FOF Utility proposal (design)

[3ric]

Just for kicks, I've started to think about how to design a draft file generator. If you want a random draft file with realistic data without going through the trouble of running a season of TCY, then this should be of interest to you.

But the hard part appear to be the distribution of the ratings. First you have to decide on a player's overall potential, and then create enough variation so the players don't appear to be carbon copies of each other.

A simpler approach might be to create random values from 0 to 100 for each rating relevant to the given position, but the law of averages would then inevitably create loads of uninteresting middle-of-the-road Joes and not enough guys at each end of the spectrum (truly good/truly bad).

Another problem would be consistency towards the quality of graduates from a given college, if you care about that kind of realism. An utility like this would ideally be able to provide statistics to see how good a draft class would be in comparison with others, ideally broken down by position. This should also make it apparent if the utility correctly arrives at the positions/schools/states/measurements/et al along the proper distributions (with many players from populous states such as California, and not from Rhode Island, for example). These figures should be available if you can conduct a statistical study of enough TCY draft files.

Thoughts/comments/solutions?

[cthomer5000]

Thoughts:

It would be really cool if there were sliders (just like the preference) draft, so that you could set the relative strengths of each position in the draft file, then generate it.

So if you want a QB bonanza, you crank up the QB rating. If you want a D-line class like last year's, you crank that up... etc.

[Darkiller]

3ric,

You would create a 3rd-party Draft file (aside from the FOF and TCY Generated ones) with College Stats available ?
That means you would help void two current "flows" :
- the low correlation of TCY stars when drafted in FOF and all those TCY backups becoming 1st rounders in FOF : which is certainly a major stoper as far as going with the TCY generated files.
- the unavailability of any College Stats when using FOF generated Draft files.

[Fido]

Originally posted by 3ric
Just for kicks, I've started to think about how to design a draft file generator. If you want a random draft file with realistic data without going through the trouble of running a season of TCY, then this should be of interest to you.

Bastard! This was going be my next major project!

Originally posted by 3ric
But the hard part appear to be the distribution of the ratings. First you have to decide on a player's overall potential, and then create enough variation so the players don't appear to be carbon copies of each other.

A simpler approach might be to create random values from 0 to 100 for each rating relevant to the given position, but the law of averages would then inevitably create loads of uninteresting middle-of-the-road Joes and not enough guys at each end of the spectrum (truly good/truly bad).

That all depends on the random number generator you use. If you use a striaght 0-100 generation mechanism, you'll get a broad distribution. If you use sums of random numbers, you're distrbution will be more concentrated towrads a single point. What I think would be most realistic would be gaussian random numbers (bell curves). Specify a mean and a standard deviation for each stat for each position and let the results fall out. You'll get some exceptionaly good and bad values, but the majority will be in the range you specify. The trick here woudl be setting the range appropriately, which is why I was planning on making it completely user customizeable. That would allow the user to create a draft calss that contained receivers with a mean route running of 70, and a std dev of 10, which would make most of the receivers have 60-80 for route running potential.

Originally posted by 3ric
Another problem would be consistency towards the quality of graduates from a given college, if you care about that kind of realism. An utility like this would ideally be able to provide statistics to see how good a draft class would be in comparison with others, ideally broken down by position. This should also make it apparent if the utility correctly arrives at the positions/schools/states/measurements/et al along the proper distributions (with many players from populous states such as California, and not from Rhode Island, for example). These figures should be available if you can conduct a statistical study of enough TCY draft files.

Once the research is done (and it would actually be quite easy with the FOF Reporter's College Draft History pages), you could just create a sufficiently large rnadom number (say 0-10000) and assign each college a range of values. If the random number falls in that range then that's the school the draftee comes from.

[T-Storm]

Originally posted by cthomer5000
Thoughts:

It would be really cool if there were sliders (just like the preference) draft, so that you could set the relative strengths of each position in the draft file, then generate it.

So if you want a QB bonanza, you crank up the QB rating. If you want a D-line class like last year's, you crank that up... etc.

Also it would be as cool, if we were able to set the strength of the individual ratings. Thus we might be able to recreate different stages of ProFootball somewhat... like havin most QBs be excellent in long and very long throws, while being bad in short and medium passing.

[3ric]

Fido, I haven't written a line of code yet. I was merely thinking loud in hope that somebody else would get turned on by the idea and start writing... ...and that we, as a collective, could think about what this utility could do. cthomer's suggestion (great idea!) was something I never would have thought of myself.

[Fido]

Originally posted by 3ric
Fido, I haven't written a line of code yet. I was merely thinking loud in hope that somebody else would get turned on by the idea and start writing... ...and that we, as a collective, could think about what this utility could do. cthomer's suggestion (great idea!) was something I never would have thought of myself.

Problem is I've already been yelled at by one person for stealing someone else's ideas even when I had te Reporter mostly written before the idea was brought up. Since I haven't even started this one, I'm sure I woudl get scolded again.

[3ric]

I definitely think that you should go ahead and start to write this utility if you want to, don't let me stop you from doing it. I just wanted to get some discussion going, not meaning to actually code it myself.

[PineTar]

FYI... I have a complete Excel file that mimics FOF's internal draft pool generation sans actual college stats that you get w/ TCY imports. One problem is the file is over 50 megs!! (Zipped its a shade over 10). It was intended for solo use, so it is by no means anywhere close to user friendly.