FOF10 wishlist, why not..
 

Since Jim is kinda of talking about FOF10, I figured we should do a wishlist. What would everyone want to see in a fictional FOF10 release.

- Mulitplayer of course but maybe a different way of doing it, I wonder if you could have something like a realtime commissioner webserver that ran off real dates, it would run the stages on it's own like every tuesday and thursday.

- Remake the Coach hiring stages, turn them into different stages like Head coach stage and so on.

- Being able to see the College draftees during the season and show their stats building during the season. Add some fluff like Heisman winner and so on.

- Allow us to make a Defensive playboook.


This is just acouple of idea's I've had over the years, lets add some more and maybe give Jim some good idea's for a fictional FOF10 release.

Maybe a play tracker that tells you how well a play works. You could then ditch junk plays.

Multiplayer

Defensive Playbook

Those two would be enough for me.

Maybe reverting to CSV so we can pull data easier and make our own tools. I don't think anyone ever cracked FOF9 and was able to make tools.

I'd like to be able to sub players more easily and a more realistic usage algorithm for preseason.

Remove the coach draft - For some reason Jim likes it, but for a game that is fairly realistic in all the other areas, it's a strange choice to keep it.


Rework the trade system - Although I appreciate the reasoning behind the new trading system, I really don't like the lack of flexibility.

Defensive Playbook.

No more double best/second best. Replace with double X,Z,Y, etc.

The current date of the season in MM/DD/YY format should be included in the csv export data.

Games on days other than Sunday

Make it like previous FOFs where you can see the draftees list / big board as the draft progresses: it ruined the draft in 9 for me not being able to see that

Make it easier to set your players on the depth charts: it’s not terrible to do once, but to adjust every time there’s an injury and then reset was arduous. Again previous FOF versions had starters & backups, that worked really well, so a system where if there is an injury the game can slot the next guy into the lineup without you having to adjust all 10 formations to avoid tiredness.

And autosub out when tired, again avoiding the need for the depth charts torture.

But mostly bring the league to life: push info about great stat lines, comebacks, records being broken, undefeated runs, injuries, etc onto your home screen - FOF has always had the feeling of managing your team in a vacuum: the information is there, and but only QB controversy and whether people need surgery.

I forgot to mention fixing the holdout issue in FOF9.


For some reason you can't trade people who are holding out

Lots and lots of good ideas. I especially like fixing the issue where you can't trade a holdout.


But PLEASE bring back the option to print out rosters, game data, and league stats. I have missed that so much. I used to pore over those printouts between games.


Also, autosub when tired, more flexibility to the trading system as mentioned above would be great.


And, definitely use csv data files so modders can thrive again.

One thing I meant to add is if FOF9 used a GUI like War Room Football, that would be amazing - War Room has the look and feel, but little/no depth, FOF is the reverse.

First things that immediately come to mind for me:

- Multiplayer of course. In a crazy pipe dream world, being able to call plays in real time against someone would be amazing.

- A draft style more like FOF8. I like being able to see the trades happening in real time. I also hate having to click start and immediately clicking pause just to see one pick go by in FOF9.

- Specific WR double teams. Would like to be able to set to double a certain player no matter where he is lined up.

- I don't know how feasible this is because I know we don't want to stray too far from what we have, but I think some sort of QB progression on plays could be great rather than just having primary/secondary/outlet. Or even something that allows the QB a higher ability of getting to the outlet throws. I feel like they rarely get thrown to, although it's higher in 9 than 8 I think.

- If there is any way to expand the run game, that could be huge. Power plays vs. run plays for example, although I'm not sure how the defensive side as far as a counter would work.

- Draft prospect stats could be fun. Even if they were fairly random.

Ok, I will play. I don't think Jim migrates to far from his own development plan but I have no doubt he will review or hear about some of this.

- Coordinator start: All ow the ability to begin as an OC or DC coordinator and after proving your value to be considered for any off season open HC positions.

- Staff draft: Just needs to be reworked to make it more functional in a multiplayer role. Allow teams to better compete for an HC, OC or DC.

- In game display: Consider a larger field display to better add to "game play" immersion. I don't think this needs to be over blown but just added to.

- College story line: As the season progresses have an additional story line that highlights college level stars that would/will relate to the next seasons draft. kind of a precursor to the draft file being released.

- Recomendations (roster): Pre-sort any list, or make it selectable, by positions to better align with staff skills.

- CSV's: Expand on moddable CSV's to allow the community to develop more variety. First one that comes to mind is one for adding specific stadium data.

- Expansion/Contraction: add a method of allowing for a league to expand, and or contract, for the possible development of a historical timeline.

Enough for now.

Along with these recommendations, I'd suggest that this is a chance to think "big" in a way. If the game already models one league well, why not give it the chance to model more than one at a time? I'm thinking something like a "Football Manager" style setup, where pro and college leagues exist simultaneously. I think everyone has a pet choice they would prefer between a new pro game and a new college game, but why not both? Players (people playing the game, I mean) can control either a pro team or a college team, and watch players (football players inside the game) go from playing in college to being part of the draft, then playing in the pros.

Really, it's not terribly functional in single player. Once you begin winning regularly with a team, you are going to be near the top picking studly coaches, which then allows you to draft better players, develop them faster, have less penalties called, get hurt less, recover faster, etc., which then makes it easier to win, thereby perpetuating the cycle of winning and picking near the top.

It's worse in multiplayer because you can get stuck in a negative rut even easier where you take over a historically bad team, but can't ever seem to get great coaches, which helps perpetuate the cycle of losing.

I don't have a good solution, but it'd be nice to be able to overpay somehow for better coaches, should you have an historically losing organization.

I didn't convey that thought well at all. What I was thinking would be to conduct staff draftrs much like FA. It would extend the off season play but would be worth it IMO. Example: Game generates staff list of available coaches and thier philosophies and their compensation desire. Day 1 - I and other teams can submit competing offers. The round ends and coaches that ARE selected are removed from the list. Day 2: Repeat, Day 3: Repeat.

As noted this scenario would add 9 steps (HC, OC, DC) but again, IMO, there would be some benefit in it. Correct me if I am wrong vut wasn't something like this in FOF7?

He should use Codex or Claude Code to put out the new game.

Interesting choice - I don't think I would have ever expected to see "use AI" in a wishlist

I like this idea.

I mean it's not a knock against him. I know alot of people who are vibe coding apps and shipping product. Jim already has a pretty loyal fanbase and if he can ship something quicker than usual I can't imagine that would be a bad thing.