MULTIPLAYER: Needed fixes/enhancements listed here
 

I wanted to put all the fixes/requests/needs from my prior threads (here and here) in one central location so Jim wouldn't miss it and other MP players could contribute/criticize.

Here are the issues I see with the first iteration of MP for FOF2004. I will rank them in order of severity/priority of need, as I see it.

Must-have

1. A way to exit the initial draft and export the file to owners so that a "live" draft if feasible.
2. Reconciling each owner's personal customized cities/nicknames with a league's. As many people will play in more than one league, that needs to be kept in mind.
3. Assurance that leagues started with earlier iterations of FOF2004 will not be incompatible with future patches.
4. Owners get emails re: injuries, playing time, etc.


Really, really nice to have

1. An automated import/export from/to FTP option for the owner exports a la OOTP.
2. A way to automatically backup the league into a portable file so that mistakes/hard drive crashes don't destroy a league.
3. Password protection for teams so that other players can't impersonate an owner and send in erroneous exports or look at game plans, etc.
4. Conditional releases upon making an offer to a FA are not processed immediately, but after the FA is signed.
5. Need to be able to revise offers to FAs.
6. An "undo" function would be nice.

7. In-game HTML export.
8. More global options for the commissioner, such as an ability to turn off or adjust "owner influence" on the teams decisions. (TRO)


Trivial

1. The radio buttons in the "Team Control Panel" of the "Commissioner Functions" should be checkboxes instead of radio buttons.


More to be added, I'm sure, but I hope Jim gives us the opportunity to remove a bunch too. :D

Nothing to add from me other than to lend my support to these suggestions. Steve and some other FOBL/FOFL guys have done a real nice job of testing multi-player since the game's release.

Also in the really need category:

More global option for the commissioner, such as an ability to turn off or adjust "owner influence" on the teams decisions.

EDIT:

For Example...

You have an All-Pro calibar Quaterback that you wish to offer a contract extension. With "owner influence" left on (as it works right now), some teams are able to make the extension offer while some are at the whim of an AI Owner.

The league commissioner should have the ability to turn off these influences so that each human GM can play on an equal playing field, or leave them on to simulate a "real world" GM experience.

Question: as far as I know, every past version of FOF has been incompatible with previous versions. No ability to import from one version to the next. If this continues, does that mean multi-player leagues will need to start all over again if they want to move to a new version?

These two are a must IMO, but especially #3.

Also, it would be really helpful if the players in the opening draft for an MP league have similar ratings for each "owner". In a test that the FOBL guys ran, the same quarterback looked like a stud for some owners, medicore for some, and terrible for a few. (Could that be affected by scouts, rather than X-factor?)

The owners are randomly set at the beginning of a new career.

With multi-player leagues, there is no variation among owners.

Comments...

Must-have

1. A way to exit the initial draft and export the file to owners so that a "live" draft if feasible.

I'm going to try and do this. It's actually quite a complex problem.

2. Reconciling each owner's personal customized cities/nicknames with a league's. As many people will play in more than one league, that needs to be kept in mind.

People who do this will probably become familiar with moving files around. Just as they need to do in order to export files and send them to their commissioner.

3. Assurance that leagues started with earlier iterations of FOF2004 will not be incompatible with future patches.

I'll do my best. That will eliminate the possibility of some types of new feature, but I see the need for this.

4. Owners get emails re: injuries, playing time, etc.

This would require a lot of work. And would definitely trash 3.



Really, really nice to have

1. An automated import/export from/to FTP option for the owner exports a la OOTP.

Perhaps at some point in the future. I suspect utilities making this easier will spring up at some point, but really, in running a league during testing, I found that it was far faster just to zip and email (for the commissioner) and just email for the participants.

2. A way to automatically backup the league into a portable file so that mistakes/hard drive crashes don't destroy a league.

The commissioner can do this very easily simply by archiving the zipped game files sent to participants.

3. Password protection for teams so that other players can't impersonate an owner and send in erroneous exports or look at game plans, etc.

People will just hack the game files. Commissioners will need to watch out for files that don't match. And this sort of thing would break backward compatibility. It's best just to trust people. Remember that they only can hack into last week's game plan. If you suspect someone is doing this, he might be very susceptible to a bait and switch.

4. Conditional releases upon making an offer to a FA are not processed immediately, but after the FA is signed.

Very difficult to do. And would break backward compatibility.

5. Need to be able to revise offers to FAs.

Just withdraw offers and make new ones.

6. An "undo" function would be nice.

Very difficult to do, since these files are being built as you go.

7. In-game HTML export.

This will be part of a future update. Not right away, but within a couple of months.

8. More global options for the commissioner, such as an ability to turn off or adjust "owner influence" on the teams decisions. (TRO)
As leagues become popular, there's room for this sort of thing. Not much room, but I saved a few bytes here and there for future global options.

I, personally, wouldn't have a problem with backward-patch-complatibility being delayed for a big patch (that comes out sometime around or shortly after the new year). Just as long as you let us know ahead of time what the plan is in the regard, I think everyone will be satisfied.

Thanks for the response, Jim. A few questions:


What files do we move around to do this? Cities.fdt, citydata.fdt... anything else? Can the commish just make his city files available to everyone else?


I tried to bring a league back to life with this method, but it never showed up in the "open" dialog box. The league .fmk file doesn't get included with the exports sent to participants... isn't this a key file? Keep in mind I am talking about the commish's version of the league files, not the players'.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the problem here. So people can see your previous game plan. Wouldn't NFL teams have a scout watching their next week's opponent who could report back on what their game plan looks like?

If you use the same game plan every time, it doesn't seem fair to ask the game to artificially protect you from other teams finding out.

I agree with you 100% here.

Backward compatibility? This is the first I've heard of this....is it possible I don't need to hand-code a player file based off of my FOF4 career?



I can see the debate now: Residual Owners :D

There is one other very important issue with hacking in as another team and that is scouts. I can skimp on scouts, then go in and look for players as a team with a good scout. I can be more specialized, get a great QB scout, and go in as a team with a great RB scout to get a list of backs.

Yes, I realize there are always gonna be ways to cheat and all, just would be a nice feature.

In this case, backward compatibility just means that I will do all I can to make sure all FOF 2004 careers are compatible with all versions of FOF 2004.

There's just no way FOF 2004 will ever support FOF4 careers. If there's a FOF 2005 or 2006, I'm not sure what will happen.

So far, nothing in the patch has affected the data files. So assume that FOF 2004 5.0a will support the full continuation of FOF 2004 5.0 data files.

Thanks Jim.

On the note above about moving files around to save city data...

When a commish creates a league, and names the teams, doesn't it write to cnames.dll, a dll he can share with the league?

I haven't really spent any time looking into it, just a first glance.

My thoughts on why password protection is important, reposted from another forum:

My concern is less about offensive gameplans than defensive ones. Too much of gameplanning for weaker coaches is going to be copying the gameplans of success--and I don't mean in terms of playcalling, as might be done in the NFL, but in the actual percentages that game crunches to determine stats and winners. Sure, a plan less tailored to a team may backfire. But if I'm a clever coach I'm not wanting to give anything away...let my opponents look to the results to try to plan for me, not at my blueprint. There are, after all, only a small number of changes that most of us will be making to proven gameplans over the course of a season...a heavy running team won't suddenly turn into a heavy passing team, at least not successfully. By tailoring my defensive percentages within 10-20% of the actual percentage ranges of my opponents I've made a difficult job into a relatively academic one.

All of that said: I also am considering the "real life" relationship of this to how a scouting team can break down an opponent's past performance to gameplan against them. To this end I'm not a fanatic for hidden gameplans--it will reduce the gulf between good coaches and bad, which can help with league parity (though I'm not sure whether or not that's a good thing). Still, I don't like the idea that someone who is brilliant at developing these things (and let me emphasize, that person is NOT me) is going to get picked over every fake Monday by folks who may be too lazy to learn through trial and error how to build their own plans.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this...just some thoughts coming into my head. But I do think opponents shouldn't have access to our playbooks, which is more or less what not protecting gameplans does.

While I see what you're saying, on the flip side there is a significant difference between seeing the results and tendencies that a game plan produced, and seeing that game plan itself in all of its naked glory. I for one don't see myself starting from scratch with a game plan, but rather tweaking an existing one (to a small or large degree) based on my pending opponent.

In that case, I guess I'll resume making my csv file! :)

Jim:

Could you please tell us the steps for a MP league to have their customized cities/etc., yet keep other customized cities for single-player games?

I am experimenting with it, moving files around as you stated, but I want to make sure I have the most efficient way possible to do it.

I think you have to make a backup file and save it somewhere (just copy and paste to a different folder). Then edit away and make a copy of that somewhere. Then just switch it in and out whenever you need to.

Thanks, EM, but I was looking for something a bit more specific. ;)

Good request. I'm going to open a new item for this. Hopefully it'll get archived or stickied.

Not sure if this has been answered but the frfoot.ini file within the universe folder controls the team nicknames and city affiliations.

Currently I have the original file for a regular NFL league with real teams, and a second copy of this file where i saved it with all new cities and nicknames.

I am not sure how clear that was, but basically, if I have two careers, one fictional and one NFL based, I just swap in and out the 2 copies of this file depending on which dynasty I want to play.

That is exactly what you do.

...or both. ;)