GAMEPLAN            

ROSTER & DRAFT CHANGES

These are experimental changes that are being considered for trials only in leagues running at Software Simulations in Yeovil. The general idea of these changes is to make roster strengths more varied and more visible. The restricted release is to isolate any errors, collect feedback, and allow for medium and long term testing "on the road" to see the effects of the changes. Some of the ideas here are fairly sketchy and could use some thought and imagination to expand them or fill in the details.

The stuff here is limited to things that can be done reasonably easily without too much cost and without throwing out the accumulated skills and experience of existing coaches. There will be separate pages on this site for discussion of more extensive changes that might go into new versions.

Skip to:   Summary of Progress

FREE AGENCY

This free agency rule has been in play for several years in the Superbowl version, where it seems to work pretty well. Total roster strengths in those leagues are a little lower than in other leagues of similar vintage, and the free agency rules are probably the reason why.

For this a fixed value of players at the end of each season are flagged as being entitled to free agency (ie. the same value for each team). As coach you then have a choice for each player. Waive him, and take the LPs (you get the same LPs as if he was a reduced player) or pay up his contract (the cost is the same as fixing him). If you do nothing, he gets waived.

You have to find a balance between who you keep and who you allow to leave, and there will always be some that go and some that stay. No extra LPs are allocated to spend on the guys you sign back. You have to raise the LPs by doing less signing, coaching and fixing or from the guys you allow to leave.

The numbers involved can be varied easily enough, and they're exactly the same for everyone. In the Superbowl version the number of step losses is reduced slightly, and then the same number is used for the value of free agents. Those values could be changed with little work, to be more or less severe.

This change is already tested, so there's very little risk of errors and I've put it into play immediately. We can modify it later, with things like exemptions for franchise players and probably with a change so that the same player doesn't get conditional free agency two years in a row (it should probably be three or four, and maybe it should be optional how long a contract you go for, but these are wrinkles to be considered another time).

ROSTER TOTALS

Opinions differ on what size rosters make the game work best. In theory they shouldn't make any difference, as what matters when the game is running is the difference in roster strengths and not the totals, but almost everyone says it does. There are two obvious reasons why this should be so.

The first is that with low or medium sized rosters it's easy for a coach to pick out the strengths and weaknesses of a team by looking at the roundup. You can easily spot where there's a two or three point difference between your roster and your opponent. With big rosters it's hard to spot the differences, and hard to believe in them even when they are visible. Six-against-four doesn't look as big a difference as three-against-one, even though in Gameplan it adds up exactly the same.

The second reason is that a well-stuffed roster makes it difficult for coaches to draft to their preferences. You can't deploy extra QBs or RBs, and you can't draft to your strengths when your roster is already full, so you often have to take what you can get. Especially if the player you don't really want is worth more points than the one you do. So big rosters are more samey, with less variation between teams. And individual QBs and RBs appear to be less important, relative to the balance of players in other positions.

Before someone points out that the college version has a very different balance with a rotation system that keeps roster totals low, it should be understood that the college version has a different balance at runtime. College football is SUPPOSED to be crazy, because if you've watched any you'll know that's what it's like in real life. If you compared a college league and a pro format league with the same rosters, the college league would be wilder.

We haven't yet thought of a way to make differences in roster strengths more visible without simply adding them up and telling you. Which would detract from the game. We want a method where you play by the "feel" of the game, not just by doing a few sums and knowing what the answer should be.

ROSTER REDUCTIONS

There are any number of ways we could go about bringing roster totals down. They seem to be fairly stable at present, so a small push could make a big difference over time. Leaving aside the major or more complex design changes, which almost certainly wouldn't be popular and wouldn't pay for themselves, there are some obvious things to try. The rules for conditional free agents (above) are one. This would work by taking players off rosters directly.

Some people suggest that we could reduce the number of LPs given to each team during the season and/or in the draft, but this has already been tried and doesn't work. We've seen before now that coaches take a very narrow view when they look at their total of LPs. You can see that your own balance is lower than you expected but you can't see what the other guy has got. A proportion of coaches waste our time complaining, demanding special treatment, and then going off in a sulk when they don't get it (some Gameplan coaches work a lot on emotion, and sometimes the grey matter gets forgotten).

A better way would be to shift the balance of the LP cost of various actions. At present it costs 15 LPs to coach a player, but only 10 to fix a step loss and 5 to fix a reduction. You get 8 or 10 LPs per strength when you waive someone. A simple change would be to make the cost of fixing players 12 for a step and 6 for a reduction.

Another option would be to change the LP value of players waived. In other games we reduce the value of a waiver by the age of the player. This would have another benefit of encouraging coaches to retain their veteran players, who are more effective. Over the years there have been too many coaches who would cut their strongest players in order to stuff their rosters with larger numbers of weaker ones (it might work several seasons down the line, but the coaches that do it usually repeat the strategy season after season and never get to see the payoff).

Changing the cost of fixing players is visible, and it's obviously the same for everyone. It ought to work pretty well. You have the same number of LPs as before, but they're worth 20% less.

STEP LOSSES

In the past a step loss on a one-point player was treated the same as any other step loss, although that did appear to create some confusion. It's one of the things that new coaches get wrong, assuming that a one-point player with a step loss is a zero strength player (ie. an empty space on your roster that you can sign someone into). It isn't an empty space, because the player is still fixable.

I've removed the confusion by translating a step loss on a one-pointer to be a reduction instead of a step (in which case it's obvious he's still occupying a roster spot).

This risks increasing roster totals because of the proportion of reduced players who return to full fitness the following season. Even so, I've put it into play immediately, and I've not restricted it to the leagues in Yeovil (the updated software is already with Danny at Ab Initio Games, and the other two will get it in due course).

CONDITIONAL WAIVERS

This adds an extra action that you can use to nominate players as conditional waivers, that you're prepared to release if you need their roster spot for someone else (a draftee or a free agent). The draft and free agent routines should recognise that roster spot as being available, and if you sign a player that needs the space then the waiver is made immediately. If you don't get the guy you wanted then the waiver doesn't happen. Conditional waivers are shown on your draft sheet and remembered from turn to turn. After end minicamp any conditional waivers that weren't triggered are forgotten.

The default draft routine which makes a draft pick for you if you mess up or miss your turn doesn't trigger conditional waivers (because it might be trying to draft someone much weaker than the guy you actually wanted). Conditional waivers only work for players you draft or sign with your own orders. This means you might still miss out on guys you actually wanted and could have signed on missed turns.

This should make it easier for coaches to draft to strengths. You can draft any player you want, rather than only ones that fit in a gap. This is in play now in all leagues in Yeovil, but it's not yet been tested, and it involved quite a few changes in other routines so there's a risk of there being a few bugs that need to be hunted down.

ROOKIES

The new (experimental) routine for rookies, is that the normal step loss, free agency, reduction or retirement routine don't apply. Instead your rookies get equal numbers of step losses and step gains at the end of their first season. You normally have three rookies, so that'd make for one gaining a step, one losing a step, and one being unaffected. A QB with the BQ bonus wouldn't count for this routine (they get their own bonus instead).

This means a much higher proportion of low value rookies will "bust" and a proportion of higher valued ones will disappoint. But equally, most of the guys that don't bust will step up and become more important players. Another effect is that if a very high value rookie gets a step gain then you are going to see strengths and combinations that wouldn't happen any other way. At least until we start adding new skills and strengths. But they'll be rare.

This is now in play. It's not a big change, just a bit of chrome. Except that it should help encourage "clumping" since a step loss on a low value rookie will take him off your roster (see the change on step losses, above). Clumping is good because it makes spaces that are visible to opponents and are usable in the draft.

PLAYER STRENGTHS

The only player strengths we consider at present are the physical ones that relate to things in your gameplan, plus experience. In real life players are much more complicated and there are a variety of other personality factors that make the difference between bad players, good players and great players.

Some players are dumb. Some are smart. Some play like veterans from the first moment they arrive in the league. Others are slow learners. Some never learn at all. Some players have all the skills but high error rates (RBs with all the moves who get all the yardage you might want, but can't stop fumbling, for example). Others are unspectacular but never make mistakes. Some players cause other people to make mistakes. Others talk trash and help to motivate the opposition.

Player skills like these could added, and they could influence some of the numbers at runtime. They'd have to be used in moderation, or there would be a big risk of messing up the play balance. But there's lots of scope to think more about this before we do anything about it.

ASSISTANT COACHES

At present your team consists of a coach (that's you) and a bunch of players. In real life there are also a lot of assistant coaches, and these are often as important as the players themselves.

There are a number of ways we could work assistant coaches into the game. They could add experience to the players in their area. They could modify the LP costs of actions on their players. They could add extra training strengths, especially at the start of the season when they'd be most useful. They could increase the effect of your bonuses and keys. They could modify the chances of step losses and gains where those are applied.

These are all things that would be added to what's in the game at present. They'd make teams more varied, in a visible way, and the LPs spent on assistant coaches would help take playing strengths off your rosters. Coaches have much longer careers than the players, obviously, but they're even more liable to free agency. So they don't have to be stuck on your roster forever.

STADIUM TYPES, WEATHER AND FORM

The original outline for the game included rules for different stadium types and prevailing weather, but they got left out. Even though they're a subject that gets talked about a lot. We've got home advantage, but it's constant and not very large. Anyone want to do some stats to see how large? What we've got will be nothing like as important as whether a warm weather team from the south can win on the road in the north in the middle of winter.

I don't think anyone will argue with the idea that teams can have different form at home and on the road. We could, if we wanted, without making a huge difference to the software or the play balance, liven things up a bit and increase the amount of variation by keeping track of form separately at home and on the road. So that winning at home doesn't help you win on the road. Which would make home field advantage worth playing for.

One effect would be that form totals at any particular moment would be lower, even though form that counted from reduced players would still have to count both ways. The extra complexity of tracking home and road form separately is probably not too great, as it's probably not going to mean changes to gameplans, just to the chances of winning.

STATE OF PROGRESS