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- - Anybody see this? (https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com//showthread.php?t=281270)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reggie (Post 4239356)

So I played the demo. I guess I don't understand how the timeout works. Also, the play calling choices could use some work.. might be because I'm in demo mode..donno.

The demo is the full game but restricts you to 2 seasons of player per league and doesn't allow you to join multiplayer leagues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by progen (Post 4239084)

If you're in career mode, you can change the players names, height, weight, age, salary, experience, college, and jersey number, but not the ratings. If you're in sandbox mode, you can change everything, including the ratings. It's like being in commish mode in OOTP. And in sandbox mode, you can take control of as many teams as you want. And there are many options for setting up the game, from having the normal 32 team league, to over 40 other choices. And currently, you can go back to 1970.

Currently, I'm just into my second season. The draft was a lot of fun, and you can put as much, or as little time into it as you want. I only sim my games, and the injury piece seems pretty close to real life. I have a spreadsheet set up to track my draft picks over the years, and see how they do. The trade piece isn't bad, and I've found it not all that easy to take advantage of the AI. I did see on the forums, for guys who play out their games, there is no two minute warning, but not sure if that will get added in the next patch. After your game, you can go in and watch the play by play, or just view it(Get a typed breakdown of each play).

I go back and forth between sports with my sim games, and I'm taking a small break from OOTP baseball, so this is a decent change. If you expect it to be like OOTP, then you'll probably be disappointed, but for me, a guy who just can't go back to FOF (and I played the heck out of that game years ago), this is a nice change. And I'm Ok with spending the $34.99, as over the years, besides OOTP, I have supported Gary and the team at Wolverine Studios.

I'll be getting it shortly. I thought the day of keeping excel spreadsheets for these games were over?
Do you also have their college football game? I was thinking of getting them both and run them both in tandem at same time...not sure how that will work.

I print the spreadsheet out and just fill in the boxes, usually stats of some kind. I do this more in OOTP baseball, mainly for my drafted players, and those I've traded for or picked up via free agency. I like to see how well I do with each draft, and what level(A, AA, etc) the players I drafted get to. See if anyone in the lower rounds make it to "the show."

I don't have the college game. You could probably check online for reviews. I always do some research before I purchase a game I'm not that familiar with. With the pro football game though, I think there was only one review.

Here are my inputs:

In pre-DDS days, and I hope I get this right, moving a CB to OLB raises his rating, moving an OLB to DE raises his rating, and moving a SF to ILB raises his rating. Or something like that.

The Work Ethic attribute is supposed to help raise ratings in the off-season. I did a study of that and found there was a zero correlation (Pearson Correlation Coefficient), meaning it's bull.

I often used two TEs, and when I gameplanned passing more to the better receiving TE, most of the passes went to the other TE.

I raised the above two issues with Brooks, and he didn't expand further.

There seems to be only 2 or 3 online leagues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cap Heresy (Post 4239539)

The position change and WE issues are long fixed. Position change went even further in this release with position specific ratings, as well.

Can't speak to the TE issues.

Good to see you around, Cap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gbmoore121 (Post 4239674)

Good to know. Hopefully some new online leagues will crop up.

Since some asked for the College Football game:

You can export the draft classes from CF17 and import them in to PF18. You just need to convert them (they have provided some help there).
It will be easier with the next iteration of the College Football game.

The college game is inbetween PF16 and PF18.
It has two main gameplay elements.

- Playcalling is like it is in PF18, it just doesn't come with the watch feature.

- The second one is Recruiting, which feels really rewarding in my opinion, but I'd recommend to play with a low prestige team, otherwise it's a bit too easy to get all the 5 stars. I play Temple with a 67 prestige right now and I get up to two 5 Stars and up to five 4 Stars every season - right now I'm playing with the 4th best recruiting class.

- If you like, you can do gameplan and depth chart for every formation. I leave gameplanning up to the AI (since I playcall what I feel like) and I just use the master depth chart instead of formation specific. So on that part, it is what you make out of it.

What the game is lacking is coaches/staff management (which is in for PF18), and you won't get offers to take over another program or so.
There is also no JuCo, no transfers and commits won't decommit.
There is no conference movements, no FCS level and the game is hardcoded in terms of the amount of teams per conference (you can mess with that in xml files, but for the sake of not mess up scheduling, don't do it). The game is set to 128 colleges, as it has been last year. UAB for example is not in. You can edit each school though. Like in Pro: Career is limited editing, Sandbox is everything editing.

You won't be able to change the playoff format. It's a 4 team playoff, no options for 8 team playoff, the BCS or older systems. The rankings are a little bit weird. There is only one poll, it gets it somewhat right, but it is a bit weird at the beginning. A 0:3 Ohio State might still be in the top 15, but it gets it right where it matters.

For me personally it is perfectly fine. I love the CFP in real life and it is fun in game as well. The recruiting provides enough depth with what to target and whom to leave for good. Stats are available plenty. So...it's a good game (not great) and I'm currently in my 50th+ season.
I hope this gives some insights for those interested into the college game.

Recently Purchased the game

I really liked the potential of this game. I was desperately looking for a football game that was along the lines of the OOTP products. However, after I started, I was disillusioned about some really obvious flaws.
I started playing a game in 1960 with a NFL v AFL set up. A couple of things emerged that were definitely need work.
1. No ability to expand as you progress through the seasons. Unlike OOTP's historical replay modes, you cannot add teams as they would historically be created. You can't adjust the divisional set up etc to reflect the changes in the league structure either, much less move Pittsburgh or Baltimore to the AFC in 1970.
2. The playoff system is screwed up. Instead of taking the division winners and the best runners up as wildcards, they take the "best" teams regardless of their division. One season, all four of the AFL playoff teams were from the AFL East, completely excluding the West, including the division winner that had the same record as two of the East team.
3. Free Agency is mandatory as best as I can tell. This really messes with the historical freak in me as I love replaying seasons to see how the great teams would do under simulation. The whole free agent system is very clunky and you really do not get a feel for who is leaning towards your offer.
4. I have not found the sandbox portion, so it someone knows where it is, I would love to know.
5. There are a HUGE number of dropped passes. Even when the receiver appears to be wide open in the game animation, the receivers drop a ton of balls.
6. The AI is particularly dense. They will call a timeout and then spike the ball on the very next play. The AI team might be down 9 with 5 minutes left, but they are running dive plays from their own 20 yard line.
7. Each time you go to hire a new coach or GM, there is nobody who is above 3 stars. I am not even sure if the ratings go above 3 stars. I hired the coach from the two time champion (KC in my league) and his rating was only 2 1/2 stars. Doesn't strike me as Hank Stram (or even Andy Reid) like there.
8. Roster management needs help. I found it very confusing.
9. Compared to the Almanac that you would be used to in OOTP, their version is VERY under-whelming. Hard to really appreciate the history and greatness of any of the seasons. No team "all-time" lists at all from what I can tell. It doesn't even list the league champions in their own list. you have to load the whole playoff bracket from that year.
I am still working through all of the functionality, but my feeling after playing it for about 40 hours now is that I am very spoiled by the incredible flexibility and creativity that you enjoy in OOTP. I guess baseball season is only a few months away, so I will just play around with this until it is summer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jouiskc (Post 4246961)

I really liked the potential of this game. I was desperately looking for a football game that was along the lines of the OOTP products. However, after I started, I was disillusioned about some really obvious flaws.
I started playing a game in 1960 with a NFL v AFL set up. A couple of things emerged that were definitely need work.
1. No ability to expand as you progress through the seasons. Unlike OOTP's historical replay modes, you cannot add teams as they would historically be created. You can't adjust the divisional set up etc to reflect the changes in the league structure either, much less move Pittsburgh or Baltimore to the AFC in 1970. Not true. You can too change the alignment. After the season is over you have to go to the Options menu to find the league structure and change it.
2. The playoff system is screwed up. Instead of taking the division winners and the best runners up as wildcards, they take the "best" teams regardless of their division. One season, all four of the AFL playoff teams were from the AFL East, completely excluding the West, including the division winner that had the same record as two of the East team. Sounds like a bug. Reporting this to the developers would be a start so they can fix it.
3. Free Agency is mandatory as best as I can tell. This really messes with the historical freak in me as I love replaying seasons to see how the great teams would do under simulation. The whole free agent system is very clunky and you really do not get a feel for who is leaning towards your offer. Not going to disagree here.. free agency is a mess but there was recently an update to it (v.1.0.5)
4. I have not found the sandbox portion, so it someone knows where it is, I would love to know. Before starting a league the option is right in front of you. Online, Career, SANDBOX in the drop down list.
5. There are a HUGE number of dropped passes. Even when the receiver appears to be wide open in the game animation, the receivers drop a ton of balls. Again, sounds like a bug. The developers are great with fixing these types of issues. Something that should be reported.
6. The AI is particularly dense. They will call a timeout and then spike the ball on the very next play. The AI team might be down 9 with 5 minutes left, but they are running dive plays from their own 20 yard line. The AI does need some work but these issues also fall on you and your strategy.
7. Each time you go to hire a new coach or GM, there is nobody who is above 3 stars. I am not even sure if the ratings go above 3 stars. I hired the coach from the two time champion (KC in my league) and his rating was only 2 1/2 stars. Doesn't strike me as Hank Stram (or even Andy Reid) like there. Yep, sounds like another bug. Maybe report this one too?
8. Roster management needs help. I found it very confusing. Whats so confusing? Please elaborate.
9. Compared to the Almanac that you would be used to in OOTP, their version is VERY under-whelming. Hard to really appreciate the history and greatness of any of the seasons. No team "all-time" lists at all from what I can tell. It doesn't even list the league champions in their own list. you have to load the whole playoff bracket from that year.Almanac certainly does need more work. No reason to disagree with this statement.
I am still working through all of the functionality, but my feeling after playing it for about 40 hours now is that I am very spoiled by the incredible flexibility and creativity that you enjoy in OOTP. I guess baseball season is only a few months away, so I will just play around with this until it is summer.

See my answers in bold.

Overall, the game is not perfect. By any means. But its a great sim that will only get better.

I am however looking forward to seeing what OOTP puts out! I just know it'll be great.

Rob, is there any talk of allowing font size customization? Also, I see that OOTP can generate browser pages, which also opens up capability to increase font that way. Does DDS have or will have that feature?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cap Heresy (Post 4249464)

Since the PFS days (so yes that includes this new game) the developer has allowed for custom CSS which effects the HTML. I do not know if it effects in the in-game UI. I'm going to say that I doubt it, but you can definitely adjust the HTML pages with your own custom CSS.