Just purchased HC 09

[jb1903]

After years of frustration of trying to make coach mode work in Madden,
I finally gave up and am going ‘back to the future’ by giving HC 09 a try. I also just requested TampaFan to send me a copy of his roster. Other than that, I’d be interested in getting some input on what else I should do to get the most out of the game? For example, any other mods I should try? Any good posts I should read to learn about the game? I see there is an editor I can download - what can it be used for? Any thoughts/guidance would be appreciated. Thanks.

[TheButter]

Quote: Originally Posted by jb1903

After years of frustration of trying to make coach mode work in Madden, I finally gave up and am going ‘back to the future’ by giving HC 09 a try. I also just requested TampaFan to send me a copy of his roster. Other than that, I’d be interested in getting some input on what else I should do to get the most out of the game? For example, any other mods I should try? Any good posts I should read to learn about the game? I see there is an editor I can download - what can it be used for? Any thoughts/guidance would be appreciated. Thanks.

The best advice i could give about playing a HC game is to learn how to play it. Most people "play" it, but don't even understand what they're playing. EA dropped the ball big time on promoting the features these games have, and how detailed they are. Most people just assume it's broken because they fail to consider all the aspects of what goes into it.

Click the link on my signature, and check the sidebar. There's some good info there and just about anything you could ask for. The 100+ page dev Q and A that EA had on here just before they released HC09 should be required reading material for anyone wanting to play it. Read it, all of it. Even if it's just a few pages a day.

Depending on what you play Coach Mode for, HC06 is also a great choice. Both games are getting full mods made as we speak, HC09 is a management game, while HC06 is a x's and o's RPG. I'm a 06 player because I enjoy to actually coach the team instead of managing a franchise and calling plays.

[conception]

I've played this game off and on for years, and I still barely knew the game until I started reading this forum here - which means I might be starting yet another franchise from scratch because there's so many things I want to implement.


Something you absolutely need to know - play knowledge is massive! If your team does not know a play you're basically asking for a snowball's chance in he** that it will work out in game. If you run a pass play, for instance, someone on the line will usually miss a block, the QB will throw it to the wrong spot, and/or the receivers will be everywhere. It's a recipe for disaster. Because of that, learning is one of the best abilities your players can have. But on top of that, you can't just throw players recklessly in and out of the lineup. You can't just a sign a free agent and have them ready to help out. You can't just throw your backup QB in unless you want to run the 8 plays he actually knows.



The things I mentioned above are very restricting but that makes this the only football game I've ever played that really feels like football. Everything else is just a game.


I'm gonna read through all the good threads here before I re-start my next franchise. Too much good stuff I learned. Game is just

[jb1903]

Thanks for the responses Butter and Conception!

[tarek]

Good luck, I hope you enjoy the game.

You should 100% check out the Ebongreen thread, it is a gold mine of information.

Other than that you should take some time to figure out how to set up your coach (in terms of playbook and personality) and the team you are going to coach. The personality system in this game is really robust too, whilst there are not too many 'interactions' with players, their personalities have an effect on how easy they are to negotiate with.

Another factor which I don't see mentioned alot from HC09 is that there is a rating for production. A rookie will have zero production, some players who are in a very favourable scheme will have high productions which give them a boost in the OVR. For that reason scouting ratings, in addition to learning grade and production, can make a difference in getting good players.

The learning of the playbook is huge too, even if you bring in a big name free agent, expect them to struggle until they learn your playbook. You can get the worlds best TE in free agency and they'll be a liability until they 'learn' the playbook, and become deadly once they 'master' the playbook.

And speaking of learning, a bad personality, bad learning player is something you need to be wary of. I drafted a player to be my WR2 who had average learning and a superstar personality and watched him make mistake after mistake throughout the preseason to the point where he was relegated to 4th on the depth chart. He never recovered and was never able to learn the playbook enough to be effective.

Its stuff like that which makes this game so much better than anything Madden has put out pretty much ever.

[conception]

Would love to hear how your experience is going.


I myself just started a new dynasty. I've started so many on this game and only ever gotten to the end of year two. I had a really good Dolphins rebuild going but since I made some really stupid mistakes crafting very limited playbooks (and you just can't undo that at all in the course of a career) I started again trying the Bucs.


It amazes me how much I'm playing the game not on the game but by compiling a bunch of documents and data on my computer. That's not a hindrance really, I'm just enjoying scouring available players to try to find the perfect guys to fit my team, with my scheme and an exceptionally large playbook that I decided to adopt so I could be flexible in the future. I have to have really smart players to be able to get up to speed. I'm not taking in these physical freaks who will never learn the playbook because I'm not holding back the rest of the team learning new plays for their benefit, and they aren't gonna ever learn plays just subbing in.



A good trick to learn is when browsing free agents, it hides a lot of ratings when you are viewing by position. If you are viewing all positions, however, it shows you every rating. This really comes in handing when you're looking for players who can return kicks or other special skills. I also like to sort by learning and just see what players are out there who could come in and get up to speed pretty quick.


There's never been another game like this one. The immense amount of coach development options and the playbook learning feature just makes this so immersive.

[jb1903]

Hey conception - To be honest, I’ve not started yet. Reason is,
I’m trying to edit a 2021 roster I bought from Tampa fan, and I’ve not figured out how to do this yet. I downloaded the HC09 editor butter provided a link for, but can’t get it to work, and also downloaded the generic EADBeditor, but can’t find an HC 09 XML file to use. Just left some questions on HC discord discussion forum, but I’m waiting to hear back. I’d really like to make some adjustments to the roster before I start. Hopefully soon.

[conception]

Quote: Originally Posted by jb1903

Hey conception - To be honest, I’ve not started yet. Reason is, I’m trying to edit a 2021 roster I bought from Tampa fan, and I’ve not figured out how to do this yet. I downloaded the HC09 editor butter provided a link for, but can’t get it to work, and also downloaded the generic EADBeditor, but can’t find an HC 09 XML file to use. Just left some questions on HC discord discussion forum, but I’m waiting to hear back. I’d really like to make some adjustments to the roster before I start. Hopefully soon.

Good luck to you. I've not got that roster but I've had at least one old roster that technically worked but none of the players got injured except for having to leave a game, so it didn't really play right. Once you get a game going its addicting either way. It's not really about the roster or the team you're playing, it's more crafting your own team.


If your intent is to advance through a modern day roster, you probably want to do a playthrough before that just so you get used to the game mechanics. It's not a hard game once you get the feel for things, but its very unforgiving and will beat you down mercilessly if you're running a lot of plays your team doesn't know.


Once you start I'd really pick a team that has a stacked defense. You can be like Bill Walsh and learn how to scheme up an offense figuring out what plays and things work best, but until you really get a feel for defensive schemes from the ground up it's nice to just let talent go to work on defense. Great defenders will make great plays as long as you're letting them do what they do well.