Warrior General Games

Discussion is going on in the Test Server Advisers Forum about how to go about reworking morale and it's effect in games.

So far most of the discussion is ideas pertaining to what situations should affect morale in what way.

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Originally posted by Catch22
Issue: Morale is not working correctly in the game

Proposed Solution: Rework morale from the ground up. Basically a complete rewrite of the entire system.

Formal Discussion Points: GLB would like discussion on morale with the following ideas/parameters as detailed by Bort...

1) What things should trigger a morale event
a) what gain or loss should this triggered event cause
b) is this even a team wide gain/loss, a individual player gain/loss, or both

2) Order #1 by intensity relative to each other

3) Consider situational type events impacted by time and score




Originally posted by Bort
I should prob clarify for you. Possible morale targets we are looking at here:

- Guy with the ball
- Tackler
- QB who threw the ball
- All D on the field
- All O on the field
- All D on the bench
- All O on the bench
- All team D
- All team O
- Whole O line
- Whole D line
- Whole secondary

etc.




Originally posted by Kirghiz
Morale intensity is a relative measurement, so I'll use a 1-10 scale relative to the impact for the type of morale.

Game Events:
Touchdowns: 10 intensity team wide, and 10 intensity for the player that scored it or directly gave it up.
Fum Loss: 6 Team Wide, 8 individual that lost it, 10 player that forced it and recovered it.
INT: 6 Team Wide, 10 Player that made the INT, 9 QB that threw it, 5 receiver it was intended.
4th Down Conversion: 8 team wide, 5 individual who converted (3 for QB if a pass)
4th Down Stop: 10 team wide, 10 for player that made the stop
3rd Down Conversion: 6 team wide, 4 individual who converted, (2 for QB if a pass)
3rd Down Stop: 8 team wide, 4 individual that made the stop
4th Quarter any conversion of a 1st Down: 5 Team Wide
Any First Down Conversion no Q4: 3 Team wide
Field Goal: 3 team wide, 10 for K
Missed FG: 3 Team Wide, 10 for K
Missed tying or go ahead FG: 10 team wide, 10 for K
Safety: 5 Team Wide
20+ yard gains: 4 team wide
Any Gain of 5 or more yards: 2 team wide
Punt Inside 20: 3 Team Wide, 8 for P
Punt Inside 10: 5 Team Wide, 10 for P
20+ Yard Punt Return: 4 Team Wide, 6 Returner
30+ Yard Kick Return: 4 Team Wide, 6 Returner

Individual Events:
Run for 5 or more yards: 2 Individual
Tackle for Loss: 1 per yard behind the line for ball carrier and defender (4 yard loss has an intensity of 4)
Broken/Missed Tackle: 2 Individual
Pass Reception: 4 for receiver, 2 for QB, 4 for closest defender
Pass Drop: 8 for receiver, 2 for QB
Pass Deflection: 4 for defender, 4 for receiver, 3 for QB
Sack: 5 for the sacker, sackee, and O-Line (This is in addition to TFL)
Any Broken Block or Pancake: 1 for either side, limit once per play.
Any Held Block: 1 per second

Example: 3rd and 3, run off tackle by HB for gain of 21, touchdown.
Items triggered by this play:
Touchdown: 10 for everyone, 10 for HB that scored it
3rd down conversion: 6 team wide, 4 individual
First Down Conversion: 3 team wide
Run for gain of 5 or more: 2 individual, 2 team

This play hurts or helps the team for 21 because it was a pretty significant play, and the HB gets 16 in addition to the team benefit for being the player that made the play, so he would get a bonus of the equivalent of 37.





Originally posted by Mat McBriar
I'll ramble a bit to get us going on the individual related losses. There's obviously going to be stuff to add, I suppose I'll have to edit this to keep it up to date and to keep us moving forward. I'll commit more time tomorrow when I can really sit down with things. Not much time tonight as I have to do this thing called sleep.

I'm thinking for initial balance purposes it'll be a good idea to log the rate of occurrences of the losses/gains we come up with. It'd be easier to assign initial values for loss/gains so that we have some sort of morale balance. We can just run through 10 or so non-morale death spiral dominated games and come up with loose averages. For future tweaking purposes it'd be easy enough to just have testers gauge occurrences of morale loss/gain events and then alter values to maintain a balance.

I'm also getting lazy with the not stacking stuff, but treat it as assumed.


Individual Losses:

Quarterbacks

- INT returned for TD
- Fumble returned for TD
- INT leading to TD
- Fumble leading to TD
- INT (not stacking with the INT leading to INT)
- Fumble (not stacking)
- Sacked on consecutive plays
- 3 or more consecutive bad passes
- 2 consecutive bad passes
- Offensive 3 and out
- Sacked
- Hurried on consecutive plays
- Hurried

Runningbacks

- Fumble, returned for TD
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT returned for TD
- Fumble leading to TD
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT that leads to TD
- Fumble
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT
- Consecutive TFLs
- Pass block broken w/ player who broke block making sack (simultaneously might be able to pin sacks allowed as a stat category with something like this)
- TFL
- Failed 3rd/4th and short conversion (if ball was in player's hand that play)
- Dropped pass
- Not thrown to when wide open
- Bobbled pass

Fullbacks

- Fumble, returned for TD
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT returned for TD
- Fumble leading to TD
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT that leads to TD
- Fumble
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT
- Consecutive TFLs
- Pass block broken w/ player who broke block making sack (simultaneously might be able to pin sacks allowed as a stat category with something like this)
- Failure to engage target when lead blocking, w/ target making tackle (within a few ticks)
- TFL
- Failed 3rd/4th and short conversion (if ball was in player's hand that play)
- Dropped pass
- Not thrown to when wide open
- Bobbled pass

Tight Ends

- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT returned for TD
- Fumble, returned for TD
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT that leads to TD
- Fumble leading to TD
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT
- Fumble
- Dropped pass
- Not thrown to when wide open
- Consecutive run block broken w/ player making TFL
- Run block broken w/. player who broke block recording TFL
- Failure to engage target in block, resulting in target making TFL
- Revcaked
- Run block broken
- Bobbled pass

Receivers

- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT returned for TD
- Fumble, returned for TD
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT that leads to TD
- Fumble leading to TD
- Tipped pass off hands leading to INT
- Fumble
- Dropped pass
- Not thrown to when wide open
- Bobbled pass

O-Line

- Consecutive pass block broken w/ player making sack
- Consecutive run block broken w/ player making TFL
- Pass block broken w/ player who broke block making sack (simultaneously might be able to pin sacks allowed as a stat category with something like this)
- Run block broken w/. player who broke block recording TFL
- Revcaked
- Failure to engage target in block, resulting in target making sack
- Failure to engage target in block, resulting in target making TFL
- 3rd/4th and short TFL
- Pass block broken (not stacking with the result in sack one)
- Run block broken (not stacking with the result in TFL one)
- QB hurried
- Pushed back 'x' amount of distance while run blocking





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Originally posted by Kirghiz
This is actually an instance where I think stacking is a good thing. Big game changing plays happen in every game, and stacking morale effects is a means to make big plays matter.

Originally posted by Mat McBriar
The benefit to not stacking is that we can adjust things easier.

I'd rather be able to (random numbers here) slap the value of the INT return TD at 5 than have the INT return TD at 3 and the INT itself at 2. I just think it'll make it easier to adjust based on frequency of the events, despite being basically the same thing.

Originally posted by Kirghiz
I agree with you there. The thing is, there are so many different situations in the game that a pick 6 is worth more or less depending on the situation, so it should have different effects. A pick 6 with 8 minutes to go in the second and you're up 14 points isn't nearly as huge of an event as a pick 6 in the 4th quarter with 4 minutes to go and you're down 6. There has to be something there to account for game changing plays or the entire system really won't work like it should.

EDIT: You could I suppose use a situational multiplier to enhance prime time plays that way.
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Originally posted by adamantenigma

A few more game event situationals:

Red Zone TD: ++ Offense / + Scoring Team / - Defense / -- Team Scored On
Red Zone FG: + Offense / + Defense (usually a "win" to limit a red zone possession to a FG)
Red Zone Turnover: ++ Defense / + Recovering Team / - Team With Turnover / -- Offense
Safety Avoidance (ball on own 2 or less): + Offense
Start of 3rd Quarter: + Home Team / + Away Team (halftime speech; could base bonus on score differential)
Penalties (5 or less yards to 1st down, since currently limited to line interaction): -- Infracting Team On Field / ++ Benefiting Team On Field




Originally posted by Zoblefu
I'm going to try to start out with a bit shorter of a list than Mat had (short = simpler). I'll list both bonuses and penalties. I'll throw some amounts in there but it's all relative / open for tweaking / etc of course.

All of these will stack with each other

All Players on Roster (Items that would affect anyone watching)
O Field Goal: +2 Morale
O Touch Down: +3 Morale
O 25+ Yard Gain: +1 Morale
O 50+ Yard Gain: +3 Morale
Turnover, your team's favor: +2 Morale
Turnover, other team's favor: -2 Morale
Field Goal allowed: -1 Morale
TD Allowed: -2 Morale

Offense
All O On The Field
First Down: +1 Morale

Someone Fumbles: -2 Morale
QB Interception: -2 Morale
Missed 4th down conversion: -2 morale
3 and out: -1 morale

QB
Completed Pass, any positive gain: +1 Morale
Completed Pass, touchdown: +3 Morale

Incomplete pass: -1 Morale
Interception thrown: -3 Morale
Sacked: -1 Morale

Ball Carrier (On a run or reception)
Caught a pass, any positive gain: +1 Morale
Rushed for any positive gain: +1 Morale
Earned a first down while ball carrier: +1 Morale (cumulative +2 since its a positive gain)
Scored TD while ball carrier: +3 Morale (cumulative +4 since its a positive gain)

Dropped pass: -1 Morale
Knocked loose pass: -1 Morale (cumulative -2 since this counts as a drop I believe)
Tackled for loss: -1 Morale (either on a rush or short/screen pass)
You Fumble: -2 Morale
Interception when you were pass target: -2 Morale

O-Line
QB Completes a pass without a hurry: +1 Morale
Positive rushing play: +1 Morale

QB Sacked: -1 Morale
QB Hurried: -1 Morale
Ball Carrier TFL (inside run): -2 Morale
Ball Carrier TFL (outside run): -1 Morale
False Start: -1 Morale

Defense
All D on Field
Play results in TFL: +2 Morale
Play results in Sack: +2 Morale (could combine these two so that any negative play is +2)
3rd down conversion stopped: +1 Morale
4th down conversion stopped: +2 Morale
D gains ball due to turnover: +3 Morale

First down allowed: -1 Morale
TD Allowed: -3 Morale
(Leaving FG out on purpose, sometimes a FG can be a win for the defense)

Tackler
Tackle Made: +1 Morale
Rushing play, TFL: +1 Morale (total of +2...)
Sack: +1 Morale (total of +3....)
Forced Fumble: +2 Morale

Missed Tackle: -1 Morale

Special Teams
All team on the field for STs
KR/PR Return TD: +3 Morale
KR/PR Return TD Allowed: -3 Morale
We force fumble and recover it: +5 Morale

Punter
Punt results in other team starting inside their 10: +2 Morale
Punt results in touchback: -1 Morale
Punt is over 60 yards: +3 Morale
Net yardage gained after touchback or return is <20 yards: -2 Morale

Kicker
Kickoff results in ball on or inside the 20: +1 Morale (includes touchbacks)
Made any FG: +1 Morale
Made 40+ yard FG: +1 Morale
Made 50+ yard FG: +1 Morale
Made extra point: +1 Morale

Missed FG: -1 Morale
Missed XP: -3 Morale
Kickoff results in the ball past the 40: -2 Morale

(KR/PR = Ball Carrier bonuses, tackler = Tackler bonuses on ST plays)

Originally posted by Zoblefu
Examples from above:
HB breaks a 55 yard rushing TD:
HB gains:
+3 morale, all team TD bonus
+3 morale, all team 50+ yard gain bonus
+1 morale, ball carrier positive gain
+3 morale, ball carrier TD
---
+10 Morale

O-Line gains:
+3 morale, all team TD bonus
+3 morale, all team 50+ yard gain bonus
+1 Morale, Positive rushing play
---
+7 Morale

Everyone else gains +6 for the "all team" bonuses, including defense / STs.

Random play I picked from a recent game:http://goallineblitz.com/game/replay.pl?game_id=1267429&pbp_id=10397666

Massawa Offense
All O On The Field
First Down: +1 Morale

QB:
Completed Pass, any positive gain: +1 Morale
Total of +2 morale with first down bonus

WR (The Lunatic):
Caught a pass, any positive gain: +1 Morale
Earned a first down while ball carrier: +1 Morale
Total of +3 morale with offense first down bonus

O-Line:
QB Completes a pass without a hurry: +1 Morale
Total of +2 morale with first down bonus

FB/HB/TE/WRs who didn't catch:
Total of +1 morale from first down bonus

Bath Defense
All D on field:
First down allowed: -1 Morale

Earl Rugger II (tackler)
Tackle Made, +1 Morale
Total of no morale change with first down allowed

Originally posted by rockitsauce
Rules:
1. Every potential morale change must be balanced between offense & defense.
2. Determination of point or percentage system. I think a point system, where all players begin with a value based on their attributes and team bonuses, is much easier to control than a percentage system.
3. The actions list should be relatively small and simple. Players morale should not move because of normal or expected actions.
4. Morale movement should freeze at certain points of the game. If a team is ahead or behind by 35 points nothing that takes place in a game would realistically affect morale.
5. Action affects morale of unit on field 2 times the affect of unit on bench. For example, the Team A forces a fumble. Team A's defense bumps 2 points and Team A's offense bumps 1 point. Vice versa for the Team B.
6. These actions need balance in points. We need to determine the average number of plays for offense and balance the average for the defense. For example, on average a team has 10 running plays for 15+ yards and a defense has 5 stops for losses. Then the point values would need to reflect that. Otherwise we have the same imbalance we have today.
7. We cannot allow stacking of morale boosts. It makes balancing the equation so much more difficult.
8. We should be more likely to award morale movement team wide, over individual.

Point system:
1. Major: 5 points
2. Normal: 3 points
3. Minor: 1 point
Team Actions:
1. Play result in yardage: Minor
a. Offensive gain of 15 yards running, 25 yards passing
b. Defensive stop for a loss running, sack passing
2. 3rd down converstion: Minor
a. Conversion
b. Failure
2. 4th down conversion : Normal
a. Conversion
b. Failure
3. Turnover : Major
a. Offense commits turnover
b. Defense forces turnover
4. Lead change
a. Offense scores TD to take lead : Normal
b. Defense allows TD to lose lead : Normal
c. Defense scores TD to take lead : Normal
d. Offense allows TD to lose lead : Normal
e. Special team scores TD to take lead : Normal
f. Special team allows TD to take lead : Normal
g. Offense/ST scores FG to take lead : Minor
h. Defense/ST allows FG to take lead : Minor
5. Score accumulation
a. Offense allows consecutive TDs : Major
b. Defense allows consecutive TDs : Major
c. Special teams allows TD as multiplier (2nd, 3rd, etc) : Major

Player actions:
1. Any SA trigger for or against (ex: Big Hit bumps LB and drops HB)
2. Any VA trigger

Clearly there can be more player actions, but I really think we should avoid individual morale movement based on play results. It's too tricky. Let's say you want to penalize a defensive player for a pass reception against. You have to take into account the play assignment and proximity to the ball. But is it good practice to punish a safety in a zone that is trying to make a play when the CB is pump faked out his shoes? What about double coverage? Do both players get penalized? It becomes too convoluted.

Lastly, we have to take into account coaches as well. Is there a bump to all values based on attributes of a coach, like motivation?

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UPDATE
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Originally posted by Kirghiz

Originally posted by Mat McBriar

Let's focus on establishing lists for events that would cause morale gains/losses, split by position. The specifics and how it should work type stuff is the easy open discussion type. We can deal with that later.
Your list is very well done, but every position seems to have the same team effects, so rather than re-list every one for every position, this is one condensed list because they'll effect everyone equally anyway, along with values for each. The intention is that individual effects when I work on those later this evening will be in addition to these team effects. For example, if a QB throws an INT he would get hit with the -5 team effect from the turnover in addition to the individual effect of throwing the INT.

Team Gains
- KR/PR return TD (not done by player in question): 10
-KR/PR return TD (not done by player in question), resulting in lead change in last 2 minutes of game: 20
-KR/PR return TD (not done by player in question), resulting in lead change: 15
-KR/PR return TD (not done by player in question), resulting in score differential between -7 and 0: 12
- Special Teams Forced Fumble: 3
- Special Teams Forced Fumble w/ Recovery: 5
- Special Teams Forced Fumble w/ Recovery and TD: 15
- offensive touchdown (not done by player in question), resulting in lead change in last 2 minutes of game: 20
- offensive touchdown (not done by player in question), resulting in lead change: 15
- offensive touchdown (not done by player in question), resulting in score differential between -7 and 0: 12
- offensive touchdown (not done by player in question): 10
- Field Goal (50+ yards): 4
- Field Goal: 2
- Defense INT: 5
- Defense Forced Fumble, not recovered: 3
- Defense Forced Fumble, recovered: 5
- Any Defensive Touchdown (non stacking): 15
- Defense Forced Fumble, recovered and returned to TD, lead change (non stacking) 20
- Redzone takeaway: 7
- Halftime Pep Talk: 10
- Defense forcing 3 and out: 3
-Offense converts first down: 2

Team Losses
- Opposing team offensive touchdown or KR/PR TD, resulting in lead change in last 2 minutes of game: -20
- Opposing team offensive touchdown or KR/PR TD, resulting in lead change: -15
- Opposing team offensive touchdown or KR/PR TD, resulting in score differential between 0 and 7: -12
- Opposing team offensive touchdown or KR/PR TD: -10
- Missed FG, sub 20: -5
- Missed FG, 20-30: -4
- Missed FG, 30-40: -3
- Missed FG, 40-50: -2
- Missed FG, 50+: -1
- Offense 3 and out: -3
- Failed 3rd down conversion: -3
- Failed 4th down conversion: -5
- Any defensive TD lead change in last 2 minutes (non stacking): 25
- Any defensive TD lead change (non stacking): -20
- Any defensive TD (non stacking): -15
- Redzone turnover: -7
- Non-redzone turnover: -5


Originally posted by Bort
This is where you guys should be focusing. Not pcts. A +/- scale that is relative to itself can easily be scaled with confidence skills and other bonuses to work at the proper overall strength.

Originally posted by Meatdawg
I like what we got here, but I think it needs to be simplified a bit.

Matt's list is quite indepth, but what about a overall morale slider.

Take a long drive to go ahead in the 2nd quarter that eats up about 10 minutes on the clock. The amount of moral the Offense could build could be staggering, especially if the other teams follows up with a 3 and out.

You start with something simple, balance and test it. You can always add to it once you have something working.

Originally posted by Kirghiz
Yes, but morale would still be capped at 100. The thing is, the numbers we have are just in relation to each other, they do not represent a morale value. Bort will give each event an actual value, and that will be as intense or mild as he sees fit.

In my opinion, with confidence at an average level, no one drive like you outlined should have more than an actual 6 or 7 morale swing from the team events, and the cumulative individual effects shouldn't be more than 2 points, no more than 3 if something big happened to an individual. You should only be really seeing an 8 to 10 point swing from any one drive like that, and than only because they took the lead. Throw out the lead change, and it would only be a 6 to 8 point total morale swing from a given TD drive.

If one team puts five of those drives together in a row it will have a big impact, as it should. However, if teams are going back and forth in the game, the team morale effects should more or less cancel each other out.


Originally posted by Mat McBriar
I'd actually like to see morale fluctuate significant amounts, that's fine with me. The way I see it, low confidence should put negative morale events on par with positive. High confidence should make negative morale events be able to be "shrugged off". Anyways, we can very much simulate adrenaline and being 'fired up' if things are done right. Personally I'd love to see a player who was previously a bit down on himself (morale-wise) get picked up after a significant morale boosting event.

I sort of envision things like this (numbers being speculative until we can pin an appropriate range):

Great Morale Range - Player is fired up, +5% to strength/speed/agility/jumping
Good Morale Range - Player is playing as expected, no boost or penalty.
Medium Morale Range - Player has made a mistake, but has tightened focus. -2.5% to strength/speed/agility/jumping, +5% to all football skills and vision.
Slipping Morale Range - Player has made numerous mistakes, and is becoming down on his performance. -5% to strength/speed/agility/jumping, -2.5% to football skills and vision.
Poor Morale Range - Player no longer wants to be in the game. -7.5% to strength/speed/agility/jumping, -5% to football skills and vision.


The morale ranges obviously wouldn't be equal in size. You'd want the 'Good' range to be the largest. It'd also allow us to have the starting morale at a non-max value. So let's say your morale reserve was +10 and the good range runs from 60-90. If starting morale was 80, you could actually have your promos creating an effect where players began the game "fired up".


Originally posted by Saris
There are some excellent comprehensive lists already made, which I doubt I could improve on, so I'll make my comments more general.

First of all, I would be cautious about making the team/all-O/all-D morale hits too large. Though it might better reflect the RL reactions of players on the bench, I would guess that these team wide losses are a major cause of the morale spirals we see in the current system. Also I can't help but feel that depth should mitigate morale spirals more than it does, and in the case of team wide losses depth is largely negated.

If I remember correctly I saw an idea a while back (from DB?) that there should be resistance levels for morale. In other words, when a player's morale is at 60 a negative event gives much less of a hit than when it's at 100. Likewise a positive event would also be stronger at at lower morale levels. That would be yet another tool for countering spirals.

One thing that I don't like about the current system is how linear morale is. A player with a very minor confidence investment of 40, might finish a game where his team performs poorly at 30 morale; while another player with a very high confidence investment of 70 might finish the same game with his morale at 50. To add a greater significance to confidence, I'd suggest implementing a system similar to the SA morale dynamic. Where a player's confidence score is rolled to determine how hard or whether they're affected at all by a morale event. At a later point a VA could even be added to increase the effective confidence score of such a resist roll (something like +2%/level).

Finally, I'll quickly touch on the morale damaging SA's and their interaction. Hopefully this isn't too far outside of the guidelines of this discussion. As I see it, morale damaging abilities are all but impossible to balance with the current system, there’s simply no way to make them useful when only one player has them, without making them completely overpowered when an entire team utilizes them.

One solution would be to introduce a new morale bar reflecting player specific intimidation. I'll give a few examples:
If player A is affected by player B’s aura of intimidation all game long, so that player A is highly intimidated by player B, he would have a reduced chance of blocking B. If A was a hb, he’d have an increased chance of fumbling and a reduced chance of breaking the tackle when tackled by B. If A is the QB the radius necessary to create a hurry may be increased along with the penalty to pass quality when pressured by B; and when sacked by B, QB A would have an increased chance of fumbling. If Player C was substituted for B, none of the intimidation from B would carry over to the C/A interaction.







Originally posted by Meatdawg
Another thing we may want to think of is scaling morale like we do passing for pee wee and lower level leagues.

No one has capped confidence before there 30's so having the same system in play for WL that we do at lower levels we be pretty stupid.



Originally posted by Kirghiz
Yeah, it's gonna have to be scaled in the minors. I would seriously doubt many will intentionally push confidence over 61 by level 46 unless they are doing a high confidence experiment, or they are just getting killed by morale and feel like they have to.

The idea of resistance levels is a pretty good idea as well. It would stem the occurrence of morale spirals.

However, since morale can't be raised past 100 what you will have is one team doing well, but won't get a benefit from morale because they are maxed. As George Carlin says, being "more than happy" is kind of disturbing. At any rate, the team that is doing well is maxed, but the team that isn't is taking morale hits. Just using numbers, let's say team A's morale is at 100 and Team B's is at 82. Team B scores a TD, and than forces a fumble and recovers the ensuing kickoff. Those two events combine for a 6 point team morale effect on both sides. Team A takes a 6 point hit dropping them to 94, Team B gains 6 points and they are now at 88. What was once an 18 point morale difference is now 6. A couple first downs on the ensuing drive after the fumble recovery and team B is overtaking Team A's morale advantage.

Doing this, and adding in resistance levels would really give the team that is behind an advantage because it would be a lot easier to gain morale back than to lose it. Seems like this would be a good thing for a lot of reasons.

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Originally posted by Catch22
k deadline has reached - I'll review and put something together and post in Finalized.

Updated.

very nice to see the conversation and that they are looking at it as a needed change
will be interesting to see how this works itself out

thanks for posting this

*Hulk endorsed

Tuba, is this conversation limited to the Test Server? Or is the GLB community welcome to partake?

You are free to comment as long as the conversation stays civil and on-topic.

This thread is here for the purpose of letting the GLB community know what is going on. I am sure the testers will be poking in to see what comments come up.

Updated OP.

Originally posted by
Originally posted by Mat McBriar
I'd actually like to see morale fluctuate significant amounts, that's fine with me. The way I see it, low confidence should put negative morale events on par with positive. High confidence should make negative morale events be able to be "shrugged off". Anyways, we can very much simulate adrenaline and being 'fired up' if things are done right. Personally I'd love to see a player who was previously a bit down on himself (morale-wise) get picked up after a significant morale boosting event.

I sort of envision things like this (numbers being speculative until we can pin an appropriate range):

Great Morale Range - Player is fired up, +5% to strength/speed/agility/jumping
Good Morale Range - Player is playing as expected, no boost or penalty.
Medium Morale Range - Player has made a mistake, but has tightened focus. -2.5% to strength/speed/agility/jumping, +5% to all football skills and vision.
Slipping Morale Range - Player has made numerous mistakes, and is becoming down on his performance. -5% to strength/speed/agility/jumping, -2.5% to football skills and vision.
Poor Morale Range - Player no longer wants to be in the game. -7.5% to strength/speed/agility/jumping, -5% to football skills and vision.


The morale ranges obviously wouldn't be equal in size. You'd want the 'Good' range to be the largest. It'd also allow us to have the starting morale at a non-max value. So let's say your morale reserve was +10 and the good range runs from 60-90. If starting morale was 80, you could actually have your promos creating an effect where players began the game "fired up".

This was in my mind as I was reading the thread of ideas. There needs to be a player specific saving throw for each player to modify how a morale altering event effects that player's morale.

The saving throw would be based upon the player's confidence, and could reduce or increase a Morale Event's base effect upon that player. Roll well under the Confidence of the Player and negatives are less negative or positives more positive. Well over and the opposite would be true.

For example, for a Morale Loss, where saving throw is a random number ST with a range of 1 to 100, and CONF is the player confidence, NML is your net morale loss and ML is the base Morale Loss from an event, and MaxMoraleChange is some set variable which you wish to be the maximum possible morale loss or gain from a single morale event, then the forumula for a morale hit saving throw check would be something like

NML=(ST/CONF)*ML
If NML>MaxMoraleChange Then NML=MaxMoraleChange

And for a Morale Gaining Event it would be the inverse, with MG being the base gain, and NMG the net morale gain as follows;

NMG=(CONF/ST)*MG
If NML>MaxMoraleChange Then NML=MaxMoraleChange

So if your Confidence is 50 and you roll a 50 for your Saving Throw, then the morale effect will be normal, 100% of its base effect. If you roll a Saving Throw of 25 then a loss would be halved and a gain would be doubled. If you rolled a 1 it would be greatly modified but capped at whatever the MMChange setting was.

Additionally, there could be other modifiers to the Saving Throw, such as the player's energy, the leadership of his position leader, and perhaps the morale of that leader, and then the over all morale of the team. In this manner even a heroic player might be worn down as the rest of his team begins to hang dog, while a shakier player might be steadied by his teams rosy outlook.

wow. my head hurts

Originally posted by yello1
This was in my mind as I was reading the thread of ideas. There needs to be a player specific saving throw for each player to modify how a morale altering event effects that player's morale.

The saving throw would be based upon the player's confidence, and could reduce or increase a Morale Event's base effect upon that player. Roll well under the Confidence of the Player and negatives are less negative or positives more positive. Well over and the opposite would be true.

For example, for a Morale Loss, where saving throw is a random number ST with a range of 1 to 100, and CONF is the player confidence, NML is your net morale loss and ML is the base Morale Loss from an event, and MaxMoraleChange is some set variable which you wish to be the maximum possible morale loss or gain from a single morale event, then the forumula for a morale hit saving throw check would be something like

NML=(ST/CONF)*ML
If NML>MaxMoraleChange Then NML=MaxMoraleChange

And for a Morale Gaining Event it would be the inverse, with MG being the base gain, and NMG the net morale gain as follows;

NMG=(CONF/ST)*MG
If NML>MaxMoraleChange Then NML=MaxMoraleChange

So if your Confidence is 50 and you roll a 50 for your Saving Throw, then the morale effect will be normal, 100% of its base effect. If you roll a Saving Throw of 25 then a loss would be halved and a gain would be doubled. If you rolled a 1 it would be greatly modified but capped at whatever the MMChange setting was.

Additionally, there could be other modifiers to the Saving Throw, such as the player's energy, the leadership of his position leader, and perhaps the morale of that leader, and then the over all morale of the team. In this manner even a heroic player might be worn down as the rest of his team begins to hang dog, while a shakier player might be steadied by his teams rosy outlook.



I agree that some sort of saving throw should be included. Seems like a logical way to make confidence have a good impact on morale.

I would add the catching of a deflected pass should be on there as a -1 for entire defense/-3 for individual deflector/+3 for receiver who caught deflected pass.

Good luck guys. It seems like a lot of work.

Originally posted by roadfrog
wow. my head hurts

I'm glad to see the number of angles taken and ideas that this discussion on the test server has created. It gives me some faith that when the system becomes live, it won't immediately crash and burn and require excessive patchwork to try and "correct" as these widespread changes often have in the past.

Originally posted by Meatdawg
Another thing we may want to think of is scaling morale like we do passing for pee wee and lower level leagues.

No one has capped confidence before there 30's so having the same system in play for WL that we do at lower levels we be pretty stupid.
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Most players do not have their intimidation SAs up either though.

Originally posted by Kirghiz

The idea of resistance levels is a pretty good idea as well. It would stem the occurrence of morale spirals.
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+1

This should be a very complicated discussion. I would like to suggest that results of individual battles should not be higher than the result of the play. An example would be an O lineman pancaking a defensive lineman on a short run play that results in a 3 yard gain. The loss of moral should not be as extreme for the D lineman as it would be if the play resulted in a long TD run.

To be more specific. There seem to be positions that are currently problem areas when it comes to moral. Cs and WRs seem to consistently end games with the least moral. I think this is a result of neglected code for these positions. So if a short term solution or "bandaid" is needed I would suggest updating them positions first. That is to buy some time before applying a more complex solution.