Feedback & Reviews

BradS of the OOTP Development forums states:

 

Good luck to them hope they do well. One thing noticed in boxscore is how many big scoring plays via the run. Seems similar to DDCF where a team has 400-500 yds offense, but less than 20 first downs. The game engine or logic generates more big plays than you find in real football.

Thanks for the feedback. The game engine is still in a very early version, and one of the big tasks we have (and will soon look at ) is to optimize the engine. We have it planned for the next release after the one coming out next week

One issue i have come across multiple times is injuries and the depth chart, if you have too many injured players in a given position (say kickers) and you dont have enough players to fill those positions you soft lock the game (you cannot progress because the game will not allow you to and there is no way around it) there is also no way to remove excessive players in the depth chart (no need for 2 kickers or 9 linebackers) i feel that if you could remove depth chart players down to a minimum it could circumvent it but also reducing the likelyhood of injury would also help to prevent this from occuring in the future. This is not a rare occasion either this has happened about 30-50% of the time for me in my games.

 

A few more things the players are getting injured even if you dont practice, i dont know if this is intended.  It would be nice to have either some way to compare players to see which one is the better player for depth chart positioning it is kinda tedious to go through every player to get the best players on the field.

 

Aside from those things i feel you guys are making great progress with every update and are making a great game keep up the good work!

Thanks for the feedback and we will for sure optimizing the injuries (and depth charts) :-)

Hey - checked out the game and am really intrigued. I think it could catch steam. I agree with the injuries comment above. Also agree that there needs to be some sort of comparison on the 'Squad' menu, show their numbers or such. I also can not go back screen from looking at a player then back to squads, have to reclick back in menu. I have had a couple wack players. A 6'7 310lb receiver wearing 77 with 84 agility on Arkansas State lol. In my game, there is nothing under practice menu - just system.object or something similar to that. Interested to see where you all go with this.... one thing that intrigues me (maybe its in it and I havent gotten far enough) but staffing carousel, hiring/firing coordinators and them moving on to other schools. That would we wild. 

Hey, thanks for the feedback and we have added all the inputs to our todo list. Most of them are already planned so they will be a part of one of the upcoming releases

I have spent maybe an hour looking around the game, and I love it so far. I do have some suggestions for little details, I will add more as I continue to play.

 

1. I selected a Texas team and I noticed that there was 1 player from a texas highschool, the rest of the roster was from out of state. Not very realistic, but hey, I understand the roster was probably randomly created, and in the future I will just have to recruit in state, because we all know when it comes to high school football, Texas is king!

 

2. I am not a programmer, I want to learn, but I am sure there is a way you can make specific weights and jersey numbers for each position because I am sorry, but I have never seen a QB with the number 68 and weighing 297 pounds, and I have never seen a Center that weights 225 pounds or a 6-8 315 pound running back OMG!!!! at least not in D1 football. Offensive linemen can't have #26 jersey!! If you are able to do this, I can give you a breakdown of jersey numbers for specific positions.

 

3. similar to weight and jersey numbers... Normally the heavier a player is, their strength,speed etc...  should also match.. for instance.. my 6-8 315 pound running back shouldn't have a 93 speed (TOO FAST) 88 running power is understandable, but a 13 strength!!! NO... first of all 6-8 315 pounds 88 running power, 93 speed, he is going to be a freak, so he should be strong as hell, or not in D1 football. I understand this is still in beginning stages, and don't get me wrong, I love the game so far, but lets get it more realistic, because I am going to make my team a power team, big Oline, I want a big physical running back that I can switch with a more speedy shift running back, I want a QB that can scramble, etc... we have to be able to recruit the kind of players we want. 

Here is something I typed up real quick, I will finish it later...

 

Quarter backs
height:
5-8 to 6-2
(more of a scrambler, athletic)

6-2 to 6-8
(more of a pocket passer, less mobile, unless a freak)

weight:
150 to 220
(More speedy, agility, mobile)

220 to 280
(more powerful, unless freak)

jersey: 1 - 19


Running Backs
Height:
5-5 to 6-0
(many different kinds of skills, speedy, power, etc..)

6-0 to 6-5
(more power backs, not as fast, but break more tackles, unless freak)

 

Weight:
150 to 180
(more speedy, agily, quick)

180 to 215
(many different kinds of skills, speedy, power, etc..)

215 to 265
(more break tackles, power runners, unless freak)

Jersey: 1 to 49

example of a freak would be a 5 star running back
6-4 235 pounds speed 93, break tackles 96, strength 78, vision 80, inteligence 93
kind of like an Eddie George at Ohio State

Offensive Tackles
Height:
6-2 to 6-9

Weight:
275 to 310
(more agile, better pass blocking skills, can be a good run blocker also, unless a freak)

310 to 380
(more strength, better run blocker, maybe loses pass blocking skills, unless a freak)

Jersey: 60 - 79

Example: Leonard Davis from University of Texas 6-8 370 pounds run block 98, pass block 83, strength 95
 

Thanks for all the inputs and we will for sure look at them very soon :-) At the moment all the jersey numbers, heights and weights are just random but it is very possible to implement what you are suggesting. 

 

The same goes for the states of the players on each team.

 

For now we expect to release a version beginning of next week and then we will look into this :-)

I'm the programmer of Australian Football Coach (the Aussie Rules GM game), saw your game was free, and decided to try it out. (Will purchase the next version.)

I want to start out by commending you on your work on the game - for what it is so far it's very well done. I really appreciate the customisation as well.

- Minimise clicks! I want to be able to suspend a player from the message screen as opposed to having to remember what they did. I also want to be able to warn a player instead of suspend them. I also want to be able to kick someone off the team for say a DUI. I don't like having to go to the team screen, remember who the player was, find the player on the roster, and then suspend them.

- Minimise clicks! There's a lot that can be improved with regards to recruiting, the basic model is good, but a "recruiting budget" and "scholarship limits" are really important. The best games I've played with a recruiting element were The College Years and that college basketball mobile game, where you had to continually invest to get players to come to your school, including calling them or visiting them. I'd like to be able to do that without any additional dialog boxes.

- Along those lines, I don't know if you get emailed recruiting rankings at the end of each year, but recruiting rankings would be neat, especially if you could tie a "get a top 100 recruiting class" or "get a top 10 recruiting class" into the coaching expectations

- I generally like the game screen, but things move a little bit too quickly for me, and I like a fast-moving sports sim. Again, I'd minimise clicks by removing the drop-down menu for each play. Can you make each play a button with a diagram of what the play does?

- I thought the game had soft-frozen when I played my first game, as I thought "simulate game" on the game screen meant the entire game would be simulated as opposed to starting the game.

- If I choose to play out the game, a "sim to quarter" button would be nice in case I want to speed things up.

- Part of things moving a little bit too quickly - I scored a touchdown and had no idea what had happened, since the PAT was performed automatically (no 2pt conversions?). A touchdown cutscreen would be nice, along with a clear indication of a turnover, and a more clear indication a first down has been achieved. Also, an incomplete pass does not show up on "last plays".

- Everything that just happened on the last play should be displayed to you. You just get say "54 yard returning" but you don't know who returned it. You don't know what defense the opposition played, either, you have to look up top for the down and distance and time. What would also be nice is allowing your coaches to sub in players if you decide to call the game, and end-of-quarter/end-of-game clock management options such as "call timeout after play" or "spike ball after play", "tell players to get out of bounds", "run the full play clock (after run/completed pass)" as options.

- I'd like it if the game stops when you receive a message instead of having to do "next day" or "next game" and automatically takes you to the message screen.

- More stats on the game screen! You get touchdowns and yards, but not attempts, completion pctage, or interceptions. I'd like to see overall team statistics and a drive log.

- I know you can edit the XML files, but I'd also really appreciate an in-game editor, even just for team names.

- This is less optimal, but I'd love to create a college football world where I would be able to either create my own playoff, or go back to the BCS days and only have 1 play 2. In terms of playoffs, the way I do it is by creating specific games, and then seeding specific games with specific teams (IE team #1 plays in this game), and then have those games have winners and losers ids with the id of the game that the winner participates in and the loser participates in (there's a double chance in Aussie Rules, so the loser games are important, and allow you to create some very creative playoff structures.) If the game hasn't been completely scheduled by the time it's ready to play, if one team is scheduled it gets a bye to the winning game.

- Could you put the dates of the games on the bowl games screen?

- You have first & 10 even if the goal line is less than 10 yards away. Also, on some offensive penalties, the down and distance do not update.

- I think the scoring summary should be ordered descending in time (most recent plays first, or at least have the option to do so) and include the score at the time the score occurred.

- The end of the game updates to "Quarter 5"

- There's an official logo in the game I would be very wary about using. I would also be more careful with some school names - go with Palo Alto, South Bend, Los Angeles, Westwood, Waco

- Wyoming shot up to first in the rankings after winning the "Week 0" game and then were out of the rankings entirely the next week. Also, a "previous ranking" would be nice to show on the rankings email screen. Probably easiest just to skip the very first week of rankings than to fix things, but the rankings are a bit too variable. You could also have "power rankings" and then a fixed ranking where it's really hard to move down if you win (reputation + preseason squad skill)

- The AI had a long clock draining 4th quarter drive down three touchdowns - simple AI which runs the ball with a lead or passes the ball when behind to save the clock would be neat (even better would be tying this in with different AI coaching philosophies.)

- It's really slow to load and to move between days - perhaps include a loading bar so I know it hasn't crashed.

- For whatever reason I can't play the game windowed, and it doesn't appear in the task bar when I alt-tab.

Lots there, but great work so far. Looking forward to the next version. I've also made a couple plays, will upload them for you if you'd like.

Also, loading a game needs work - it loaded Akron, did not show the logo or the navigation tabs at the top of the screen, and then crashed when I tried to navigate to another team on the future opponents screen.

 

I've also made a couple custom plays which varies the Shotgun formation just slightly: consider having variations of each offense type by moving the player to whatever their starting location is, for instance initial_position="11,2" position="11,1" to have the right WR play another yard (or whatever the numbers mean) up.

Thanks for all the input and we actually thought loading of a saved game was working. But we will look at all of it and we would really like you to upload your plays, so they can get include :-)

I've gone ahead and attached the plays I've made, note a couple of them may be a bit flawed since they don't start right on a receiver or runner.

Plays.zip

Please keep up the great work. At some point adding a playbook editor I think would open up the appeal of the game to a lot of potential users.

I just got this game, and I'll be sure to let you know my thoughts when I've logged some hours! Looking forward to it!

Just downloaded, really excited by the game. Hoping to be able to provide any helpful feedback

Very excited to play after watching the draft had a boost to play !

Just got into the game a little bit. I tried to update the schools and logos by myself and ran into an issue that caused some of the menu options to disappear. Thankfully, I now see theres a download file that has already done what I wanted to do. I am excited to dig further in and get lost during lock down here in Michigan  

great game

 

very in depth

 

Cool game so far, I just downloaded today

Posting twice as i want to download the real teams MOD. Hopefully this is the only thing holding me back hehe

I downloaded it today, really enjoying it so far. It could use a lot more explaining on how to do things and how to start out with your team. I went hogwild hoping I could start signing recruits and after I had made phone calls and sent out lit to my targets, there were no points left for visits. Kids were signing with other teams left and right and all I could do was have my team practice. I spent some time with the play editor too which is nice, but the stock plays leave a lot to be desired. None of the pass plays had any of the offensive linemen set to pass block. You have to click save after each update to a play or else the whole layout of the play is gone. Defensively, the plays have all your personnel listed but no orders for the defensive players, so you've got to go through each player and tell them to blitz, or play zone, or whatever. I did like being able to schedule future opponents.

We will try to update the pre plays for the game, so the different players have some preset actions

hey, 

i found the game a couple of days ago, and i love it so far. just one small suggestion: clickable names would be nice, so for example whenever someone declares to the draft, it would be nice if i could go directly to his profile page by clicking on his name. thank you for your work!