this tends to describe game veterans more, while newer players often want all the choices and granularity. Which is fine; I've been there.

Everyone's got a style. And every decision choice Jim makes is bound to be received differently.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses!

If these changes go through I see an awful lot of people, and perhaps even leagues, sticking with the old game. For me it sounds like being a passenger in a car versus driving it yourself.

As Maynard pointed out the option currently exists if you want to be a passenger. Don't see the logic in taking away the option for those who want to be more hands on.

The focal point of the game will become the draft. Which may turn into a competition to see who can write the best draft cheat program as there will be so much emphasis on the draft. I just see the game going further and further away from football and turning into a IT skills procession. Football is why we are all here isn't it? :confused:

Less is more.

In this case, you'll have infinitely more control over your game plan. But you won't have to waste time entering numbers that are essentially meaningless for coaches.

I think the new depth charts also offer more. The one area you'll have less is with replacing injured players in-game. The game will select the next best player for a role. But there are actually more depth chart slots in the new model (127) than the old (106) without silly things like needing to specify your punter or your third quarterback.

It's an entirely different experience. I think it's much more realistic, and you'll feel you're crafting a plan that a pro coach would execute. It's all personnel-based. No more simply guessing run or pass. It's so different and so much more expansive that I am finding I may need to add another film room screen.

This is what I wanted to do eight years ago but never found the time. It's a massive undertaking, but I think it's worth it.

Okay, thanks for the further explanation. More control over gameplans sounds fantastic. Sounds like you were misunderstood.

Every version has got better. The only thing that miffed me about this version was losing the ability to gameplan according to field position. Having read this post I see my concerns are out the window. Looking forward to it!!!

I still have no idea where you got the "concerns" you had. As long as Rex is such that those who don't want to tinker a whole bunch don't have to tinker in order to keep up, then whatever. I still think you're really missing the big picture here: if this new area has a strong Rex option, then the game will *absolutely* be mostly about roster building (drafting, contract renegs, and free agent acquisition.) And, frankly, it is now. Most of the stuff that you think you're seeing now is more about AI sub-optimal decisions regarding what players should be on a roster and starting than about the specifics of a game plan.

We will agree to differ then. I see you around .500 for 4 or 5 years in the CFL, and right around your AI win predictions because your not putting in plans that can match the best players. Attention to detail and the micro managing of gameplans is what is costing you in my opinion. It isn't about rosters.

Other players have .500 projections and consistently beat them year after year. Shout me down all you want but the figures speak for themselves. It seems you have no tolerance or time for people who have different opinions to you, so I will leave it there.

It's rather humorous that you keep going down these "how the game works" paths with me. As with your long-term incorrect views of cohesion, fairly simple testing should let you know what's going on here. ;) And by the way, I've already mentioned this: MalcPow's joining is going to hurt me a bit, because he knows more of the secrets that I know regarding drafting than anyone else in that league, but I've had a head start on him, so I'd imagine I'll be alright.

Because the AI cuts and/or doesn't start some guys that should be starting, often for--and yes, I *love* the irony here--cohesion reasons. :D (And by the way, I beat mine by several games this past season. You'd think someone who claims to pay attention to the details would know that before spouting off. :devil:)

I've repeatedly expressed tolerance for those who want to play differently, and will continue to do so. I have no problem with differing opinions. What I don't have tolerance for is information being disseminated that is just plain wrong. Like you were 100% wrong about the impact of cohesion in FOF, you are simply 100% wrong about the impact of game plans in FOF. Like cohesion, this isn't a matter of opinion.

To be fair I said cohesion had little impact. I won plenty of bowls with teams with real shirty cohesion. But yeah your underlying point is true. I am wrong about things FOF related. We all are. Down the line we gain better understanding in hindsight, and yes I pay more attention to cohesion now.

We both joined the CFL at the same time roughly so maybe rather than bickering we can iron this out over there. I brought my team up from drafting at 1.2. You are two bowl appearances and one championship down. Kick my ass then I might bow down to your all knowing FOFness. Until then I just see a bloke who talks a lot but doesn't win enough to justify it :p

this is a good point. i'm all for more being handled in game. implementing change tracker is a great example.

after the inequalities of game planning (much improved in fof7 - in fof2k7 if you couldnt game plan you couldnt win, simple as that), i'd love to see the draft get handled in game more. really not a fan of 3rd party tools helping people out there.

This is true for me, though philosophically I wonder if it's not "as time goes by" as much as a reaction to the game's AI improving over time. A specific example would be the formation usage screens. Prior to FOF7, Rexing those gave you the same sets of formations no matter what your personnel. The major flaw there was that it underutilized your TE tremendously if he was a good TE. I tended to almost always have a VG TE in the FOF2K7 days, and I suspect that a large part of that was because a lot of people simply didn't fool with that screen, and therefore weren't getting good numbers from their TEs, so they were undervalued. Fast forward to FOF7, where Rex does a *much* improved job of assessing my talent and setting those screens accordingly, and I find myself just Rexing those a fair bit. I realize that it may not be 100% optimal, but it's close enough to optimal for me now, whereas in the past it was so far from optimal that for someone competitive as me, it was a necessary evil.

Heck, I'm even Rexing my game plans at times now for the same reason: despite what Hammer may think, the massive divide between success of Rex and manual is severely reduced in FOF7.

Do you use a different user name there? I don't even see you:

Member List - Cyber Football League

Lolz.

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/...y.php?teamid=1
theFOFL.com : Franchise History
GML: Atlanta Falcons History
http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/...y.php?teamid=3

But hey, I'm struggling a bit in the FOOL:

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/....php?teamid=20

;)

But seriously, you're once again using only your own definition of "what matters" to define success. I'm interested in what happens long-term, not the small sample size of a small handful of seasons. FWIW, I think I've only been in there four seasons and I'm . I checked, and the SFO 2037 draftees don't look like the types of guys I draft, and the 2038 guys do, so I'm guessing that was my first season. Tell me how your team has done after having cycled through a few QBs, and you'll impress me. I realize that you're impressed by short-term success. I'm not, and it's therefore not something that I strive to achieve.

But hey, if you want to play the "small-sample-size" game, then can you tell me how your teh awesome defensive game planning was beaten out by Rex last year in the CyFL??? The #1 defense in that league used a Rex defense every single game--and of course sometimes it wasn't even Rexed for the specific week, just a carryover Rex 'cause I didn't always bother to export when I didn't have to do injury juggling. :lol:

It might be nice to get back to the original topic.

I'm playing in one MP league as my entire FOF experience right now. I find it a waste of time to go through all the various personnel, formation use and pass coverage screens. I think I haven't even touched them since I got FOF2007 (that's no typo), so I'll applaud getting rid of those and leaving that up to the staff. For game planning, I'm hoping for stuff like 'pass heavy' or 'run heavy' rather than figuring out whether 27 or 34 is the magic number to use for running on 2nd and short. The depth charts, I don't mind reshuffling after injuries or really want to use when the playoffs are locked up.

But in the end, the draft and free agency should be the core of the game for me. Sure, I actually like to Solevisionize my games (clearly easier to do being in 1 league) and hold myself from over sample sizing and thinking about benching starters, fiddling around with the starting quarterback, just like what goes around in the real world.

Man, I wish. Maybe my first round CBs in FOOL would have been worth the pick, instead of my 5th (I think it was) accident being the best CB I've ever drafted....

It's like Poker: Draft Analyzer may help with the odds, but there is still enough randomness in the results to make it far from certain. I use all the analyses DA provides in my drafts, not just any one in particular, and anyone relying on the odds only better remember that my test suite showed it around 75% at being within one band of the final development of a player. That's a 75% chance of being within a 40 point range out of 100. That's not telling you the answers...

On the topic of gameplans, this is close to what I've always wanted: a run/pass slider, an aggressiveness slider, and done. Everything else in a real NFL game is adjustments, and the current FOF gameplanning is more about winning the guessing game of what your opponent will try (will he go pass aggressive enough that running it here is worth it?) than it is about maximizing your players' attributes. My coaches' gameplanning skills should be more important than whatever I set in the myriad dialogs that take too much time to adjust. Let me adjust the run/pass balance some, and set how likely I am to go for it on 4th down, how quickly/slowly I want to go conservative to hold a lead, and how much I want to blitz vs play a base defense, and the rest is all details I shouldn't have to care about unless I want to call every single play.

Draft Analyzer is a life saver for those of us who aren't fortunate enough to sit around analyzing draft picks all day.

But when I am fortunate enough to be around, it's almost assured that the guy I really want isn't who is at the top of my Draft Analyzer list. It just isn't that perfect (and there is so much more to drafting than overall combine scores.)

For example: The guys that MalcPow drafts don't even make my Draft Analyzer lists half the time.

It's a great tool, but it shouldn't be viewed as a cheat or overly beneficial. It really needs to be viewed as a "Hey, I don't want to be the dick that holds up the draft for 8 hours." tool...and thus, should be praised, not admonished. :)

ZOMFG YOU CHEETERZ SHOULD BE ANALYSING DRAFT CLASSES WITH PENCIL AND PAPER!!!1 NO COMPUTERZ ALOUD!!!1

I didn't even know you could surf the web and leave comments on a message board with pencil and paper alone!

Classic example of the ridicule people face who oppose your opinions. I couldn't give a monkeys if you ridicule me or ban me. But a lot of people do and their views are stiffled. It is a shame. This board should be a real good opportunity to discuss the game on equal standing. You think your opinion counts x10 because you own the board. Sad thing is it probably does. Maybe this gives you some insight why I and many others wouldn't play in your leagues if they were the last ones standing.

Hey I know your a strong player. But there are better. Just because your not able to make a real difference with gameplans you don't think anyone can. Your wrong. Ignoring the stats of what guys like Timmy have accomplished long term in the CFL is plain ignorance.

Your success is based on outside of the game utilities to gain an advantage. Hey it's only a game so if that is what you enjoy, fair play. But don't be under any illusions.

First off, the sample size is too small. No one has done anything "long term" in FOF7 in that league. You've had, what, like 7 seasons? And as I said before, there are other factors that the AI doesn't handle very well that humans do that aren't game plan related that I'm 100% certain are impacting success. You're ignoring those other factors entirely and attributing all unexpected success to game planning. There's more to it than that.

To be 100% clear, if I and others haven't already: game planning could make a *massive* difference in every version of FOF from 5.0 to 6.4 (from FOF2K4's release in 2003 through FOF2K7's sunset in 2013.) So yes, for 10 years, it was a huge deal. However, the game is changed. Rex is quite a bit better. Not even the best MP defensive roster assembled could have finished #1 in any full/semi-full MP league in FOF2K4 or FOF2K7. It just happened with my team, and I'm sure it has happened with others. (Honestly, that team isn't even all that talented on defense, either.) Heck, I'd venture a guess that someone has already Rexed their way to a #1 offense in FOF7, too. It's a vastly different world with regard to the sim engine and Rex's interaction with it. That's what you're missing, and that's not a matter of opinion. Like cohesion, some fairly straightforward testing in SP will reveal that to be true.

Now, of course, as has always been the case with FOF, if you do something incredibly STUPID with game planning you can mightily screw yourself and even get the most talented team in the league to finish 0-16. From 2003 to whenever in 2014 your specific league upgraded, you could turn a team with 8-8 talent into perhaps as good as 12-4 or 13-3 on a regular basis with nothing but game plan changes. Now, you can only turn a team with 8-8 talent into perhaps as good as 10-6 with nothing but game planning. (I emphasize "nothing" because I'm leaving out player usage, cohesion, and chemistry--all things that the AI does *not* do as well in FOF7, and that now collectively probably can make a bigger difference than game plans, though I won't say that definitely, as I haven't really tested it. ;))

You're wrong again, and I really don't get why you keep making definitive statements that are so demonstrably false. Much of the success I've had is fairly well documented. My most successful times have been...

1. Early days of FOF2K7 in game planning. (versions 6.0 to 6.0d) No utility involved whatsoever. I figured out the silly workaround to the nerf that was there. No utility could have helped with that. The small handful of us who figured out how to use adjustments to foil the engine put up absurd numbers in the first season or two of FOF2K7. The silly numbers in IHOF 2013, FOFL 2014, and whatever year that was in OSFL were due to that.

1a. Early days of FOF2K7 combine skippers Combine skippers were wayyyyyy more likely, prior to version 6.0e or 6.1 to be good players. I figured this out in SP and drafted more than my share of them in the first FOF2K7 draft or two in my leagues and cashed in on that for a fair number of seasons since some stuck around long-term.

2. FOF2K7 versions 6.0e to (roughly) 6.2. I probably still have the spreadsheet somewhere. I logged in an Excel spreadsheet about 40 seasons of SP manual drafting. This was all prior to the time I learned a single stitch of php/MySql, and quite possibly was prior to the FOF2K7 Analyzer release. (I'm not 100% sure about that, but I know I didn't use it early on in FOF2K7.) I was able to get a pretty big jump on drafting prior to MalcPow's drafting thread during this time by figuring out a number of "bar signatures" (later known as masked pairs) that worked.

3. BPR It may have been figured out elsewhere before I did, but I didn't see any signs of it. What is known for certain is that in the leagues I was in, I was the first to notice BPR's over-impact, and I cashed in on that big-time, especially in the IHOF. I drafted two absurd BPR guys who had rather pedestrian bars there in the same year, then immediately after that draft, revealed what I was doing, and shortly after that is when it became "general knowledge" in FOF MP.

4. Game Planning From the Run N Stun in the later days of FOF2K4 to the sillyness in 6.0 through 6.0d to using that thankfully-removed adjustments screen to pad stats from 6.0 to 6.4, to tweaking formation screens for much more favorable matchups, I did have some success due to game planning. I don't think any reasonable person would dispute that.

The other factor that's not easy to document is contract manipulation. From discussions I've had, and plain ol' observation of how few renegotiation offers get rejected, I'm pretty well convinced that a strong majority of owners either just offer the requested amount or (less often) cap out. There has always been an advantage to be gained there, and I don't see many people going after it. The same is true for the kinds of FA offers that people put in.

And that said, sure, I've used Draft Analyzer at times. I don't any more; I have my own way of evaluating draft classes and I can't duplicate it very well in Analyzer. I wish I could, as it would save me some time, but I think I have a very good handle on what I do well and what I don't do well, I can say without question that using Analyzer or any other utility isn't a major part of what I've done well. Anyone who played with me in FOF2K7 and was paying attention could verify that I typically traded away more than half of my draft picks. I just double-checked that to be sure: for the final 25 seasons of FOF2K7 in the CCFL, I made an average of 3.15 draft picks per season, and that number doesn't take into account how many guys I never signed in the handful of seasons where I didn't have time to trade away my late picks or no one would take them; the median number of draftees for me in that 25-year stretch was 2.5,and the mode was....0. :D I was a fairly vocal proponent of the "grab great players early, and fill in the gaps with crap" strategy, and the numbers bear that out. (FWIW, this strategy goes back to the "contract manipulation" point: few people seemed to understand that in an environment where the cap mattered, unless you were MalcPow and could routinely identify 55/55 guys in the 5th-6th rounds, late-round picks in FOF2K7 were wayyyyyyyy too expensive when compared to their on-field value. The FOF7 change in rookie contracts made for a major shift in optimal draft strategy.)

But even if my success had been so heavily caused by "outside of game utilities," so freaking what??? Last time I checked, Analyzer has been available to everyone in every league I've ever played in. It's an equal playing field, and from what I've observed, some owners (corbes, gstelmack, Hollywood, and Subby come to mind in particular) are drafting well because they're smarter in the way they use it than others are. I'm not sure why anyone would begrudge them that or somehow put a mental asterisk on their success because they use a publicly-available utility better than other people do. For me, it was just a time-saver. I don't think I ever drafted anyone just because Analyzer said so, but when I used it frequently, it did a good job of putting the handful of guys I would have had to find by hand near the top so I could just look through them and decide.


And dude, on that other post, you need to learn to take a joke. Lighten up, Francis.

(And seriously, what team ARE you in the CyFL? Still can't figure that out. Why do people use different user names in different leagues?)

We are the guys that won the bowl, the Cheyenne Chiefs...and no I didn't move them there. Grave Digger. I also play under the name of Nick. I am sorry if you don't think that is the done thing.

I guess your not the first guy who has had delusions of grandeur and you won't be the last. I am not going to get into a dick measuring competition regarding dominating a league, suffice to say I have done the same, probably better, over a similar time span elsewhere. Really who cares.

Guys like Malc, you tell me he is a heck of a player. He has contributed so much to the community. Like yourself. But in 10 years I have yet to see him putting people down, poking fun or telling everyone how great he is. I am sorry if that sounds harsh but I guess I have been reading this stuff for 10 years now. You act like you own the place, yeah I know you do, but still. I don't know if your self esteem is totally interwoven to this forum and your powerful standing and it's gone to your head, but it sure comes across that way.

Similarly about the stuff you think you discovered first. Yes your an excellent player. Static bars was what I call a mind blowing discovery, not BPR. I didn't discover static bars btw, not showing off. I think most top players gathered its impact pretty quickly, in the way they did sense rush.

The chest beating is cringworthy. You lecture us about sample sizes and then tell us how an AI offense or defense has posted no.1 stats over a season. I don't doubt it has.

Anyhow you probably hate me by now. However if my rant makes this place just a little better, and makes you think twice before you wield your all powerful I own the forum posting stick I guess it's worth it.

Your probably right about the utilities. I recommend to new players to use them. I used to be able to go toe to toe with any utility using foe, but I have been forced to go in that direction to keep up. Probably a little bitter about that if truth be told, so that one is on me.

Ah. Thanks. No big deal, but it just confuses me. I have a hard enough time knowing the names of my players, let alone keeping track of multiple screen names. :D

Apparently, you do. I didn't bring up success or lack thereof in leagues. You did, in post 49. You brought it up as some sort of strawman to "prove" that I am wrong. Like most people, when attacked, I defend.

I suspect that you think this board is far more important than it is. It's entertainment, and I find this discussion fascinatingly entertaining. But let's be clear: I did not make this about my success or non-success in MP; you did. I was talking about how the game works, and you jumped in with talking about how my opinions aren't valid because I have failed to meet your standards because my team has only had a .555 winning percentage in four seasons in the league. Given that you've admitted that you had pre-existing bad feelings towards me, I suspect that ill will caused you to make this more personal than it ever needed to be.


There's no chest beating. You said I was successful because of using a utility. You are wrong. There was/is no other way to demonstrate effectively that you are wrong than to show the other reasons why.

Of course I don't hate you. You're a dude who is pretty good at the computer game I enjoy but who is wrong about the impact of one aspect of it, so I view you as pretty decent potential competition in a league. That's all. It doesn't bother me, but it's my intention to make it 100% clear to anyone reading the discussion not to follow your advice, because I want more competition to be focused on the things that matter more. I'd be happy to engage with you on other topics, play in leagues with you, etc. The only times I can ever recall getting irritated with you are when you throw out things as "facts" that just...aren't. (And yes, I get irritated when others do that as well.) I definitely suspected the underlined part to be the case, and I totally get that. Remember what I said earlier, as a backdrop for why I want the AI to improve on how it handles things like game plans and depth charts: I do a BUNCH of stuff in leagues that I don't enjoy very much, because I feel like I have to do those things in order to keep up. SEE THERE HAMMER???!!! WE HAZ COMMON GROUND AND SHOULD BE BESTIEZ!!!!1 :D :D :D

Seriously, you like digging in and spending a lot of time on finding draft gems and on other stuff. Others don't. As I've tried to say from the beginning, neither way is "better." They're just different. However, there are times where those two styles co-existing in MP leagues will simply conflict, be it in public flare-ups, or in exactly what you described: people who play one way getting frustrated when they feel forced, for competitive reasons, to play the other way. Greg has made a tool that's wonderful for those who don't want to (or don't have time to) dig in and spend a whole lot of time, but yeah, it frustrates those who would prefer that everyone do it manually. Heck, I know of at least one long-time respected member of FOFC who basically said "that's it" to FOF because he felt like Draft Analyzer was cutting into the advantage he'd gained by putting in a ton of sweat equity on drafting players.

And I promise I'll re-read the thread and see if there's anything that I think I should do differently in the future.

Okay, pretty fair post. One last question before we wish each other a happy weekend.

If Timmy continues to go +5 or +6 will you conclude gameplans can be influential? Or can you think of another reason for his constant ability to beat AI projections?

I will keep an open mind but it seems our preparation for each team on a game by game basis makes a difference. We are +6 the past 2 years.

I think we should distinguish between using the same gameplan week in week out and specific gameplans tailored for each opponent. I wouldn't argue the former doesn't do a whole lot.

Something like playing 1 deep aggressive run D on 3rd and 3 when your opponent loves to run on that down is surely a positive. We all know how much better that defense would be than a standard 3rd and 3 defense.

Paying attention to tendencies in each and every scenario wins game in my view. I am struggling to see why you would think otherwise.

If I were the type to use a signature quote, this might be it. Just money.

I love that the reference is to "Timmy," a name that makes me think of Lassie's owner. I don't know Timmy, so I have no idea what his mighty accomplishments are, but the name really helps make the case.

I just wish the author had misspelled "illusions" also (that's where the smart money was, really).

That's because it's all almost about injuries. Just like in the real NFL.

Stay healthy and have good players? You'll win. Injury to your QB before the playoffs? See ya!

Okay, back to the show I go. :popcorn:

Edit: I'm saying this slightly tongue-in-cheek. Perhaps that wasn't obvious.

timmynausea

He's quite good.

Yeah, because timmynausea is the only player in that league who consistently beats AI projections.....

sticking my nose back in for a second. i'm not opposed to analyzer, i just prefer the game to handle the draft better. just like change tracker, a great 3rd party tool that was then incorporated into the game, there should be a way to use your scouts better in game to help in the draft. 3rd party tools shouldnt be necessary. why am i not able to set any constraints in game?

fwiw, I think that rex is pretty good now, but there are still to many out laying things that it can put you in run aggressive defense in like 2nd and long.

If you rex, then clean up those extremes, the AI can be pretty good.

But, I do game planning can make a significant difference--- for things the AI currently doesn't seem to account for.

They aren't necessary. People can draft, and do it successfully, without using the draft analyzer. For me, it's a time saver. I am drafting pretty much the same guys for the same reasons.

Fair comment. I know your pretty heavy into gameplans and I have noticed you have consistently beaten the AI also. I just picked Timmy as he is top right now.

Is this where I should chime in to lobby for the ability to have a unified view of players in MP, free of any "scout" input? I feel like this is where I should chime in.

Also, lol at any suggestion that Ben isn't a good player, or in the echelon of the absolute very best players. Claiming otherwise is absolutely laughable bordering on insane.

And for the love of English, it is "you're." You are. You're. Not "your."

Well, first off, based on what Jim has said in this thread, it sounds like we'll be dealing with an entirely new system at some point. Even if we're talking next fall and not this fall, that's only 3-4 more seasons. But in a hypothetical world where he did this for another 10 (by the way, looks like he wasn't hitting +5/+6 every year..was +3 last year,) it's not that simple. If he were doing that in the absence of other factors, sure. But he's not. The +6 this past year was no doubt influenced by cohesion, probably very heavily. Look at his RBs. The starter was like 28/28, getting paid starter money, and the backups didn't perform very well in the season. Odds are near 100% high that in the AI projections, that starter didn't start. And it's quite likely that he wasn't even on the team. His best-performing offensive player was at least partially, probably fully, out of the picture. That, uh, makes a difference.

I will fully agree that it would be a positive, but here's what you may be missing: those outlying situations are a very small fraction of the game anyway. To use your example, 3rd and 3 has occurred only on roughly 1.6% of plays in the FOOL's 25-season history. And each team runs 64.4 offensive plays per game. So on average, you'll only see that situation once per game, and it's not like Rex will get it wrong 100% of the time and custom human planning will get it right 100% of the time.

And to be clear, I'm not saying that game plans don't matter at all. I'm suggesting that they don't make enough difference to account for all (and very likely not even the majority) of success over the AI projections. That's not a knock on anyone's acumen, either. It's just that they're doing the combination of their depth charts, cohesion, chemistry, injury management, etc. etc. etc. significantly better than the AI. I'm further suggesting that the time spent on them, in a zero-sum system like time is for most of us, would be better spent in honing player acquisition skills. So, to be clear, I'm saying that if Timmy's success is a long-term thing, it's primarily because he builds his roster and makes depth chart decisions better than the AI does. Perhaps in your world where you want tinkering with game plans every week to be the most important thing and you seem to respect game planning ability above everything else, that's an insult to Timmy. In my world, it's not at all an insult; it's a compliment.

Overall, I'm saying that it's a better use of a finite resource (time) to learn how to acquire and keep players who will render the difference between Rexing every week and custom game planning even more trivial than it already is. If someone who is new to the game or struggling to compete in MP has 7 hours per week to put into FOF, then I'd tell him to use all 7 focusing on drafting and roster management and just Rex the game plan every week for now, because he'll see much more impact there than spending that time on game plans. Does that make sense?

And of course, given what Jim said in his blog post and in this thread, that could all change whenever all this stuff he's mentioned is in our hands. It might end up being all about game planning, whether that be by design or by people finding unintended holes in the system. Or it might be all about roster building. I doubt that even Jim himself can say for sure how a significantly changed system is going to play out in the MP environment, where people will undoubtedly try stuff that he never anticipated.

To put things in perspective and as an example, if you completely take away the 15-season domination of the best QB in the history of the IHOF (Jackie Collier, 7 league titles, 14 times reaching the conference championship game), Ben's Tucker Tigers would still rank 2nd in most regular season wins and tie for the most league titles.

:+1: :withstupid:

Yes. Lots of different aspects to his dominance. The trading aspect was also critical to his skill. Knowing exactly what you want and offering things you didn't want (draft picks) made him dominant. Ben's logic was pretty clear. If he made 10 trades over the course of say...5 seasons...with 10 different owners, that's splitting one advantage out to 10 owners while he gained 10 advantages. It was (and I'm guessing still is) brilliant strategy. But that advantage only would go to people that really, truly, understood the long term...and while many are suffering over why Timmy only got 83 yards on 23 carries in week #3.....Ben was worrying about if Timmy was a chemistry match and likely ready to trade for him after you bitched and complained about that single performance. :)

I'm just glad to hear that there's another version of the game in the works.

+1

I'm just glad, for your sake, its still compatible with the IBM Selectric II.

:lol:

Maybe that's why I love text sims so much. They're all my computer can run. Although I do still play the hell out of the original Starcraft.

For those who have been playing this game for a while, what's the odds that Jim releases a new paid update within say, the next six months? I ask this because I am considering buying FOF (leaning towards it, right now I'm in two PFS online leagues), but I figure I'll wait if there's likely going to be a new version soon.

I get that from history, there is NO word ever given as to if/when there will be a new version. But does ANYONE have some kind of clue?

No clue that I would bet money on. I'm going to guess with the artwork contest that you've got to wait at least a couple months...but there's no telling when it'll be ready.

Nobody has a clue, but it's the cost of like 5 lattes so I'd imagine that you'd get value out of it for at least a month or two even if a new version follows quickly.

I am late to this thread, but formations learned for QB going away is one of the best long overdue improvements the game has needed. I cheered when I read that.

Until the new game rolls out it's hard to comment correctly on things but a few concerns are:
If we run packages ( I like that ) we need a way to set conditions for when we want these run, or the game will decide when. Roll players may lose value in that case of the game deciding. ( thus potentially lower the value of later round picks these players usually have holes in their game and need to be used in the right situations. )

If you can't set your primary backups due to injury it's a step backwards IMO, drafting specific players in mid and later rounds that fit what I want is important.
having the ability to make sure those players hit the field when I want them for the most part is also important.


I fit the team builder side of the game but put much much less time into FOF than I use to. I still draft at least at a good level. I can hold my own most of the time if I put in some effort into the team.

Being a draft first team builder ( and tinkerer to often, hey FOF is a game try things even in leagues it can be fun ) I want to be able to use the players how I want, and the later picks to matter. Gameplaning and playing time options allow for the use of specific players for specific things. I do not want the ability to do that to go away.
We may need to go about it in a different way but you should be able to set usage of players as far as playing time and situations they are on the field.

As long as the players who complain about playing time can be satisfied ( without making them starter and leaving them there 80% of the time ).

Yes the playing time screens in 2k7 was tedious but very useful to get players who need more rest off the field due to poor endurance. ( a bar that could really go away IMO )

lastly I am 100000000% with Cuervo on a unified player rating rather than best available scout as it is now. ("same eyes" for each year)

Looking forward to the new game. FOF with a totally new feel to it would be refreshing.

But doesn't this go against the realism than Jim is trying to obtain? All the scouts in the NFL aren't on equal ground. Some are better, some are not. Being able to put the best scouts on your team gives you a leg up in finding talent.

If there is "in game" scouting history provided (based on our scouts) then it would be fine by me. Currently, having to rely on external tools is a pain in the arse to me to track those stats.

Otherwise, I prefer what cuervo said.