green bars/red bars : the boom/bust status in FOF2

[Darkiller]

There are no "booms no busts" in FOF2. That, we know.

However, one can argue -and I am sure most of you who played FOF2 as well have- that there is a difference between "fulfilling the potential" (green bars turning into red bars) and actually posting the great stats that we ought to expect from that player.

There is a strong difference here.

Here is an example : you draft this player who has almost maxed out potential everywhere and you are high on him.
Training camp comes and -because we're talking FOF2 here- we know for certain that this particular player won't "bust". The only uncertainty is wether or not he will remain healthy long enough for his red bars to cover all of the maxed out green bars (because if not, then his development might be altered and comeback not the same player, without the same upside, we know this).

Now let's say the player stayed healthy and now, in his 6th year in the league : has maxed out ratings (all red bars, close to 100).

Does that mean I have a super player now ? a superstar bound for All-League honors and eventually Hall of Fame induction ??
Does that mean FOF2 is without any surprise because, as expected, I have my top maxed out man now ?

the answer is no.

Maxed out ratings means this player has unlimited talend. period.
And everyone knows that talent does not necessarly translate onto the field by huge stats and great performances.

How many "tremendously talended" players failed to become the kind of NFL players everybody predicted they would be...we have hundreds of examples for that...
In FOF2, it is basically the same thing : you have your player with "unlimited capacities/talent" : but you are not sure if he will put the kind of numbers on the board that will make you say "whaouuu".

Lately, I have had a WR (almost maxed out guy, the #1 receiving target on my team) who never caught more than 56 passes for 750 yards in a 8-year+ career as the featured receiver.
Of coure, he never earned any individual honors, that goes without saying.

My point here is to show that although FOF2 doesn't have the "boom-bust" feature that makes users happy, it is still a game with uncertainty and not because a player is maxed out at the beginning, will this translate into gaudy numbers forever.

You can have a maxed out guy, and he can have a very disapointing career : to me, this is "bust" notion as well.
Of course, the reverse is possible : the FOF2 player won't "boom" with red bars jumping up after training camp but his on-the-field stats will be way over what the manager could have expected, for his great plaisure : this is called "overachieving", but to me it is also some kind of "boom" from the player, especially considering the fact that by starting and playing well, he can gain some rating points.

[Fritz]

its all about the bars man. stats mean nothing

[Ksyrup]

I don't remember much about FOF2 aside from the playoff injury bug. I somehow managed to enjoy it despite that issue, but months of playing FOF2K1 and days of playing FOF4 have eroded my memory of FOF2.

[QuikSand]

Are you arguing that the bars that you see are not, in fact, what guides the player's performance?

With your WR for instance - the guy with great ratings, but mediocre stats - do you argue that he is not as good a player as another guy who puts up good numbers, but doesn't have as good apparent ratings? Would you trade your high-ratings guy to get the high-stats guy? Do you think that this is how the game actually operates?

If you answered "yes" (especially to the very last question), then I'm intrested in how you think this works. Do you believe there to be one or more "hidden" player ratings that help the game translate the player's visible skill ratings into some oether measure of effectiveness. Or is there something else (that I cannot think of right now).


Don't mean to be hostile... I'm just curious. It's one thing to say that not every player with great skills puts up great stats. We know that individual performance in footbal is subject to a lot of things outside the individual player's control. However, if you're saying that the player's actual effectiveness in games doesn't correspond to their apparent skills, then you're making a different argument.

Back in the good old days, we had a "grassy knoll" thread for stuff like this.

[Easy Mac]

I've had the same thing in FOF4.

QB with no ratings above 40 averaged 4000 yards passing for the 5 years on my team, winning a Super Bowl.

I've had WR's with maxed out ratings who never got over 50 catches, and those with minimal ratings getting over 100.

While I think ratings matter, it has more to do with the ratings of the whole team as to whether a maxed out guy will get 100 catches, or if he will get 50. Same with a minimal guy.

[Daimyo]

I think the effect you are talking about occurs because human-controlled teams in fof2 are nearly always super-loaded at every position with maxed out players. Just like you can put an above average LB on a zeroed out defense and get superstud stats, you can put a maxed out LB on a defense full of maxed outs and get below average stats.

[Daimyo]

DOLA, what is the catch frequency rating for this WR (that was the ket stat for number of catches in FOF, right? - its been a while for me) and all the rest of your receiving options?

[QuikSand]

Back in FOF2, most players (including receivers) didn't show a whole lot of variability in ratings. So the more modern phenomenon of a player with a very high "key rating" (like catch frequency in FOF 2001, or "route running" in FOF4) is less of a factor in FOF2, as I recall.

I'm assuming, from that generic background and the lack of any specific commnt otherwise, that this is just one more of the legions of players who fit into the description "topped out in everything."

(Nobody brings something like this up when discussing how the FOF games evolved over time, but it's a monumentally important reason why the newer games have so much more subtlety than the older ones.)

[Bee]

Sadly the increased subtlety hasn't increased the challenge of the game.

[QuikSand]

Well, I'd put it another way, I suppose. The increased subtlety has not been accompanied by the needed improvements in other parts of the game to ensure, or even enhance, the game's competitiveness.

[Anrhydeddu]

...or the game's enjoyability.

Competitiveness, imo, is just one aspect of enjoyability, albeit a critical one.

[QuikSand]

Well, that (in my book) is another kettle of fish, A.

"Ejoyability" is a much less tangible issue than competitiveness. And by criticizing the game's "enjoyability" you're not focusing sufficiently to be meaningful. (though I believe your points have been well laid out elsewhere on this board) Criticizing the game on such broad grounds is only a change in syntax away from saying "FOF4 sux!"

In my mind, while I agree that some of the changes made between FOF 2001 and FOF4 are a mixed bag in terms of playability and immersive effect, the biggest single problem in the game as it now stands is that the computer rivals make such poor decisions that the game environment doesn't foster any meaningful competition at all. So, I'd say (this is my opinion, of course) that the most essential flaw in FOF4 is the competitiveness - that should, in my judgment, be first and foremost on the list of game alterations for any impending patch effort.

I realize that for some gamers, this game is too detailed. For others, it's not sufficiently flexible. For others, they don't lik different facets - all points taken.

However, the fundamental structure of this game isn't going to get upended in a summer patch. However, i do think that it's at least conceivable that some of the decision-making algorithsm within the game's current context can be. And that, I would urge, is the best way to try to save this product.

It won't fix the game's complexity, it won't fix its lack of flexibility, but it might jst make the game challnging enough to be worth playing... and suddenly some more people might find those hurdles worth overcoming once they get to play a good game.

[Bee]

Preach on Brother Quiksand!

[Anrhydeddu]

I agree with you, I just didn't want to rehash many of the previous points again, thus the brevity.

Let me ask you a question. While I agree fully that "the biggest single problem in the game as it now stands is that the computer rivals make such poor decisions that the game environment doesn't foster any meaningful competition at all", do you think that the previous versions were any different in this respect? I recall when I first came to this community in summer of 2000, you were promoting quite a few house rules back then. Or perhaps you, like me, had higher expectations for FOF4?

I am still contemplating your earlier posts regarding the difference in playing a football sim versus a baseball or soccer sim. Perhaps all of these games exhibit the same levels of AI management weaknesses but because of the nature of the sport and the how they are modeled in a game, baseball and soccer can "hide" more of this, thus giving the appearance of a more competitive AI (which I have clearly seen in playing solo OOTP5).

I haven't thought it through but I don't know if football has to be more exposed. If so, then such weaknesses should be the sole endeavor to fix. If not (or that this is the best it can do at this time), then perhaps a balance in providing more immersion or enjoyability features would help as well. But I would still would ask that even after significant efforts in fixing the decision-making AI, would it still be good enough (at least to justify its full priority)?

And that brings up one final point. Because Jim has deliberately chosen not to provide us (publically) with any insight to what to expect in the release this summer, my expectations and interest are nil.

[Fritz]

any thread about FOF gets a anrhybucc hatepost.

[Daimyo]

Is the AI that much more competitive in OOTP5 compared to OOPT4? FOF2k1's (last version I played) AI is pretty bad, but OOTP4's (again last version I played) set new records for ineptitude IMO.

EDIT: The saving grace with OOTP is, of course, that it allows you to completely remove (well nearly so) the computer ai from the equation with multiplayer.... which even with its total failure as a single player game (IMHO), still keeps it on my harddrive long after FOF has been removed and nearly forgotten.

[Darkiller]

Thankyou all for the answers and first comments provided.

QuiKSand, I don't think the game "operates" in the way I talked about in my first post, I mean : mathematically speaking. The maxed out player IS indeed a "better" player than the other one with less red bars because of mathematical numbers being added to eachother to provide a global rating which will make one player, better than another.

Again, I insist of this notion of "talent". To me, red bars are really the level of "talent" that a player has. In short : his capacity to make plays, to be great on the field.

We heard Jim saying there were hidden ratings.

Could these hidden ratings translate into being a "more important" factor than the apparent ones ? I don't think so because often, a maxed out guy will be more productive stat-wise than the other player.

BUT again, it is not always the case, far from that actually so I would believe that the player's environment (gameplan, team surrounding him, cohesion etc.) could help hidden ratings flourish during a game and maybe take over and/or accompany favorably the already existing apparent ratings (the red bars we look at all the time).

Would I trade a maxed-out guy for a stat-guy : well, at first glance no. But this is at first glance.
If my maxed-out guy repeats his underachiving seasons year after year then I might be very willing to let him go and give its chance to a much less talented player who already proved that he could post impressive numbers.

I know being loaded with superstars on the roster makes it harder for one star player alone to jump up with great numbers because they're all good and basically, all over the field at the same time...but (this is another example), in the Real49ersFootball career, my top DE Eugene Wolfe (former #3 overall pick, absolutely maxed out defensive end...) never had more than 10 sacks in any season of an 11-year career. One year, I pull him out and started a Free Agent DE that I had grabbed in the offseason (a player with half of his ratings) and the guy has 20 1/2 sacks on the year (same gameplan etc..same defensive schemes etc..).
The next year, I go back to Wolfe as the starter : 5 sacks.

To go back to this particular receiver I first talked about, his catch frequency was maxed out as well. He was surrounded by good, but not great other WR so he was really the #1 guy and should have been better.
It turns out that almost every year, he had less receptions and yards than my #2 WR (and sometimes my #3 WR..)

[Anrhydeddu]

Originally posted by Daimyo
Is the AI that much more competitive in OOTP5 compared to OOPT4? FOF2k1's (last version I played) AI is pretty bad, but OOTP4's (again last version I played) set new records for ineptitude IMO.

EDIT: The saving grace with OOTP is, of course, that it allows you to completely remove (well nearly so) the computer ai from the equation with multiplayer.... which even with its total failure as a single player game (IMHO), still keeps it on my harddrive long after FOF has been removed and nearly forgotten.

I agree on the MP factor, but perhaps playing with Reduced Ratings or Talent Only in OOTP helps? I also wonder after Jim put in Fog-of-War in TCY, did that help with the competitiveness or could that have been viewed as just another house rule?

Daimyo, I would be curious if you were to read my OOTP5 1960s Cardinals dynasty (or Ben's for that matter), where you would have viewed OOTP as a total failure for a solo game?

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Darkiller
We heard Jim saying there were hidden ratings.

I'm not sure we all heard the same thing.

[henry296]

One other point that needs mentioning is that the bars are through your scouts eyes. That maxed out guy who plays bad is probably just misscouted.

Todd

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Anrhydeddu
Let me ask you a question. While I agree fully that "the biggest single problem in the game as it now stands is that the computer rivals make such poor decisions that the game environment doesn't foster any meaningful competition at all", do you think that the previous versions were any different in this respect? I recall when I first came to this community in summer of 2000, you were promoting quite a few house rules back then. Or perhaps you, like me, had higher expectations for FOF4?

Very fair question. I think my answer is a little from both columns.

Yes, FOF 2001 required a variety of staggering house rules to be competitive. Many peopl found, though, that by using an appropriate set of such rules, they could maintain a pretty interesting and challengin career with that game. I played a few different careers for more than 20 seasons, and enjoyed them - due to varying degrees of hindrance rules I placed upon myself.

There were two tmajor changes from FOF 2001 to FOF4 that made severe impacts in the game's competitiveness, though this was an unintended consequence, I am certain, in each case.

#1 is that FOF4 fixed the egregious problem of free agent demands, that made FOF 2001 so difficult to play. When so many players demanded huge contracts any time they were seeking a new deal, it made the FOF 2001 game extremely difficult to maintain a team with much cohesion. Backups with lousy ratings and practically no playing time would routinely ask for monstrous sums of money - it really undermined the economics of the game, and removed much of what whoud have been a subtle part of the gamer's decision-making.

FOF4 resolved this issue - by and large, player demands in that game are much more reasonable (while not perfect, in my mind, they are at least manageable). This is a great improvement in game play, but it also has a secondary consequence. It makes keeping depth a good deal easier - and when the human gamer can do this better than before, he has the ability to keep a better roster than in FOF 2001. While the deeply flawed FOF 2001 system corrupted game play and decision making, the one thing it DID do was force us (the savvy gamers) to spend real money on good veteran players. In FOF4, it's just so damned easy to go out and sign proven quality players for cheap, it undermines the game's entire competitive balance. Fixing one problem exposed another one - indeed, it has made it much worse.


In addition, FOF4 fixed the problem in FOF 2001 of having too much predictability in the plaer developmnt process. FOF 2001 introduced the concept of surprise developments - booms and busts. but, it was so infrequent, that it didn't upset the game as a whole. Human gamers are beter atspotting the breakouts and busts, but overall it didn't completely ruin the balance in player selection.

FOF4, in attempting to add to this potential area for growth, has created a new problem. On its surface, FOF4 is a much mroe complex engine, where everyone gets surprises for the good and bad. A gamer who has invested a little time to understand the giveaway tells in the game, though, now has a colossal advantage over the CPU opponents. If you use the information you are given properly, you cannot help but time and time again completely dominate the draft, and always have a stream of surprisingly good young players coming in. It's yet another huge advantage to the human gamer - one we don't need, since the game is already too easy to beat.


In both cases, Jim proprly tried to move the ball forwar with his game. He tried to address concerns about the game in its previous version. However, this is a complex system - one change does not leave the rest of the game environment unaltered. By not properly addressing the secondary consequences of these changes, the benefits of the additions are at least muted, if not overwhelmed, by the new problems that have been created.


However, if this diagnosis is correct - it's good news. It means that FOF4 still has the potential to vastly exceed its predecessors. If there can be some adjustments to the appropriate parts of the AI, and a few tweaks to the way teams manage their rosters, to what we see in draft-eligible players, and perhaps the decisions teams make regarding salaries in general... this game could get a lot better under the hood.

And that's why I cling to the focused argument about the problems in FOF4... because rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or continually arguing that it's just a failed venture... I continue to see an opportunity to readjust the sights on the rifle, and get it closer to the mark.

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by henry296
One other point that needs mentioning is that the bars are through your scouts eyes. That maxed out guy who plays bad is probably just misscouted.

I don't think there's any evidence that scout error represents anything of sufficient magnitude to account for that kind of mistake. If your guy appears to be rated at 90, he might be 85 or 95, but he's definitely not really a 45 or 60.

[Bibs]

Originally posted by QuikSand
Very fair question. I think my answer is a little from both columns.

Yes, FOF 2001 required a variety of staggering house rules to be competitive. Many peopl found, though, that by using an appropriate set of such rules, they could maintain a pretty interesting and challengin career with that game. I played a few different careers for more than 20 seasons, and enjoyed them - due to varying degrees of hindrance rules I placed upon myself.

There were two tmajor changes from FOF 2001 to FOF4 that made severe impacts in the game's competitiveness, though this was an unintended consequence, I am certain, in each case.

#1 is that FOF4 fixed the egregious problem of free agent demands, that made FOF 2001 so difficult to play. When so many players demanded huge contracts any time they were seeking a new deal, it made the FOF 2001 game extremely difficult to maintain a team with much cohesion. Backups with lousy ratings and practically no playing time would routinely ask for monstrous sums of money - it really undermined the economics of the game, and removed much of what whoud have been a subtle part of the gamer's decision-making.

FOF4 resolved this issue - by and large, player demands in that game are much more reasonable (while not perfect, in my mind, they are at least manageable). This is a great improvement in game play, but it also has a secondary consequence. It makes keeping depth a good deal easier - and when the human gamer can do this better than before, he has the ability to keep a better roster than in FOF 2001. While the deeply flawed FOF 2001 system corrupted game play and decision making, the one thing it DID do was force us (the savvy gamers) to spend real money on good veteran players. In FOF4, it's just so damned easy to go out and sign proven quality players for cheap, it undermines the game's entire competitive balance. Fixing one problem exposed another one - indeed, it has made it much worse.

Interesting as I have the opposite conclusion. The human gamer was able to manage this problem so much better than the AI which would routinely have high-salaried no talent scrubs as backups. The computer team depth was no better than the human player and they used up a lot more of their salary cap on it so that they couldn't afford to keep the good players they did have.

[QuikSand]

I cannot disagree with your statement about FOF 2001 - we routinely did see computer teams paying big bucks for scrubs in that game. I'm not sure how much that has diminshed in the new game (the demands are still frequently very high, but not as exorbitant as in FOF 2001).

However, my overall impression remains - I think it's much easier to staff a decent quality, deep team in FOF4 than in the predecessor game.

Part of it is because the FOF4 game does not properly inflate the salaries of the relatively few, truly outstanding players in the game. With a much wider band of talents out there, and much fewer standouts at any position - those who are clearly superstar caliber players ought to be demanding and receiving monstrous sums. In FOF4, they generally get more, but not that much more, than the "prety solid" players at their position.

Without lots of resources being required to go out and get the guys who are rated 90-100, the gamer is able to easily avoid overpaying for guys rated 70-80, and instead pick up tons of cheap guys who are rated 40-60 - who are perfectly adequate to fill in around the selected superstars.

[albionmoonlight]

Here's a random question.

I played FOF4 on my ancient machine (before it broke) and it was painfully slow. I didn't think much of it because what did I expect playing with 32 megs of RAM and 266 MHz under the hood (a step above a diesel powered computer).

For those of you who have computers made this decade--does FOF4 play noticibly slow?

I ask, in part, because I found--with all of our discussion about various high level immersion factors--that it was impossible for me to get immersed into a really slow game. Quirky but true.

[QuikSand]

When I play, on a very new machine, it's usually very quick... but sometimes (unpredictably) it takes about a full three or four seconds to sim each game, which slows down the sim a good bit. It's always been that way with me, on three different machines - and it comes and goes, I cannot find a pattern to it.

[Darkiller]

Originally posted by QuikSand
I'm not sure we all heard the same thing.

From Jim :

"There are no truly hidden ratings. Players do, however, have ratings in every category, which are technically hidden because the game only displays a limited ratings set for each position group . Also, all ratings are semi-hidden in that there's a scouting error - one that's bigger than most people expect"

[Bee]

Originally posted by Darkiller
From Jim :

"There are no truly hidden ratings. Players do, however, have ratings in every category, which are technically hidden because the game only displays a limited ratings set for each position group . Also, all ratings are semi-hidden in that there's a scouting error - one that's bigger than most people expect"

So that means there are no hidden ratings, only that QB's have ratings for pass defense or whatever.

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Bee
So that means there are no hidden ratings, only that QB's have ratings for pass defense or whatever.

That's how I always interpreted Jim's comments (like those above), but the finger-sized bruises in my chest tells me that Darkiller read this to mean otherwise.

Unless someone wants to argue that the star-rated WR's lack of production comes from lousy ratings in things like "run defense" and "kickoff distance" then I'm sticking with my interpretation.