NFL Head Coach 09-shows the path 2K should have taken for APF.(IMO)

[jfsolo]

Yes, I'm about APF's lack of Franchise, but I'm not doing it to troll or make angry accusations, but to revisit this issue in light of what we've seen from Head Coach 09 on the Franchise front.

Jack English, Flash Gorden, Xavier Cox, Will Barkley, and all the other players EA created for their drafts in HC's franchise mode, are as "real" to me as Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Jared Allen, or Bob Sanders. The narratives have made them more than just names and attributes.

The money they paid just for the cover Legends could have been spent bringing in a few writers and a couple of football historians to create a 40-year history for their fictitious 32 team league. They could have then handcrafted all the players for the current teams and all of the drafted players too of course. Creating 120 fictitious colleges as well, if necessary.

Users could have then of course attached themselves to a Franchise based on geography, team philosophy, or iconic players that team had in the past or present.

The scouting, drafting, free agency, Salary Cap issues, coach training, team philosophy, meaningful pre-season games, cut down days, holdouts, play stealing, player and coach personalities, game planing, Game Changers, Defining Moments, realistic injuries and more, would have provided such an amazing context for what seems to be a superior on the field gameplay experience.

Only those with the most extreme NFL logo fixation would have been able to resist such a compete package.

Its water under the bridge now, but man, in my mind the missed opportunity is even more apparent then ever.

[catcatch22]

The thing is all that stuff isn't football. Some people including myself hate all that micro management stuff.

1. There are a whole bunch of text based games and real time strategy games to fulfill that micromanagement need that alot of players enjoy more than the game itself it seems.

2. When I mean the game itself, I mean the blocking, passing, hitting, play calling and all the other details only related to the actual on field action.

3. Infact the part I hate the most in APF is the freedom in which you can change players. It takes away time from actual games and strategy.

4. Not to mention the more time the developers work on that stuff the more the onfield action suffers.

If anything the gameplay in APF is way better than that in NFL 2k5. If they had more time and focused on balanced gameplay and not just overpowered offenses, with realistic physics animations and not just ratings then the game would be easily my favorite of all time.

[jyoung]

Head Coach had 2 years of development time and a large pool of staff/funding/resources to work with, thanks to it being a licensed EA product.

All Pro Football had 6 months of development time (a fourth of the time that Head Coach had), and a small pool of staff/funding/resources to work with, thanks to it being a non-licensed 2K product.

From a gameplay stand-point, 2K did more to improve their franchise than the NCAA and Madden teams have done in the 4 years since NFL 2K5.

With all that in mind, I don't see how anyone can complain about All Pro Football not "living up to expectations."

It plays better than any other football game to date, and it has the best online leagues of any football game to date.

[allBthere]

Quote: Originally Posted by wEEman33

Head Coach had 2 years of development time and a large pool of staff/funding/resources to work with, thanks to it being a licensed EA product. All Pro Football had 6 months of development time (a fourth of the time that Head Coach had), and a small pool of staff/funding/resources to work with, thanks to it being a non-licensed 2K product. From a gameplay stand-point, 2K did more to improve their franchise than the NCAA and Madden teams have done in the 4 years since NFL 2K5. With all that in mind, I don't see how anyone can complain about All Pro Football not "living up to expectations." It plays better than any other football game to date, and it has the best online leagues of any football game to date.

I agree with everything, but no one forced them to work like they did. 6 months was what they gave themselves. I don't play online, because I still believe that sports games are best played against the AI, and that the human element ruins it for me. All of the best games I've ever had were me and the cpu.

There are many like me that want a franchise instead of just an awkward season. --- I actually still play the game (today) and think that the 2k reps saying that a franchise wouldn't make sense because of the ages was a cop-out. There are ways they could have done it well, but just didn't bother. It was a mammoth mistake on their part I don't see how anyone could argue with that.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by allBthere

There are many like me that want a franchise instead of just an awkward season. --- I actually still play the game (today) and think that the 2k reps saying that a franchise wouldn't make sense because of the ages was a cop-out. There are ways they could have done it well, but just didn't bother. It was a mammoth mistake on their part I don't see how anyone could argue with that.

I don't know that there's a correct answer. I'm not a big online player either. But I can see the value/reasoning behind choosing to focus on the online aspect of the game first before focusing on the single player. Pretty much every game that gets released now has some sort of online component, and usually it's the online component that adds longevity to a game, not the single player. None of these devs - 2K, 989, EA, etc. are rocket scientists. They haven't figured out the secrets to true artificial intelligence. How well the AI performs is really based on how well the developers can fool you into thinking the cpu doesn't know what you're doing (Flawless had a great quote years ago regarding this). At some point you're going to run into a limitation from playing the computer.

And sure, we can sit back in retrospect and say they shouldn't have tried to release the game last year and instead waited until this year - or maybe even 2009 or 2010. We may never have seen a game released if they waited. Take Two's on the verge of getting brought out. An unlicensed football game is a risky endeavor in itself - I don't see how anyone can say "awww it doesn't matter" when you only need look at what Madden's been next gen to see how much people will forgive when it comes to dealing with the NFL licenses.

I haven't played NFL Head Coach so I can't speak to it's quality. But I know I would've been disappointed if 2K chose to make APF a front office simulation versus something I could actually play. But I'm sure some people would've been happy with that, just as they might've disappointed the online people if they chose to go in that direction.

[Sven Draconian]

I think the OP was referring to the fact he would have preferred a more fictional league with fictional back stories to make you care about the players.

The HC draft classes are very detailed and engaging (from what I hear, I'm still testing the gameplay), and provide fun despite not being real NFL/NCAA players. The "fictional" can be just as good as real.

The legends route, IMO, was a big mistake. A fictional league with franchise mode would have been much better then the legends/online focus.

[catcatch22]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sven Draconian

I think the OP was referring to the fact he would have preferred a more fictional league with fictional back stories to make you care about the players. The HC draft classes are very detailed and engaging (from what I hear, I'm still testing the gameplay), and provide fun despite not being real NFL/NCAA players. The "fictional" can be just as good as real. The legends route, IMO, was a big mistake. A fictional league with franchise mode would have been much better then the legends/online focus.

Who said they weren't headed in that direction with the generics.

They had a limited time and if they spent all the time with only the franchise components and gave us the same 2k5 gameplay then I would have not enjoyed the game at all.

[El Greazy 1]

I think HC really shows how great a sports game can be when given longer development cycles. The first HC was downright terrible, I mean horrible. EA went to the re-drawing board and made something pretty great here.

Hopefully, if APF truely is a bi-annual release as some claim it to be, they can take a queue from HC and implement & fine-tune a lot of aspects to the ame for the next version.