Alright boyz, it's the BBCF First Impressions thread.

[Arles]

Sure, just open the email and click "Print". The game will then open that email in a separate HTML window and you can go back to moving through the interface, but have that email always available in the new window.

[Tim Tellean]

quiksand-roll over to www.greydogsoftware.com we have lots of stuff going on and the home website.

[Tim Tellean]

quiksand-roll over to www.greydogsoftware.com and see whats happening at the homw website

[Toddzilla]

Now that the "First" Impressions are essentially gone, would starting a new thread help to consolidate the opinions and only target ongoing issues?

[Senator]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

...and therein lies another issue that just hit me: expectations should be relative to conference strength, not absolute. Vandy's current 46 prestige in my career is well below most of the SEC, yet the board is talking about finishing around .500 in the conference. They should be "avoid finishing last in the SEC," or "win two conference games" or something more reasonable, considering they're by a good margin dead last in Prestige in their conference. I'm assuming that the .500 conference expectation for Vandy is based on their middle-of-the-road-OVERALL prestige. Similarly, the highest-prestige teams in weak conferences should be expected to compete for the conference championship.

I totally agree with this. Take for instance, the Sun Belt Conference. All teams should have pretty low prestige, but someone within the conference in the favorite, they all are not hoping to not embarass themselves. The prestige should be or somehow tied into the conferences in which they play.

[ThunderingHERD]

Simming a bowl week last night I crashed with something like "File already open." Today I simmed through the season again and crashed simming the bowls again with the same error.

[ThunderingHERD]

Run time error 55 "File Already Open"

Got it again (the next year) while simming the next to last bowl week. Lost most of the season.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by ThunderingHERD

Run time error 55 "File Already Open"

Got it again (the next year) while simming the next to last bowl week. Lost most of the season.

Are you using a mod of some sort? In all of my testing and careers, I've never seen that error.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by ThunderingHERD

Run time error 55 "File Already Open"

Got it again (the next year) while simming the next to last bowl week. Lost most of the season.

Do you have two instances of BBCF running somehow? Something is keeping open a game log or box score.

[Coffee Warlord]

I actually got that bug awhile back as well (the file already open error). It was a one-time thing for me, and happened in the last couple weeks of the playoffs when my bowl game was over and I hit the sim season button.

[ThunderingHERD]

Just one instance running. The weird thing about the first two times it happened was that I'm pretty sure there was a reboot in between. I was worried that my save was broken, but fortunately it went through the third time I tried it. Getting ready to try and run the season again, we'll see what happens.

[ThunderingHERD]

Oh, and the only mods I'm running are Icy's pack with the team names & whatnot, plus team & bowl logos.

But I can't complain too much about the crash--this time through I beat Maryland, I'm now 7-0 and sitting at #1 in the BCS & computer rankings, #2 AP & coaches. Of course I have road games vs. Miami & VT coming up, but it's nice while it lasts.

Makes me curious, though--does peak ranking effect prestige at all, or just final ranking?

[ThunderingHERD]

Ok, FUCK this. I went into the ACC championship ranked #3, 10-1. Playing #1 FSU, 11-0. I beat them 37-24. They stay #1. I stay #3. This despite the fact that I fucking beat them. In the ACC championship. The last fucking game. Oh, and I also have a 10 SOS to their 18.

[KWhit]

Ouch.

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by ThunderingHERD

Ok, FUCK this. I went into the ACC championship ranked #3, 10-1. Playing #1 FSU, 11-0. I beat them 37-24. They stay #1. I stay #3. This despite the fact that I fucking beat them. In the ACC championship. The last fucking game. Oh, and I also have a 10 SOS to their 18.

That, my friend, is what we call a showstopper.

[astrosfan64]

Originally Posted by ThunderingHERD

Ok, FUCK this. I went into the ACC championship ranked #3, 10-1. Playing #1 FSU, 11-0. I beat them 37-24. They stay #1. I stay #3. This despite the fact that I fucking beat them. In the ACC championship. The last fucking game. Oh, and I also have a 10 SOS to their 18.

That sucks.

[MizzouRah]

Hmmm... I agree you should be higher, but who did you lose to and who did they lose to?

[ThunderingHERD]

I wish I had just lost that game. When I got up 6-0 early my rooting interests were kind of torn. Even though I'm in my 7th year it still felt a little early, a little unrealistic for UNC to be playing in the national championship. Plus I didn't want to peak too early-I went 10-3 winning the ACC in my 2nd year and the next 3 (6-5, 8-4, 7-5) were very disappointing. So while I was worrying about playing in the national championship damaging my perception of the realism of the career, not playing in the championship damaged it twice as much.

[ThunderingHERD]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Hmmm... I agree you should be higher, but who did you lose to and who did they lose to?

Lost to Miami on the road. They lost to Florida State in Talahassee and VT in Miami. The computers had me 2nd behind FSU, 83.711 to 83.449. I had a higher RPI and SOS, they beat me MOV 17.2 to 15.2.

The computers don't bother me though--the polls do. I beat the #1 team by a sizeable margin, #2 Auburn routed Vanderbilt in the SEC championship, and FSU lost. Yet they stayed #1 in both polls, and it wasn't really even that close:1606, 1537, 1466 and 1507, 1443, 1391.

[ThunderingHERD]

BTW, this sort of thing happens all of the time in the game with the polls. It's practically impossible to move up in the polls, no matter what happens to the teams in front of you, if you don't play or play and beat a bad team. But if you lose to a good team there's a pretty good chance you'll hold your ranking or fall a few places at most.

[ThunderingHERD]

In the Orange Bowl, I ended up beating #4 Notre Dame 12-9 in OT after they drove 60 yards in 60 seconds to tie the game 6-6 in regulation. In the "national championship game", FSU lost to Auburn 44-41 in OT.

Shockingly, I actually finished ahead of FSU in the polls.

[MizzouRah]

But if you lose to a good team there's a pretty good chance you'll hold your ranking or fall a few places at most.

That's what I've noticed the most.

[kingfc22]

What are these kids thinking??? I won the WAC for the first time last season and finished 12th in the polls. I won WAC coach of the year as well. I spanked my rival San Jose State by a score of 41-3 and in week 13 of my recruiting phase I see this:




Players committing to Fresno State

SS Jacquez Krause

FB Heath Wisniewski

OG Rashaan Killings





Players recruited that committed to other schools

CB Kurt Garner - San Jose State

OT Jamir Poole - San Jose State

TE Bibbles McKeller - San Jose State (I REALLY wanted this guy)

DE Emmett Biakabutuka - San Jose State


This game has me hooked on the "one more phase/game" routine.

[ThunderingHERD]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

What are these kids thinking??? I won the WAC for the first time last season and finished 12th in the polls. I won WAC coach of the year as well. I spanked my rival San Jose State by a score of 41-3 and in week 13 of my recruiting phase I see this:




Players committing to Fresno State

SS Jacquez Krause

FB Heath Wisniewski

OG Rashaan Killings





Players recruited that committed to other schools

CB Kurt Garner - San Jose State

OT Jamir Poole - San Jose State

TE Bibbles McKeller - San Jose State (I REALLY wanted this guy)

DE Emmett Biakabutuka - San Jose State


This game has me hooked on the "one more phase/game" routine.

Well, recruiting is one thing I won't complain about. Mostly because I've gotten an A in it every year playing with Carolina.

[ThunderingHERD]

Speaking of which, I'm in recruiting right now... my best class ever after going 11-1, winning the Orange Bowl, winning the national championship in my head, and getting the ol' prestige bumped up to 65.

But, anyway, is there an additional per week fee added when a recruit signs? In the final weeks I had less $ than I felt I should have. After signing my 17th recruit I now have -$10,000 available. What's the deal?

edit: A week later, without changing or adding any recruiting actions, I'm now -$16,000.

[saldana]

this may have been asked and answered already, but i dont feel like reading 775 posts to find out so i apologize if this is a rerun....how many installations do you get if you buy the full version? i would want to install it on my laptop and my desktop, so i was just wondering, as i have been playing around with the demo and am very close to buying the full version.

thanks

[ThunderingHERD]

Originally Posted by saldana

this may have been asked and answered already, but i dont feel like reading 775 posts to find out so i apologize if this is a rerun....how many installations do you get if you buy the full version? i would want to install it on my laptop and my desktop, so i was just wondering, as i have been playing around with the demo and am very close to buying the full version.

thanks

2 I think. I have it installed on my laptop and desktop.

[saldana]

Originally Posted by ThunderingHERD

2 I think. I have it installed on my laptop and desktop.

excellent, thanks

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

What are these kids thinking??? I won the WAC for the first time last season and finished 12th in the polls. I won WAC coach of the year as well. I spanked my rival San Jose State by a score of 41-3 and in week 13 of my recruiting phase I see this:




Players committing to Fresno State

SS Jacquez Krause

FB Heath Wisniewski

OG Rashaan Killings





Players recruited that committed to other schools

CB Kurt Garner - San Jose State

OT Jamir Poole - San Jose State

TE Bibbles McKeller - San Jose State (I REALLY wanted this guy)

DE Emmett Biakabutuka - San Jose State


This game has me hooked on the "one more phase/game" routine.

That's funny - in my San Diego State career I seem to lose a lot of guys to San Jose State as well. Sure it's just a coincidence. It hasn't done them any good anyway as they blow - 2-9 or 1-10 most years.

[ThunderingHERD]

Just started out the next season unranked, despite returning an awesome lineup and bringing in the #3 recruiting class. I guess this means that I once again have no chance at making the championship.

[ThunderingHERD]

Totally destroyed my first 2 opponents, made it to the top 25. Had week 3 off and dropped off both polls. O/D ranked 14/20.

[Ben E Lou]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I can't seem to find it. Several references have been made to "recruiting players with high durability." I've somehow missed where to find a player's durability on his recruit player card. Have I missed something obvious?

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

What are these kids thinking???

While I don't have much to add in general... this raises in my mind a general suspicion that way too muchin the game is hinged just on your current prestige score.

Perhaps what's going on in your case is that while your school is clearly on a roll and doing very, very well, your prestige rating is gaiing only incrementally -- and is still below that of the other school. In the game, it certainly seems like a prospect will look at a school with prestige of 50 but rapidly rising, against a school with a stagnant or falling prestige of 55... and he will pick the latter, all things equal. If you fit into this case, that might make some sense of what you're seeing, for what it's worth.

I think this also connects to some of the other oddities we see in the game, especially with small schools -- my school has risen to have the highest prestige rating in my side of the MAC, but I still get expectations to try to avoid last place... clearly based on my absolute prestige rating, rather than some relative look at the conference or some reasonable look at the direction things are obviously moving.

After three straight winning seasons and bowl appearances, I'd be inclined to pitch "chance to win" to a lot of prospects, especially at the level where I'm fishing (guys rated around #500-800 in the country). However, I know that since I still have a low prestige rating, despite the recent impressive results, this pitch is a complete turn-off for the prospects, since all they look at is that single number, and see a rating of 40 as a dreadfully terrible team.

And my same team finished last season #9 in the country, and will start next year with a pre-season rating of something like #80.

All this springs from what I judge to be an over-dependence on the prestige rating as a shortcut for "how good is this team?" Instead, I think a slowly-moving prestige rating is a good idea for "how good is this program?" but there needs to be a more complex and current way of taking the temperature at a given school. In my Kent State example, marginal players ought to be pretty excited to come to my school right now, since we are indeed winning games and doing well... but we also shouldn't have anywhere near the overall prestige of an Ohio State or another far more established program. However, after finishing last year at #9, I think our school probably deserves to get some serious credit in the preseason rankings for next year, despite the long term prestige... I don't know if we deserve to be #15 or #40, but being relegated to the bottom third in the country after three straight strong seasons shows a serious disconnect in the game's logic to me.

[QuikSand]

Is anyone else having weird things in the distruibution of incoming players? I have been totally starving for players at DT, and for my third straight recruiting class, there seems to be an odd void at that position. I am investing the maximum allowed in scouting the position, incidentally.

In my current recruiting class, when I look at players slotted at DT, here's what I see:

-19 DT players ranked nationally between #10 and #169 (seems a shade high, but okay to me)
-Exactly two DTs ranked between #170 and #700
-Only four more DTs from #700 to about #1000
-After that, a fairly typical smattering of DT players, maybe 2-5 per 100 players in the rankings


My team, with presting now just geting up to 40, really had no shot at guys in the top 200 (well, I've had zero luck getting such guys, at least) so my ideal players are in the range where there's basically a complete void. My aspirational players are the guys rated about #500-#900, and the guys I generally settle for are the #900-#1330 or so and teh walkons from #1100-#1500. So, this odd distribution of players is really crippling me -- it's the #1 need on my team, and it looks like there simply isn't anyone worth recruiting here. I can go after a guy with the specific skills I want, but in all likelihood, he will be a 2/6 (20 scale) run-stopping DT. Great. This is the third year of seeing basically zero appropriate targets anywhere in the country at the position I have wanted the most.

Is this just another case of me getting weird luck, or is this a known problem with the game?

[John Galt]

I too have experienced the shortage of DT's every season I have played. I was just about to post about it.

[bhlloy]

I've seen that as well. I've got by recruiting a shedload of DE's and converting the ones closest to 300 pounds, but I've never picked up a DT better than 1*.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I can't seem to find it. Several references have been made to "recruiting players with high durability." I've somehow missed where to find a player's durability on his recruit player card. Have I missed something obvious?

I've wondered this as well. I don't see any clear indications of a player's durability during the recruiting process other than stats which might give a bit of a hint about the issue.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I can't seem to find it. Several references have been made to "recruiting players with high durability." I've somehow missed where to find a player's durability on his recruit player card. Have I missed something obvious?

I saw it last night when I was recruiting, I'll try and double-check in a bit. There's a card that comes up with some attributes listed on the bottom-right, and durability is one of them. I'm pretty sure it's off the screen where you accept visits.

[gstelmack]

I finally bought last night and played through a season. My criticisms (mostly UI, and all using 1.03):

• Why don't more screens have a "go back" button? If I'm on the checklist and click the item that needs work, and it opens a new screen, and I do my work, why do I have to click "View Stage Details" to get back? I want the equivalent of a "Close Player Card" button on every screen. I'm getting used to it, but it's still weird not to have a "go back" button everywhere.
• The clickable lists seem to be using Windows button controls with the default flags, because "Texas A&M" shows as "Texas AM" (with the & being used to mark the keyboard accelerator).
• On the same note, these buttons aren't accounting for kerning, as the upper-left of the capital "W" is being truncated. Capital W's in the font are kerned over the top of the preceding letter or space.
• Why isn't there a scrollbar on the message window in the e-mail browser? Why am I forced to double-click to actually view the entire message? For that matter, shorten the e-mail list (I don't need a 22-item list to show all my e-mails, 5 or 6 would be sufficient). Reduce the list size and give me more room to view the actual e-mail.
• Where is my season schedule with results? I can find standings, and I can find week-by-week conference results, but have yet to find the screen I can go to to show me how my team is doing. The summary is at the bottom, but where are the details?

[QuikSand]

I see a 3-4 formation in Kent State's future... *frowns*

[QuikSand]

I have noticed that when you rescind a scholarship offer previously made to a player, he still keeps you in mind. Perhaps there's a penalty imbedded, but I haven't seen it-- I have even signed at least one player whom I "jerked around" this way.

I think it might be wise to have a substantial penalty involved for this -- there ought to be a price to pay for making an offer aqnd then pulling it back... otherwise, why not just make a ton of offers right away, and pull back as need be of better guys emerge later? There has to be a cost for doing so -- and the obvious way to do so is a substantial degrading of the player's interest if you rescind your offer.

[Icy]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Where is my season schedule with results? I can find standings, and I can find week-by-week conference results, but have yet to find the screen I can go to to show me how my team is doing. The summary is at the bottom, but where are the details?

In the team info screen. The link is the first one at the left under the Roster title.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Icy

In the team info screen. The link is the first one at the left under the Roster title.

Thanks, I see it now.

So where is the item that shows me how much of my recruiting money I still have left while I'm recruiting players?

[wbatl1]

Originally Posted by John Galt

I too have experienced the shortage of DT's every season I have played. I was just about to post about it.

Thats weird. I run a 3-4 (or have at least) and every year it seems like there is more than one top DT (1-30th position wise) who is very interested and I can easily land them. I'm playing at now Above average prestige UNC

[Ben E Lou]

I'll be checking on the DT issue when I get home, but I do know that two of the better players to come through CSU were 2-star DT's. I haven't been looking at the good ones, of course, but I haven't noticed any shortage of bad ones.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I saw it last night when I was recruiting, I'll try and double-check in a bit. There's a card that comes up with some attributes listed on the bottom-right, and durability is one of them. I'm pretty sure it's off the screen where you accept visits.

I know for certain that the durability attribute is on the transfer screen, so that may be where I was seeing it. I haven't found it yet in the recruit screens.

[MizzouRah]

I need DT's desperately, and I know I should have looked at the regions more when allocating money at the beginning of the season, but looking at my list - (1) VG, (5) G, (6) Avg, the rest are below avg or poor.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

-19 DT players ranked nationally between #10 and #169 (seems a shade high, but okay to me)
-Exactly two DTs ranked between #170 and #700
-Only four more DTs from #700 to about #1000
-After that, a fairly typical smattering of DT players, maybe 2-5 per 100 players in the rankings

Just checked my class:

--18 DT's between #47 and #294 (4 and 5 stars)
--ZERO between #294 and #761
--three from #761 to #1000
--Pretty good number of 1's and 2's from #1088 and below

So, at first glance, Quik may be on to something here. This class has:

4 5-star DT's
14 4-star DT's
6 3-star DT's
Tons of 1 and 2-star DT's

So, pretty decent at the top and the bottom, but a problem in the middle, to be sure.

[QuikSand]

w00t! I still haven't found any receivers worth a damn to recruit, but now I see a safety who's interested in Kent State, and he seems to have over 8 million yards as a receiver in high school. That kind of talent ought to come in handy on offense, methinks.

[Arles]

I think the problem with DTs resides in the overall ranking system. I have to skew them slightly so that a 70-rated punter will not be ranked ahead a 69-rated QB. I think what's going on is the "DT modifier" may be a little too high and push DTs ahead of other positions. That would seem to parallel SD's find of 18 4 and 5-star DTs, but only a handful of 3-stars. I will look at this and see if it may be the case.