Originally Posted by Jim Gindin
One point I'd like to make about this business is that we're not politicians or cartoon characters. We're just sports fans, like you are, and we decided to pursue careers outside of the traditional 9-to-5 life paradigm.
I have my philosophies about my work, but they evolve with the times. As do my tastes. There are no absolutes. Sometimes people assume that since I'm the guy who makes the decisions about what's in my products that I'm some sort of extremist. And sometimes I like to joke about these assumptions, because it's kind of fun to be thought of as a cartoon character (but definitely not a politician, especially these days).
Perhaps I take too many chances. One example being my idea that this type of game warrants a completely new type of interface (I'm ahead of the times, damn it, not behind them). But I listen. And on FOF9 I'm deferring all interface decisions to Markus and Andreas. My design documents are 100%, when there's any doubt, do it exactly like it's done in OOTP '19.
I'm also listening about game issues. You will have more control over planning issues, particularly blitzing, in FOF9. Not a huge leap forward, but I think one that satisfies complaints and makes sense. Planning is a very difficult concept in the NFL - I've studied it carefully from the coaching perspective. The problem is that the talent levels are so close that any thorough coach has the athletes to break down any particular offense. This is not the case with college football. Completely different game. Might as well be the CFL with 12-per-side, three downs and a 110-yard field for all they have in common.
But you and I, as gamers, don't want to spend 100 hours planning every week - assistants breaking down film, coming up with countless keys for your defensive players. That has to be assumed. At the NFL level, the worst thing a coach can be is predictable. For instance, the Patriots over the second half of last season ran the ball 29-20-38-35-10-19-38-38 times in games. Perhaps that's somewhat related to their opponents. But that first 38 was in a 35-17 victory over Miami, and that 10 was in a 27-20 loss to Miami two weeks later.
Sometimes, people ask why there isn't more in FOF for in-game adjustments. Certainly, NFL coaches change things up at halftime, and nowadays, with the tools they have, they can make adjustments between possessions and even have plays designed with run-pass options. Defenses counter by constantly changing assignments so that the run-pass option can't key reliably on one player. And offenses counter by changing elements of plays they feel opponents might be able to read and design keys for.
It's a chess match, and one with an infinite set of possibilities and outcomes. As soon as you script something, and it can be read, your opponent can read it and beat you with it. Any approximation of this process feels stilted. And in MP, where you don't have the opportunity to see the responses, there's no way to simulate that chess match reasonably.
With the SP in-game play-calling model, you can either run your script or you can run the game with all active plays always available. I figured I should offer both approaches.
About the push versus pull. I still prefer pull myself, and I'm hoping to get every piece of information you can extract from FOF8, and more, into FOF9. But we will have the push-box. Can't say exactly what level of events we'll incorporate, because that's something that comes later in development, but it will be there and I've already put some pieces in the engine that will be used to support it. In fairness to OOTP '19 with regard to those who prefer pull, you have a lot of control over which items actually get pushed in OOTP.
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