[Ben E Lou]

Ben Lewis Senior Text Sims Editor "Ben E Lou"

Football has been called a "game of inches," and it holds true for FOF. With only 16 games per season, and only 60ish offensive snaps per game, every play is magnified. Many people (myself included) either let the AI set the game plan when playing solo, or use a stock plan that doesn't change much as a season (and sometimes even a career) progresses. It is therefore much more important for multiplayer leagues, which move much more slowly, thus elevating the importance of every playcall in a game--especially in crucial situations at the end of halves. I've played text sims for 10 years now, and I'm far from convinced that this can be properly handled by AI. The more that is controlled by AI, the more the gamer is left feeling powerless over his team. Therefore, I suggest giving players the option of having more direct control of end-of-half situations. I would add new screens for how the two-minute drill is to be carried out and for how the defense plays when it recognizes that the offense is in hurry-up. On a bigger scale, my suggestion is to leave the rest of the game planning interface pretty much where it is, but include two other ways to fill in all those boxes: 1. "Stock" plans--While the FOF game planning AI does a solid job, the more casual gamer can't relate to it. For example, loading up a stock game plan called "West Coast" is easier to understand than hitting a Recommend button and getting 45.2% run, 38.3% short pass, and 16.5% long pass, even though the two ways of getting there might result in the same playcalls. The same would hold true for "Tampa 2" on defense, for example. 2. Game planning wizards--Give the gamer a series of questions that he can answer, or sliders he can adjust. It would be great if people could choose "Very Rarely-Rarely-Below Average-Average-Above Average-Often-Very Often" for short, medium, and long passing, and for inside running and outside running on offense. Similarly, allowing these to be chosen for blitzing, m2m, zone, bump and run, and double coverage on defense would help things out as well. There would also be stock plans and wizards for the late-game/two-minute screen(s) as well. And in the case of both stock plans and wizards, there wouldn't be any need to get rid of the existing grids, the beginning or intermediate gamer would just be able to use the stock plan or the wizard to fill out the boxes, and let the more advanced players have the option to tweak as many aspects of the game plan as they want. As far as the rock-paper-scissors comment goes, I agree that football isn't that simple since teams adjust on the fly, but the limitation of simming is such that it might not be a bad idea--not that a counter would always stop the offense it's meant to counter, but that it would have a greater chance of doing so. Again I refer back to that feeling of powerlessness. If I know that my opponent has a QB and WRs with skill sets that dictate a lot of short passing/YAC, I should be able to counter that with a lot of tight coverage--lots more than FOF's current "balance-is-king" model on defense allows.

Matt Blumenthal Writing Staff "TheLetterZ"

Ben's suggestions of stock plans and game planning wizards merit serious consideration. FOF has work to do in the area of user friendliness, and these features seem more intuitive than the current percentage-based scheme for game planning. Moving in this direction would make the art of gameplanning easier to understand for everyone and would provide a more meaningful representation for a team's gameplan. Football is not only a "game of inches", as Ben called it, but also a game of adjustments. This area is perhaps FOF's greatest weakness. Users need more control over their offenses in two minute drill situations, because as it stands, the two minute drill is largely a crapshoot. Adding more flexibility here in the way of another screen or two for users would go a long way. On a similar note, more options for on-the-fly adjustments based on the opponent could prove the difference between a win and a loss. If a team running a pass-happy offense has a surprising amount of success when they run the ball in the first half, they should crank up the running attack in the second half - or earlier. FOF doesn't have options for users to make such adjustments based on performance, but giving users the opportunity to make performance-based adjustments would allow teams to exploit their opponent's holes.