The IFL's wish list for the NEXT FOF

[Jave]

I have wanted to start this for some time now to get an idea of what everyone was thinking here, as I have a few wish's of my own. I do not peruse the FOF boards, to cluttered and full of mostly unrelated topics so I am sure this is already posted somewhere, but lets just do this at the league level and see what we can come up with.

1. A Real Viewer- I would like to see an actual viewer, with actual graphics. I am not talking some shit on line with Madden here, just a basic, oldschool graphics will do. It will really bring this game a ton of life. I want to see my rookie QB throw his first TD pass, or my team I spend 7 seasons building win it all on a last second hail mary etc.....

Dynamic Coaches-I would like to see coaches with personality and a specific gameplan. For instance, Bill Walsh. If you were lucky enough to bring a Walsh onto your team, he would bring with him the west coast offense, and a hidden rating that would affect you wins/losses. If you gameplanned out of the WCO however, you would take a large penalty. Each coach would have his own way of doing things that you would need to adjust for. Am I making any sence here?

Gameplanning-Bring in prebuild gameplans, such as west coast, smash mouth, run "N" shoot etc.....That would include defensive gameplans, 4-3, 3-4, 4-6 etc.......Imagine having a coach like Walsh. You could then use the draft and free agency to build the WCO into your team.

I will add to this as I think of more. During the last 6 months I must have thought of around 20 different ideas. Whats yours?

Yes, I have seen this( http://fof.sportplanet.gamespy.com/f...675#post572675 ), but do YOU want to read through all the pages? I just want a more simplified way to see our leagues requests.

[P. Diddy]

I like all of those. I'd also like a little more detail on special teams. I think they're too much of an afterthought in FOF2k.

[Kobeck]

speaking of the viewer.

I made another good faith effort with the viewer and did get one of 2007X1, not the assassin game got an error on that one, to run - BUT everything was black. I traced it back as best I could to a file that came with the viewer that had NFL teams and a lot of 0,0,0,0,255,255,255 stuff for each team.

Anyways as usual I am unable to use the viewer. Maybe give it another shot when regular seaon rolls around

[Coder]

I'm using Greg Stelmack's latest viewer.. it's excellent.. takes some getting used to after having used 3ric's viewer for a few seasons, but it really has some neato features..

[P. Diddy]

Link?

[Jave]

I can't recall whether or not I posted this, but a higher fluctuation in attendance is important, especially for "cinderella" type seasons. I had a team that had been 3-13, 5-11, 4-12 over the last three seasons. We finished 12-4 in the most recent season, but even late in the season only drew 45,300 max, despite having THE lowest ticket prices in the league. Bandwagon fans would *surely* have filled the stadium by the end of the year, and certainly for the playoffs.

More in-depth playbook descisions would be nice. I cringe when I read the box score and see my kicker trying multiple 50+ yard field goals a game, or find that the star WR I shelled out for this year is being targeted twice a game, while the blocking-oriented TE is getting ten attempts.

A training camp, but not what you think. IF I want to change up my gameplan, I enter "training camp", load the new gameplan and from the drop down box, choose the team that my players will be simulating. For instance, my defense will attempt to mimic the SLC defense so I can test how my gameplan MAY work. it would not hack SLC's gameplan, it simply uses their yearly averages that is already available on the scouting report, to give you an idea. NFL teams do it, why can't we?

More ideas incomming...........

cthomer5000's recap of ideas through page 3:

General Game Feedback

* Ability to import FOF2004 leagues into new version of the game
* Ability to more easily incorporate your own graphics (background for example) without having to 'hack' the game
* The ability to play completely salary-cap free (finances would really have to matter for this to work)
* The ability to import/export teams and run 'exhibition' simulations. This has amazing multiplayer potential, but this would probably also raise a threat of cheating
* Increased use of email
* The ability to vote on Solecismic Bowl location (this could be a lot of fun in MP leagues)
* The ability to vote on franchise relocation (it has to be approved before it's attempted)
* Ability to set the date of the trade deadline
* Shorten the FA period before the draft? (seems a little unnecessary with the late FA period now in existance)
* Instead of just a "serious injury" it would be nice to know a vague description like "37 Layne is down on the play, he's holding his knee and doesn't look good"
* bring back the simplicity of training camp in FOF2001?
* the ability for players to get hot or cold (think Tecmo Super Bowl)
* Removal of players refusing to sign with a team for past injustices when that injustice is being cut.
* Removal of formations known for QBs (this should be tied into training camp & familiarity with offense - again like FOF2001)
* Feeback on practices! (player X looks great! player Y looks like crap)
* NFL Europe. minicamps, etc. I think the thought here is just some way in the offeason to get X number of players more reps
* Improved Interaction With TCY (or TCY2). Make performance come into play more heavily when importing players from TCY.
* Right-Click Interface Additions. Allow the user to right-click on a player and have a tab with options like: Release, Place On IR, Activate, Deactivate, Renegotiate.
* Make Finances Matter More. Virtually no one pays attention to the year-end score. The focus is (as it should be) on winning the Super Bowl, and therefore financial concerns get lost. The obvious places to let it come into play more would be the ability to offer bonuses, the ability to offer money to coaches/scouts, and the ability to get fired.
* Fix fumble revoery location (too many fumbles recovered for 0 gain or loss)

Player 'Cards'

* Player history - when they were traded, championship teams they were apart of, injury history
* Save playoff stats on the player's card

Statistics

* Track penalties by player (perhaps this would make the effects of intelligence more obvious?)
* Announcements (email) at the end of a season when new all-time records have been set
* Kickoff/field position statistics
* Time of posession statistics (season-long)
* career playoff leaders
* Keep TCY Stats & Awards on player card for duration of FOF career.

Contracts

* realistic restricted free agent system (a must with the attention this gets now, IMO)
* Having to promise a certain role to a player when signing him (starter, reserve, etc)
* Franchise Player hold outs (A potentially very realistic addition that will stop us from abusing the feature)
* Improved contract negotiation screen. Roster Bonuses and yearly incentives.

Draft

* Mock Drafts (your scout's opinion?)
* A historical look at the draft (players drafted from X University, players drafted at Y position)
* Ability to see your future draft picks at all times


Gameplanning

* A way to make universal changes to single aspects of a gameplan (just change run directions across all gameplan screens, for example)
* A way to make sure your playmakers get the ball more often in the passing game. If I don't want to throw to my FB, then he shouldn't be catching 50 passes each season.
* Being able to adujust defensive personnel by formation (nickel, dime, goal-line)
* The ability to dedicate a TE/FB to pass protection
* More control over the kicking game (do not attempt a FG over X yards) tied into gameplanning, so you can change your settings by situation.
* Bring back the 'familiarity' ratings from FOF2001.
* Make a team choose a base offense, ala TCY (same with defense)
* The ability to setup up "outside" vs. "inside" running backs
* The Ability to access your gameplan in the offseason (why not?)

League Structure

* Expansion
* Customizable league sizes

Media/Player Interaction/Chemistry

* Suspensions of varying length (not just all season)
* As it is you can predict with 100% certainty the effect that adding a player will have on a team. I would like to see the chemistry/player personalities become less predicatable. One thing I wouldn't mind seeing borrowed from the online soccer sim hattrick is the possibility of any player getting off to a bad start with his team. I think FOF could use some sort of measure of team morale and/or confidence. This would also allow for a bigger role for a coaches 'discipline' and 'motivation' ratings. A coach will better discipline would be less likely to have players get into trouble/cause locker-room issues, and a coach with good motivation would do a better job of keeping his team from getting to over-confident or beaten down.

Multiplayer

* "A ton more comissioner functions"
* Head to head online play
* The ability to save an export in progress, then finish it later
* Passwords for multiplayer teams
* Ability for a commish to manually move a franchise

Roster Management

* Make the computer teams more likely to play young players when out of playoff contention
* Assign QB's some sort of rating showing their "familiarity with the offense." A QB shouldn't be able to be picked up as a free agent and have complete profeciency in the offense in a single week (curse you Victor Whyte!)
* Perhaps a simple 'active all' button on the roster screen
* Trade counter-offers from the AI
* Give players experience ratings in a defensive system. A 3-4 ILB for instance would have a very low '4-3' experience rating, and would need time to play at full-potential as MLB
* More varied player development, especially Quarterbacks. What FOF struggles to show us from a player development standpoint is players like Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, or Akili Smith. These players, especially Leaf and Smith, had all the tools and were given multiple chances by multiple teams. Busts shouldn't just have their green bars disappear. They should stay there and tempt people to pick them up. This would simulate him having the physical tools to succeed, but something else is missing. We see players who, by their 4th or 5th year, have little or no green bars left and there is no reason to roll the dice on the guy taken in the top 5 in the draft a few seasons ago.
* A stronger relationship between a QB's skills and his playing style
* The ability to reach an injury settlement
* Improved Roster Building AI. Someone mentioned that making the game go too slowly is a concern here. Without doing any testing, my guess is that one stage of free agency in OOTP6, for example, may take 5-10 times longer than one stage in FOF2K4, and it doesn't feel like OOTP takes a long time at all. There's definitely room to let the game take more time in processing each stage of free agency.

Staff

* Coaching 'personalities' (example "pass crazy" or maybe a base offense/defense like "Pro-Set" or "3-4"
* Feedback from the staff (and owner) during the season (Perhaps even something like a "Nice Win!" email from an owner would add immersion)
* Scout history (coaches have it, scouts do not)
* Try to establish some more variance between coordinator and head coach pay
* Ability to rename coaches
* Make coordinators a little more one-sided. There are too many who have skills all over the place and bounce all over the league, doing every job. Perhaps even make them entirely one-sided and containing NO ratings for the opposite side of the ball.
* Some sort of ability to 'promote' assitant coaches
* The ability to pursue coordinators under contract for your head coaching job.
* Coordinators that make a difference in the team's on-field performance, rather than just player development.
* motivation and discipline as solely the Head Coach's effect
* The individuals who come "out of nowhere" and become coach candidates are presumably reflecting college coaches who have made the leap to the pros. If so, why not give us something to judge them on -- some collegiate record of some sort? Maybe even have successful coaches jump from TCY to FOF?
* Make the development of a young coaching staff candidate more outwardly dynamic, based on experience. A young individual who gets a job as a coordinator ought to develop those skills over time -- and that is the sort of individual who ought to be a most attractive head coach candidate.
* I'd like to see a pretty fair number of the "legends of the game" and HOF-worthy players at least appear in the coaching pool, even if they aren't all going to be standout coaches. (Maybe the INT rating can have a connection here?) I'd also like to see a connection between their playing position and their strengths -- a retired DB who becomes a coach ought to have better understanding of, say, defensive schemes and perhaps the offensive passing game, plus he ought to have a good rating with DBs to start with. Perhaps in time he'd develop his own batch of strengths, but initially, I'd like to feel that it's "the same guy" to some degree
* Another offbeat idea - maybe we need some kind of "fog of war" with staffers, rather than seeing their full complement of abilities? When hiring an offensive coordinator, maybe I should just see the style he prefers, the formations he prefers, and some information on his track record. Perhaps I'd get more information (like the positional ratings) only if we "interview" him? (This has the ability to get out of control, but it could be a little like TCY recruiting, I guess)........

[Coder]

Link?

http://fof.sportplanet.gamespy.com/f...ad.php?t=21296

[P. Diddy]

Link?

http://fof.sportplanet.gamespy.com/f...ad.php?t=21296

Sweet. Been meaning to get this for weeks. Thanks.

[Suicane]

1. Improved in game logic when it comes to kicking and/or ability to gameplan that area. I don't want to be attempting 55 yard FG's with 5 minutes left in the game up by 2, I just dont wanna fuckin do it.

2. Ability to play league and/or fantasy matchups with teams H2H via the internet.

3. Odd but i'd like to not be able to see rookie ratings, just college stats and combine numbers. Of course those 2 things would have to mean significantly more than they do now.

4. Flexibility in league alignment, setup and new franchises.

5. Love Javes coaching idea.

6. More in depth gameplanning. I'd love to have the ability to decide in what situations certain players play. 3rd and 1? I want my 2 DE's with over 80 run stop in there. 3rd and 7? I want my good run stopper out and my good pass rusher in.

Same thing for offense, let me set when I use my run blocking tackle who cant pass block worth a lick, make him mean something to my team. If I have a guy who has 93 run block and 23 pass block, i wanna be able to set it up so that on certain plays he's ALWAYS in there.

[Jave]

1. Improved in game logic when it comes to kicking and/or ability to gameplan that area. I don't want to be attempting 55 yard FG's with 5 minutes left in the game up by 2, I just dont wanna fuckin do it.
6. More in depth gameplanning. I'd love to have the ability to decide in what situations certain players play. 3rd and 1? I want my 2 DE's with over 80 run stop in there. 3rd and 7? I want my good run stopper out and my good pass rusher in.

Same thing for offense, let me set when I use my run blocking tackle who cant pass block worth a lick, make him mean something to my team. If I have a guy who has 93 run block and 23 pass block, i wanna be able to set it up so that on certain plays he's ALWAYS in there.

Yea, like I don't want Lomeli in there on 3rd and 3 at the goal line attempting to run outside like I just watched in my preseason game. Why in the hell would I do that when I could have Myer bull his way in? Thats what he gets paid to do!

[sovstar]

I'm using Greg Stelmack's latest viewer.. it's excellent.. takes some getting used to after having used 3ric's viewer for a few seasons, but it really has some neato features..

I'm not too fond of it. The field of play seems too cluttered and I'd rather have team stats than all those individual stats. Drive info is good, but it seems to have problems. The spotting of the ball is goofy at times as well. Putting the drive info at the top of the screen is rather useless IMO as I can't see it while I'm looking at the play-by-play.

[Coder]

Sure, there are things that could be done better.. but Greg is listening to us..

I've still switched to the new viewer, as I consider it more solid. 3ric's viewer suffered from a few minor issues (like not unloading completely from memory), and another good thing about the new viewer is that you don't have to have all the settings files.

[Jave]

I'm using Greg Stelmack's latest viewer.. it's excellent.. takes some getting used to after having used 3ric's viewer for a few seasons, but it really has some neato features..

I'm not too fond of it. The field of play seems too cluttered and I'd rather have team stats than all those individual stats. Drive info is good, but it seems to have problems. The spotting of the ball is goofy at times as well. Putting the drive info at the top of the screen is rather useless IMO as I can't see it while I'm looking at the play-by-play.

That goes back to my number 1 wish for FOF 2007:

1. A Real Viewer- I would like to see an actual viewer, with actual graphics. I am not talking some shit on line with Madden here, just a basic, oldschool graphics will do. It will really bring this game a ton of life. I want to see my rookie QB throw his first TD pass, or my team I spend 7 seasons building win it all on a last second hail mary etc.....

[sovstar]

and another good thing about the new viewer is that you don't have to have all the settings files.

Not that big of a concern when you have them.

[sovstar]

I'm using Greg Stelmack's latest viewer.. it's excellent.. takes some getting used to after having used 3ric's viewer for a few seasons, but it really has some neato features..

I'm not too fond of it. The field of play seems too cluttered and I'd rather have team stats than all those individual stats. Drive info is good, but it seems to have problems. The spotting of the ball is goofy at times as well. Putting the drive info at the top of the screen is rather useless IMO as I can't see it while I'm looking at the play-by-play.

That goes back to my number 1 wish for FOF 2007:

1. A Real Viewer- I would like to see an actual viewer, with actual graphics. I am not talking some shit on line with Madden here, just a basic, oldschool graphics will do. It will really bring this game a ton of life. I want to see my rookie QB throw his first TD pass, or my team I spend 7 seasons building win it all on a last second hail mary etc.....

There are much more important things for Jim to worry about than a 2D viewer IMO.