FOF7 - Staff Draft and Staff Role Thoughts

[Sebmono]

Two questions:

1. What experience/age range qualifies as 'Young Player' versus just 'Player' for talent development skill purposes?

2. Any chance we will ever get a sense of relative contributions of the various staff with development and scouting? For instance, do HC scouting skills have a greater relative impact on scouting outcomes whereas coordinators have greater relative impact on development of player on their side of the ball? Some clarification here would be helpful in understand the importance of each staff positions and what skills to look for.

[corbes]

I like the staff draft but I feel like decisions about staff retention ought to be driven by popularity (with contract length being perhaps an ancillary concern in terms of sunk costs, but not the primary/motivating reason why a staff change would be made). Andy Reid didn't leave the Eagles because his contract was up, he left because the fan base was going to have an utter conniption if he returned.

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by NawlinsFan

Or maybe wheels modifies the conscriptor to handle both staff and amateur drafts.

It's possible, and nearly completed now.

[NawlinsFan]

Originally Posted by WheelsVT

It's possible, and nearly completed now.

You da man!

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by corbes

I like the staff draft but I feel like decisions about staff retention ought to be driven by popularity (with contract length being perhaps an ancillary concern in terms of sunk costs, but not the primary/motivating reason why a staff change would be made). Andy Reid didn't leave the Eagles because his contract was up, he left because the fan base was going to have an utter conniption if he returned.

I think this is a classic case of realism vs game interest.

Sure, in the NFL, it's not the most prudently-managed teams who have the cash to lure in the best coaches. We get that. Your argument is perfectly fine above.

But for FOF, and for my experience with it over many years, we have had two loose ends. The game financials have been tedious and without clear payoff. And the staff hiring process has been ambiguous and inexact. The two were tied together, but not clearly enough to create serious incentives.

With the staff draft, we at least have a serious attempt at two birds, one stone. The draft is a concrete and tidy way to sort out staff, and to make it fairly clear who did what -- I think that's a step in the right direction, or at least a noble attempt toward that worthy goal. And the draft order connecting back to team finances makes for a much more visible and obvious
encouragement for that oft-overlooked part of the game, I again applaud the effort. I'm not convinced that this is perfect, but I am impressed that it's a pretty economical stab at addressing two weaknesses in the game structure.

And yes, along the way, NFL-style realism is sacrificed. True.


I want the game to be fun and interesting to play. Often that means remaining faithful to the NFL I know. But where that's not really workable, I'll take a good game element over a good real-life mirror.

[Pyser]

so, if the staff draft is done through conscriptor...we are looking at, what, at best a 2 day slowdown, but possibly 4-5 days for staff alone?

i mean, you cant skip past it as a commish and come back to it later, right? and it's the first thing to do after the bowl.

cant even start it during the playoffs.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

So when it comes to intelligence, it's not currently an attribute for coaches that we need to really use for now? (Especially for the strength coordinator)

[corbes]

I was thinking of a synthesis of the game finances with the emerging popularity model in the game (e.g., sweat socks). I really like the staff draft order being determined by the financial model. My proposal builds from this point forward.

Concept #1: Ditch contract years as determining the availability of hiring coaches from other teams. Contract years should exist, but as a deterrent to firing coaches (e.g., if you replace a coach with contract years, those payouts still have to be made, thus impairing future financials, thus impairing future staff draft position).

Concept #2: Tie together the emerging staff draft and popularity concepts by having popularity pressures on the staff hiring decisions. Hence, staff decisions would impact popularity, which impact financials, which impact staff drafting order, which impacts staff decisions, rinse, repeat

[WheelsVT]

Originally Posted by Pyser

so, if the staff draft is done through conscriptor...we are looking at, what, at best a 2 day slowdown, but possibly 4-5 days for staff alone?

i mean, you cant skip past it as a commish and come back to it later, right? and it's the first thing to do after the bowl.

cant even start it during the playoffs.

I think it would take 2 days total. And that's 2 days for the draft in place of what was how many days for the staff hiring stages, 3? So it's a wash on time, draws attention to an undervalued aspect of the game, and we get to do more drafting = win IMO.

I bet commissioners would set the time limits really low because most teams can decline to pick anyone since they already have someone in that roll. But you have to be ready to draft if someone steals one of your coordinators and that's where a list may help.

[aston217]

It seems the staff draft shouldn't require a utility in MP and should be done the same way in SP and in MP. Submit a ranked list of coaches each stage.

No trading. It's not much of a draft really. Either you get your guy or you don't.

[MalcPow]

Originally Posted by aston217

It seems the staff draft shouldn't require a utility in MP and should be done the same way in SP and in MP. Submit a ranked list of coaches each stage.

No trading. It's not much of a draft really. Either you get your guy or you don't.

The one catch of course is somebody drafting one of your guys, and then you need to get the position filled somehow. But I generally agree, I think.

We could have a utility that lists every amenable guy for each position ordered by suitability. We allow owners to go in and customize that list if they'd like to prioritize different attributes. We then have a number of checkbox settings such as "Hire Highest Suitability," "Hire Any Until #X In List/>=X Suitability Score," and "Do Not Hire Unless Open" for each position. All owners could submit their settings to the utility and we might be able to sort things out in a single stage.

It'd be a different sort of utility obviously, but it might be the best way to handle the staff draft.

[dzilla77]

You still have the retain staff stage that I am not sure can be combined with the draft, so its still two days minimum.

[Ben E Lou]

Yeah...Stadium/Retain Staff pretty much has to be its own stage. I don't see a way around that.

[miked]

I haven't had too much time yet to dig in, but I have a question regarding the logistics of this. What if you pick first and choose to retain your coordinator, once you retain does that take him off the books? Nobody can poach a coordinator from another team unless they promote?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by miked

I haven't had too much time yet to dig in, but I have a question regarding the logistics of this. What if you pick first and choose to retain your coordinator, once you retain does that take him off the books? Nobody can poach a coordinator from another team unless they promote?

You may "poach" a staff member at the same level from another team if that team drafts at least four positions later and the staff member would be entering the last year of his contract.

So if you "Retain" a staff member, that gives him more than a year left on his contract, so he can't be signed by someone else as a Coordinator. And once you have passed your pick in any round, he can't be poached.

[QuikSand]

Has anyone tracked whether we have to eat costs for fired staff? I confess I ave not...but that would be a great twist to this.

[dbd1963]

I am pretty sure that we do because I have seen the costs for coaching go way up in a year when I fire coaches.

[Ben E Lou]

Two behavioral modifications based on the above:

1. Using Extractor for ratings for a MP league is probably a bad idea now. The game's export spits out a generic scout view.
2. MP owners might want to be a lot more cautious in discussing the ratings that they see.

[QuikSand]

Small added contribution here... fiddling through my solo career, I decided to stop renegotiating my staff, and I left some guys unprotected. My team is doing really well financially, so I expected I'd have the heft to keep the guys I wanted. However, after one season of big spending (and no other major changes) I slipped to mid-pack in finances, and saw two of my staff members get poached by AI teams.

I'm not ready to conclude that this is a major game element now... but a least there's some legitimate depth there, if you're situated to feel it. Good thing, I think.

[Ben E Lou]

Yeah, I think part of my relative struggles in SP have to do with the fact that I'm playing with the default Oakland team. I spent some time looking through the exports at city populations, fan loyalty, existing stadium, etc. for the most difficult financial situation possible, and this franchise was an easy winner. Even though we've enjoyed some solid success on the field (tied for #3 in league history in winning percentage) we've only been profitable in 5 of 11 seasons, and our biggest profit is only $54.5M--putting us at #16 in the Staff Draft. With time, patience, and continued success, I would imagine I'll be able to build a mega-stadium and start raking in the cash, but it's definitely a longer-term process.

And my take is that staff quality is meaningful in this game.

[TRO]

I think I would like it better if the staff draft wasn't structured strictly HC, OC, DC, AC, Strength.

In other words, let teams select their coaches in any order they want. If I want to draft my Defense Coordinator in round 1, let me.

[loregnum]

I find the staff draft to be a horrible idea. I could see it being a solid option in a MP league but in SP it is silly.

I wish there was a way to turn it off.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

I like the staff draft. It make you pay more attention to coaching changes. Previously I found it too convoluted to attempt finding out who changed coaches. Now it's right there.

I do think it's kinda weird what if a coach is replaced/fired, only the teams drafting after them have a shot at the newly unemployed coach. For example, in this past draft San Francisco went with Sean Payton as HC, freeing Harbaugh. Denver drafted next & Fox had just retired, so Jim Harbaugh now coaches Denver.

[castorius]

I also don't like that every coach has a finite, and clearly visible ability/value.

Only in FOF, do you get a situation where a coach is fired after leading a team to a championship. I've fired my coaches plenty of times after great seasons because quite frankly, if there is a coach with better abilities/ratings than my previous coach, he will absolutely be better for me.

In real life, this would never happen.

My only solution to alleviate this would be to either:

1) make the actual abilities of the coach somewhat hidden with some fog of war or inaccuracy, so we don't know for sure if the coach we hire is better than the other

2) add some kind of coach "cohesion" to the equation, where the longer a coach stays with a team or particular players, a small bonus applies (much like team cohesion). That way, I might think twice about dropping a winning coach for a more highly rated coach.

As it is now, there is no benefit to keeping a coach if there is one out there that is clearly better.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by castorius

2) add some kind of coach "cohesion" to the equation, where the longer a coach stays with a team or particular players, a small bonus applies (much like team cohesion). That way, I might think twice about dropping a winning coach for a more highly rated coach.

I believe this has been in the game for some time, at least for the HC. Some effect on penalties and so forth, as I recall from some time ago.

[stevew]

Is it common to have an entire draft where nobody gets selected? I just completed the 2014 season with a default NFL setup and nobody got selected at all in the staff draft.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I believe this has been in the game for some time, at least for the HC. Some effect on penalties and so forth, as I recall from some time ago.

Absolutely.

[Ben E Lou]

Worth stating as MP leagues start getting converted and having staff drafts: no matter how much you suck financially, you can keep your Head Coach as long as you want by simply extending his contract when he's up to be extended. He will never be exposed to the draft that way. (Other staff members will be subject to being poached for promotions, though, even if they get extensions.)

[Ben E Lou]

The CCFL is getting ready to run its first staff draft using Conscriptor, and the more I think about it, the more I'm of the mind that staff poaching by the "paying attention" crowd from the "not paying attention" crowd is going to become fairly significant. You get one and only one chance to extend your staff members' contracts in the final season. Miss exporting for that one stage, and they're open to a "lateral" move to a better-performing team. While there's nothing inherently unfair about such a setup, the realities of people missing stages may not be good for leagues if the staff is as important as I suspect it might be in FOF7.

[Andreh]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

if the staff is as important as I suspect it might be in FOF7.

So, how much of that is suspicion?
I took a look on my files and saw teams with huge discipline HC with tons of penalties, and a bus full og injured players with an all red strength coach.
Obviously those things are multifactorial and tremendous small sample, just wondering how you guys are seeing that in your games.

[GridGlory]

Originally Posted by Andreh

So, how much of that is suspicion?
I took a look on my files and saw teams with huge discipline HC with tons of penalties, and a bus full og injured players with an all red strength coach.
Obviously those things are multifactorial and tremendous small sample, just wondering how you guys are seeing that in your games.

I'm doubting that only the HC's discipline counts towards penalties. Despite the documentation. I just finished a season in the GML with the 2nd most penalty yards. My HC had a high discipline rating, but my OC & DC had extremely low discipline ratings. Need to look into this further as I hate penalties almost as much as fumbles.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by GridGlory

I'm doubting that only the HC's discipline counts towards penalties. Despite the documentation. I just finished a season in the GML with the 2nd most penalty yards. My HC had a high discipline rating, but my OC & DC had extremely low discipline ratings. Need to look into this further as I hate penalties almost as much as fumbles.

Check the rest of the league: 2018 Stadium/Staff Stage Complete

Your HC's discipline rating was decently high (60). However, that was only the 21st-best discipline rating in the league, and four other teams were in the 56-59 range. I just checked and the bottom dozen or so teams were all pretty close in penalty numbers and penalty yards. It's pretty easy to imagine that it's just based on the HC discipline rating and you got a little unlucky with the dice to finish #31.

[Sharkn20]

When could be enjoy of a complete manual staff draft in MP leagues, babies??

[Sef0r]

I hope it doesn't happen myself, but that's because I can't be fecked with waiting extra time after not making the playoffs