FBCB2 discussion: Full version now available

[Sweet16]

Wicked fast response, Brian. Thanks.

I renamed the .bak files and the saved game is there again. Surprisingly to me, I didnt lose anything at all except the box score from the game I had just coached.

I will keep you apprised of my future RTE's.

[dawgfan]

Question on head coach attributes - does the head coach's recruiting ranking not matter as much as I had thought?

Here's the scenario - twice in the last 3 seasons as coach at Washington, I've offered and put on my call list in-state studs who had "very high" interest in me in July (the first month of recruiting), then followed up in August with full recruiting actions, only to find in September that Oregon had offered and jumped immediately to the top of their recruiting interest list.

Oregon had a 9 point edge in prestige (90 to 81), and their recruiting coordinator was rated an A+ compared the A- of my recruiting coordinator, but my recruiting rating was A compared to F for Oregon's head coach, and of course I also had distance in my favor.

What's throwing me is the A vs. F - I figured that large of a gap, combined with a slight edge in distance would be more than enough to compensate for the 9 points difference in prestige and the slight edge to their recruiting coordinator, especially considering I offered a month before them.

Does the head coach recruiting rating not matter that much? Am I maybe overlooking something else like potential playing time (maybe I was more stacked at their positions with young players?)

[OldGiants]

I'm interested in the answer, too. I will add that 90 vs. 81 is not merely an edge, it is 11% more and I usually give up when I see this happening. I have not landed a recruit with this kind of gap, either. In other words, 90 vs 80 with same conference is not likely to end kindly for the 80.

I'm using the number ratings, and I have usually have a recruiter in the 75-80 range, so my total is 180 out of 200 possible, rarely worse than other schools--except for the elite 90s type of schools.

My first cut in recruiting is to drop players recruited by higher prestige schools and go for the overlooked guys. I've also had success giving a schollie to a top recruit who has not qualified and banging away into January. I picked up a 7-2 C (#64 recruit, now projected as the 14th pick in the NBA draft) that way, as Duke and Kentucky offered him in January, but I had enough socked away in the early months to give my then-rated 65 Detroit team the edge.

[dawgfan]

See, that's the thing - I've been able to win battles like that before when I had obvious edges in head coach and recruiting coordinator recruiting ratings.

I figured my A to F edge was enough to allow me to overcome the prestige, but obviously not...

[HeavyReign]

The head coach recruiting skill should matter. There are also factors for how well the recruit likes your coaches and how well he likes the campus that could be coming into play here. You should get that sort of information as feedback in recruiting if I ever get around to updating the recruiting engine. If you have saves with recruits still in the recruiting pool after committing that you ever want me to look at let me know. I can run some tests to see how the hidden factors worked and we can figure out if something needs to be tweaked.

[Groundhog]

When you say "campus", is this referring to the school's prestige, training facilities, or a sort of random "yes or no" variable?

[HeavyReign]

It's kind of like a chemistry rating between the player and your school. Basically some players might feel more comfortable at a campus located in a big city. Others might enjoy a small town feel. The same sort of thing is factored between the coaches and the player.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by HeavyReign

There are also factors for how well the recruit likes your coaches and how well he likes the campus that could be coming into play here. You should get that sort of information as feedback in recruiting if I ever get around to updating the recruiting engine.

Let me just say how fantastic this would be as an addition to the game. And please, save some cool features like this for FBCB 3 so you can actually get some money from us fanatics instead of always adding stuff in the patches...

[OldGiants]

Originally Posted by HeavyReign

It's kind of like a chemistry rating between the player and your school. Basically some players might feel more comfortable at a campus located in a big city. Others might enjoy a small town feel. The same sort of thing is factored between the coaches and the player.

Definitely a great addition. Knowing big city versus boon docks (Blacksburg being the booniest place I've ever been) would be fun.

[Sweet16]

Does anyone know what the Rank column on the team history screen refers to?

[britrock88]

The end-of-season poll ranking, except it covers all 345 teams in this form.

[Radii]

Starting to get frustrated with recruiting, a post I made on our multiplayer site:

Does pre-season interest just not matter at all anymore? I had a ton of guys who listed me as very high initially. Many in the top 100, many seemed to have stats that I look for when I recruit, so I eval and contact them. A couple bigs that are very strong rebounders and a couple guards who have very high steals I go ahead and offer a scholarship to. Only one of the four guys, all of whom loved me, got a recruiting pitch and a scholarship from me, continue to list me as "very high".

#63 OVR Steven Hawkes from Florida is the most baffling. He listed me first, South Carolina second, I forget who else after that. The dude is a top 100 recruit, he's identified that North Carolina is his top school. His top school comes calling, decides that they like his stats enough to take a chance and offer him a scholarship right away. I'm pulling out all the stops with my 100 rated coach and 83 rated assistant to tell this guy I want him to come to Chapel Hill, his #1 school... and magically after the first round and my offer he realizes "oh shit, UNC isn't in Florida! I'd actually rather go to South Florida, Florida or Miami, fuck UNC".

South Florida, Florida and Miami haven't made offers, but all three jumped ahead of me and my 98 prestige and 100 rated coach and my scholarship. Is it seriously reasonable in any way that he just now figured out that he desperately wants to stay near home and there's no way I could have figured that out before? Is there even any point in sticking with him after this first month?


-- Joining RonCo and Others recruiting frustrations!

tl;dr: I coach 98 prestige North Carolina with 3 final fours and 1 national title in the last 4 years. My recruiting rating is 100, my recruiting assistant's recruiting rating is 83. I targeted a number of players who had "very high" interest in North Carolina, most of whom had me #1 or #2 on their lists. After contacting them and in a few cases offering an early scholarship, all but one dropped me to "average". The one I listed above seemed to have randomly decided after recruiting started that he wants to stay at home and prefers a bunch of significantly smaller schools who haven't made offers over 98 prestige UNC. That's fine, but he didn't know that before? He thought he wanted to go to UNC but I scared him? Really?

[dawgfan]

I hear you. I'm really excited by the possibility that Brian will expand recruiting in the future to show the various recruiting factors in some way so we have more information on what the players are looking for, but in the meantime it can be a frustrating crapshoot after the first month to see how they actually react to recruiting actions.

[dunkem]

I look at it like TCY... some guys have distance as their main factor. That's why all the Florida schools got over you I think with the original NC choice being random first impression of who he might be interested in based on combo prestige/distance. When the calls started coming, the distance weight might've came in strong. If a Florida school was chosen in the initial top four, I'm pretty sure that school would be at the top, but I guess the player didn't know other Florida schools wanted him initially.

I've been in the same boat many times too. I think distance used to be too strong a factor before, but it seems with some of the patches that it's been lessened.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by dunkem

I look at it like TCY... some guys have distance as their main factor. That's why all the Florida schools got over you I think.

Sure, but his point is why wouldn't those schools be listed first initially if distance is the biggest factor? Given UNC's prestige and his Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator recruiting ratings, it doesn't seem possible that any of the Florida schools jumped over him via those areas...

[Radii]

Originally Posted by dunkem

I look at it like TCY... some guys have distance as their main factor. That's why all the Florida schools got over you I think.

I've been in the same boat many times too. I think distance used to be too strong a factor before, but it seems with some of the patches that it's been lessened.

That definitely seems what its like. The kid prefers distance strongly enough that a call from South Florida is worth more than a scholarship from UNC. I don't have an issue with that, and I don't have in issue with some randomness or some unknowns. It just seems very flawed for that kid to ever list UNC or South Carolina as his top choices.

[dunkem]

You guys are fast.. I was just editing my message to clarify. I just think it's the initial impression that throws everything off. HR probably has the athlete with top four vs. top 25. If there were a top 25, random impression, like I mentioned, I'd bet Florida schools would end up on top and show that he's clearly a distance recruit.

Maybe HR's random top 4 impression says - top 100 ranked recruits, prestige over 75 and distance within 800. When actual calls come in, then the true weight of distance comes in and the prestige presumption goes away. *shrug* only HR knows.

[bryce]

In solo play, I think the human head coach offers still need adjusting. I started this game with the impression I could work my way up the coaching ranks, but that hasn't proven to be possible.

I started out by accepting the only job offer I got - Longwood. I took tiny Longwood to the CIT tourney in my second year. Taking Longwood to ANYTHING should be worthy, frankly. I stuck around for three more years of varying success (for Longwood - 16ish wins was my max out, but still - it's LONGWOOD for love of Pete!). I finally quit after 5 seasons to try and get an offer.

That worked. Kind of. Alabama A&M was the only team to come calling. After a rough start to get my own kids in there, I went on a roll starting in year 4. 20-13 on year. 23-10 in another Those were two NCAA appearances. Then 4th place in the NIT another season. Consistently finishing at least .500, or well over. 8 or 9 seasons of this but nothing, nary an offer, ever.

I know it's not world breaking, but these were two tiny schools with awful reputations that I did more with than really expected. I'd like to think that would lead to a job offer SOMEWHERE up the chain, even just a little bit up the chain.

I finally just resigned from AA&M in the hopes of getting that offer elsewhere, but no dice. I guess I'm retired now...

I guess the best way to play this game is to pick your school you want to coach forever, like your alma mater for instance?

[HeavyReign]

Bryce, please let me know what version you have? There was a several build stretch where it wasn't possible to get head coach offers due to a bug in saving the head coach results.

I'm open to taking more of a look at the recruiting. Expanding the system would come when I someday get to work on a new version of the game so I'd be looking for tweaks to make the current system work better right now.

[bryce]

It's version 2.2.10.

Thanks.

[HeavyReign]

Ok. If anyone has a save where they feel like they should be getting job offers and aren't, I'd be happy to look at it.

[HeavyReign]

I made some tweaks to the recruiting engine and it would be good to get some feedback. If you are playing in the online league then don't overwrite your normal FBCB2010.exe file as recruiting actions made with this won't import into the league unless the commissioner is using the build as well. I did some more checking into getting job offers and didn't see an issue so please send along any saves where this isn't the case. Just make sure you aren't mixing in too many below .500 seasons as those are hard on your coaching rating.

http://www.fbbgames.com/FBCB2010v2215.exe

Version 2.2.15
************************************************************
Fixes:
*Added checks to make sure recruiting actions aren't being imported from a different recruiting pool when using team exports.

Changes:
*Added column to the player ratings text report indicating if the player is redshirting.
*Increased the importance of coach recruiting ratings.
*Increased the effect of recruit preferences on later recruiting actions.
*Decreased the cost of recruiting actions for players closest to your school.

[bryce]

Is there a specific file to send? What's the email addy again? I know you've answered those before, but this is a lengthy thread!

Thanks man.

[HeavyReign]

Basically anything in the main save folder except for records.dat. Zip and send to [email protected].

[OldGiants]

I just had a strange thing happen on the latest build. I needed one more game, and recieved an offer from American for a home game. The email now reads "American has offered you a home game on 12/12/2021. You have accepted the offer."

When I go to my schedule, the game is there, however it is "at American"

I thought the offer was to play at my place.

[HeavyReign]

Nevermind, fix incoming.

[HeavyReign]

http://www.fbbgames.com/FBCB2010v2216.exe

[bryce]

Using latest version, I just noticed a bug when coaching a game. One of the guys I have a redshirt on was available on my bench, while a non-RS guy was nowhere to be seen. It was like they got switched. I checked my roster after the game, and correct RS guys are denoted as such...

This one seems obscure, so let me know what other info you need...

Thanks.

[bryce]

More info: I checked my season stats, and there are stats on the afore-mentioned non-RS guy who disappeared from my bench suddenly during gameplay. So it might be in the latest patch that this starts happening..

[HeavyReign]

That code hasn't changed in a while so it wouldn't be the newest version doing it. Does the redshirting player appear in your depth chart screen? Same with the non RS player?

[bryce]

Depth chart is correct for both players. It correctly shows all my non-RS guys and leaves out my RS guys.

I just started this career a week ago or so (only 3 games into my first season), and as mentioned, the non-RS guy does have stats from the first 2 games, so he used to be (rightly) available to play.

Hope this helps.

thanks again.

[britrock88]

Super minor HTML thing...

http://www.iaa-fbcb.us/html/

Head to the IAA bracket, the South Region, and look at the 1/8 matchup. USF's score is carried over from the 1st round (as is the hotlink associated with it). I think this is true for all 1-seeds.

[rjolley]

Was the new 68 team field added? I thought it was, but I'm seeing only the 65 team field.

Also, wanted to say how much I'm enjoying getting back into the game after awhile away and it's still providing that one more turn feel. I've stayed up way longer than I needed to just to get to the end of the season to see if I was able to get all of my recruits...then I had to see them play...then another class was coming in...next thing I know, it's 3a and I have to be up at 7a.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by rjolley

Was the new 68 team field added? I thought it was, but I'm seeing only the 65 team field.

yeah, it was. you may have to enable it in league options. On the tourney brackets screens for each region at the bottom you'll see a 16a. vs 16b or 12a vs 12b matchup for the extra teams.

[HeavyReign]

http://www.fbbgames.com/FBCB2010v2217.exe

Fixes:
*Fixed an invalid score and link for 1/8 2nd round game in the html tourney bracket.
*Rewrote the code that displays available bench players on the substitutions screen to make sure all available players show up and ineligible players do not.

Changes:
*Added code that will "finish" the recruiting round for you if you have available funds. If you've spent any of your budget at all during the month, the code will just finish spending your money and fill any empty spots in the call list. It will max out spending on any scholarships you have offered or the #1 prospect for each position of need. If you've made no actions, the code will also offer scholarships when appropriate and will revoke offers if you are behind the offers of 3 superior schools that are already in the top 5. With this code, only turn on cpu recruiting if you want the cpu to handle all recruiting. This should allow you to not be hurt if you have to miss a month of recruiting in online leagues.

[britrock88]

HR, your responsiveness continues to impress me.

[bryce]

Thanks, HR.

[rjolley]

Originally Posted by Radii

yeah, it was. you may have to enable it in league options. On the tourney brackets screens for each region at the bottom you'll see a 16a. vs 16b or 12a vs 12b matchup for the extra teams.

Thanks Radii. Thought I saw that it was added. I'll check when I get home.

[dawgfan]

Question for those regularly playing FBCB2:

How frequently are you seeing guys either listed near the bottom of the 2nd round, or not listed at all, jumping early into the draft? Conversely, how often are you seeing guys projected in the first round staying?

In my current career, I'm having a really bad run of luck of guys leaving early - quite a few guys projected low in the 2nd round (or not projected at all to get drafted) leaving early, and nearly all of them going undrafted.

I had another one last night that was really frustrating. The kid was the #1 overall recruit when I landed him but for whatever reason was never projected as much of a pro, always well down the list of prospects in my conference and never projected even close to 2nd round draft status. I suspect it was because he was on the short side for a post player - 6'7", and while he had 'A' strength, he didn't have very high quickness or jumping ratings. However, he was a really good college player with A/A rebounding, B+ post defense, B shot-blocking and A+ inside rating on offense.

He decided to jump in the draft after his Junior year where he was an All-American, averaging 16/9 for the season, and of course he went undrafted.

Really bums me out, because I've had several such instances in this career where you just imagine yourself telling the player "Kid, I love your game but the NBA just doesn't have much interest in you right now. Come back for another season, keep refining the areas in your game where still have room to grow, let's try to win a championship!" only to see them jump anyway and get ignored. Earlier in this career it seemed to be a lot of my foreign recruits, and I justified the early entries as them deciding to head to Europe or Asia to play (and also as a bit of a counter to the fact that it's easier to land highly rated foreign recruits).

[rjolley]

I've only had two players go early in my current career. One was projected to go late 1st after his freshman year and rose from there. Since I've instituted a 3-year rule similar to college football, I had him until he was a junior when he bolted, going 5th overall.

The other player was rated to go low in the second round, so I didn't think he would go. At the end of the year, he went 24th overall. Surprised he went that high, but that was a move that worked out.

Now that I've taken over Georgia Tech and have 5-star recruits interested, I expect to see more players planning to leave.

One thing I have noticed is a lot of players transferring, even when I was at 20-25 rated Lafayette, for playing time. It would be nice to have a way of promising the player something. Some of my players were freshmen who transferred after not getting playing time, but were in line to get playing time with players in front of them leaving as seniors. I would like to be able to pitch to them that they'd having playing time next year and/or for them to notice that 2 players at their position are leaving and they have a chance a significant minutes once they leave.

[HeavyReign]

http://www.fbbgames.com/FBCB2010v2218.exe

Changes:
*Adjusted the early departure distribution so more players projected in the first round will leave and decreased the chances of lower ranked players leaving.
*Increased the importance of current ability in the early departure decision.


The ability to interact with players would be something I'd be looking to add when I get to working on a new version....or I need to figure out a way to make money while adding new stuff in a continuous cycle.

[sovereignstar v2]

Originally Posted by britrock88

HR, your responsiveness continues to impress me.

""

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by HeavyReign

The ability to interact with players would be something I'd be looking to add when I get to working on a new version....or I need to figure out a way to make money while adding new stuff in a continuous cycle.

Definitely - speaking for myself, I'd totally understand if you put a halt to new features/improvements from here on out and saved those for FBCB3 and only addressed serious bugs/crashes. You have to make some money somehow...

[Mota]

I agree as well. You've supported the game for a long time. If another bug comes up hopefully you could still patch it but any new features would probably be saved up for a new version.

[rjolley]

Yeah, I agree. Definitely should be something for the next version.

[Balldog]

Yep, its time for a new version. You deserve the money!

For the new version...
I'd still like the ability to import a CSV file with rating edits and the ability to lock teams to a region in the NCAA tournament.

It would be cool if there was some kind of preseason preview, with all-american teams, all-conference teams, etc. Really would add to the immersion.

[OldGiants]

Thanks for the updates, HR. I'm with those who will buy Version 3 when it comes out, so I'd recommend an announcement soon that you are working on that and current updates are ending.

As to odd drafts, I prefer to not allow anyone but seniors to leave, so I'm no expert on early leaving. I did have one strange experience. I had a green/green SG/SF type who the depth chart always slotted in as the seventh or eighth man except for a few starts during an injury crisis. During that period, he set my team's all-time high scoring game with 46 points. Come draft day this six starts in a career player went 44th after not being projected as a draftee.

I found it odd that the AI never put him higher than seventh in the rotation (except for that injury crisis stretch) and then picked him 44th out of the blue.

[bryce]

This is by far my favorite text sim. A few thoughts for any future version:

- I think I'm the only one beating this drum, but I'd suggest perhaps maybe possibly revisiting the coaching offers logic?...

- It would be nice to be able to have a button that makes all players eligible at all positions on the depth chart screen (instead of clicking on each position for each player.)

- Is there a place in the game that stores old seasons' stats that I just haven't found? Sometimes I find myself looking at my team's history and click on an old season and I expect it to bring up that season's roster/stats, but it always brings up the current roster. Or would this make the game ridiculously large memory-wise? Or do I just have an option not selected somewhere?

- I'm not in the game right now, so this is by memory, but I don't *think* the FTS rating is included in the Offensive Rating dropdown of the Roster screen. I feel like I usually have to click through every player individually or go to the depth chart screen for it. It would be nice to have it included on the Off Rat dropdown...

Those are the main things that jump out at me, though I may add some when I'm playing as they jump out at me. Obviously most are just icing; the engine itself is really strong.

edited for typo

[youcancallmeal]

A couple of random things:

I would really love to have, in lieu of the bubble watch, a full-on "bracketology." The bubble watch is much improved from FBCB1, but it remains hard to tell where you are if you're above the bubble. Since a distinction is already made between "Locks" and "Ins", seems like a bracket with seeds, and maybe last 4 in, last 4 out, etc would be a cool next step.

In assistant hiring: When you filter by salary, click on someone's "coach card", and then close it, you lose your salary filter (goes back to the default $250K). Would be nice to keep that rather than having to change it every time.

AD expectations: Seems to me these should be a little bit more stable. IMO, it should be very rare to find a school that just wants to "avoid last place." Even at the worst schools, unsuccessful coaches are canned relatively quickly. In the game, you sometimes see poor coaches languishing for many years, because expectations are so low they'll never get fired.

Likewise, if I take over a team that's below .500 in the league, and quickly win 3 or 4 titles, I shouldn't be instantly punished for that with drastically higher expectations. Maybe after 3-4 more years without another title, perhaps. But there should be a fairly long grace period for coaches who move the needle in that way.

Affirm the above comments about FBCB3, you can count on my $30.

[Groundhog]

Yah, you spoil us Brian. It makes me sick to my stomach to think back on all the cash I've given to EA Sports over the years, considering the fraction of time I've spent on their titles as opposed to FBCB alone. I even bought two copies of FBCB1 because I felt so bad about that.

My advice would be to leave FBCB2 alone outside of maybe bug fixes and any new additions would be best saved up for a FBCB3, or even an "expansion pack" type of release. You definitely deserve more financial benefit for the amount of work and post-release support you put into your products. I can't think of a single other developer that even comes close to what you provide.