BTS: Frequently Asked Questions

[olivertheorem]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

Regarding position designations, in the NFL it can actually make a difference, because of the "franchise tag" system. Basically a team can designate one player with the franchise tag every season and he gets a one year contract with a value equal to the average of the top 5 salaries at his position. Players have been known to ask to be designated as other positions in order to exploit this to get more money (most commonly DEs being designated as OLBs, IIRC).

Case in point this offseason: see Graham, Jimmy.

If Francis can get this right on his first go, I will buy every version of BTS forever. Probably would anyway, but still.

[goalieump413]

Getting it right would mean assigning weighted multipliers to each position, then applying the positional weights to a player rating to get the result. Doesn't sound that difficult.

The tag is optional, of course, so another variable would have to be to assign a hidden rating to each team (or allow user input) that results in their likelihood of using the tag in the first place.

[Lithium]

Certain coaches in the NFL have a good relationship with particular college coaches, which influences their drafting (like Belichick with Rutgers, and with Brian Kelly at Notre Dame). Would there be anything like this in the game?

[BradC]

Wow, great question. Francis will have the definitive answer, of course, but I'm not sure how we would mimic that, especially since such influence changes as coaches at the NFL and college levels change. In baseball, for example, Piazza was only drafted by the Dodgers as a favor to Lasorda, but that influence isn't in the game - the Dodgers aren't more likely to draft him in an historical replay, for example.

Originally Posted by Lithium

Certain coaches in the NFL have a good relationship with particular college coaches, which influences their drafting (like Belichick with Rutgers, and with Brian Kelly at Notre Dame). Would there be anything like this in the game?

[goalieump413]

Good point, but to counter that one... Pete Carroll doesn't draft more extensively from USC, even though he's only a few seasons removed from the program.

I think the better question is: Do some NFL coaches (regardless if they're a HC or an assistant) have pipeline relationships with college teams because of a history with certain colleges? This expands the point a little, as there are many more pipelines to include per NFL organization.

[Ruthian23]

I don't have a question at this point, but I just wanted to say how absolutely thrilled I am to see this project in the works. The quality and selection of American football games like Football Manager and OOTP is shockingly low given the popularity of the sport. Front Office Football is very good, but hasn't been developed very significantly in many years (despite the new update). Having a pro football game done by someone who has worked on Football Manager in the past and based on the OOTP interface is the best news I've heard in quite some time. Best of luck with the development.

[Francis Cole]

In regards for the coaches drafting from certain colleges.
For future versions (i.e. not V1) I think we need to find out (from a data perspective) why coaches draft from colleges. Is this because the HC used to be a coach at the college? Or one of his assistants was at the college?

Hopefully by future versions our coaching history data will be extensive enough to be able to dynamically work these things out automatically

[JWay]

I could see coaching trees being developed and that relationship tree having rooted influence.

[Le Grande Orange]

Trees? The larch!

[r0nster]

How are you handling financials like with stadium costs or even moving the team or even renovations ... also consessions and parking $$$$ plus taxes from city and or state as you know they starting to get their hands on this money. which means higher ticket prices. so many more questions i could ask on this but i will just keep it simple and stop here

the big question really is the draft im sure we will have control who we draft but will we have the ability to confer with owner or staff with who to draft ??

also will we be paying big bucks for a first round draft choice?? reason I ask in OOTP when drafting and negotiating the later rounds get more money than first rounds so its inverted there LOL i know its trivial but still thought to ask

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

Trees? The larch!

The larch.

[Celtic Forever]

Will you be forced to take control of a team, or can you oversee the whole league in some sort of "Admin" role?

P.S. - I am very excited for this release!

[Francis Cole]

You can not be in charge of a team and just let the others carry on as normal if that is what you mean?

[Celtic Forever]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

You can not be in charge of a team and just let the others carry on as normal if that is what you mean?

Yes - all the teams are computer-controlled, but I have editing rights

[Francis Cole]

Yeah sure you can do that.
You won't able to edit as much as OOTP, but you can still edit a lot

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by JWay

I could see coaching trees being developed and that relationship tree having rooted influence.

So you don't want Rootless Trees?

(nsfw language):

Damien Rice- Rootless Tree (Album Version) - YouTube

[r0nster]

I am curious about "newspaper" covering events in the game week or specific games highlighting such as breaking records or anything of any other thing as like in OOTP????

[fsclb66]

Minor detail but will you be able to pick a location for the super bowl or will a random city be picked when the schedule is generated

[Francis Cole]

If I have time (and remember) I will try and add that as commissioner option.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by fsclb66

Minor detail but will you be able to pick a location for the super bowl or will a random city be picked when the schedule is generated

Ideally, that'd be an element in dedicated post-season schedule files. (Where, among other things, the user could pretty much set up whatever playoff format they want... I have to write that proposal up and get it posted to the BTS beta forum! )