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Old 11-25-2016, 10:16 AM   #1
QuikSand
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FOF8 - Chemistry

It looks like there are meaningful changes to the chemistry system in FOF 8. Let's use this thread to share discoveries, insights, and questions.

(afterthought edit) For reference... a detailed old thread on the system FOF has used for a long time is linked below, with the caveat that "if you don't want to know how it works, don't read this thread"

https://forums.operationsports.com/f...ad.php?t=16893


Last edited by QuikSand : 12-08-2019 at 09:42 AM.
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Old 11-25-2016, 10:20 AM   #2
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First of all - the existing chemistry framework (based on 5 position groups, driven by a single leader within each group, and dictated by birthdate/leadership/personality) remains generally intact.

The obvious major change is that a player's number of "starts" (not sure if that is literally just starts, or if it's snaps/playing time generally) is some sort of prerequisite to taking on a substantial chemistry role.

I have seen a number of feedback boxes referencing speculative changes in team chemistry. When a certain high leadership guy was being signed, I got a note saying (paraphrasing) that he would become the position group leader with more starting time. After signing him, I would then get a chem-related popup when signing other free agents, essentially noting that the new player would be a chemistry fit with the leader-in-waiting (as opposed to the current leader).
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Old 11-25-2016, 10:24 AM   #3
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Observation -- for those of us who really use the chemistry system, FOF 8 is a swift kick in the groin.

It's much, much harder to sort through players with those things in mind -- since chemistry effects are no longer shown on the primary player card, and the leadership/personality info is available only with an extra click and new window.

It's also a lot harder to build up good chemistry, with the "earned leadership" concept in full bloom. Too soon to say for sure.

My guess is, making a team substantially better through deep attention to chemistry may no longer be a viable option. It seems like too much work, and too unpredictable. I'll be disappointed (even if it is more "realistic" whatever that means in this context) as I liked having a wide variety of ways to field a quality team.
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Old 11-25-2016, 11:13 AM   #4
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Data point: a TE I signed to be a chem leader gave me the "with more starts" message. He wasn't much of a player, but I force-fed him into the lineup, and after 8 games he assumed the leadership role (this happened mid-season). Not sure if 8 starts is a magic number... but it might be.
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Old 11-25-2016, 11:14 AM   #5
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Choose/Edit Color Scheme and you can get rid of that extra click and turn it into a mouseover. Someone mentioned that in one of the threads here. Not sure which setting or who mentioned it.
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Last edited by Ben E Lou : 11-25-2016 at 11:17 AM.
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Old 11-25-2016, 11:23 AM   #6
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Choose/Edit Color Scheme and you can get rid of that extra click and turn it into a mouseover. Someone mentioned that in one of the threads here. Not sure which setting or who mentioned it.

My guess is that he wants it directly on the screen without a mouse-click/mouse-over. That way he can go through his roster clicking the Next button instead of doing another action.
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Old 11-25-2016, 11:25 AM   #7
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I do wonder, though, if Jim would entertain moving the chemistry info outside of the popup box since there seems to be enough real estate below personality for the chemistry.
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Old 11-25-2016, 11:25 AM   #8
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Oh, I'm sure that would be better, but a mouseover is at least better than a click.
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Old 11-25-2016, 11:50 AM   #9
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Observation -- for those of us who really use the chemistry system, FOF 8 is a swift kick in the groin.

It's much, much harder to sort through players with those things in mind -- since chemistry effects are no longer shown on the primary player card, and the leadership/personality info is available only with an extra click and new window.

An idea I'll probably explore is to export the game data and use an Excel VLOOKUP to join together the player_information and player_record data. That should provide the necessary information, including player names, chemistry info, birthdates, etc.
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Old 11-25-2016, 11:58 AM   #10
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An idea I'll probably explore is to export the game data and use an Excel VLOOKUP to join together the player_information and player_record data. That should provide the necessary information, including player names, chemistry info, birthdates, etc.

Some nonsense like that is gong to be necessary to really use this stuff aggressively. Right now, I can go to the main list of free agents and sort them by personality traits... but that's necessarily a primary/secondary sort. So, if I sort guys by Personality then Leadership, a I slide through that list I'm seeing all the guys with 100 Leadership, in descending order or personality. With those numbers on the player card, this was an effective way to splash around for a position leader candidate. Now, with it hidden, it's a train wreck to do. Even on that sorted list, there's a mammoth difference to m between two adjacent guys: Ldr100/Pers4 (useless) and Ldr99/Pers98 (great) and I can't tell who's who without clicking (or mouse-hovering) each one of them.

Same thing whn doing a FA search by birthdate... it used to be simple to open up the8 guy in the right sign listed in a row by birthdate, and then by skimming their cards you'd see birthdate, experience, leadership, and personality -- everything you needed to tell if they guy could be useful. Now that's hidden, and an extra click for each guy.

I know it sounds like stupid griping, but it seems like a big loss for no real gain other than, what, some trivial change in rendering speed?
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Old 11-25-2016, 12:22 PM   #11
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Just thought I'd post the contents of the help file here:

Quote:
KEY (Attitude Advisory): Player - Player name, # - Uniform Number, Pos - Primary position, Start - Starting Position, Notable - icons showing whether the player is a potential clubhouse disrupter (Red Flag) or a Mentor (helps young players develop), Playing Time - the player's attitude toward his current playing time (unhappy players may be unwilling to sign a new contract), Chemistry - an assessment of the player's conflicts or affinities (only available when the option to use team chemistry is turned on).

Team chemistry is fairly simple in nature. The team is broken into five leadership groups (backfield, receivers, offensive line, defensive front and secondary). Each group has a leader, which can be any player on the roster. Every other player in the group may have a conflict or affinity with that leader. Conflicts or affinities can affect the performance of every player in that group. Quarterbacks may have conflicts or affinities with all of the other leaders on the team.

Newcomers to your team are only included in team chemistry when they have accumulated a few career starts. Past first-round picks are always included as well as players drafted in the first four rounds of the current year.

An asterisk

By the way no, I didn't cut that off. The words "An asterisk" just sit there - presumably we were about to get an explanation, but it dies on the vine.
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Old 11-26-2016, 10:06 PM   #12
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A little digging - no precision yet, but this should prove helpful. And you have to love the little twist.

On rookie player cards, the "fingerprint" section includes a mention of chemistry. It includes one of these things:

QB affinities/conflicts (judged against your current offensive team leaders)
Player potential affinity/conflict (judged against the position group leaders)
Chemistry followed by one of these words: Mellow, Cheerful, or Sociable

So... while it's fairly obvious, here it is:
The one-word description of chemistry for non-affinity and non-conflict players is a guide to their personality strength.

Mellow = low personality (I'm guessing up to 33)
Cheerful = medium personality
Sociable = high personality (67+?)

So, the cruel irony here is that the only in-game use of the personality value is in the chemistry area (affinities and conflicts)... and for rookie players, the text line indicating the affinity or conflict takes the place of the rough estimate of personality strength. i.e., the only time you'd actually care about the information, it's withheld from you.

Eat it, chemistry people.

Last edited by QuikSand : 11-26-2016 at 10:35 PM. Reason: thanks, DougW
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Old 11-26-2016, 10:20 PM   #13
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Old 11-27-2016, 11:57 AM   #14
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Another stick in the eye for chemistry types... not only is the vague band of personality strength hidden for all affinity/conflict players in the draft, but even after an interview it remains completely hidden.

In previous versions, at least we got to see the personality profile after an interview. It seemed like one of the valuable ways to use that tool, at least for those of us using that in-game angle.
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Old 11-27-2016, 12:30 PM   #15
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I'm looking for some good news here guys and I'm not hearing it. I've never been a huge affinity guy, but did enjoy the small wrinkle it created. Sometimes the buff from affinities was a good edge to have.

At this point what I'm seeing is that I'd almost rather he ripped the system out in its entirety. Actually, maybe I'll just turn it off in sp and maybe push for the same in my mp leagues.
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Old 11-27-2016, 12:47 PM   #16
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I sort of like the existence of an affinity system, but haven't been a big fan of the trouble. It's cool to see super affinity teams and I don't think those players would want MP changed.

For those of us like me, it's more of an issue only when I sign a guy who accidentally becomes a team leader with no warning, or when I have to try and deal with a roster group that becomes mired in different conflicts I couldn't see coming because I don't pay attention to birthdays for non-leaders who eventually become so.

There's gotta be maybe a better way to have a bonus/malus system as a reflection both of how you build your teams, and dice rolls, rather than a strict system of birthday matching that becomes harder to plan around.
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Old 11-27-2016, 12:48 PM   #17
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So... it remains possible to build a heavy-chemistry roster. No way to tell how plausible it is in a seriously competitive environment, but it can be done in single player. Takes much more effort than before, clearly by design.

My current SP team just won back to back titles (while getting a 27 from Herb on roster strength after the second one) with an AffIndex of 78 (and that ignores the multiple "potential affinity" players we have aboard. There's no way to tell whether this team would be a power team without the chemistry boost (we have a strong passing roster) - it probably still would be.
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Old 12-03-2016, 03:40 PM   #18
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So, the cruel irony here is that the only in-game use of the personality value is in the chemistry area (affinities and conflicts)... and for rookie players, the text line indicating the affinity or conflict takes the place of the rough estimate of personality strength. i.e., the only time you'd actually care about the information, it's withheld from you.

I'm disappointed that this remains even after the "fingerprint" section got its redesign in the first patch. Definitely better that the chem items are visible without a separate click for each player, but that does kinda hurt. Even after an interview, we know nothing about personality strength.
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Old 12-03-2016, 07:01 PM   #19
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Not sure this is the place for this... but where and when is the "red flag" designation visible?

I just noticed that my 1st round pick has a RF... it didn't catch my eye until after the draft, in late free agency. I saw the notation for it on the "Attitude Advisory" screen, but it wasn't indicated anywhere on the player card. I didn't interview that player, though.

Can we see which players are red flags while we are drafting? If not... that seems like a curious design decision, as it was clearly available to us in previous versions.
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Old 12-21-2016, 11:55 AM   #20
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Well, if the goal was to "pretty much emasculate" the chemistry system for a competitive FOF environment, the early returns are looking good.

Just finished a 34-round allocation draft in a competitive ML league. Looking through the rosters, it's pretty clear that around 30 of 32 owners paid virtually no attention to chemistry (except possibly avoiding players who showed up as conflicts, but mostly not even that), and really only one team made it a cornerstone (mine, duh). A second seems invested, but maybe not at the cost of overall talent.

And on a certain level, an allocation draft (building a team from the ground up) offers the best possible chance to organize chemistry, if you are so inclined. More so than the vagaries of year-by-year drafting and building, I think.

Too soon to say what all this means... but my guess is this element of the game has probably been marginalized enough to render it a rounding error for most serious FOFers. For better or for worse, I realize there are both sides out there.

Last edited by QuikSand : 12-21-2016 at 11:55 AM.
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Old 12-24-2016, 09:07 AM   #21
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Not sure this is the place for this... but where and when is the "red flag" designation visible?

I just noticed that my 1st round pick has a RF... it didn't catch my eye until after the draft, in late free agency. I saw the notation for it on the "Attitude Advisory" screen, but it wasn't indicated anywhere on the player card. I didn't interview that player, though.

Can we see which players are red flags while we are drafting? If not... that seems like a curious design decision, as it was clearly available to us in previous versions.
I just checked an entire draft class, and zero red flags were listed in the csv output. I'm going to sim forward, check the csvs to find some red flag players, then interview them to test this.
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Old 12-24-2016, 09:23 AM   #22
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Yup. So post-draft, there are 9 Red Flags in the class. Copying IDs here for my reference, as I'mabout to go back and interview them...

3337
3450
3510
3687
3719
3773
3838
3945
3997
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Old 12-24-2016, 09:36 AM   #23
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Nope. Interviewing them reveals nothing. Post-draft, it also isn't on the card, but you can see it on the roster screen (true for FAs, too.)
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Old 12-24-2016, 10:10 AM   #24
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One twist, also from an allocation draft -- my team has tons of rookies and other zero-starts players who are all showing up listed as having affinities, rather than "Potential Affinity" that I have gotten used to in SP. I'm assuming this is a function of the Allocation Draft start, but it also applies to players I have signed as undrafted free agents, rookies and otherwise.
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Old 12-24-2016, 11:20 AM   #25
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FWIW, Red Flag was not available in the CSVs in FOF7 either. There is an Interviewed flag, but the scout results ("As Scouted", etc) are not there either.
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Old 12-25-2016, 07:41 PM   #26
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Well, if the goal was to "pretty much emasculate" the chemistry system for a competitive FOF environment, the early returns are looking good.

Just finished a 34-round allocation draft in a competitive ML league. Looking through the rosters, it's pretty clear that around 30 of 32 owners paid virtually no attention to chemistry (except possibly avoiding players who showed up as conflicts, but mostly not even that), and really only one team made it a cornerstone (mine, duh). A second seems invested, but maybe not at the cost of overall talent.

And on a certain level, an allocation draft (building a team from the ground up) offers the best possible chance to organize chemistry, if you are so inclined. More so than the vagaries of year-by-year drafting and building, I think.

Too soon to say what all this means... but my guess is this element of the game has probably been marginalized enough to render it a rounding error for most serious FOFers. For better or for worse, I realize there are both sides out there.

As the owner of the second team mentioned in this post: it was the sheer onerousness of the process that kept me doing from what I would have liked to do, which would have been to build a chemistry monster right out of the gate.
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Old 12-26-2016, 09:01 AM   #27
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FWIW, Red Flag was not available in the CSVs in FOF7 either. There is an Interviewed flag, but the scout results ("As Scouted", etc) are not there either.

But in FOF7, you could see it on the player screen and it showed up in the Draft Analyzer... and in FOF8, you cannot. Correct?

Sorry if this is tedious - just trying to separate out the technical side versus the practical. I'm really irked if the game's progress has taken away what seems like a fairly important facet here.

Last edited by QuikSand : 12-26-2016 at 09:02 AM.
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Old 12-26-2016, 09:22 AM   #28
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But in FOF7, you could see it on the player screen and it showed up in the Draft Analyzer... and in FOF8, you cannot. Correct?

Sorry if this is tedious - just trying to separate out the technical side versus the practical. I'm really irked if the game's progress has taken away what seems like a fairly important facet here.
The "technical" part of it--if csvs are technical--potentially matters here: if he changed the csv output, that would indicate that it's a true design decision. Or if the csv output was different from the player card, that would be a 100% indicator of a bug. But given that I've determined that it's not shown in the csvs and Greg is saying that's no different from FOF7, that lets us know that we're in a nebulous area: could be a design decision, or could be simply that Jim just overlooked showing the Red Flag when he moved the personality stuff around in 8.0a. And as such, this has been reported as a possible bug to Customer Support.

That said, I think my preference here would be that the Red Flag would show up as part of the interview result, not just something that is globally available.
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Old 12-26-2016, 10:27 AM   #29
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Got it, understood.
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Old 12-26-2016, 10:53 AM   #30
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Also, FTR, I have taken substantial notes on gameplay (with real attention to chemistry stuff, where I suspect I'm looking more closely than anyone else) and have sent on to Solecismic as well.
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Old 12-26-2016, 12:30 PM   #31
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Note that seems to belong in this thread:

In one MP league (same league noted above, started with an allocation draft - no clue if that's relevant), an owner has reported his position leaders changed right after the training camp stage. Not sure what this means, but a couple of possibilities seem to stand out:

-there's an annual re-evaluation of leadership roles as a part of the training camp stage, which may result in new guys taking over

-the hidden in-game formula used to determine which players are position leaders has some sort of pivot in it based on training camp... like a player's experience (or experience with the current team) is being incremented during that stage

In either case, for those of us watching this stuff... it seems like this could be a new twist. I have played tons of FOF2007 and FOF7 with a very close eye on chemistry, and have never noticed a change a this stage happening before, so I'm fairly confident this is new.
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Old 01-05-2017, 01:09 PM   #32
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Another stick in the eye for chemistry types... not only is the vague band of personality strength hidden for all affinity/conflict players in the draft, but even after an interview it remains completely hidden.

In previous versions, at least we got to see the personality profile after an interview. It seemed like one of the valuable ways to use that tool, at least for those of us using that in-game angle.

Following up on this... it's just so annoying.

Anyway the in-game workaround (in MP, at least, unless you want to go through a whole backup-and-reload process in SP) is to release your group leader(s) until the potential affinity is gone, and then look at the player card to see his personality strength (and then don't export that file, of course).

Dumb as hell, but it's the best we can do given this odd decision.
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Old 01-05-2017, 01:19 PM   #33
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Old 01-05-2017, 04:02 PM   #34
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Oh, there's no doubt Jim likes to make "me" jump through hoops.

Where "me" serves as a proxy for "someone who plays the game in a manner that the game allows, but the developer did not anticipate."
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Old 01-06-2017, 08:45 AM   #35
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Just finished a 34-round allocation draft in a competitive ML league. Looking through the rosters, it's pretty clear that around 30 of 32 owners paid virtually no attention to chemistry (except possibly avoiding players who showed up as conflicts, but mostly not even that), and really only one team made it a cornerstone (mine, duh).

Watching from afar and hoping this works out well for you Quik. My GML team in FOF 7 became heavy on chemistry as cap space tightened and basically was a homage to your MP teams, which I had studied closely. Just starting to look at it for FOF 8 (as GML restarts) and it looks way harder to hit a high affindex.
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Old 01-06-2017, 12:55 PM   #36
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I've decided it's easier to turn off chemistry in sp.
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Old 01-06-2017, 01:01 PM   #37
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There is absolutely no doubt at all that turning it off is easier.

I think it's an open question whether adding that optional layer, and having it be one more complicating factor in team-building is a net positive. I think it's a really good thing to have in the game for that reason, despite its various eccentricities or the fine details of how it's implemented.

For whatever reason, I have become positively inclined to play this way, and what is deeply tedious to most gamers is actually interesting to me. I suspect the number of people who will find it worthwhile to invest deeply like I do is going to be really small. But will you find the occasional team who uses it here or there as a tiebreaker? Sure. Will you find lots of managers who basically just avoid conflicts? Sure. Will this be yet another lesser component (like sticking with your familiar low-rated guys for cohesion purposes, or cultivating a lot of special teams skill in your depth chart, or whatever).
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Old 01-06-2017, 04:31 PM   #38
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Another item here, appears to be a small bug.

On my team I have a position leader, but another guy who is listed as having a "potential affinity." The latter guy would be our position leader if he received the requisite number of starts.

It appears that the messaging as I try to sign free agents is based on the -potential- leader, and not the -current- leader. I don't think I have documented this, but will ship it in. Seems pretty clearly to be a minor bug.
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Old 01-08-2017, 03:29 PM   #39
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There is absolutely no doubt at all that turning it off is easier.

I think it's an open question whether adding that optional layer, and having it be one more complicating factor in team-building is a net positive. I think it's a really good thing to have in the game for that reason, despite its various eccentricities or the fine details of how it's implemented.

For whatever reason, I have become positively inclined to play this way, and what is deeply tedious to most gamers is actually interesting to me. I suspect the number of people who will find it worthwhile to invest deeply like I do is going to be really small. But will you find the occasional team who uses it here or there as a tiebreaker? Sure. Will you find lots of managers who basically just avoid conflicts? Sure. Will this be yet another lesser component (like sticking with your familiar low-rated guys for cohesion purposes, or cultivating a lot of special teams skill in your depth chart, or whatever).

Sorry, what I meant is that for my sanity it's just easier to turn it off than to fiddle constantly to get a handful of affinities.

I think everything you're saying applied perfectly to FOF7, but the stance Jim took in designing chemistry in FOF8 was that instead of ripping it out like I believe he wanted to do, he halfway buried it. In that sense, I'm just gonna turn it off in sp. I don't need the edge it might give me because against the AI as I'm always at an advantage against the AI.

Last edited by garion333 : 01-10-2017 at 09:39 AM.
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Old 01-15-2017, 11:10 AM   #40
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Originally Posted by QuikSand View Post
Well, if the goal was to "pretty much emasculate" the chemistry system for a competitive FOF environment, the early returns are looking good.

Just finished a 34-round allocation draft in a competitive ML league. Looking through the rosters, it's pretty clear that around 30 of 32 owners paid virtually no attention to chemistry (except possibly avoiding players who showed up as conflicts, but mostly not even that), and really only one team made it a cornerstone (mine, duh). A second seems invested, but maybe not at the cost of overall talent.

And on a certain level, an allocation draft (building a team from the ground up) offers the best possible chance to organize chemistry, if you are so inclined. More so than the vagaries of year-by-year drafting and building, I think.

Too soon to say what all this means... but my guess is this element of the game has probably been marginalized enough to render it a rounding error for most serious FOFers. For better or for worse, I realize there are both sides out there.

Quick follow-up on this. Small sample size for certain, but my team in this league has gotten out to a surprising 11-0 start. I honestly had forecasted 9-7. I am really not sold that this is due to anything but some lucky dice rolls and a favorable schedule... but at least one league member has speculated with frustration that it may be a powerful chemistry effect.

So... is it possible that in the new game, pursuing chemistry is harder but there's some internal offset built in to make its potential effects stronger? Possible, I suppose.

Last edited by QuikSand : 01-15-2017 at 11:11 AM.
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Old 01-19-2017, 05:03 PM   #41
Squirrel
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Originally Posted by QuikSand View Post
Data point: a TE I signed to be a chem leader gave me the "with more starts" message. He wasn't much of a player, but I force-fed him into the lineup, and after 8 games he assumed the leadership role (this happened mid-season). Not sure if 8 starts is a magic number... but it might be.

One problem among many that this creates is finding a way to get starts for a FB or RB2. If they don't get starts, they will never get to be an affinity, despite a lot of playing time. Don't like that
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Old 01-21-2017, 12:00 PM   #42
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Tidbit: A suspended player can remain a position leader.
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Old 01-21-2017, 12:24 PM   #43
Dawgfan19
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Originally Posted by QuikSand View Post
So... is it possible that in the new game, pursuing chemistry is harder but there's some internal offset built in to make its potential effects stronger? Possible, I suppose.

I think the jury is out until we get more data. Another even smaller sample size, but a team in a new MP league has 39 affinities with a 1 - 4 record. This was an allocation draft and the team has 15 rookies in the starting lineup. On the flip side, my team, with probably a slightly better than average roster, has 43 affinities and is 5 - 0.

It could be that chemistry can overcome only so much in terms of a poor roster.
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Old 01-26-2017, 10:38 AM   #44
QuikSand
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Originally Posted by QuikSand View Post
One twist, also from an allocation draft -- my team has tons of rookies and other zero-starts players who are all showing up listed as having affinities, rather than "Potential Affinity" that I have gotten used to in SP. I'm assuming this is a function of the Allocation Draft start, but it also applies to players I have signed as undrafted free agents, rookies and otherwise.

Update on this observation. That league (CCFL) has just turned over from year one to year two, and suddenly my chemistry schema is gutted. (It's admittedly tricky timing that the game turned over seasons at roughly the same time the game got patched, so i can't be sure this wasn't one of untold numbers of undocumented patch effects)

So, in year two of this league, I suddenly have former chemistry leaders who are no longer registering as leaders, and tons of guys who formerly showed up with affinities who are now downgraded to potential affinities.

I fear I missed my shot with the one golden year with that team. We got the #1 seed but were beaten in the conference title game. Now, it at least appears that we're going to be a few notches farther behind with chemistry stuff for year two and beyond.
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Old 01-26-2017, 11:25 AM   #45
Mobarak
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Just a question.. have you ever achieved anything close to what you had as far as chemistry with Baltimore in any other league that you had to build to get to.. and not an allocation draft?
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Old 01-26-2017, 11:34 AM   #46
TAFIV
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Originally Posted by Squirrel View Post
One problem among many that this creates is finding a way to get starts for a FB or RB2. If they don't get starts, they will never get to be an affinity, despite a lot of playing time. Don't like that

this is actually pretty easy
1. slot your RB2 into the 212, 221 or 203 personnel
2. go to offensive game plan
3. look at the top section (1st down and 10 - at possession)
4. make sure the top 4-5 plays are whichever personnel set you have you're RB & FB in
5. almost guaranteed to get them starts since the starters of each game is whoever is in the first personnel set to hit the field

Last edited by TAFIV : 01-26-2017 at 11:35 AM.
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Old 01-26-2017, 11:46 AM   #47
henry296
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Just pick the 1st play in that formation. The plays are called in order.
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Old 01-26-2017, 01:30 PM   #48
QuikSand
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Correct - it isn't hard at all to manufacture starts for offensive players, for this purpose. I think the seamless way to do it is to use a semi-obscure formation for your first scripted play, and slot your guy(s) in for that formation... and then (if you want) use that formation only sparingly if at all afterward. Half a season later, their switches will be turned on.

I'm not sure that this is better than it was, but that appears to be how it is.
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Old 01-26-2017, 03:31 PM   #49
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All very well but the only MP league I play in is the GML which = no game planning. So I don't think I'll be able to do this there
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Old 01-26-2017, 11:23 PM   #50
Dawgfan19
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Originally Posted by QuikSand View Post
Correct - it isn't hard at all to manufacture starts for offensive players, for this purpose. I think the seamless way to do it is to use a semi-obscure formation for your first scripted play, and slot your guy(s) in for that formation... and then (if you want) use that formation only sparingly if at all afterward. Half a season later, their switches will be turned on.

I'm not sure that this is better than it was, but that appears to be how it is.

I've been using the same strategy. This works for your backfield and receivers leaders.

Ironic the more barriers Jim builds to mitigate gimmicks, the more elaborate gimmicks we all create.

Last edited by Dawgfan19 : 01-26-2017 at 11:24 PM.
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