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I confess I'm at a crossroads now. Starting the next season, we have 22 players on our roster. Add in a draft class and that's 29. So, we need to sign 24 more guys through free agency.
Here's the thing... this is putting an even sharper point on the difference between a formal free agent signing (during the official FA stages), and the right-before-camp signings, which are just immediate 1yr minsal deals. And I'm already house-ruling myself blind basically every time I sign anyone but a total superstar in true free agency, because I (basically) know there will be a smorgasbord of available players out there afterward, much cheaper. As long as cohesion isn't a major factor in the game (no clue if that's so) it's patently obvious that signing decent players to deals for 3-5 times the minsal amount for their skill is a dead end. That's a perverse incentive in the game, and one that is increasingly hard to square my time/investment with, to be honest.
In my thread about NFL financial/roster settings at the Wolverine forum, Brooks responded directly, and was very upbeat. But in doing so, he basically (to his credit) put his cards on the table... this game just wasn't designed with the NFL financial system in mind. It was designed for, more or less, (my words here) the fans of the FB Pro line of games -- as a GM you draft your team and maybe make a few trades, but the real work is being the "play designer" between games and the "play caller" in-game. I haven't even gotten to those parts of this game, which may indeed be just ducky. As I launched my thread about settings to make this game more closely mirror the actual NFL financial and roster system, Brooks replied "[i] have no idea if it will work."
Right now, if you gave me truth serum, here's what I think: I probably have enough thoughts in my head to guide a developer/programmer to alter the financial system to make it a reasonable approximation of an NFL style financial system... but the wave of changes and rethinking required to get this game to that point are probably well beyond what I'm able to give freely. I'll mess around with 10-20 hours of my time to help improve something in FOF, a game I'm already invested in... sure. Have spent a ton more than that both pre-release and post-release in various versions, and am on balance fine with having done so. But to commit... idunno...100 hours? At this point in my life and career, that's a consulting gig, not a hobby. And my consulting time doesn't come cheaply.
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