Developer Diary Conversation #1 - The Offseason

[btmlltt]

Count me in as another that doesn't see the need for a season long draft. I think it overly complicates things for Arlie and for the users and I don't think it buys much.

[SteveMax58]

[QUOTE=btmlltt;387831]Count me in as another that doesn't see the need for a season long draft. I think it overly complicates things for Arlie and for the users and I don't think it buys much.[/QUOTE] +1 I also tend to see it as unrealistic in relation to pro football. And while some items have to sacrific realism to make the game fun, or less cumbersome, or more flexible, etc...in my mind I dont see how this enhances the game experience. That said...I am a mostly SP gamer. But I would imagine a better solution should exist for MP gamers in relation to the draft. Perhaps allowing a MP email functionality where the commish inputs the MP coaches' email addresses in and during the draft stage the game can automatically send an email to each person when they are on the clock. IDK...like I said I dont play MP...so i could be overlooking some obvious problems.

[SteveMax58]

In regards to the Dev Diary Questions. Question 1: I like this approach. Maybe if you stored an internal rating for the GM in regards to their "influence". So for instance...a rookie GM(or unsuccessful GM) does not have the same influence as a Bill Polian type might. Question 2: I like the slider approach to scouting the draft. I dont believe in making things like this overly involved just for the sake of it. Maybe you could also add a secondary slider(on the same positional-type basis) which influences what types of players your scouts will focus on(i.e. slider might go from "highly touted" to "evenly balanced" to "roster depth"). This way if you have traded away many of your later round picks, or early round picks for that matter, you can focus your scouts towards the recruits you expect to be picking from.

[southernwebb04]

dola.. As far as the draft goes, a owner that may be away being able to create a board or players they want to draft from, in order from highest to lowest, would be a nice edition.

[btmlltt]

In the software I wrote for Madden leagues, that's how I did it. You can rank the players on your draft board, and tell the software the maximum number of players you'd want at any given position (so it doesn't draft the 3 HBs you have at the top of your board) and which rounds you want set to auto-draft. Has served pretty well across a few dozen drafts.

[SkyDog]

[quote=Arlie Rahn;387580]I have to admit I never even thought of the draft running all offseason for online leagues.[/quote]I'm not sure that "all" offseason is a good idea, but I know of zero FOF leagues that don't run at least part of it overlapping free agency. One overarching idea to keep in mind with online leagues is that momentum-killers are always a bad thing. People become disengaged for a few days, and it's hard to get it back. That's why FOF leagues do it; the last handful of stages of free agency are just plain boring for a good number of teams in the league, but necessary for a few, so they have to be run. And some people check out while those boring stages are being run. Some other potential momentum-killers are: [LIST] [*]latter stages of staff hiring when most teams are done [*]an extended RFA system with only a few meaningful decisions to be made [*]preseason[/LIST][quote]My fear is that (as a player), I like seeing who I land in FA prior to doing the draft. It would be a little frustrating if I put in a FA bid for a solid DT in week 1. Then, a top DT slips to me in the draft in round 1. Do I take him? If I knew whether my FA target would sign, I might make a different decision.[/quote]One thought here would be to have the better players signing relatively early in the process so that teams can have a feel for what they need. [quote]Also, you have the issue of RFAs. I was going to handle RFAs to where the compensation prior to the draft is this season's pick. After the draft, any RFA signed would be next season's pick. But, if the draft is ongoing during FA, it makes RFAs tricky. If you are during the 3rd round and someone has an offer for a 3rd round RFA accepted and not matched, do I use this season's compensation or next?[/quote]I think I've mentioned this before, but PLEASE weight the cost-benefit of your RFA system. Make sure there aren't a whole bunch of clicks involved to sign guys that no one else wants. Because inevitably, a significant number of the RFAs that we'll pursue in SP will be ones that no one else is after. [quote][B][Question 1]What do you guys think about allowing an increased budget for increasing expectations? IE, owner expects a .500 record. You change the expectations to "Make the playoffs" and he gives you an additional bump to signing bonus money and staff salaries. But, if you fall short, you get a bigger negative for your performance (maybe even get fired). I don't think this would be something used in MP, but it might be fun for SP.[/B][/quote]I'm not so sure about this. In my experience, the concept of "getting fired" is never a fun one in text sims where you can't be relegated. It would be one thing if "getting fired" meant taking a college job or an assistant coach job and actually being able to do some things in that role. But if "getting fired" just means that my career is over and I have to start over, meh. I'd suggest that if you're going to hold firing over our heads, then give us other meaningful roles to play for a few seasons until we get another Head Coach/GM job. Otherwise, it's just a no-fun concept. [quote][B][Question 2]What's your thoughts on using a slider to focus on players for scouting? I don't like the idea of hiring a ton of scouts as I think it gets exploited in SP and is a nuisance in MP. Instead, it would be a system similar to BBCF where you set your positional focus on draft scouting.[/B][/quote] Agreed here. This sounds like a good way to just make it resource management, without having to deal with the tedium of hiring staff members and telling them what to do.

[Arlie Rahn]

I just want to make one clarification. There is no "three weeks of RFA signing" then "10 weeks of UFA signing". All FAs are in the same pool at the same time. So, after the staff is hired, tags made and budgets set, we will have a 8-10 week process of FA (RFA+UFA) before the draft. So, for MP, we could have 4-5 weeks of FA, start the draft and every round of the draft also be a "week" of FA. This means that weeks 6-12 of FA would also be rounds 1-7 of the draft. That seems fairly doable and should avoid most of my concerns with overlapping early FA and the draft. This schedule would just be for MP, though, as SP would have a normal 8-10 week FA, draft, more FA.

[SkyDog]

[quote=Arlie Rahn;388757]I just want to make one clarification. There is no "three weeks of RFA signing" then "10 weeks of UFA signing". All FAs are in the same pool at the same time. So, after the staff is hired, tags made and budgets set, we will have a 8-10 week process of FA (RFA+UFA) before the draft. So, for MP, we could have 4-5 weeks of FA, start the draft and every round of the draft also be a "week" of FA. This means that weeks 6-12 of FA would also be rounds 1-7 of the draft. That seems fairly doable and should avoid most of my concerns with overlapping early FA and the draft. This schedule would just be for MP, though, as SP would have a normal 8-10 week FA, draft, more FA.[/quote] Thumbs-up to combining RFA/FA. Good call on SP/MP. In SP, it's not a big deal. If the human player is done with his offers, he can just click right through the rest of it. A "finish all free agency stages" button would be ideal for that. What isn't an issue in all (maybe 30 seconds to "finish free agency") in SP could become a real buzzkill (a week real-time to essentially "finish free agency") in MP.

[John Comey]

I definitely agree with FA running as an encompassing program (UFA/RFA together). I think this should always be the case. Definite thumbs up to everything in this thread.

[mauboy]

This is fun.

[udlb58]

[QUOTE=Arlie Rahn;388757]I just want to make one clarification. There is no "three weeks of RFA signing" then "10 weeks of UFA signing". All FAs are in the same pool at the same time. So, after the staff is hired, tags made and budgets set, we will have a 8-10 week process of FA (RFA+UFA) before the draft. So, for MP, we could have 4-5 weeks of FA, start the draft and every round of the draft also be a "week" of FA. This means that weeks 6-12 of FA would also be rounds 1-7 of the draft. That seems fairly doable and should avoid most of my concerns with overlapping early FA and the draft. This schedule would just be for MP, though, as SP would have a normal 8-10 week FA, draft, more FA.[/QUOTE] I like that you are combining RFA and UFA, that is excellent! I think that free agency may be a little long though. I'd rather see a shorter period, 4-6 weeks, before the draft, then maybe a 6-8 week set of FA after the draft. As stated before, free agency in MP can be very tedious and irrelevant for many coaches. Even the coaches with offers usually just end up sitting and waiting for someone to sign.

[cody8200]

[Question 1]What do you guys think about allowing an increased budget for increasing expectations? IE, owner expects a .500 record. You change the expectations to "Make the playoffs" and he gives you an additional bump to signing bonus money and staff salaries. But, if you fall short, you get a bigger negative for your performance (maybe even get fired). I don't think this would be something used in MP, but it might be fun for SP. I think this is exactly how it works. It worked well in BBCF (with the athletic director's budget) and should work here. [Question 2]What's your thoughts on using a slider to focus on players for scouting? I don't like the idea of hiring a ton of scouts as I think it gets exploited in SP and is a nuisance in MP. Instead, it would be a system similar to BBCF where you set your positional focus on draft scouting. Again. I think this is the best way to do things. It just becomes too complicated (and annoying) to send out multiple scouts every single week throughout the year. I would like to be able to see both Juniors and Senior's stats update throughout the year since Juniors can go pro as well.

[Druez]

[QUOTE=udlb58;387763]I agree. I think it should be similar to the BBCF method of scouting, you set the amount you want to spend on each position and the more you spend the more reliable and/or the more in depth the scouting reports are. I would also like to see scouting go on year round and be able to open the player cards for anyone in the draft pool at any time. The cards wouldn't have to be complete, but they should have raw data (like 40 times and stats) that are subject to change, and anything your scouts have to say about him.[/QUOTE] I disagree with this. Pro is different then college in the regards to money. You either hire good scouts or you do not. You wouldn't "spend" more money in a position, you would spend more money on "scouts" as a whole. At least that is my take on it.

[Arlie Rahn]

The problem with that is that I don't see it working well in MP. Plus, based on an initial rating set, you could be set (or hamstrung) for an entire career in that area. I'm guessing that you would have similar ratings for offensive play calling, player development and so forth. So, it almost puts the gamer in a position of saying "well, do I want to be crappy at scouting, player development or calling plays for the next 20 seasons in my career." I could see setting up some bonuses based on a GM profile (ie, stronger at negociating contracts), but I think you want the player to have the ability to improve their situation with budget allocations/decisions each season.

[southernwebb04]

I guess if there was an option Arlie, instead of having scouts, simply having your Head Coach/Assistant Coaches to have scout ratings as in BBCF. Most head coaches and/or assistant coaches go visit guys at the Combine/Pro Days; this would eliminate having to have 300 scouts for hire every offseason, putting another stage in MP. With a Bust/Gem philosiphy, no one could have a perfect scouting ability, it could be optional that a great draft history based on quality players and their careers could build a coaches scouting ability. But, taking bust after bust after bust would obviously have an effect on your scouting.