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Old 11-25-2019, 06:26 PM   #1
Wudu2
n00b
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Football sim modding tool: The Squeakquel

Dear god, what have you done this time?

Excel file (25MB) download link: Calculatrix 2.0 Release.xlsx - Google Drive

I know, I know. I probably should have stopped, but I didn’t. After putting together all of the biographical information in my previous version (seen here) I have gone through it again, line by line (now 23,459 records), correcting for errors and adding player ratings. That’s right, all players between 1983 and 2018 now have CORRECTED SPEELLING! And a potential rating based on a byzntine mix of their career statistics, draft position, college career, assumed potential, what I can remember about them, any injury derailment, draft profiles I could find and how much I liked their names (You better believe Prince McJunkins and Kai-Erick Lyck got a little boost). Keep in mind this is a potential rating at time of draft, so I had to balance how the player was seen coming out of college with how well he did after that. Injury proneness ratings are included, but they are separate from skills. For example players like Ki-Jana Carter are going to be rated pretty highly compared to their career output, but are very likely to miss significant time to injury. Don’t like how I rated them? Think that Tom Brady deserves to have 99s all across the board? TOO BAD!

And by TOO BAD I mean I went ahead and built an automatic ratings adjuster I call the Calculatrix. Just change the number in the “Rating” column, and the She-Devil of Numbers will recalculate all of the players skill ratings, and add some randomization for spice. Players are also defined by several archetypes, IE, QBs can be game managers or long bombers, allowing for a little more customization. Don’t like how I calculated the ratings difference between a bomber and a manager? Change it yourself, I’m not your dad! Seriously though, those formulas are set up so you don’t have to dig into the weeds to change the relative skill of every long bomber in the league.

Currently, though, the roles are hardcoded to each player. So if for whatever reason you wanted to change Trent Dilfer from a game manager to a long bomber, it’s a bit more complicated. I’d love to have that be a one button push, but I can’t think of a way to do that without a whole ball of If/Then statements. Maybe in Calculatrix 3.0.

What? How the fuck do I use this? Oh. I guess you just change whatever data you might want to fiddle with in the “PlayerData” tab (though why you would do this is confusing, it’s perfect as is). Then go to the “FOF Output” tab and enter the draft year you want to generate in the A1 space. Calculatrix will do her sexy Dance of the Seven Formulae and there you have it. Cut and paste this into a CSV file (being sure to remove the top row and the ID column) and you’ve got a draft class ready for import into Front Office Football.

Weaknesses and flaws? Oh boy I got em.

There aren’t quite enough players per draft class just yet, at least in a way that FOF likes it. I mean there are, but there aren’t. As is, I’m averaging somewhere between 600 and 700 prospects per class, and I want that to be above 800. I’ve added some AFL players, but I’ll maybe need to add more (and some college guys who never played pro) to get those rookie numbers up. If you run draft classes out of what I have now, you might end up with too few long snappers in some years.

Just like my last release, my info is only as good as my sources and my brain, which are both well past their warranty. Also Calculatrix doesn’t watch football, so individual ratings on some players might not pass the sniff test (IE, Peyton Manning’s scrambling ability will seem abnormally high because it’s based on his QB ability rating times a standard modifier. We all know Peyton was not a standard scrambler.) She also only rates players based on their primary position, so players who are shite at receiver but excellent return men have to be manually accounted for and players who have switched positions or have a secondary position are also not dealt with. My plan after this is to put Calculatrix through her paces (when the wife isn’t watching) to make my own custom draft classes with the players I know better given more carefully curated ratings.

The 2019 draft class remains incomplete. Bio data is in there, but I haven’t rated most of them yet. It’s also not big enough, so I’ll try to add all of the UDFAs that are playing this season. I figured I’d give them all at least a year before dooming them, but you’re not required to be so kind.

Positional rating balance was only considered internally, meaning when I rated Willie Roaf, I rated him against the likes of Walter Jones, Bryan Bulaga and Marvel Smith. I did not consider the rating of Neil Smith or Warren Sapp. My hope is that equivalently rated players of different positions will match well head on, but I’ll have to do some playtesting to see if that means I’m in for seasons with 10 or 1000 total sacks per team. I also did nothing to balance ratings for each season’s draft, but I think that is how it should be. 1996 is going to be great for WRs, but bullshit for QBs, etc.

From a programming standpoint I’ve tried to toe the line between “Black-box, don’t touch ANYTHING” and “Get your hands dirty and change shit if you want” to a useful happy medium, and hopefully nothing is broken. I’ve left comments in the excel sheet to guide users, but if you don’t have any idea how Excel works maybe just stick to the inputs and outputs. Well, I guess that’s it. 2,000 hours of my life, frittered away. Have fun! Or don’t. As stated before, not your dad.

Warning: Calculatrix is a thirsty lover, and I recommend running your Excel calculations (Options>Formulas>Calculation options) in manual mode or else the RNG will recalculate every time you make a change. At around 40-50 formula per player, we’re looking somewhere in the neighborhood of a million calculations every time you change something.

Double Warning: Calculatrix is untested on 99.9999999% of computers, so there is no warranty, stated or implied. Just hope I got everything right, ok?

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Old 12-03-2019, 03:56 PM   #2
TeamBills59
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Damn dude that is awesome. Too bad this forum isn't more active so more people know about it.
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Old 12-07-2019, 08:01 AM   #3
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Quote:
Originally Posted by TeamBills59 View Post
Damn dude that is awesome. Too bad this forum isn't more active so more people know about it.

Good call. Most two year old games that have already announced they're going to be obsoleted have a much more vibrant online community than this. We suck, got it.
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Old 12-30-2019, 09:33 PM   #4
stratonascar
High School Varsity
 
Join Date: May 2013
I wish we can include players before 1983, so I hope Front Office Football could have historical play dating back to 1920 including Johnny Unitas, Otto Graham, Bart Starr, Jim Brown, Terry Bradshaw, Gale Sayers, Don Hutson, Bronko Nagurski and many more as well as a list of CFL and WFL players who will get a chance in the NFL.
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