Alright Boyz, Here We Go!!! Front Office Football 9 Impressions

[sovereignstar v2]

She is out on Steam! And 10% off!

Bought, downloaded, made and released logos. Now sleep

[Ben E Lou]

First thoughts...

• Offense is much more in line with the recent NFL.
• TONS more that can be customized than in previous versions.
• I think I'm going to like the interface, but right now it's just really different--even just little things like player cards. For example, on QBs, "likes to run" is near the top of the screen in the bar profile rather than near the bottom. My eyes still go immediately to the bottom when looking for that.
• Sim speed is REALLY fast on my mid-level machine. Ran 25 seasons in just 17 minutes and some change.
• The default player photos (flags) are distracting to me. I just zipped those up for a backup, and deleted them from the install folder and there's nothing there. I'm finding that preferable.
• I suspect there's an issue with coach re-hiring: it appears the VAST majority of coaches do exactly four seasons with a team and then move on.
• Speaking of coaches, nice immersion feature: when a coach is a former player, there's a "view Profile As Player" button on the coach card.
• New RPO and pure option runs. Nice!
• No more all-league teams? That's kind of a bummer.
• There is a LOT more trading between AI teams. Haven't checked into whether they're "good" trades, but just at a glance, I'm looking at quite a few instances of (not including compensatory picks) AI teams with as many as 10 picks in a draft, and of course others with as few as four.
• It looks like Jim is automatically outputting a bunch of data in the .dat files in the savegame folder. Here's hoping our data gurus can pull that into csvs.
• Not something that I am into, but fwiw, it does appear that Jim added the full ability to play with historical leagues/draft classes. It will be some work to create those, but the structure looks like it's there.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

[*]The default player photos (flags) are distracting to me. I just zipped those up for a backup, and deleted them from the install folder and there's nothing there. I'm finding that preferable.

.[/list]

They looked pretty graphically jarring to me in the screenshots. So since game was announced I’ve been working on a fictional facepack made with the ZenGM faces.js program. The faces are a touch cartoony, sure, but for me will be more immersive than flags or nothing.

I’ve also got the photos grouped by ethnicity/player size too … so pictures you select for 320 lbs + lineman will look visually different than say a 180 lbs punter.

I’ve got over 2,000 player faces ready… I want to get a couple hundred more coach /staff photos ready before I release it. But just as a heads up for folks… I’ll have it released before week’s end.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

First thoughts...

• No more all-league teams? That's kind of a bummer.

Heh. Found it. It's there. League-->Almanac-->League History-->Click on the year you want to see.

Yeah, as mentioned above, this isn't the "evolution" of FOF interfaces from one version to the next that we've gotten used to. It's more of a "revolution," in terms of it being a complete overhaul, built entirely from scratch. I feel like a complete n00b in terms of navigating around the game.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Purchased!

[nfg22]

The UI might be better, not sure yet, need to get used to it. But it is sad that it isn't modern at all. This is the one facet that can easily be hired out and make it much better, disappointed to say the least. Core game should be just as good as always though.

[nfg22]

Originally Posted by nfg22

The UI might be better, not sure yet, need to get used to it. But it is sad that it isn't modern at all. This is the one facet that can easily be hired out and make it much better, disappointed to say the least. Core game should be just as good as always though.

Actually after two hours I cant event navigate to what I want. Changing screens is harder than the past, information is lacking on the trade screen. IMO the UI is markedly worse than the past. I'm uninstalling until an update fixes it.

[NawlinsFan]

Originally Posted by nfg22

Actually after two hours I cant event navigate to what I want. Changing screens is harder than the past, information is lacking on the trade screen. IMO the UI is markedly worse than the past. I'm uninstalling until an update fixes it.

Theres going to be a learning curve. You may think its not intuitive now but after playing it for sometime it should/would become easier.

[nfg22]

Originally Posted by NawlinsFan

Theres going to be a learning curve. You may think its not intuitive now but after playing it for sometime it should/would become easier.

Its not just about intuition, information is not displayed readily on screens. Try and make a trade, can't see the opposing teams cap, cant add other players, only request an offer for your own player. Switching between teams? Janky and can't be done with keys reliably.

I understand this has never been Jim's strong suit but I can literally build a better UI in PyQt5 with chat gpt in hours. The UI is not any better than it was 20 years ago. Just my opinion, feel free to disregard. I'm not going to let my fondness for the product blind me to the fact that the UI is seriously lacking with all of the front end tools we have these days to make good UIs.

[Qwikshot]

I tried making multiple trade picks and it'll only let me drop in one draft pick and nothing else.

I know it's a new UI, it is jarring. I did look at the guide to see if there was any sort of information on trading and it just refers to the Trade HQ as the place to go for trades.

Yes it runs fast, but I feel like some things are hidden. The game wouldn't let me proceed without hiring a new coordinator but I had all coaches employed so I was confused as to why I needed to hire a new one. I'm wondering if it needed me to extend a contract, but I'm not sure.

Nevertheless, I plan to press on.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Qwikshot

I tried making multiple trade picks and it'll only let me drop in one draft pick and nothing else.

I think the issue is that trading is (like many other things) just completely different from past versions. You drop a player or pick that you want to trade away in the box, and the AI makes an offer. Or, you drop an AI player or pick that you're interesting in acquiring into the box, and the AI tells you what it's gonna take to make it happen. And it appears that in either scenario, it's take it or leave it. I'm good with that, though I realize those who want to try to squeeze every possible drop out of the AI won't be.

[Qwikshot]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I think the issue is that trading is (like many other things) just completely different from past versions. You drop a player in, the AI makes an offer for him, or you drop an AI player in. The AI tells you what draft picks it will take for him. And it appears that in either scenario, it's take it or leave it. I'm good with that, though I realize those who want to try to squeeze every possible drop out of the AI won't be.

I figured that was it. I just find it odd that if I offer a team a 2nd round pick, they'll return an offer of like 2 3rd round picks.

I cannot bundle mutlipe picks though. Perhaps that is a feature to restrict trade cheating, but it's a little disappointing.

I offered a 1st round pick to another team and they offered a 1st, a 4th and a 7th. So it can be done at least on the AI side.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Qwikshot

Perhaps that is a feature to restrict trade cheating, but it's a little disappointing.

Yeah, this one is definitely a personal preference. I like it quite a bit, because it completely eliminates one of two issues I have with trading if I allow it at all in my house rules. I'm either stuck thinking "I wonder if I could have gotten more or given away less" or (more likely) I spend wayyyyyyyyyy more time than I want to trying to maximize it. I like to move pretty quickly through time, and trading has always been an area where I am "forced" to move at a snail's pace by my own minmax nature. For me this puts the focus on the "is this worth it" decision, rather than trying to squeeze an extra 0.8% of trade value out of every stinkin' deal.


(Oh, and I edited my last post after you quoted it, apparently. I phrased that terribly poorly in my first shot at it.)

[armyofone]

I love it so far. Menus take some getting used to, I do wish the menus stayed tied into the team or league. Find myself always going back and forth. But yes, very much like OOTP for a management GM type like me. Halfway thru a test league and stats and everything look great. I do like the game center display improvements as well. Thank you.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by armyofone

Menus take some getting used to

Yeah, I'm reserving judgement on that so far. Right now I'm doing far more "clicking around" to look at stuff than I would be if I were focused on playing a serious career. For now, it does seem reasonable to hold out hope that the "manage team" section is going to serve as basically the one-stop shop for everything once I'm focused on linearly moving from one stage to the next.

[HansMellman]

Originally Posted by nfg22

Its not just about intuition, information is not displayed readily on screens. Try and make a trade, can't see the opposing teams cap, cant add other players, only request an offer for your own player. Switching between teams? Janky and can't be done with keys reliably.

I understand this has never been Jim's strong suit but I can literally build a better UI in PyQt5 with chat gpt in hours. The UI is not any better than it was 20 years ago. Just my opinion, feel free to disregard. I'm not going to let my fondness for the product blind me to the fact that the UI is seriously lacking with all of the front end tools we have these days to make good UIs.

Jim went into some detail in a previous post as to why he leaned away from using QT and elected to go with something else.

Originally Posted by Solecismic

I'm hoping to make more use of screen recordings. Since I don't stream or even watch video, a lot of new concepts.

One thing I just learned: you have to screen-record an entire monitor to pick up child windows. For example, if you have a drop-down menu and you're screen-recording an app, the drop-down menu isn't recorded (you see a couple of places on that recording where the mouse is doing something, but it's all blank).

This comment will invite some mocking, but one thing I did once we backed out of the unnamed project is spend a lot of time learning some more advanced Windows drawing techniques. A lot of younger graphics experts would say this was a waste of time: there are modern tools that are far better.

OOTP's solution was a product called Qt. A lot of people use it (they use it for FHM). We were using it. It has a lot of plusses. There's a standard "widget" that Microsoft calls a List Control that's the basis of everything in an application that looks like part of a spreadsheet. I use it on pretty much every screen.

The Microsoft Foundation Classes List Control is tested, fast, robust. If computer programs were living beings, the List Control would be the Carbon. After a year or so of working with the Qt equivalent, I missed the MFC control. Qt "can" do anything, but not as well, not as flexible, not as fast. When I started over, I wanted my List Control back, and I spent a quite a bit of time taking the customized List Control from FOF8 and redesigning it for FOF9. Going back to it was like breathing again.

So, it's old school, but I am convinced that my customized List Control does more than any cutting edge equivalent, all things considered. It's also (sorry Mac fans) the reason I don't support anything but Windows. My coding for the most part is generic C++. But I stick with basic Windows device-context drawing because MFC is based on it.

One of my favorite new features with the drawing relates to the question Ben posed. What are all these abbreviations? In FOF9, whenever you run the mouse over a header on a List Control (and many data items), there's a pop up that tells you exactly what you're looking at. There are 17 different kinds of pop-ups in the interface, ranging from a pure text header explanation to play diagrams.

[miked]

Is this a daylight savings fool post?

[nfg22]

Originally Posted by HansMellman

Jim went into some detail in a previous post as to why he leaned away from using QT and elected to go with something else.

He can say whatever he wants, he has made a great product but the UI speaks for itself. Its not intuitive and honestly its very dated.

If you want to go into the intricacies of all his arguments, I can, but in essence he is unwilling to learn new things, or to contract out the UI. His decision, and this will still very likely be successful as a game but you cannot deny the UI is still terrible after all of these years. It's too much for me.

[korme]

I feel so lost

[Ajaxab]

I'm a bit confused by Trade HQ as well. I'm not sure how to put a player on the list to be traded. I think I expected to be able to add someone to the list with a right click from the Roster screen or from the player card 'Select an Action' menu. I must be missing something.

I do like the shift to more of an OOTP interface style, but miss the option to right click in some instances.

[inbar]

The game's UI is...unattractive, to put it mildly. From the main screen to the play-calling in the simulated games, it feels outdated, especially after playing OOTP and FHM9. I may wait to play it until it gets further updates.

[korme]

I got seemingly stuck on the Preseason Week 1 screen and had to automate settings just to advance. While the first time this happened, it told me I had too many active players, it didn't tell me what the limit was. I dropped them down to 46 and then the game just would refresh on advance and no longer have the prompt, but wouldn't actually advance. That's when I went and had to change the settings.

I love the robust record keeping but this seems like such an endeavor to figure out. Maybe I'm just getting old.

[korme]

I do like that when you hover over a name, a little info box appears.

However, why does it appear right over my mouse and the player in question? This disables me from right clicking active/inactive, and you get about 1 second to make that decision before the popup appears.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by korme

I got seemingly stuck on the Preseason Week 1 screen and had to automate settings just to advance. While the first time this happened, it told me I had too many active players, it didn't tell me what the limit was. I dropped them down to 46 and then the game just would refresh on advance and no longer have the prompt, but wouldn't actually advance. That's when I went and had to change the settings.

The limit is 47. I saw it somewhere on the screen. I had the same issue from being so used to 46.

[korme]

Trying to re-sign my own free agents. First offer made on the day before FA (where it says you can offer your own players)

[Fidatelo]

[Joker]

JIM GINDIN
Love Ya Man!
The Front Office Football Series
This game changed my life, thankyou for creating it..."All of It"
Thankyou for fof9
It feels like I'm a new born baby-Learning to work my hands
Compared to FOF8 ---Its a "WHOLE NEW WORLD!"
Thanks again for all you do!

[HansMellman]

Originally Posted by nfg22

He can say whatever he wants, he has made a great product but the UI speaks for itself. Its not intuitive and honestly its very dated.

If you want to go into the intricacies of all his arguments, I can, but in essence he is unwilling to learn new things, or to contract out the UI. His decision, and this will still very likely be successful as a game but you cannot deny the UI is still terrible after all of these years. It's too much for me.

Oh yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you. Having just spent two hours with the game I am of a similar opinion. It's a bit painful that the front and back buttons just next to the main banner at the top are jagged, same with the edges of the ribbon on the top - things like that will take getting used to.

I know Jim had said that this was nothing to do with OOTP and that the project had moved in a totally different direction but I've played FHM since the very early days and the UI was similar, very similar in fact in the FHM4/5/6 days but those were all released around the same time as FOF8 - which I think echoes your point about the age of the UI in concept.

Still, I'll persist for now in the hope I adjust.

[HansMellman]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

lol - I can't even figure out how to get into a game to call the plays.

[MarkRidings]

Very early into trying out the game, so I may change my mind, but...

I think I'm the only one who likes this UI better? In my opinion its much easier to get around and find information, then FOF8. There is some figuring out, and I haven't tried to trade yet. But it just feels better to me.

Now, it's still a Jim UI, so I'm not saying it's amazing. But it's fine for what this game is, and NFL sim with the best simming engine that currently exists.

[Joker]

question:
The first few games I was able to sim without having to watch.
Now I have to watch each and everyone one of my games
call my plays or let rex coach call the plays.
Wheres the button to turn this off so I dont have to watch each and every game. thankyou

found it .... schedules/view/show/hide---show/control games check mark

[jamesUMD]

Takes some getting used to and there will need to be some fixes I think. Quick one:
Jack Del Rio, in the game shows as running a True 3-4 defensive front. He runs a 4-3. But more to the point if I go into the coaches file he is listed as a 3 for DEFENSIVESTYLE, which based on the coaches text file which notes:
DEFENSIVESTYLE - For coaches specializing in defensive position groups, their preferred defensive front. A team will always use the defensive front preferred by their defensive coordinator.
0 - Not a defensive coach
1 - True 34 Defense
2 - 34 Eagle Defense
3 - 43 Under Defense
4 - 43 Over Defense

Bill Belichick similarly shows as a 4-3 in the game, but based on the coaches file (N=2) should be 34 Eagle Defense. My hunch is that there is a number reversed in there somewhere. Teams running a 4-3 versus 3-4 may be reversed if my guess is correct.

Teryl Austin in game shows as 3 4 Eagle, but based on the coaches file is a True 3 4 guy. Probably a fairly simple fix but just wanted to check my own results and or what I noticed.

[HansMellman]

Originally Posted by jamesUMD

Takes some getting used to and there will need to be some fixes I think. Quick one:
Jack Del Rio, in the game shows as running a True 3-4 defensive front. He runs a 4-3. But more to the point if I go into the coaches file he is listed as a 3 for DEFENSIVESTYLE, which based on the coaches text file which notes:
DEFENSIVESTYLE - For coaches specializing in defensive position groups, their preferred defensive front. A team will always use the defensive front preferred by their defensive coordinator.
0 - Not a defensive coach
1 - True 34 Defense
2 - 34 Eagle Defense
3 - 43 Under Defense
4 - 43 Over Defense

Is there an official channel for reporting bugs of this nature? or does Jim pick these up from here - this is my first release

[EagleFan]

Minor bug: When on the schedule page I can scroll down with my mouse and the games scroll to the top of the page but the team logos stay where they were when I enter the screen.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by inbar

The game's UI is...unattractive, to put it mildly. From the main screen to the play-calling in the simulated games, it feels outdated, especially after playing OOTP and FHM9. I may wait to play it until it gets further updates.

It is even worse with my vision problems. I have a hard time making heads or tails out of anything in it.

[Ben E Lou]

Huh. No rex button for ticket prices. Curious what others think here: is that something you prefer to do manually, or would you just hit Rex and move on? (I tend toward the latter, but if I'm an outlier there, I'll hush up about it.)

[EagleFan]

Wow, simmed the first season just to see and Anthony Richardson would be booed out of Indianapolis after that season. 34 interceptions, 14 more than 2nd place Ryan Tannehill who had 20.

Also, Jaylen Waddle led the league with an astounding 174 receptions but was also 5th in the league with 15 drops.

[EagleFan]

Minor bug: sorting anomaly on pancake blocks. It seems to be sorting by sacks allowed.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

It is even worse with my vision problems. I have a hard time making heads or tails out of anything in it.

There’s option to increase font type/size, which would help.

[Gauss]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Huh. No rex button for ticket prices. Curious what others think here: is that something you prefer to do manually, or would you just hit Rex and move on? (I tend toward the latter, but if I'm an outlier there, I'll hush up about it.)

Yeah, REX for me too. I'll playa round with it for now tho.

[EagleFan]

The UI will take some getting used to but looking forward to a weekend full or FOF.

[RedDoby]

Originally Posted by jamesUMD

Takes some getting used to and there will need to be some fixes I think. Quick one:
Jack Del Rio, in the game shows as running a True 3-4 defensive front. He runs a 4-3. But more to the point if I go into the coaches file he is listed as a 3 for DEFENSIVESTYLE, which based on the coaches text file which notes:
DEFENSIVESTYLE - For coaches specializing in defensive position groups, their preferred defensive front. A team will always use the defensive front preferred by their defensive coordinator.
0 - Not a defensive coach
1 - True 34 Defense
2 - 34 Eagle Defense
3 - 43 Under Defense
4 - 43 Over Defense

Bill Belichick similarly shows as a 4-3 in the game, but based on the coaches file (N=2) should be 34 Eagle Defense. My hunch is that there is a number reversed in there somewhere. Teams running a 4-3 versus 3-4 may be reversed if my guess is correct.

Teryl Austin in game shows as 3 4 Eagle, but based on the coaches file is a True 3 4 guy. Probably a fairly simple fix but just wanted to check my own results and or what I noticed.

I can confirm that something is bugged with the defensive coach styles. Both Stephen Billicheck and Vic Fangio are showing a Defense style of 2 in the 2023_Coaches file. But Billicheck in the game is 34 Eagle and Fangio is 43 Over. btw Miami should be a 34 defense, this will mess up defenses since players will not fit the style.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Huh. No rex button for ticket prices. Curious what others think here: is that something you prefer to do manually, or would you just hit Rex and move on? (I tend toward the latter, but if I'm an outlier there, I'll hush up about it.)

Oh NO! I was hoping that wasn't taken out, I used rex for this as well in FOF8.


I know there is a global setting to have the AI handle this, but I believe it will also hire staff.


Hopefully this can be added in via patch.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Huh. No rex button for ticket prices. Curious what others think here: is that something you prefer to do manually, or would you just hit Rex and move on? (I tend toward the latter, but if I'm an outlier there, I'll hush up about it.)

I haven't manually done ticket prices in years.

[Olsson]

I like it so far. I'm sure i'll get used to the new UI.

I only have one complaint. Although I see it as a pretty big problem for me.

There's no view that has both ratings and contracts. That'll make end of season take some extra time.

You can't see either contract length in the basic information view or CUR/FUR in the contracts view.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by Olsson

I like it so far. I'm sure i'll get used to the new UI.

I only have one complaint. Although I see it as a pretty big problem for me.

There's no view that has both ratings and contracts. That'll make end of season take some extra time.

You can't see either contract length in the basic information view or CUR/FUR in the contracts view.

beat me to it. the "scout overview" made the game fun. pos, ratings and contract status on one screen. maybe we could customize views.

[BradS]

I'm liking and applaud the new UI. So much is there. Question though, the PBP log no longer shows player grades for each play?

[markprior22]

I'm seeing something strange...may just be not knowing the interface

Cowboys released Zach Martin and he appears to be gone from the game. No injury reported, not listed as a free agent, transaction log doesn't show anyone signing him. Haven't gone through team by team rosters...was hoping to find a place to search for a particular player but not seeing anything like that.

Edit-I'm pretty sure this is something I caused at the depth chart screen. Was messing with it and trying to reorder list of players at the top part of the screen (silly, but I was just feeling my way around). In doing so I believe I moved Zach Martin somewhere on the screen that removed him from the game completely. Not sure what the exact move was but I'm 99.99% sure it was something I caused. Funny that there was a transaction of him being released.

[Olsson]

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

beat me to it. the "scout overview" made the game fun. pos, ratings and contract status on one screen. maybe we could customize views.

Trade HQ has Name, Pos, Exp, Cur, Fut, End of contract, Cap cost

It doesn't include rookies and current expiring contracts though. I really hope Jim adresses the cur/fut on the contracts screen.

[conception]

I took advantage of the early sale and of course, wanted to show my support for the series and for Jim. I probably won't get into the meat and potatoes of this one for a little bit - I'll wait for the gurus to dissect it better. I've never been one who is that great at the inner workings of this game - in fact I'm not sure if I ever won the SB in the last version because all I can remember are the times my team got to the big game and lost- usually in pretty heartbreaking fashion too.