http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=630838&page=1
Originally posted by Bort
It's that time again - end of the season! Congrats to all the champions! Offseason is here, teams are coming, and the FA market will be going crazy again, so get ready for it.
I've been hard at work all season making changes and additions to the sim code, including getting the new AI handler code ready to go, and getting all the plays created for all the new defense options.
The main changes with the sim to be on the lookout for in season 4 (let's see if I can remember them all haha):
- Ability to use 3-4, along with the new AI settings, obviously.
- Every single defensive play in the playbook has been replaced to go with the new AI settings.
- Kickoff team now stays in their lanes, punt team less likely to pause on punts
- Zone defense AI has been reworked, especially for over the top help - safeties should play over the top a little better an play less "match up" zone.
- Some pathing issues have been addressed: mainly the problems with RB's heading backwards sometimes when on elusive
- Acceleration is now more a function of agility than speed
- Run blocking has been improved; it should be a bit easier to push opponents back unless you are well overmatched. There's also a little more jostling going on.
- Wrap up tackling style is not as good, so get your tackling up. Your chance of causing a fumble is GREATLY reduced when using it. Power tackling has a better chance of causing fumbles.
- A good number of formulas have been adjusted to require some more support attributes to work out as well. These include catching, blocking, and breaking blocks, among various other things.
- Penalties: offsides and false start, holding, pass interference, facemask. I'm still fiddling with the frequency of them. Vision for O/D line is important to avoiding false start/offsides, among a few other things.
- Cruise control: When a team gets up be a large margin vs a lower leveled team, the players on the dominant team will play at a reduced level and use far less energy. This should help address the 200-0 blowouts where the winning team all ends up at 60 energy every time.
- Morale for overmatched teams: players who are lower leveled will not lose morale (on their morale bar) when they lose to a high leveled team, as it's expected. Should help with the morale spiral problem.
- There is a WR1, WR2, WR3, etc and CB1, CB2, CB3 position, as well as a Long Snapper position for punts.
- Various tweaks, bug fixes, etc.
Other changes that will start with season 4
- We are reworking team cash. You will no longer be able to go in the red from salaries, bonuses, etc. If you are in the red when training/salary payouts come around, you will not pay your players, and they will lose morale as a result. They will also have the opportunity to release themselves from their contract if you can't pay them for 3 days. You also will not be able to spend money you don't have with trades and signing bonuses.
- My inbox will be switching to a "whitelist" system. If you need customer support, use the Support link!
Current Teams
- Awards will get processed tonight after the last sims finish.
- Promo/Relegation will happen tomorrow morning.
- Due to the arguments made, we will be skipping promotion for Canada A this season. Because of this, we're not going to be doing any mid-season team releases any more, and this is a ONE TIME exception, so don't ask for it again. They will all be off-season.
- Canada A teams who had fewer home games will also get a cash boost; I'll get to writing the script to process it in the next day or two.
- Lv 13 caps will be lifted tonight after games finish.
New Teams
- We will be adding new "A" level teams to all leagues that are missing them, except Africa. That means Eastern Europe. South America, Oceania, Southeast Asia. That's 1024 teams, 32 leagues. They will all be capped at 13 to start.
- We are looking at adding some BBB's after that, possibly with a lower cap. More on that later if we decide to do it.
- I'll roll the new teams out over the first couple days of offseason.
- Chemistry rules are the same as last offseason: -1 for all transactions that normally cost more.
Level Cap changes with the New Teams
We're going to continue on to the next inevitable step with the hard cap idea for the teams we're adding this season:
- All new teams start out with a hard level cap for FA signings.
- Halfway through the season, we will raise the caps from 13 to 16 or so, depending on the levels in the leagues at that time.
- At the end of the season, the cap will be raised to around 20 or whatever makes sense with the current levels.
- In the following season, the cap will be raised at mid-season again to accommodate growth. Then it will be removed at the end of that season.
- It's possible we'll automate this to be based on league medians and updated weekly or something.
Offseason Length
- Will be at least 3-4 days, depending on how long it takes to get new servers set up and the new code rolled out, and to give new teams.
- We will be generating 2 pre-season scrimmage games for every team, so you can play with the new AI. These games will be randomly assigned. We'll start processing ticket sales at this time as well.
- Last day to boost for season 3 is the last day of the offseason. This is also the last day to do stadium construction projects for season 3.
- I'll send out the seasonal 100 FP bonus at the end of offseason.
What do we have on tap next?
I've got a few things in the works to roll out sometime during season 4, or maybe at the start of season 5 depending on how it goes and how much it affects the game. This stuff isn't done yet, and it's not all 100% hashed out, but it's next on the radar!
- The training system will be getting an overhaul:
Each player will have a "day planner" with which they can schedule different things to do with their time every day. This will include training attributes just like now, going shopping, going to team meetings, persuing endorsement deals, etc. Each thing you can do will cost cash and take energy away from the amount gained per day, but will give you different abilities to change your player's performance and morale, or your team's chemistry and teammate morale.
Intense training will cost less, will cost a little less energy, and will have a new bonus that you can't get with relaxed training. Basically, something to make it worthwhile and strategic to do something other than "relaxed" sometimes.
- One thing I think we are lacking is player recognition and reputation, as in "who are the big names?" Therefore, players will have a new "fame" rating.
You'll build up fame points over time for doing various things like playing well against similar or better competition, signing high value contracts, using certain training options (from above), etc. - basically the kind of stuff famous players do. Details aren't 100% hashed out yet. I'll probably do something to generate a base value for existing players based on their histories.
There will be a "most famous" page to compete with your friends over, haha.
Fame will help your player gain endorsement deals, command a higher salary, and high levels of fame will help you gain deals from top flight companies. Endorsement deals will give players access to special equipment that would not be available otherwise.
- The locker room attributes suggestion by Drifter is also something we'll be looking at to do in some form or another. I think it would be very cool to try and do something that gives players an option to be "team oriented" or "selfish" with bonuses and penalties for each.
- Scheduling "friendlies:" We've purchased some extra sim servers with the express purpose of using them for this. It'll cost 25 FP's per team to schedule the game, and we will probably give a free friendly or two per team per season.
- The ability to create a private forum (for guilds, etc) and allow/disallow access to various users. This was suggested a little while ago and I think it sounds like a cool idea to help build community. It'll cost some amount of FP's for the forum owner to create it, but nothing outrageous, like 100 FP's or something.
- I will revisit the sportsmanship score and get the league recommended levels posted, numbers tweaked, etc.
Originally posted by Bort
It's that time again - end of the season! Congrats to all the champions! Offseason is here, teams are coming, and the FA market will be going crazy again, so get ready for it.
I've been hard at work all season making changes and additions to the sim code, including getting the new AI handler code ready to go, and getting all the plays created for all the new defense options.
The main changes with the sim to be on the lookout for in season 4 (let's see if I can remember them all haha):
- Ability to use 3-4, along with the new AI settings, obviously.
- Every single defensive play in the playbook has been replaced to go with the new AI settings.
- Kickoff team now stays in their lanes, punt team less likely to pause on punts
- Zone defense AI has been reworked, especially for over the top help - safeties should play over the top a little better an play less "match up" zone.
- Some pathing issues have been addressed: mainly the problems with RB's heading backwards sometimes when on elusive
- Acceleration is now more a function of agility than speed
- Run blocking has been improved; it should be a bit easier to push opponents back unless you are well overmatched. There's also a little more jostling going on.
- Wrap up tackling style is not as good, so get your tackling up. Your chance of causing a fumble is GREATLY reduced when using it. Power tackling has a better chance of causing fumbles.
- A good number of formulas have been adjusted to require some more support attributes to work out as well. These include catching, blocking, and breaking blocks, among various other things.
- Penalties: offsides and false start, holding, pass interference, facemask. I'm still fiddling with the frequency of them. Vision for O/D line is important to avoiding false start/offsides, among a few other things.
- Cruise control: When a team gets up be a large margin vs a lower leveled team, the players on the dominant team will play at a reduced level and use far less energy. This should help address the 200-0 blowouts where the winning team all ends up at 60 energy every time.
- Morale for overmatched teams: players who are lower leveled will not lose morale (on their morale bar) when they lose to a high leveled team, as it's expected. Should help with the morale spiral problem.
- There is a WR1, WR2, WR3, etc and CB1, CB2, CB3 position, as well as a Long Snapper position for punts.
- Various tweaks, bug fixes, etc.
Other changes that will start with season 4
- We are reworking team cash. You will no longer be able to go in the red from salaries, bonuses, etc. If you are in the red when training/salary payouts come around, you will not pay your players, and they will lose morale as a result. They will also have the opportunity to release themselves from their contract if you can't pay them for 3 days. You also will not be able to spend money you don't have with trades and signing bonuses.
- My inbox will be switching to a "whitelist" system. If you need customer support, use the Support link!
Current Teams
- Awards will get processed tonight after the last sims finish.
- Promo/Relegation will happen tomorrow morning.
- Due to the arguments made, we will be skipping promotion for Canada A this season. Because of this, we're not going to be doing any mid-season team releases any more, and this is a ONE TIME exception, so don't ask for it again. They will all be off-season.
- Canada A teams who had fewer home games will also get a cash boost; I'll get to writing the script to process it in the next day or two.
- Lv 13 caps will be lifted tonight after games finish.
New Teams
- We will be adding new "A" level teams to all leagues that are missing them, except Africa. That means Eastern Europe. South America, Oceania, Southeast Asia. That's 1024 teams, 32 leagues. They will all be capped at 13 to start.
- We are looking at adding some BBB's after that, possibly with a lower cap. More on that later if we decide to do it.
- I'll roll the new teams out over the first couple days of offseason.
- Chemistry rules are the same as last offseason: -1 for all transactions that normally cost more.
Level Cap changes with the New Teams
We're going to continue on to the next inevitable step with the hard cap idea for the teams we're adding this season:
- All new teams start out with a hard level cap for FA signings.
- Halfway through the season, we will raise the caps from 13 to 16 or so, depending on the levels in the leagues at that time.
- At the end of the season, the cap will be raised to around 20 or whatever makes sense with the current levels.
- In the following season, the cap will be raised at mid-season again to accommodate growth. Then it will be removed at the end of that season.
- It's possible we'll automate this to be based on league medians and updated weekly or something.
Offseason Length
- Will be at least 3-4 days, depending on how long it takes to get new servers set up and the new code rolled out, and to give new teams.
- We will be generating 2 pre-season scrimmage games for every team, so you can play with the new AI. These games will be randomly assigned. We'll start processing ticket sales at this time as well.
- Last day to boost for season 3 is the last day of the offseason. This is also the last day to do stadium construction projects for season 3.
- I'll send out the seasonal 100 FP bonus at the end of offseason.
What do we have on tap next?
I've got a few things in the works to roll out sometime during season 4, or maybe at the start of season 5 depending on how it goes and how much it affects the game. This stuff isn't done yet, and it's not all 100% hashed out, but it's next on the radar!
- The training system will be getting an overhaul:
Each player will have a "day planner" with which they can schedule different things to do with their time every day. This will include training attributes just like now, going shopping, going to team meetings, persuing endorsement deals, etc. Each thing you can do will cost cash and take energy away from the amount gained per day, but will give you different abilities to change your player's performance and morale, or your team's chemistry and teammate morale.
Intense training will cost less, will cost a little less energy, and will have a new bonus that you can't get with relaxed training. Basically, something to make it worthwhile and strategic to do something other than "relaxed" sometimes.
- One thing I think we are lacking is player recognition and reputation, as in "who are the big names?" Therefore, players will have a new "fame" rating.
You'll build up fame points over time for doing various things like playing well against similar or better competition, signing high value contracts, using certain training options (from above), etc. - basically the kind of stuff famous players do. Details aren't 100% hashed out yet. I'll probably do something to generate a base value for existing players based on their histories.
There will be a "most famous" page to compete with your friends over, haha.
Fame will help your player gain endorsement deals, command a higher salary, and high levels of fame will help you gain deals from top flight companies. Endorsement deals will give players access to special equipment that would not be available otherwise.
- The locker room attributes suggestion by Drifter is also something we'll be looking at to do in some form or another. I think it would be very cool to try and do something that gives players an option to be "team oriented" or "selfish" with bonuses and penalties for each.
- Scheduling "friendlies:" We've purchased some extra sim servers with the express purpose of using them for this. It'll cost 25 FP's per team to schedule the game, and we will probably give a free friendly or two per team per season.
- The ability to create a private forum (for guilds, etc) and allow/disallow access to various users. This was suggested a little while ago and I think it sounds like a cool idea to help build community. It'll cost some amount of FP's for the forum owner to create it, but nothing outrageous, like 100 FP's or something.
- I will revisit the sportsmanship score and get the league recommended levels posted, numbers tweaked, etc.
