FOF 9.0f Patch Released

[Ben E Lou]

Version 9.0f Update

The 9.0f update was released on March 16, 2024.

Issues Addressed

• In overtime during the playoffs, the game does not try and process the extra point after a touchdown on the first possession. This leads to a second free play from the two-yard line and an immediate end to the game.

• Home field advantage is not always eliminated for neutral-site games.

• If the coach has called to spike the ball, the quarterback still has the opportunity to call a pass to a secondary receiver.

• When replacing players in three of the four goal-line defensive alignments, one of the position markers is duplicated, which will cause the replacement to go into two positions at one time.

• There's an issue with one of the schedule rotations with the 28-team league structure. The final week of games is ignored.

• There is some minor work done to protect against a crash within the simulation when multiple players are injured. This might not solve the reported issue - the code in question shouldn't be hit that way regardless.

• A confirmation is required when trying to start a new universe when another universe is open.

• When holding the first pick during the Amateur Draft, the draft should start with the progress button referencing the pick itself rather than asking you to begin the draft.

• Protection was added trying to prevent saving a universe in an unstable state when exiting the game without warning under various conditions. Regardless, universes can still be corrupted if using the task manager to exit while the autosave option is checked.

• A few penalties on the defense on punts and field-goal attempts needed to be added to the list of penalties which extend a game to an untimed play if committed on the last play of a half.

• The ability to reactivate a player from injured reserve after four weeks should count playoff weeks as well as regular-season weeks.

• On the Roster screen, if a player is unsigned with more than three years of experience, he should be included in the Free Agency view as well as that team's view. Roster Status on Player cards for all unsigned players was changed to “Unsigned”.

Data Files and Saved Games

• Saved games can continue.

• For those who are working on customization, please remember to back up all your work.

• This version updates the schedule file 28_6_16_schedule.csv. This will not affect saved games. An existing universe using the 28-team format can continue and will used the fixed format for future seasons.

• Steam updates should not touch other .csv files, but we can't guarantee that.

Steam Update Process

Your installation of Front Office Football Nine will automatically update on its own. If you go into the Steam app's Library and right-click on the game and examine Properties, you can change the priority for Updates. There's a line at the bottom of this screen that tells you when your game was last updated.
You can also view the Credits screen in the League Menu within the game. This screen shows the game's version. This update is version 9.0f.

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[Passacaglia]

Well that's cool! One fix came from a post I made here (about the 28 team league structure), and another one came from an email I sent in (penalties against the defense for punts and field-goal attempts at the end of game). I didn't get a reply to the email, but it's good to see that sending e-mails gets things looked at!

[Haiku]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

Well that's cool! One fix came from a post I made here (about the 28 team league structure), and another one came from an email I sent in (penalties against the defense for punts and field-goal attempts at the end of game). I didn't get a reply to the email, but it's good to see that sending e-mails gets things looked at!

None of my reported bugs, let alone suggestions, have been addressed, and I have reported quite a few. Some are pretty easy to fix, like text inconsistencies. I am wondering if I have to continue wasting my time when quite obvious and easy to fix bugs are not being addressed.

[Dutch]

The focus of this patch was on game engine issues. At least some of the QoL issues have not yet been addressed but I suspect those will come when the last remaining issues he needs to fix are complete.

[KingZal]

I sent in a report about the overtime glitch, glad to see it's been fixed.

[Passacaglia]

A few penalties on the defense on punts and field-goal attempts needed to be added to the list of penalties which extend a game to an untimed play if committed on the last play of a half.

I thought I encountered the opposite thing here -- I just had a false start on a game-winning field goal attempt end the game on a fie. But after some research, that seems appropriate -- there's a 10 second run off, and since this penalty happened with 6 seconds on the clock, the game should end. I was winning 22-20 and thought I was going to lose. I've never seen that happen before, in FOF or real life.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Dutch

The focus of this patch was on game engine issues. At least some of the QoL issues have not yet been addressed but I suspect those will come when the last remaining issues he needs to fix are complete.

I've never worked in that manner before. I almost always get through the entire list for each patch. Occasional exceptions like the one where I had to rewrite a lot of the off-season free agency acquisition code and didn't want to hold up a patch for a few weeks while that was ongoing.

If you look at the fix lists, you'll find the proverbial QoL changes in each one. The difference is that I obviously can't do everything everyone suggests. Sometimes I disagree that it would help and sometimes people suggest things that would take a lot of time to do (like add multi-player - FOF9 is a new code base and everything is either new or completely rewritten).

Please don't take it personally if your suggestions aren't added to the product. I've been gradually moving on to what's next (as always, can't talk about it because I probably change my mind about once a week, on average) and maintenance has been in slow mode since 9.0e. I haven't been replying to most email that gets passed along during this cycle. Sorry - that saves time, too, and I hate getting into "why not?" arguments when the answer is sometimes "because". It doesn't mean I don't take the suggestion seriously or that I won't necessarily change my mind at some point in the future.

We even took a nice vacation - hadn't had one in ages - our Boeing adventures were limited to over-stuffed flights and thankfully no mechanical issues. I think the next major accident will come from a plane trying to carry 250 people when it was designed for 150 simply unable to get off the runway from all the weight. Thankfully, I've been eating better lately and contributed a few less pounds to the burden.

As always, email is the only reliable way to report anything. I miss things in forums - no time to keep going over everything in a forum, plus it's much harder to ask for clarification (people tend not to respond - they don't keep going over everything, either). I'd remove the Steam forum if I could. You wouldn't believe the crap someone at Steam had to remove before I saw it last week. There's no value whatsoever to that forum without a moderator team.

The bug with the 28-team schedules was reported by someone else shortly after 9.0e was released (it was the first thing I worked on with 9.0f, since any schedule work is very time-consuming and doesn't affect the code). I am regretting making those files editable. The game is very specific about how it uses those files.

One tip I'll give for anyone modding anything: order is always crucial with rows - it saves a lot of processing time when the game is running - sorts are really expensive in terms of time. It's one of those N versus N^2 things, and that can extend to every time a structure is accessed because of how lists may or may not be implemented in memory. If you see an identifier, it can never be out of order in a data file. If you don't see an identifier, it's likely the row number, internally, is the identifier. I usually don't do that, but some of the schedules I've had for a long time. Over the years, I've learned that the only optimizations really worth doing are in that N versus N^2 category. That wasn't the case when I started. Compilers have become really, really good with respect to in-line optimizations.

[Stanley92]

I'm glad you keep patching this game. It's rough around the edges but with every patch your time put into it makes it shine even more.

My little wish might be the value of the ratings in the player file. I see that many players rated as a 10 overall can be very good, often even better than those rated 0. It also depends on if they originated from the FA pool or with a team when you start up the game.
I keep random to minimum but still the final outcome can fluctuate very much.
I know it's based on the overall amount of players, but for me that adding a lot of players (as many as possible for the pre-seasons, trying to eliminate any fictional players) it gets weird now and then when 10 rated players from the FA pool outshine the ones in teams.
Since it's a big player pool, and the rating is very narrow, some players in the original teams most have 10 as a rating, even if the auto AI drops many to get it to 60 players at the start of pre-season.

That number 60 is also a little thing that would be nice to increase, with no practice squad maybe let the pre-season team have 70-75 players until the regular season start. No need for practice squads with all the tricky rules, but adding +10 players to your teams during pre-season would be great.

[jcard]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

We even took a nice vacation - hadn't had one in ages - our Boeing adventures were limited to over-stuffed flights and thankfully no mechanical issues. I think the next major accident will come from a plane trying to carry 250 people when it was designed for 150 simply unable to get off the runway from all the weight. Thankfully, I've been eating better lately and contributed a few less pounds to the burden.

In the nineteenth and twentieth century, many of our ancestors arrived by ship traveling in steerage. In 2024, we have advanced the human mission to the point that steerage has been liberated from its terrestrial and maritime limits. The American dream, realized …

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Please don't take it personally if your suggestions aren't added to the product. I've been gradually moving on to what's next (as always, can't talk about it because I probably change my mind about once a week, on average) and maintenance has been in slow mode since 9.0e. I haven't been replying to most email that gets passed along during this cycle. Sorry - that saves time, too, and I hate getting into "why not?" arguments when the answer is sometimes "because". It doesn't mean I don't take the suggestion seriously or that I won't necessarily change my mind at some point in the future.

We even took a nice vacation - hadn't had one in ages - our Boeing adventures were limited to over-stuffed flights and thankfully no mechanical issues. I think the next major accident will come from a plane trying to carry 250 people when it was designed for 150 simply unable to get off the runway from all the weight. Thankfully, I've been eating better lately and contributed a few less pounds to the burden.

As always, email is the only reliable way to report anything. I miss things in forums - no time to keep going over everything in a forum, plus it's much harder to ask for clarification (people tend not to respond - they don't keep going over everything, either). I'd remove the Steam forum if I could. You wouldn't believe the crap someone at Steam had to remove before I saw it last week. There's no value whatsoever to that forum without a moderator team.

Thanks, Jim, all good from me as always. You've done a remarkable amount of work on FOF9 and post FOF9 updates and quite a few of the things I didn't e-mail you about were taken care of because I saw them listed on your update list. At the end of the day, this all just for fun on this end of the product, a chance for us to take a break from real life and you provide that outlet exceptionally well and I hope you know you have a positive impact on other's lives.

As for those Boeing trips, don't forget to bring a hammer and a giant roll of aluminum for future trips. Never know when they'll ask for "patch" experts to climb out on the wing and fix some shit.