Because all our contracts are guaranteed. You pay the money once, and they get that money all up front immediately. You trade them, their contract goes with them already paid.


Trading two similar players in age/skill/and position tier here isn't just about those players now, it is about the contract too. If one of them is signed for 7 years and the other just 2, one team would get screwed big time to take that deal because the new team doesn't assume the contract, it is already paid for.

Well then can I get the guy I released back? I didn't know his contract still stays against me. That seems weird to.

damn it does say that, I always thought you could release someone to make room for other free agents. I didn't know that money was spent no matter what.

This is a good point.

I know you were talking about 'playability' and how you want to keep guys interested throughout the season.

Is there any way to sim halfs? In other words, we are spending hours of time researching the draft, FA, bids, etc... and all for 16 games that are little more than reading a screen. There's no halftime adjustment, let alone in-game adjustment.

Would it be feasible to sim to halftime, give teams a day or so to make adjustments and then sim the 2nd half? At that point you've doubled the amount of actual gameplay without actually increasing the weeks in the season. You've also given players that opportunity to tinker, see what's working vs. what isn't and adjust accordingly.

I just feel like the gameplay itself is perhaps not as rewarding as it could be.

It's certainly something we can look at. To be honest, it would be a ways down the road, but I can see it as a possibility.

1000% agreement here. I just can't see this taking off at all without a much much more visceral gameplay experience than what it is now.

I know you're all football guys, but this kind of thing would work brilliantly with baseball.

Baseball gives you day to day games, different pitching matchups and so much data. You can get heat zones for anyone, pitch type values, etc...

Baseball so easily fits a data driven model that it's perfect for simulations, etc...

I don't know if your present framework could ever be easily modified/adapted for baseball as well, but "fastballsimulations" would be pretty damn sweet and would likely be even more addicting due to the day to day matchups and machinations involved.

Just a completely random though...(one 'out of left field', you could even say)

There is already a pretty successful baseball sim called Out of the Park Baseball.

Next suggestion - sub packages.

You can kinda do it now, but not terribly well. For instance, in my nickle package I would probably want to move Parker inside to the under-tackle and slide Irvin over to LDE. The only way I can effectuate that right now is to make Parker my backup LDT, have him play 20% of the time and then set it to pass-bias.

Well that's still going go have him playing LDT in a fair number of base fronts and it'll get his ass kicked a bit.

Instead, I'd like to be able to simply set my nickel defense personnel as well as my dime personnel; not just in the secondary, but in the box as well. Those guys are just as critical to the success of your nickle as the secondary and with the rise of the spread offenses, it's going to be more important than ever that we're able to adjust them as needed.

I'm also curious, when looking at the 'pick to players to remove from your dime' setup, can I go into a 3-2-6 if I wanted to? It does look like I could remove my LDT from the field, but would my WLB drop into coverage at that point and actually treat it like a 3-2-6 or would he try to crash the line and !@#$ everything up?

Brass-tacks question, I guess, is essentially whether or not the present sub-packages work like they should...

This

I would love to use a big nickel or DL sub-package

Contracts are to cheap, longer contracts should cost a lot more and one year contracts shouldnt be free.

Sorry bro this is a terrible idea
You won't have 1300 every yr
Teams w a lot of money left either don't have much talent
or don't have long contracts on them.

Give it a couple of seasons and u will want every dollar u can get

Backup players suggestion:

Why can't a single player backup more than 1 position? I feel like we should be able to have a 'swing end' or something to similar effect. Especially if it's someone like a DE3 when I'm running a 4-3 that could slide in and be the backup DT with a pass bias and a backup DE with a run bias.

That's a pretty standard use for that size/type of player.

sfchief, sent you a PM about Welker

I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned & I'm not gonna re-read 3 pages.

Ability to offer cash when trading to help offset contracts.

/even more awesomeness for Sandy

Im sure its been mentioned but being able to sub your linebackers out for different situations would be awesome. For example if it is a passing situation id like to put my better pass coverage linebackers out there. If it is third and short id rather have my run stuffers in there.

After a week of gameplay, another suggestion (that has been echoed a bit in the game threads):

More detailed play by play that is the reflected statistically.

For instance, instead of "Chris Johnson runs for 8 yards" it could be "Chris Johnson runs off tackle left, breaks a tackle from Dont'a Hightower; tackled by Adrian Wilson"

You just learn so much more about how to deal with that play. And it can then be reflected in the stats with both a missed tackle from Hightower and a tackle from Wilson as well as a few yards after contact from CJ.

Instead of "Cam Newton (pressured) passes incomplete to Andre Johnson" you could have "Cam Newton (pressured by Gerald McCoy) throws to Andre Johnson; pass broken up by Tarell Brown". Again, more knowledge as to who did what and how. It would greatly improve gameplanning.

I know it will probably be insanely difficult to program, but I do think you're marketing to a 'Madden' audience here and frankly that crowd is a little spoiled. I think that's what you'll need to get this to be commercially viable.

DJ--

thanks for your feedback. Expanded and more detailed pbp is planned in the near future. We have two requirements for any such expansion:

1) the model is based on measurable statistics of actual NFL play
2) the information provided must be relevant to the game model

Therefor the level of detail in the pbp must be supported by the level if detail in the
model which in turn must be supported by available data from the NFL. This may ultimately limit the amount if detail that can be provided in the pbp. For passing plays we should be able to approach what you suggested. For running plays at present ther is a lack of data to support an accurate simulation at quite that level of granularity. We will provide more data, but at some point we'll hit a limit.

I'll toss in a suggestion that we have a depth chart at every position so that injuries aren't replaced by street free agents if a team isn't actively managed or the owner misses an injury in the lineup.

You can call it the "Austinchief's a big dummy" function!

I have a plan to consolidate the roster weekly availability and lineups into a single depth chart page that would contain all the info and controls and operate as you suggest. I'd also take care of the special teams lineup assignments as part of this project.

It's a major project and needs to be placed into priority with other major projects.

Complete sandgestion here, but I realized it this morning.
If I were a paying customer, I would want a predictilator.
Something that glowed green when I had my "best potential" player in that position. I know it's "Madden-ey", but it's an alternative to auto-loading the best players on a team as I think that would lead to too much "set it and forget it".

While this suggestion has probably already been made, a passing and run philosophy would be an excellent addition and make the safety in the box selection more valuable (e.g. play action %, short/deep/screen %s, outside/inside/draw run %s.


Additionally, assigning players %wise to those responsibikities would likely provide a more interesting simulation.

I could be wrong but I think the safety in the box toggle is broken. It always defaults to in the box when I check the page.

I had intentions to make the safety in the box option actually do something at one time, but it is non-functional for the time being. Someday there will be a version 2.0 of the simulation engine and game planning where that can have an effect on the outcome.

So, I've been thinking about the way games have to be read in play by play mode. That is going to be a pretty serious limitation to getting a more widespread audience for the product. If it is at all possible, it would be much much much cooler if you could have a "game cast." It actually wouldn't be that hard to do using HTML5 canvas and some rudimentary icons. You wouldn't even need to program in time delays(which can be a pain) instead just make the user click "forward/back" through the plays and watch them unfold on the canvas.

Would definitely make the game experience more exciting and suspenseful.

This is a brilliant idea, and I'd love it.

Thirded.

Can you draw a picture of that so I can visualize it?

The HTML5 canvas part isn't that big of a deal. But now you have 22 bodies that you need to track in a very specific way during a play. Instead of maybe 10 that you only had to track in a general way. The simulation that you need to do to support an animation is probably 5 to 10 times more detailed than the one you need to run to support a text based simulation. So 5000 lines of code for a text based simulation becomes 30,000, plus the animation code. It can be done, but it isn't at all trivial.

Ah I think you are taking it far too far... I am talking something simple to start. Imagine that the ONLY data you had was what was already in the play by play that we read. Just take THAT data (and you would need the positional data if you wanted to be even more specific, for example on a QB sack it'd be cool to show which side it came from... but certainly not a dealbreaker) and with the simple play by play info you could create very crude animations of each play. RainMan may be right, I may have to draw this out to explain how simple I mean it to be. I am not even talking about showing all the players on the field or anything close to that. Just a simple animation of what we already read.

Maybe someone's already commented on this, but the 'league rosters' page has been installed and it's a pretty nice touch.

Thanks, CD.

Ah, I see. Yeah, that is doable and I can see how that would add quite a bit to the experience. I was thinking along the lines of showing a play book animation of the whole play. Good idea.

I have a few additional minor improvements that will be unvailed at the rookie draft including...

a trade block.

Sweet! So we should expect it to be working sometime in the next few simulations? :D

I'm the head of sales, so I'll say yes. cdcox can do anything.

If I were doing Sandbox full time, then yes. But sales hasn't generated a plug nickel yet, so Sandbox only gets my crumbs.

I'm regretting my commission-only employment agreement, but I'm still building momentum.

So, how cool would it be if there was a Sandbox fantasy League? With all the statistical data being compiled, surely there's enough info.

I love the ownership aspect from year to year, but wouldn't it be cool to have a gambling challenge or fantasy with less commitment (week to week or new fantasy draft each sandbox season)?

Fantasy fantasy football...

I suggest go play fantasy football then.


I like this way it is and able to keep the players you want to build your team with. I may not like all the players on my team as a new owner but I can work out deals, make trades, and tank the season just to get higher draft picks :evil: not that I would do that.

Wait, you're saying you wouldn't want a fantasy league based on the Sandbox stats because team owners might tank their Sandbox season to draft a player in their Sandbox fantasy league?

MIND=BLOWN.

Any more movement on the backup/sub-package questions?

By way of real world example, I'm about to get proper rogered by the Seahawks moving Irvin to the SLB spot and I've failed miserably in all attempts to secure a replacement DE4. Now I could make due by going after a DE3 in FA and moving Irvin down to DE in pass-rushing situations, but there's no way to do that short of making him purely a backup and putting him in at DE with a passing down bias.

At that point, however, I lose the ability to have him as an attacking SLB during neutral downs because I can't have someone listed as a backup that's a starter (or backup) anywhere else.

An archive of previous drafts maybe a player history would be sweet.

I was thinking about when you look at a player it would give
their sandbox draft position either 1st vet draft, rookie draft or FA.


It could also b something simple like an archive of all our drafts from the start including the initial vet draft