As we head into the second exhibition season, it’s probably a good idea for me to get down all the things I’ve noticed about the game and process. I’ve found myself looking over old posts a lot lately, to see what I was thinking. I’m sure I’ll come back to this one before too long.
Ex2 Draft: This is the last time I do an offline draft. It’s a huge pain in the butt! It’s hard to put yourself in the mind of each team’s GM and pick players like they would, while still being totally invested in your own team. (not to mention the logistics of getting it all into the game) By the later rounds my attention was starting to wane, and I made some bad picks for the Greens. I’m going to make sure the in-engine draft is set up before the next exhibition season.
The Greens Roster and Play Creation: My team sucks. I should have a legit running game (and Urquhart), but my passing game is going to be embarrassing and I have almost no defense. That being said, it gives me a real incentive to create new plays. Almost all my plays so far have been made for the Ex1 Greens so they are based around a spread offense. Now that I have the opposite, I have a reason to start developing the power running game and the screen game playbooks. It’s already making a difference with the game engine. I uncovered a bunch of bugs with the way OL pull out for screen passes, and how the QB AI breaks down on designed roll-out plays. I never would have been as focused on those details if my entire offense wasn’t going to be based around the run and screen passes. I’m going to bet that I’ll get a lot closer look at punting, too. 🙁
College Draft: That needs to happen soon. It’s funny, but I can’t help but look at my team and think “I’m going to take a QB #1 in next year’s draft….. oh crap. There’s no daft.” It’s weird to be looking forward to something I haven’t started planning yet. I think that just means it needs to happen soon.
Keeping it Simple: I’m having a hard time with scope-creep in the engine. I have to continually remind myself that this is a 1st generation game, and I shouldn’t try to cram every AAA-quality feature into it that I can. I need to focus on getting the core game experience right, and then I can add the frills. Keep repeating that………
The Depth Chart Interface: I love it. 🙂 The usability is awesome. I bring it up a lot during testing to swap players around, and it’s really easy. However, it’s not going to be intuitive for a new player. I’ll have to figure out how to deal with that. It makes perfect sense to me that you click on a player, and then click on the position you want to swap him into. I can see how that might be hard to understand the first few times you play, though.
The Playcalling Interface: ……..eh. I like the idea, but the execution isn’t working for me. Not sure exactly what’s wrong, but it’s kind of “stressful”. I have to find a way to capture some of the depth chart feel.
Defense: I fear there are still holes in the defensive AI, specifically when it comes to defending the screen pass and outside runs. ugh! That’s frustrating.
Player ‘Platforms’: I almost decided to take them away (again) because it seems to “gamey”. Frankly, it’s kind of dumb to have guys running all over the field, but then also have them stuck to plastic game piece platforms. That being said, I don’t know that I want the game to be realistic. Maybe I need to commit to the concept and start pushing the realism closer towards the ridiculous? Just abandon the whole idea that these might be real players. Don’t even pretend there’s the possibility, and just embrace that these are game pieces. On the other hand, that kind of messes up the whole point of a football league. Maybe the best idea is somewhere in the middle. Keep the players as real players, but use the platforms as an implied “augmented reality” view of the game. I kind of like that idea, but I’m still not sure how it works. Presentation is coming later in the development plan, but I might as well start thinking about it now.
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