FOF 2004 Bug/Potential Bug Thread

[Ben E Lou]

Originally posted by MizzouRah
Nice catch!


Todd

Yeah, but very few yards after the catch it sounds like.

[MizzouRah]

Originally posted by SkyDog
Yeah, but very few yards after the catch it sounds like.

It's too early to laugh....



Todd

[MizzouRah]

The Teams and score is correct, the player stats are from my game with Tampa Bay, which was previous this one.

[mmarra82]

I would list this as a bug, the roster turnover. I was looking and it appears every season that a team adds anywhere from 10-20 new players. However, in FOF2004 it appears that every team adds somewhere around 30 new players per season. A little out of whack, in my opinion.

[mmarra82]

Being a Jet fan this bugs me, the Jets are listed as New Jersey, while the Giants are listed as New York. I know they both play there home games at the Meadowlands, however, the Jets home offices and practice fields are on Long Island, so, I do not understand the Jersey label.

[fantastic flying froggies]

The answer to that one, methinks, is that the game does not know how to handle 2 teams playing in the same city. Hence, one of the 2 New Jersey teams had to move, and Jim chose to move the Giants to New York. ( just kidding of course, this should read the other way around, but hey, they both DO play in NJ...)

[Yossarian]

I think I've found two new bugs (i've emailed Jim)

One that I'm sure of is rookie contracts.

I had a large roster leading up to training camp. Almost 60 players were signed. As you know (and Jim programmed) only the top 53 count against my salary cap so although I was only (for example) 4 million below the cap, I had (again an example number) about 5 million available for signing a new player.

When negotiating a rookie contract, the offer I wanted to make would cost about 4.5 million this year.

The program insisted that I only had 4 million dollars of cap room.

If I had tried to sign a normal free agent for 4.5 million, i would have been able.



The other bug is hard to believe exists. And it may be a particular oblique set of circumstance that cause it to take effect.

It appears that setting 'coach resets gameplan every week' to 'yes' is having no effect.

I was running a franchise and trying to play ball control with strong defense. I had two runningbacks with >70 overall and I had scrubs playing QB and WR. I manually edited the gameplay (with coach reset set to 'N') to put pretty much 100% run everywhere.

The plan was working ok, I had both runningbacks over 1500 yards at the end of the season but I lost a lot of close games.

The same pattern was appearing the next year so half way through, I went to global options and I set 'coach resets gameplan' to 'Y'.

Even though I had done this, I was still seeing the EXACT same kind of offense. I was throwing the ball 8 times a game and running nigh on 50. This continued for 3 or 4 games - the whole time, my offense was almost 100% run.

At this stage, I suspected the 'coach resets gameplan' was broke - looking at global options, it was still set to 'Y'. Regardless of the fact that my coach should be resetting gameplan, I went to my gameplan and I clicked 'reccomend' on all screens.

The next game, I threw the ball MUCH more than I ran the ball (35 ish passes to 15 ish runs). This behaviour has been consistent from this point in. It seems that it doesn't matter what my 'coach resets gameplan' flag is set to, the game seems to use my manually entered figrures anyay.

[QuikSand]

FOF 2004 5.1c issue - Depth Chart setting
(Multiplayer leagues only)

As the game has been tweaked with several patches (a welcome series of improvements,in my book), it seems that there is now a disconnect in two sets of "roster requirements" that can lead to unpredictable results.

Under the 5.1c update (I think this was in the last patch), your roster minimums are different than before -- more forgiving. From the help file, the nw requirements are:

Before adjusting your depth charts, you need to have a minimum number of players at each position. The minimums for each position are as follows:


Quarterback: 3
Running Back: 2
Fullback: 1
Tight End: 2
Wide Receiver (Flankers and Split Ends): 4
Center: 1
Offensive Guard: 2
Offensive Tackle: 2
Punter: 1
Kicker: 1
Defensive End: 2
Defensive Tackle: 2 (1 if you play a 3-4 defense)
Inside Linebacker: 1 (2 if you play a 3-4 defense)
Outside Linebacker: 2
Cornerback: 3
Safety: 2

The remaining 16 active players may be distributed at any position. However, you must also have a minimum number of players for each position group. Those minimums are as follows:

Backfield Members (Running Backs, Fullbacks): 4
Offensive Linemen (Centers, Guards, Tackles): 8
Defensive Linemen (Defensive Ends and Defensive Tackles): 6 (5 if you play a 3-4 defense)
Linebackers (Inside and Outside): 5 (6 if you play a 3-4 defense)
Secondary (Cornerbacks and Safeties): 7

I don't have the old rules handy, but most will recall them being a bit tighter -- you needed 3 RBs, for instance, rather than just 2. Cases are similar elsewhere.


If you submit an export in multiplayer (or forget to do so) and head into a game sim with an illegal roster under one or more of the rules in place as above, then the AI must make some changes to your team.

However, it appears that the AI's decisions are based on the old positional requirements, meaning that your team might be adjusted more than you think.


Example -- Say you have a legal roster with 2 active RBs and 2 active FBs. However, something happens, and your roster becomes illegal elsewhere -- say your kicker is injured and is listed as "out," meaning he can't count to fulfill the roster minimum. You don't fix this problem, and the game AI has to remedy the team roster imbalance.

It seems that not only will the AI pick up a kicker for your team to get your roster illegal) and possibly cut a player to do so) but it will also look at other position groups according to the old rules and make adjustments as needed. In this example, your 2 RBs don't satisfy the old rules, and so the AI will either activate or sign you another running back as well. (I confess I don't fully understand how the AI determines when to resolv these problms with activating/deactivating players, and when to do so with signing/releasing players)


So - bottom line shoudl be fairly obvious. Be wary of letting the AI get involved in setting your roster, because it may be following more rigid rules than you are in trying to set a legal/complete roster. You may find that it does more than you'd have in mind. It appears that this could be minimized by complying with the "old rules" regarding position minimums, which are more stringent than those in the fully patched version. (But of course, of you're putting in that kind of time, it seems like it would be easier to just submit a legal roster -- but I digress here)

[jbmagic]

i wish in FOF, if you play in an online league, that FOF gives you a warning that your roster is illegal when you try to export your league file.

that will be a great feature.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

i wish in FOF, if you play in an online league, that FOF gives you a warning that your roster is illegal when you try to export your league file.

that will be a great feature.

It does, but it appears that this doesn't work perfectly.

[gottimd]

In MP league, if you accidentally press the "Withdraw Offer" during the Free Agency Weeks, you can resubmit an offer within that stage. I tried to resubmit the offer and it still says "You have already made an offer.....". It counts my withdrawal offer as an offer?

[mhass]

I could be wrong here, but I don't think the decision to decline the penalty here was right. Shouldn't you push the offense back for the 50+ yard FG?

    Score: San Diego 31, Indianapolis 30.
    SDO 15 Kaeding kicked off 74 yards from the SDO30. Touchback.
    
    Possession to Indianapolis.
    
    1-10-IND20 (00:28)   IND 18 Manning pass completed to 83 Stokley for
    59 yards.
    Tackled by SDO 20 Wilson.
    IND called time out.
    --
    1-10-SDO21 (00:21)   Penalty: IND - False Start.
    
    1-15-SDO26 (00:21)   IND 32 James ran around the left tackle for -2 yards.
    Tackled by SDO 49 Mathis.
    Penalty: IND - Offensive Holding. Penalty was declined.
    
    2-17-SDO28 (00:12)   IND 13 Vanderjagt attempted a 45 yard field 
 		 goal and succeeded.
    
    Score: Indianapolis 33, San Diego 31.
    IND 13 Vanderjagt kicked off 66 yards from the IND30.
    SDO 83 Schroeder returned the ball 24 yards to the SDO28. 
    Tackled by IND 29 Jefferson.
 

[Passacaglia]

I'm pretty sure FOF just takes yards to go divided by downs left when making decisions on penalties. So 2nd and 17 gives two downs left (2nd and 3rd), 17 yards -- 8.5 yards per down. 1st and 25 gives three downs left, 25 yards -- 8.33 yards per down. I don't think it figures in any other game situations.