iOS/Android College Football - RivalStars
 

I've gotten hooked on this game - it's pretty simple, but it's a building game about football and it is fairly well conceived.

Rival Stars College Football on the App Store

Freemium model, but easy enough to play effectively without spending $. Over time, you recruit new players, develop them, enhance your gameplan, and can start to develop a team character. In the true iOS tradition, it doesn't really feel like college football in the familiar sense (no conferences, seasons, rivalries, championships, etc) but it's pretty good at the one-more-cycle feeling.

Anyway, if anyone else is playing, or interested in playing, drop a line here. There are in-game alliances, and if several of us joined up we might profit by joining up in a FOFC group.

Will check it out.

Downloading now

I've played a couple months

Quick sketch and thoughts:

The basic game play is five on five, with indiviual players sort of representing player groups (QB,RB,WR,TE,OL and ILB,OLB,S,CB,DL). Each player is graded in four basic areas (inside run, outside run, short pass, long pass) and those grades can increase as he "levels up." You have an 8-play playbook, and part of each play is a "refresh" indicator of how many plays must elapse before that play may be called again. Defensive plays are just four choices: balanced, run D, pass D, or blitz, and they seem to assign a set of pluses and minuses logically.

Each play has four outcomes, graphically represented in a little circular dial like a "spinner" for a board game. Very bad, bad, good, very good. Red to green, very intuitive (from the offense's perspective). The base nature of the play, the defense called, and then the ratings of the selected three players from each side combine to create the custom outcome probabilities for the "spin."

Anyway...over time, like most "grind" games, you play to earn stuff, you use the stuff to get more players and plays, so you can play more, and so on. In time it does become a fair amount of playing games you will surely win on auto-pilot (pure grind). If you're opposed to paying cash, you will likely end up watching a fair number of short videos to double earnings, etc. All familiar freemium territory.

My team is Quik Polytechnic - not sure how to set up an alliance, but will look into it if we get a handful here.

Downloaded, seems fun.

I created an Alliance, FOFC. Search it out and request an invite.

FWIW, as you get into it... I think the best line to succeed is to emphasize just a couple brands in your offensive gameplan. I'm doing outside running (my C is a 99) and short passing (my TE is off the charts) and my team purrs against all but the most titanic opposing defenses.

Got you added, JAG

...point being that I have three QB right now, with a big variation in skill sets. But I'm using 4 short passes in my gameplan, so I am basically all about that rating for the passer, even if my other guy is 30 points better in long passing, I'll play the guy with an 8 point edge in short passing.

Quik added as well. Heading out, so I'll check for more this evening

Whether it's just early stages, but AI offensive play calling is awful, they pass 99% of the time, but it is still a fun game

I've found ball control offence and calling pass defence every play wins every time so far.

Edit: applied to join the alliance, my team is The Baby Squad

Same observation. My favorite AI blunder was my first OT game. I scored a TD on the opening drive. On the answering drive they made it to 4th and goal from the 1 and opted to kick a field goal.

I applied, Rio Grandes team name.

Don't see you. I see Pitt Quakers, Flatty College, and pikpok783290 as having applied, not sure if these are lurkers here or random people from in the game.

I'm Pitt Quakers.

Hm, just tried again. Does it go by account name or team name? If its the account name I might be that generic pikpok name b/c I think I screwed that up when i created the account.

Harriet Harriers have applied.

Jupiter Grendels have applied.

Had to delete it. That's the type of game I get crazy addicted to, without paying, but it would have completely taken over my spare time for a while...

My team (aggregate rating about 60) just got promoted to Division III -- I don't know what the ingredients for that are, but suddenly my tournament games are challenging. Have had several options where the opponent is in the 70-80+ range, and we even lost one game. For a while, these games had been very easy AUTO:ON decisions, just do something else for a couple minutes and come back to click the video to double the loot. (They probably still will be, but I'll only win most, rather than all, of them)

The Almaden Avarice have applied.

I guess there is a lag. I don't see you as having applied yet. I'll keep checking.

Just out of curiosity - I wonder if the recruit offerings are global, or individualized. Right now (under "Exclusive Offers"), my 1000 gold offer is a 4-star QB named Calvin Sargent (pretty tempting, actually... I'm sitting on 700+). Does anyone else see him, or is he showing up just for me today?

...oh, and a quick note. if you're open to paying real money in this game. When you bring aboard recruits of 3* or better, the game seems to immediately give you a chance to purchase a custom "bundle" that includes a second card of the same guy (which unlocks the chance to get him to Level 20) for some amount of cash. But, I have found myself getting to this page before I even look at the player's starting ratings (basically what his strong suits are going to be), and once you get the one time $ offer, there's no way to go back to look at the player's ratings before deciding.

So... if spending cash is at all in play, make sure you tap on all your 3* or better recruits immediately, as it seems like these quick 2-card buys would be among the better bang-for-the-buck plays.

I don't think this is going to be a cash game for me (I still don't see any actual point to the game) but if it were, I'd be pissed at letting these go by without full information at hand.

No, I've got a 3* being offered. Elliot Rocha.

Gotham Gizmos applied

Ditto. Maybe everyone at the same prestige level gets the same offer? Or maybe that's just coincidence.

Yeah, I've got the Rocha offer as well. Plus Tillman for OLB and 100,000 points.

I just accepted three more members. None of them had names though, so if they aren't our people we can kick them.

Now the names have appeared. Is MU OH ****** any of us?

Doggos were me.

I just joined as Mota. Seems fun so far.

My team name is ragone.. i put it as anything else it turns to ******* for some odd reason.. i applied to fofc alliance

Downloaded, applied to join the alliance. NeonChaos

I ended up buying him for 500 (gold? coins? whatever the currency is). Its an odd combo but Inside Run and Long Pass are what my team is best at so he fits nicely. I'm not quite sure if that's worth or if saving up 1000 for the big recruiting purchase of 10 players/5 plays would have been better at this early stage.

Though... for now, I'm in the top 100 in the tournament (#32 currently but I just played a set of games)... if I can remember to play them enough for the next few days to stay in the top 100 that's another 1000 coins that I'd certainly use for that 10 player purchase.

Applied as Deacon State U

I'm about 20 gold away from 1,000

I've stopped upgrading other players so I can hopefully max out the new 3 stars

So should I just keep saving my gold right? Until I get enough for the 1000 pack? I've got around 520 right now.

Should I keep updating my stars?

I would probably buy a few 250 packs first to get something going, and then save up for 1000. I got a 3* QB so that was a good pick from my 2nd pack. Gives me a few guys to level up as I'm saving up the 1000.

They are not great about explaining the "legend" system, but it has value.

Once you gain multiple cards for a given player, that enables him to reach a higher star level if he has that capacity. Level your guy to level 10 (using the red whistle training currency) and if he has a second star, you spend some silver coin currency to level him up to the second star.

If he does not have a second star (just a 1-star player), after level 10 but with a second card, you can spend silver to make him a legend. That gives you some recruiting points, a bump in program prestige, and a modest bonus for all players in that position. So, aggregating these trifling player cards still has long term value.

I'm playing all level 10/20 guys now, but am aggressively using training points to level up stiffs to get these perks.

Bought two 250 gold packs to help out my team.

So far so good.

I've invested in my offensive guys good with IR and SP, and defenders good against LP and SP.

My playbook consists of 5 inside run plays, 1 outside run, and 2 short pass plays.

I always choose Pass Defense because of the AI's love of using pass plays. And I always run the ball if possible to take advantage of my team's strengths.

Grinding out 7-0 and 10-0 wins.

FWIW, the game really changed in difficulty when my team promoted to Division 3 (I think that's right). Now my tournament games are routinely against teams with superior talent to mine, and I have to pick my spots and sometimes take over the game myself. Prior to the promotion, I could pretty much win three games on Otto while doing something else.

The rewards are growing, but the effort is greater.

Early returns seem to illustrate that a 3 star WR behind my lucky find stud 5 star is completely useless; unless I want to exploit a different skill set ratings-wise, is there any reason at all to develop the bench player?

See post #40 above. Tough to get a 3-star guy to legend status, but each star increment has value to your team prestige. So, yes, some.

I finally got the QB Sneak play, which seems like it coudl be great for us - my RB isn't great with inside rushing, but my QB is. I haven't scoured it yet, but that could be come our sole IR play.

Incidentally, I'm seeing the "Fumblerooski" a lot, and it seems too overpowered. I'm routinely seeing very high green zones, and an average yardage something like 7 or so. Seems broken to me. Maybe it has a very long recovery time.

Welp, have to throw in the towel. My daily knockout final opponent (team called "Card") just kicked my ass left and right five times, I gave up trying to beat them. My green/red bars with all my pass plays were absurdly deep red every time, all game long.

Did you try a different lineup? Maybe their D is super strong vs SP but not LP.

I've also seen that fumblerooski...that and the 'reverse' and 'fake handoff' usually gash my defense, but I do believe they have 5 or 6 bars of recharge time.

I've had this game running on auto almost the entire work day.

GreyDog - applied

Got ya added, Arles.

We currently are in the Top 100 of alliances. If we can keep in the Top 100, looks like we get a decent payout of the Recruit Points.