BTS: Frequently Asked Questions

[Orioles1966]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

yes, that's the plan.

The computer will basically just treat your team as a computer team in regards to drafting/signing players etc, and the during the game will let you choose the plays.

Approx. how long will one game last(excluding OT games)?

[Francis Cole]

No TV timeouts, no waiting around at the end of the Q or H. Once you have chosen your play you can fast forward to the snap so you don't have to wait for the play clock to tick down.
In the middle of a play you can just go straight to the snap of the next one if you want (or if you are choosing the play go straight to where you choose the next play).

I guess it you are actually watching very single play, and never skip forward so you watch the play clock run down for every play it would take a while. But I don't think many will do that.

Of course you can just not choose the plays and the result comes up after a second or so.

[Mecza]

Originally Posted by beezer2434

Will (or can) there be some sort of development blog that gets updated maybe once a month on how the development is going or what youre working?

I think thatll make it easier for us to wait for the game and keep us busy reading.

Doesn't even need to be a separate blog, but posts just knowing what is going on would be really cool.

It sounds like BTS will be trying to emulate Football Manager a little more than OOTP. American Football rosters are huge though. It'll be interesting to see how much micromanagement will be involved with roster transactions and the like.

[Orioles1966]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

No TV timeouts, no waiting around at the end of the Q or H. Once you have chosen your play you can fast forward to the snap so you don't have to wait for the play clock to tick down.
In the middle of a play you can just go straight to the snap of the next one if you want (or if you are choosing the play go straight to where you choose the next play).

I guess it you are actually watching very single play, and never skip forward so you watch the play clock run down for every play it would take a while. But I don't think many will do that.

Of course you can just not choose the plays and the result comes up after a second or so.

Can you play the game unattended(like OOTP)?

[Francis Cole]

You can let your coaches call the plays so then you just sit back and watch the action.

You can also skip to the end of the game at any point if just want the game over with!

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Mecza

Doesn't even need to be a separate blog, but posts just knowing what is going on would be really cool.

It sounds like BTS will be trying to emulate Football Manager a little more than OOTP. American Football rosters are huge though. It'll be interesting to see how much micromanagement will be involved with roster transactions and the like.

Roster size in the NFL is 53 with 46 active for any game.

[Giants44]

Originally Posted by Lee

Very good news on this game and as a long time high school coach I have a suggestion in this area that is used by coaches at most levels.


In addition to things like sacks allowed, knockdowns, etc is including a grading system for linemen. Basically this is an indicator of how often they complete their assignment on a given play.


So if a lineman is in the game for 20 plays and carries out his blocking assignment correctly 15 times he would grade out at 75%. Not sure if/how this would fit into the game mechanics but throwing it out there as a way to track O-Line performance.

as a long time coach as well - I agree with this 10000%

we have our line coaches watch and grade each player on each play. The average fan sees penlites, sacks and pancakes but completely misses when lineman perfectly execute combo blocks, or trading off on stunts. stuff that makes all the difference.

would love to see this modeled in the game, the game is won\lost in the trenches at every level of football.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by Giants44

, the game is won\lost in the trenches at every level of football.

Nothing truer has ever been spoken and we need to get the big guys some love in the game!

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

Roster size in the NFL is 53 with 46 active for any game.

Only during the season. In the offseason they can be anywhere between 90 and 53 depending on just what time of the year it is.

[ecd1973]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

Makes sense. Here is the file with the list of British (well, England and Scotland) universities (plus service academies, which aren't involved in the BUCS in real life). It's in the OOTP Schools.txt format.

I think this is the first official BTS mod!

I am extremely excited for this game, by the way. Thanks OOTP Developments!

[KurtBevacqua]

Will tempo be a part of offensive gameplanning to enable you to run a no-huddle style offense?

Also, how wide an array of formations will be available? Will it just be NFL orthodox formations or will various option formations like wishbone or spread option be available? Seems like the game nowadays is getting more and more away from the old orthodox pro style formations into an almost anything goes mentality.

[Pacoheadley]

Originally Posted by Francis Cole

We will of course have Q/P/D/O for a mid-week status, and the health map will show a bit of that. But the main focus of the health map (sorry I couldn't think of a better name ) is to inform you the long term wear and tear of a player.

If you draft a college RB you are probably not that concerned about his fitness that week, you are most certainly interested to know if his knees are completely ruined from a college injury though.

Do you know yet how accurate the health map will be? Even the teams with the best training staffs miss things sometimes, and unexpected injuries come up. Not only that, concussion histories can also be hard to track. I love the health map idea, but I don't want it to be too accurate or for it to tell everything easily.

[KurtBevacqua]

Originally Posted by Orioles1966

Here's a question about NFL overtime in your game-What would happen if a team held the ball for the entire 15 minutes of overtime and kicked a FG as time expired. Would the game still continue because the defense never received the ball?

I think I can answer this for real-world scenarios. If it's a regular season game, the game ends after the period is over regardless of the ingame situation (unless there is a defensive penalty of course).

If it is post season, then you would have to set another 15 mintues on the clock and give the other team a chance with the ball.

[KurtBevacqua]

And another question, thoughts in the future to era settings like OOTP has? MY thoughts would specifically be on defense vs offense, run vs pass percentages, kicking percentages, etc. You look at NFL history, much like MLB there are very clear trends to specific eras.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by ecd1973

I think this is the first official BTS mod!

I made that ages ago for OOTP, so I don't think it counts lol.

[Marinersfan51]

Originally Posted by Lee

Very good news on this game and as a long time high school coach I have a suggestion in this area that is used by coaches at most levels.


In addition to things like sacks allowed, knockdowns, etc is including a grading system for linemen. Basically this is an indicator of how often they complete their assignment on a given play.


So if a lineman is in the game for 20 plays and carries out his blocking assignment correctly 15 times he would grade out at 75%. Not sure if/how this would fit into the game mechanics but throwing it out there as a way to track O-Line performance.

This would be a good thing to have, as a former offensive lineman, we had those when I played in high school.

They can be misleading though, I always scored very well 90%+, but was far from our best lineman, we had one guy who struggled to score 60% but dominated. That was mostly because he got knocked down for the times he should have been penalized, the guy was a walking penalty machine, holding, hands to the face, blows to the head, and even picking up the d lineman and throwing him at backers, but he almost never got called, he had it down to an art.

[Francis Cole]

Originally Posted by Pacoheadley

Do you know yet how accurate the health map will be? Even the teams with the best training staffs miss things sometimes, and unexpected injuries come up. Not only that, concussion histories can also be hard to track. I love the health map idea, but I don't want it to be too accurate or for it to tell everything easily.

It will be fairly accurate. While staff do miss stuff, it's not going to be case of you would be completely unaware someone's knees have gone etc.

[Francis Cole]

Originally Posted by KurtBevacqua

And another question, thoughts in the future to era settings like OOTP has? MY thoughts would specifically be on defense vs offense, run vs pass percentages, kicking percentages, etc. You look at NFL history, much like MLB there are very clear trends to specific eras.

There are differences, though in a lot of cases it was because the rules were completely different.

Not only is the engine completely different in the fundamentals of how it works compared to OOTP, Baseball is (obviously!) very different to Football.

As we won't be doing historical stuff for V1 we won't be having those kinds of stuff for the first version.

[brettrankin]

I love the OOTP Baseball games. And for me...the gameplay graphics are not the most important part of a baseball game. I can picture in my mind the play when reading the dialogue. But for football, seeing the play is very important. Will the emphasis of the development be on the 2d and 3D graphics?

[SirMichaelJordan]

1. Any info about coaching staff and their roles in the game?

The few other Football sims lack in this area.

It would be great to see more details in this part of the game.


2. Since teams will share the same playbook how many different plays can we expect to see come release?

3. Will preseason matter? Can we expect to see roster cut dates?

4. 3-4 defense, how will this affect (AI) roster decisions and depth chart?