Mr Football beta test

[m0nty]

But should MVP really have chance involved? It seems a bit odd to me.

Yes, because giving it to someone in the top 5 of fantasy score, or whatever, it going to skew the points to a certain kind of player, most likely a midfielder. This way, even a full back who got three kicks in a winning side has a decent chance for an extra skill point.

[mollyfud]

Haven't followed all the discussion but has the idea of form ever been discussed? Perhaps its a better idea then Potiental points for playing in the seconds. So if you play a kid that is out of his depth, his form could drop and so performance drop as well. If you have a better player lossing form, put him in the 2nds to increase form and then bring him back to the seniors.

Just a thought

[carrben12]

Another thing I've noticed:

in chrome the game auto scrolls to the bottom of the page, so I need to scroll back up with my eyes half-shut to avoid seeing the result if I want to watch the match progression.  In ie this does not happen.

[m0nty]

Haven't followed all the discussion but has the idea of form ever been discussed? Perhaps its a better idea then Potiental points for playing in the seconds. So if you play a kid that is out of his depth, his form could drop and so performance drop as well. If you have a better player lossing form, put him in the 2nds to increase form and then bring him back to the seniors.

Just a thought

I have had a thought that a player could become Hot or Cold, meaning a bonus or penalty to certain skills. I need to workshop that a bit more.

[m0nty]

Another thing I've noticed:

in chrome the game auto scrolls to the bottom of the page, so I need to scroll back up with my eyes half-shut to avoid seeing the result if I want to watch the match progression.  In ie this does not happen.

It is supposed to scroll down like that. Although that will all change when I redo that page.

[carrben12]

I think training up players' skills should only occur between seasons, though if you introduce a ticket system which limits how many matches you can play I suppose training could be a nice thing to play with while your team is waiting.

I think people would get antsy if they couldn't upgrade during a season. With good reason too, it's not fun.

I'm interested to hear whether everyone disagrees with me on this.  I find the need to optimize my players' usage of potential after each game detracts from the enjoyment of the game as a whole.  If it were restricted to every 5 games or every time I earned a trophy that would seem reasonable.  Perhaps I'm the only one who feels this way. Feels like trying to micromanage my workers in Civilization.

My team seems unrealistically healthy.  I chose Launceston as my home for that reason, but I've never been missing more than 4 players.  I can't remember the last time the Dees ever had such a short injury list.  I guess LTIs are coming?  Perhaps there should also be training injuries, and you can spend money on another coaching role to reduce those.

I did include LTIs, though come to think of it I haven't experienced one either. Should go back and look at that. I purposely made injuries less prevalent and shorter-lasting than reality, because having a team smashed by bad luck with injury is not very fun (plus your opponents are always healthy). Training injuries is an interesting idea, though. There is also a concept from Blood Bowl called "niggles", which require a dice roll for aged players to see if they get up for the game each week when they have a chronic injury. I haven't introduced that yet and probably won't for launch, but it may make it into a future update.

I haven't played Bloodbowl for 15 years, but I certainly remember the niggles.  I think the key to a great game is providing the player with difficult decisions in whihc the best path is not entirely clear. I think having Drummond style players in the game with oodles of potential but constantly under injury clouds provides a great list management dilemma.  I love the idea of there being some probability that the niggle would clear up each year, only to have your hopes dashed once again when he tweaks the troublesome muscle just before 3 qtr time in round 1 setting the stage for another season battling for match fitness.

I think having a team smashed by injury is all part of the fun.  I think forcing coaches to maintain depth is great.

Anyway, thanks again m0nty and I look forward to seeing this game develop.

No problem! I love long analysis posts like this, keep them coming.

I will.  I hope I don't sound too critical.  I only replied to the comments which I disagreed with.

And while I'm at it:

I can't wait for traits.  The idea of having a player on the cusp of my 22 who has some trait which means he outperforms in the rain (his mudder was a mudder) and choosing whether to play him based on a forecast that predicts an x% chance of rain would be a great choice.  I realize I just introduced the concept of advance weather forecasting that is not currently in the game, I couldn't resist.

Love the system that restricts first time bonus to players with only 3 seasons.  Gotta play the kids early for them to become awesome.

So long I've thought about how to discretize an AFL game for this sort of approach, and I really think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of finding the right balance between realism and simplicity.  very little scope for improvement in that area.

I love the idea of match fitness.  Use a d10 or some combination of d6s for the recuperation roll and have additional bonuses for consecutive matches.  Even a 10 endurance player should have trouble making it through his first match back.

What is the purpose of utility players? Is there something about those players that makes them more suited for UT1 and UT2 duties than a random other player?  If so, you needn't specify and I can try and work it out for myself, but at this stage I'm not convince there is.

In the absence of injury concerns I see no upside to draft multi-position players.  I can't max out single pos players' stats, so having another row of attributes means 10 potential points wasted just to get them to the level of a single posi player.

In the rules at one point you mention being unable to add a new skill to a player.  I took this to mean that if there was only 2 skills listed next to a player's name in the draft, they could never work on other skills.  I have since learned that this is not the case (after 8 or so sub-optimal drafts), and if that is intended I think the wording of the rule should be made a little clearer as I was certainly confused.

btw, I'm something like 12 seasons in and haven't made the finals since the first season. I can't beat the teams in my price range, though I haven't peaked yet.  I need to work all those misguided draft decisions through the system.  I have 7 stars with about 7 seasons under their belt, so my window must be opening soon!

[carrben12]

Another thing I've noticed:

in chrome the game auto scrolls to the bottom of the page, so I need to scroll back up with my eyes half-shut to avoid seeing the result if I want to watch the match progression.  In ie this does not happen.

It is supposed to scroll down like that. Although that will all change when I redo that page.

Would love that to be an option.  I for one prefer starting at the top.  I'll wait for the redone page.

[carrben12]

Firstly, hats off, great effort, I think it’s a really solid game.  A friend and I started a similar project but got lazy when it came to coding.

Have only ran into a few minor bugs which have been mentioned already.

I’m nearing the end of season 7, so far only managed a pole-axing from Collingwood in the GF. I’ve not really had the fan issue others have had, I’ve pretty much had a steady increase.

Below are some of my musings/observations not in any logical order! Some have probably been covered already (I think it’s good as is btw):

- MVP award being slightly weighted based on stats (eg: say half a point added to the roll per 3 goals or 15 pos etc). The sub on a team that lost by over 10 goals getting the MVP seems slightly off the mark.

That is intentional. The MVP skill point that you get in Blood Bowl, which this element is based off, is completely random. The MVP in Mr Football is slightly less random, but I wanted to maintain that random factor so that there is some chance involved.

agree with OP.  Random is good, but this is a little too random.

- On the potential point, the seconds assistant maxed out may be OP, my star players get more potential when rested in the seconds than in the firsts. Perhaps a salary limit or seasons played limit on players getting awarded these seconds points.  Also found that the couple of players that are never used accumulating a lot of these points so perhaps that balances it out a little.

I am thinking of dialling back the seconds Potential points, to a max of 2 per week with a +3 assistant. There is already a rule in place that these points only accrue to players with a season total of 4 + your seconds assistant bonus. Salary limit is a good idea too, I suppose, I'll look at that.

Yeah, seconds points are overpowered but pls have a heart and don't fix until I knock off the Carringbush at least once.

I believe the player profiles already have medal progression and season stats.

How do I see this?

I'm not so fussed about jumpers and mascots. That stuff seems rather silly to me in other games, including DT/SC.

Agreed.

[SydneyRox]

Something I just saw which you might need to remove. I wanted to see what BOOMZ's team looked like for $25m and I noticed a link on the top corner "delete this team and create a new one". Checked out some others, including the bots and it is there too.
Now I didnt click on it to see what the result was, but that should probably be removed from public access.

[fattony]

hey monty,

loving your game mate.

also having the same finals problem as some others. went to play me elimination final, and it said i had already played it and won by 5pts. now i am at the prelim final stage and there is no play final button at the selection tab. there is one on the list tab, but it takes me back to the elim final game, saying i won by 5 pts. i cannot continue to the preseason.

if you could fix this that would be awesome.

can't wait for the real release! :D

[m0nty]

I'm interested to hear whether everyone disagrees with me on this.  I find the need to optimize my players' usage of potential after each game detracts from the enjoyment of the game as a whole.  If it were restricted to every 5 games or every time I earned a trophy that would seem reasonable.  Perhaps I'm the only one who feels this way. Feels like trying to micromanage my workers in Civilization.

Interesting reference to Civ. Perhaps it would feel like less of a chore if you could update them all on the list page with either dropdowns or pop-ups, instead of having to go through each profile page. That would require a bit of work, but is doable.

I haven't played Bloodbowl for 15 years, but I certainly remember the niggles.  I think the key to a great game is providing the player with difficult decisions in whihc the best path is not entirely clear. I think having Drummond style players in the game with oodles of potential but constantly under injury clouds provides a great list management dilemma.  I love the idea of there being some probability that the niggle would clear up each year, only to have your hopes dashed once again when he tweaks the troublesome muscle just before 3 qtr time in round 1 setting the stage for another season battling for match fitness.

I think having a team smashed by injury is all part of the fun.  I think forcing coaches to maintain depth is great.

Good points all. In practice, though, coaches usually hate niggles. My thinking on that is that I have already built a system for recovery between matches, and if there is going to be a niggle-like mechanic, it would have to be integrated into that. For Blood Bowl you'd roll a d6 and if you got a 1 the player couldn't play that game, with no way to influence the roll. For Mr Football, I'd think that a similar rule would be an older or previously injured player has a base percentage to miss of some small percentage, but this could be modified by having a better doctor.

I can't wait for traits.  The idea of having a player on the cusp of my 22 who has some trait which means he outperforms in the rain (his mudder was a mudder) and choosing whether to play him based on a forecast that predicts an x% chance of rain would be a great choice.  I realize I just introduced the concept of advance weather forecasting that is not currently in the game, I couldn't resist.

Yep, Mudlark would definitely be a trait. Weather forecasting... lol!

What is the purpose of utility players? Is there something about those players that makes them more suited for UT1 and UT2 duties than a random other player?  If so, you needn't specify and I can try and work it out for myself, but at this stage I'm not convince there is.

In the absence of injury concerns I see no upside to draft multi-position players.  I can't max out single pos players' stats, so having another row of attributes means 10 potential points wasted just to get them to the level of a single posi player.

I haven't quite got it right yet, but I am planning on utility players being handy because they have access to skills that the specialists do not, which help the specialists in their skill checks. Shepherd is the main one. I was also planning early on to impose a penalty for players in contests where they are not suited, e.g. if you aren't a R or KU then you get -4 for a ruck contest, that sort of thing, which utilities would be exempt from. I haven't put that in, so I'm not sure if it will get up.

In the rules at one point you mention being unable to add a new skill to a player.  I took this to mean that if there was only 2 skills listed next to a player's name in the draft, they could never work on other skills.  I have since learned that this is not the case (after 8 or so sub-optimal drafts), and if that is intended I think the wording of the rule should be made a little clearer as I was certainly confused.

You'll have to point that bit out to me.

btw, I'm something like 12 seasons in and haven't made the finals since the first season. I can't beat the teams in my price range, though I haven't peaked yet.  I need to work all those misguided draft decisions through the system.  I have 7 stars with about 7 seasons under their belt, so my window must be opening soon!

By the time your initial draft class gets to 7-10 seasons, your premiership window should be open. The difficulty will be recovering from their retirements as they can all go at cone if you're not careful. Then of course, there's the rebuilding phase.  8)

[SydneyRox]

I understand the older players losing value points towards the end of the career, but should they not also be able to use the potential points to pick those back up again? I seem to be dropping my $800k+ player after year 11 or 12 because he is not able to be upgraded anymore, where real players in those years still work to be better even though the body is getting on?

[m0nty]

I understand the older players losing value points towards the end of the career, but should they not also be able to use the potential points to pick those back up again? I seem to be dropping my $800k+ player after year 11 or 12 because he is not able to be upgraded anymore, where real players in those years still work to be better even though the body is getting on?

You can improve attributes only up to season 9, but you can keep improving skills indefinitely until a player retires. This tells you that you should concentrate on improving attributes first, and skills later.

[carrben12]

It is annoying to have to reset my lineup each game.  I understand that if a player goes down with an injury they must be replaced, but it is a real hassle to fiddle around with 2/3 of my team before every match.  Is this a bug?

[m0nty]

It is annoying to have to reset my lineup each game.  I understand that if a player goes down with an injury they must be replaced, but it is a real hassle to fiddle around with 2/3 of my team before every match.  Is this a bug?

Yes, I haven't got the code for inputting last week's team to work yet.