Warrior General Games

For those who may have questions or just want to discuss things (remember my comment surrounding making assumptions, complaining w/ pitchforks, etc.). Please focus your general discussion on the thread here...not in the general GLB forum, suggestions, or elsewhere. Last thing I want to come out of what I deem a good thing is a pitchforking mob on something silly.

While I am liberal in what I am listing, it does not entail fully what has been discussed in the past, just really what is actively being discussed in the past few days. Also, if I include some of my bias within the descriptions I apologize, but please don't take my opinion as the group opinion.

Gracias.

thanks Mat - I think this is a good idea - especially to avoid people taking snippets out of context to the main forums - i'm glad to see some of those items - and some items from the suggestion forum are being discussed among testers

Originally posted by
This thread is a bit of an older one from earlier this season discussing the reaction of a ball carrier turning back into a defender. Plenty of Bort input regarding trying to get the realistic aspect of players stepping out of bounds. Certainly trying to hammer out some ball carrier pathing issues around the sidelines here. Bort has stated he's been spending some time with a new version of the code. As per Bort, "It seems mostly to be a matter of finding the right scalar to scale the sideline vector."

I personally think that an "avoid sideline" vector is just never going to work out - it doesn't really matter the scalar on it or the distance from which it kicks in, it will always only work right in some scenarios and wrong in others, based on speed of the ball carrier, location of other threats, running style, and timing of where the ball carrier is on the field on ticks he updates his pathing.

At the very least you need a dynamic scalar based on the ball carrier's motion. Optimally, we more realistic logic about how a ball carrier - and the defense - treats the sideline.

Why does a ball carrier go out of bounds in real life? A few reasons:
Clock management - not really implemented here
Avoid the hits/Fumble chance when the yardage isn't there - not implemented here (but perhaps should be)
Hit out of bounds - tackled and the hit moves you out of bounds; don't think tackles move the body enough, especially laterally, to happen in GLB very often (if at all)
Catching a pass that's headed out of bounds - Tap those feet. Happens in real life a lot; happens in GLB almost never. Due to the catching mechanic, WRs usually drop speed to catch the ball and thus can almost always make the turn and stay in bounds, or they're already out of bounds when the catch happens. You'd have to add some modification to the catch mechanic to improve this; such as a diving catch carrying you a yard or two in the direction you're running, but putting you on the ground (and thus able to be tackled automatically if you're in bounds), and some other catch mechanics like that.
Tried to make a move and didn't quite succeed - not sure how often this really happens; today it's mostly what happens when a guy runs out of bounds, he was trying to turn upfield but couldn't make the turn (because he didn't care enough about the sideline). This should probably be pretty rare except on catching punts and passes near the sideline.

You'd have to update the motion algs from (what I suspect is) just "Which direction should I try to move" - with limiting factors on turning radius and top speed based on player capability - into "Where should I try to move to next" - which is a harder algorithm, I think. Either that, or just have a second pass on motion to check "would this take me out of bounds" and if so, then recalc your new force vector for that tick by reducing or removing the "towards sideline" component of the vector.

Curious:

What makes this thread different than the others that have been created? Didn't r8 start some threads to keep us updated, which quickly fell off the map. Then, blankspace picked that back up, and it fell off after one or two threads. I'm wondering what'll make this one different?

Originally posted by "What is being discussed" Thread
Player Tactics on Player Page --- Viewable by GM

This thread is a suggestion regarding allowing open builds individual player tactics to be shown. Old suggestion thread by Mat regarding being able to show a player "recommended" tactics brought up as well. Not supporting allowing GMs to set player tactics, just view them. Current discussion on the idea being shot down as "team owner being too invasive" vs the real life equivalent of a coach just benching a player who is not doing what requested.

So, we can see every aspect of a player's build, their abilities, skills, age, creation date, etc. but being able to see what a player is set to do would be "too invasive"

I'm not sure I understand that logic. In reality, there is no "set yourself to this" setting, just the coach telling his players what techniques he wants to use, what he'd like them to do in certain situations, yada yada yada. If the player doesn't do what he's told, or is fucking up, he either can adjust his tactics, or his coach will bench him.

If we aren't able to see what our players are set to, then we just have to trust that they make the changes we ask them to do. Now, what if they just don't get around to it, or space it off? I've resorted to PMing each defender before a big game to make sure they have their tactics set to my likings. Then, I have to wait for them to check their settings, message them to me, and then await my reply to see if any changes need to be made or if they're good.

How much simpler would it be to just be able to see them? I doubt many players, if any, would be pissed if their coordinator or owner was able to see what they're set on. Make it a separate option than player build, and it could be done.

Player Tactics Drop Down
Player Build Drop Down

Bam, it's done, and optional.

I think lowering the roster limit would be a bad idea. In my opinion it should be expanded to allow a full set of Special Team players. With the FG and PAT Replays you can now have players that just play STs and get max xp.



QB: 2
RB: 2
FB: 2
TE: 2 (which you need 3 in the Depth Chart or it will force your FB in on Goal line Formations)
WR: 5
Oline: 10
Dline: 8
LBs: 6
CB: 5
FS: 2
SS: 2
K/P: 2
KR/PR: 1
----------------
49 players at MINIMUM



Why lower it?

Originally posted by Tigerbait0307
I think lowering the roster limit would be a bad idea. In my opinion it should be expanded to allow a full set of Special Team players. With the FG and PAT Replays you can now have players that just play STs and get max xp.



QB: 2
RB: 2
FB: 2
TE: 2 (which you need 3 in the Depth Chart or it will force your FB in on Goal line Formations)
WR: 5
Oline: 10
Dline: 8
LBs: 6
CB: 5
FS: 2
SS: 2
K/P: 2
KR/PR: 1
----------------
49 players at MINIMUM



Why lower it?

Agreed. That's with minimal depth, and no special teams type players. Add in a D that likes to add in a bit of 4-4 with their 4-3, and you might need another LB or two. Then, maybe you like having 6 WRs/CBs since you run a good deal of 5 wide sets? That pumps it up to say 51. Then, you've got 2-3 players that are special teams guys, and boom. You're at 52-53.

Originally posted by Staz
Curious:

What makes this thread different than the others that have been created? Didn't r8 start some threads to keep us updated, which quickly fell off the map. Then, blankspace picked that back up, and it fell off after one or two threads. I'm wondering what'll make this one different?

The answer to that question is Mat McBriar.

Originally posted by Staz
Originally posted by "What is being discussed" Thread

Player Tactics on Player Page --- Viewable by GM

This thread is a suggestion regarding allowing open builds individual player tactics to be shown. Old suggestion thread by Mat regarding being able to show a player "recommended" tactics brought up as well. Not supporting allowing GMs to set player tactics, just view them. Current discussion on the idea being shot down as "team owner being too invasive" vs the real life equivalent of a coach just benching a player who is not doing what requested.

Player Tactics Drop Down
Player Build Drop Down

Bam, it's done, and optional.

Yup, was already mentioned.

Updated for today.

http://i45.tinypic.com/16gfjf5.jpg

Player Tactics Viewable by GM:

I see mostly upside here. Owners/GMs who want to micromanage every little aspect of a player's build/growth/settings already do that. I've played for only a few different teams, but all of them were without prior knowledge of how they ran a team, and all the owners did NOT specific "you have to spend your SP here" and whatnot. They often went out of their way to say "It's your player, you can make the choices, but if you're asking for advice here's what I think and why".
This feature won't make that any worse from the owners/GMs who want total control, and those who don't get nitpicky about it won't become any worse. What will happen is coordinators will be able to look at the player settings and see what settings produced what results and then offer feedback - it's a pain to go say "Hey what's your such and such slider at - maybe move it some one way" rather than say "okay, so at -65 we're seeing this, that's far enough over I don't think that's the issue, let's look somewhere else" and so on. It helps OC/DCs see the results of different settings in games easier, that's all.

Originally posted by Staz
Agreed. That's with minimal depth, and no special teams type players. Add in a D that likes to add in a bit of 4-4 with their 4-3, and you might need another LB or two. Then, maybe you like having 6 WRs/CBs since you run a good deal of 5 wide sets? That pumps it up to say 51. Then, you've got 2-3 players that are special teams guys, and boom. You're at 52-53.

Yeah I would be pretty upset if the roster size was lowered.

Originally posted by Staz
Agreed. That's with minimal depth, and no special teams type players. Add in a D that likes to add in a bit of 4-4 with their 4-3, and you might need another LB or two. Then, maybe you like having 6 WRs/CBs since you run a good deal of 5 wide sets? That pumps it up to say 51. Then, you've got 2-3 players that are special teams guys, and boom. You're at 52-53.

Everyone knows that if you are 2 deep at a position, that is NOT minimal depth. 2 players can handle all the snaps at any position just fine.

The idea of reducing the roster is so IF you do like to run the 4-4 a lot, maybe you do need more LBs & less of something else. Or if you want to be a 3-4 team you only have 6 DL & a bunch of LBs. That requires teams to make a choice about what they want to do, which would increase team diversity and give teams more personality than they do now.

Originally posted by Tigerbait0307
I think lowering the roster limit would be a bad idea. In my opinion it should be expanded to allow a full set of Special Team players. With the FG and PAT Replays you can now have players that just play STs and get max xp.



QB: 2
RB: 2
FB: 2
TE: 2 (which you need 3 in the Depth Chart or it will force your FB in on Goal line Formations)
WR: 5
Oline: 10
Dline: 8
LBs: 6
CB: 5
FS: 2
SS: 2
K/P: 2
KR/PR: 1
----------------
49 players at MINIMUM



Why lower it?

I can give my thoughts on that one, just keep in mind that these are only my thoughts:

When you boil it down, there's really 2 groups of owners that GLB: The Haves and The Have Nots. For The Haves (I'd include myself, all WL owners, the most successful PL owners and then a handful of others that are either very well connected or make most/all the dots for their teams themselves), large rosters are an awesome thing. Since we are able to fill them with top quality dots, the more the better. Frankly, large rosters allow us to have more specialists and keep the overall energy lvls of the team higher.

Unfortunately, large rosters suck for most of The Have Nots. Look through the roster of the WL teams. Most have 55 players, only 2 have less than 51, and those are 15th & 16th place teams. Now go to AAA leagues and start checking the teams that finished 8-8 or less. All of a sudden, you start seeing a ton of teams with roster sizes in the low 40s. Simply put, there's a dot shortage in this game and it's killing the majority of teams. Why would a decent built dot go to an 8-8 AAA team when there are good PL teams fighting for him? How does the 8-8 team owner break out of his rut, no matter how good he is, when he just can't field a team of anything but the worst built dots (slight exaggeration, but not that far off either), and he can't even come up with 55 of them?

More often than not, he can't. So, he sells his team and some other poor sucker gets stuck in the same position, only to repeat the cycle. The more that happens, the larger the gap between The Haves and The Have Nots becomes, the more unbalanced the game becomes and the less fun it is for everyone.

I have no desire to reward crappy builds or owners. That's not my style. However, I do think you have to give potentially good owners a fighting chance to eventually field good teams. Since ssn 1 I've owned a team every ssn, but 1. My teams have made the POs every ssn, I'm well connected and have an OMG staff of real GMs. All that gives me a very large advantage over the majority of owners in this game. Still, I had to work very hard to field a full roster for next ssn. I started day one of this one and I just finished yesterday. If I had to work that hard, what chance does the AAA 8-8 owner have?

IMO, dropping the rosters to 50 (I would argue hard that anything lower than that is too low) would be a very big help. Not every dot that can't make a WL, PL or friends team will continue playing, but many of them will. In turn, that produces more dots to be spread out. Additionally, it's easier for the team with 44 dots to play against one with 50 than 55. Those 5 less dots makes a big difference in both areas.

Those are my thoughts/motivations, for what it's worth.

Originally posted by Staz
Curious:

What makes this thread different than the others that have been created? Didn't r8 start some threads to keep us updated, which quickly fell off the map. Then, blankspace picked that back up, and it fell off after one or two threads. I'm wondering what'll make this one different?

Despite Matt's answer above (which made me chuckle, in a good way), there is no guarantee and everyone knows it. However, all these threads have a few things going for them that none of the past ones did. For one, there are at least 2 testers that want to see more info flow to the users and are willing to invest their time to see it happen. For 2, there's an Admin that wants the same thing.

The biggest risk I see of this info sharing being curtailed is if it starts shit storms. Some things discussed on the test server aren't overly popular, but need to at least be discussed for the good of the game (I'm personally not a fan of roster limits, but also realize that something needs to change to reduce the # of teams sold each ssn). Most of the things discussed on the test server are just that, discussed only, with nothing ever coming of it. From a comment Bort made when I 1st asked what I could/couldn't post to the live server, I know he is concerned about needless shit storms being created over things that are unlikely to ever occur anyway. He said to only post things I wanted input on or that looked fairly certain to occur. He didn't want to see bitching about things that were never going to happen anyway, which maybe makes up 1/2 of more of the topics in this thread's parent thread. Long story somewhat shorter, if the main forums turn into shit storms over the things listed here, I suspect that this flow of info will be scaled back to what Bort "suggested" I do. If we play nice, I suspect it will continue