BTS: Frequently Asked Questions

[garion333]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

If a player has been on FA for a long time (think Tim Tebow) then gradually your scout lowers his opinion of the player because he has not seen the player (in Action) for so long he presumes the player has lost some of ability somewhat.
Eventually (probably not V1) that bit will change though and I want to add (not for V1 probably) things like inviting FAs for workouts every week or so to update your scouting reports on them (like happens in real life).

I'm interested to see if the Veteran Combine is going to be useful for teams and players. Lots of marginal names being invited, which makes sense since these players aren't on contracts right now.

Might completely change the face of free agency and text sims based on football.

Or be a complete bust.

[Francis Cole]

As (as far as I know) the Veteran Combine was only announced around mid-Jan, there wasn't time to include it for V1, but as it shouldn't be hard to do I'll try and add it for V2 at least (if it still exists by then!)

[colourmebrad]

Will the release date for V2 be released soon? Feature list?





I kid!

[Francis Cole]

Release Date: About a year after V1.
Feature List: Things which are missing from V1.

[james17]

First of all, Francis, v1.0 is not going to be a bust. You don't have to worry about that.

Two questions: Will version 1 include a manual?

How do you plan on handling 'guaranteed money' in the
financial model? Will it exist?

[gigs]

when this game come out doe I'm so hyped I check everyday

[natedawgdude3]

How detailed are player contracts going to be? Guaranteed money? Player/Team options? Front load/Back load? Signing bonuses? Performance bonuses?

[Francis Cole]

First of all, Francis, v1.0 is not going to be a bust. You don't have to worry about that.

Thank you.

Two questions: Will version 1 include a manual?

I would hope the game would be intuitive enough that no manual would be needed..
The only complicated things may be things like the cap, which I hope is explained well enough in detail on the cap screen.

Of course if someone else wants to make a manual I won't complain!

How do you plan on handling 'guaranteed money' in the
financial model? Will it exist?

Of course it is in! I'm not sure on what you mean by how BTS handles it, apart from teams make decisions based on guaranteed money (Prorated SB, Some Salaries, Some Bonuses) vs non-guaranteed money (Some other Salaries and Some other bonuses).

[Francis Cole]

How detailed are player contracts going to be? Guaranteed money? Player/Team options? Front load/Back load? Signing bonuses? Performance bonuses?

Guaranteed money (in the 3 various forms): Yes
Team/Player Options: No
Front load/Back load Teams will renegotiate contracts as and when they need to, so they could turn the Salary (or part of) into a SB to free up money now at the expense of further down the line. (obviously that method of restructuring doesn't work for every contract).
Signing bonuses? Of course, that's a bare minimum requirement for a Football GM game as far as I am concerned. And yes the prorated rules are in place as well as the prorated rules when you sign a new contract before the old one has expired.
Performance bonuses? For simplicity at the moment (not just in terms of coding but in terms of research), we have grouped all other (so excluding SB) bonuses into one. So Roster Bonus/Training Camp Bonus/etc are rolled into one general other bonus.

So for each year of a contract you'll have:
Base Salary (of which parts/all could be guaranteed)
Prorated SB (guaranteed of course)
Other Bonus (could be partly guaranteed).

[Francis Cole]

Originally Posted by gigs

I'm so hyped I check everyday

Thanks!

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

So for each year of a contract you'll have:
Base Salary (of which parts/all could be guaranteed)
Prorated SB (guaranteed of course)
Other Bonus (could be partly guaranteed).

It terms of team finances, there can be quite a bit of difference between what a club's payroll is for salary cap purposes versus what it's actual payroll is during a season due to the way player contracts are handled under the salary cap regime. I presume this difference is recreated in BTS?

[james17]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

Thank you.



I would hope the game would be intuitive enough that no manual would be needed..
The only complicated things may be things like the cap, which I hope is explained well enough in detail on the cap screen.

Of course if someone else wants to make a manual I won't complain!



Of course it is in! I'm not sure on what you mean by how BTS handles it, apart from teams make decisions based on guaranteed money (Prorated SB, Some Salaries, Some Bonuses) vs non-guaranteed money (Some other Salaries and Some other bonuses).

Cool.
If the cap screen is intuitive then a manual may not be necessary. At least not in v1. Later on, when there are multiple game plans to choose from and plays to be designed, a manual would probably be most useful. I'm guessing we're talking about v2 or v3 with that.

[Al Davis]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

I would hope the game would be intuitive enough that no manual would be needed..
The only complicated things may be things like the cap, which I hope is explained well enough in detail on the cap screen.

Of course if someone else wants to make a manual I won't complain!

If you can tell me when you are releasing the game i'll do my best to get you a manual by then

[Francis Cole]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

It terms of team finances, there can be quite a bit of difference between what a club's payroll is for salary cap purposes versus what it's actual payroll is during a season due to the way player contracts are handled under the salary cap regime. I presume this difference is recreated in BTS?

No, because as has been stated in previous posts this is a GM (and Head Coach I guess) game, not a Owner simulator.
Though I agree there is a difference between the actual cap figure and the cash figure for the year, I don't feel it's needed (at least for the foreseeable future).

[Francis Cole]

Originally Posted by Al Davis

If you can tell me when you are releasing the game i'll do my best to get you a manual by then

No one believes me that even I don't know the exact date! Not even Markus knows!

[Al Davis]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

No one believes me that even I don't know the exact date! Not even Markus knows!

Well you don't have to tell us the exact day just the month would do

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

No, because as has been stated in previous posts this is a GM (and Head Coach I guess) game, not a Owner simulator.
Though I agree there is a difference between the actual cap figure and the cash figure for the year, I don't feel it's needed (at least for the foreseeable future).

Er, then where exactly is the GM challenge if every club has access to resources which allow it to spend up to the cap maximum every season? In order for there to be variations in what a club has available to spend towards the cap there has to be variations in the revenue from which the money to pay the players comes, or some other reason for the club not to spend up to the cap. In real life the financial situation of the club is going to be one of the motivating reasons why a club may elect to spend at the minimum level the salary cap system requires rather than the maximum.

[james17]

Originally Posted by Al Davis

Well you don't have to tell us the exact day just the month would do

Hell, I'd settle for just knowing what quarter they're shooting for and it doesn't have to be set in stone.

[dumbrabbit]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Er, then where exactly is the GM challenge if every club has access to resources which allow it to spend up to the cap maximum every season? In order for there to be variations in what a club has available to spend towards the cap there has to be variations in the revenue from which the money to pay the players comes, or some other reason for the club not to spend up to the cap. In real life the financial situation of the club is going to be one of the motivating reasons why a club may elect to spend at the minimum level the salary cap system requires rather than the maximum.

I couldn't care less about anything to do with the ownership fincancial stuff for V1. Just give me a salary cap to work with. Let's worry about that stuff in V2.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by dumbrabbit

I couldn't care less about anything to do with the ownership fincancial stuff for V1. Just give me a salary cap to work with. Let's worry about that stuff in V2.

I'm not disagreeing with that. But the point is one must be careful about any financial aspects which may be hard-coded into the game now, because as a result it may be difficult to change them later. OOTP suffers from this problem to an extent, where certain features or enhancements are difficult, if not impossible to do, because of some things being hard-coded.

It's not a matter of every feature must exist right now in the inaugural version. It's a matter of there ought to be a longer-range plan or vision as to what things might be added down the road and provisions made for such additions. That way including them will be much less problematic.