The dire lack of good american football management games.
 

I've been thinking alot recently about how thin the Football Management Sim market has been recently. I've also been thinking about the problems i see with FOF.

I've tried out TPF and i own and like FOF2k4. TPF has some serious problems that have driven me away from the game (chief among them, salary cap tracking nonsense). There aren't any real alternatives... i don't want to go back to playing the antiquated FPS:Football Pro 98.

The two things that bother me about FOF2k4:

The UI can be quite annoying and ugly.
The sheer number of things that i have to remember and/or program my own utilities to do.

I program. I am reasonably good at OOD and OOP in Java and C++. I don't really know much about win32 API or anything you'd use to program a game like FOF in C++, but i know i would probably be able to put together a UI that is user-friendly and sleek. I also have the knowledge necessary to perhaps code a web interface for a fully multiplayer football management sim using PHP and mySQL.

I know that it's probably impossible for the makers of FoF to accept a UI design from some random person on the internet, but i'd love to give designing a UI for FOF a shot.

Failing that:
With my knowledge of programming, i could probably assemble my own football management sim. The problem is, i don't have the mathematical knowledge to generate the formulae needed to produce realistic down-up (games are simulated much like they are really played) statistics.

Does anyone here have experience (besides the FoF devs) with developing the mathematical end of a football sim?

If i do code a football sim, it'd be open source and completely free (run on donations). I'd do it for my love of gaming and football and nothing more. I'd need someone to help me develop the mathematical end of the game. If i were to go into developing AI, i may need people to help me with that, too.

I don't really know what i want to do, i'm just putting myself out there. I'd lve to get involved with a new, more modern-looking football sim project, be it under my direction or someone else's.

I love FOF. It is fine for me. I would much rather have a spreadsheet looking game than some slick interface that sucks and is loaded with bugs.

Same here.

...?

You don't know much about UI design :).

EDIT: Sorry if that sounded condescending. This thread is aimed more at developers and people who know something about the maths end of a football sim. This thread isn't asking you if you think it's necessary for there to be a new football sim, or an improved UI for FoF.

No, I think many of us here don't really care about in depth graphics. Slick interfaces are nice. I think Total Pro Basketball has a nice UI. But what basketball game do I play more than any other? Fast Break College Basketball.

The ultimate, of course, is the CM/FM series. Best UI I've ever played with in a sports sim. That said, I don't mind FOF's at all.

This has nothing to do with graphics.

I'm talking about presenting the text, menus, etc. in a more user-friendly manner. The current interface is sufficient, but it could be improved significantly if someone really sat down and reworked it. I think that TPF has a better interface than FoF, though i much prefer FoF for other reasons.

The FM and ESHM UIs are a lot more busy with graphics than what i'd want, but their interfaces are admirable at worst.

I like the interface and don't want to see it changed.

That's why i was thinking of making my own damn game :).

"Liking" something is no reason for it not to be improved. If i were to develop a new interface for FoF, i'd definitely have an intense period of testing to weed out flaws and potential problems.

Anyhow, redoing FoF's interface was an aside in my post and i'm not really serious about it. I'm really looking for people who have some idea how to go about constructing formulae for a football management sim.

Be warned that the vast majority of folks here greatly enjoy FOF and do not understand that a game can be great fun to play in spite of a poor UI.

Why would they be posting here if they didn't like FoF? :)

I like FoF. I think that improving the UI would dramatically increase my enjoyment of the game.

I don't think the argument is the 'chock full o' graphics' design vs spreadsheet design. No offense to Joe Stallings (or was it Arlie who did the TPF UI?) but in their present state, I'd take FOF's UI over TPF every time. With that said, though, I'd also take the presentation layer that we have at the IHOF site than what Jim's Almanac provides. That's not meant as a knock on Jim...he seems to have a handle on an efficient (if unweildly) file structure and his sim engine is second to none, but the efficiency, flow and accessibility of parts of his UI could definitely stand to be redesigned.

As for your question, aran, I think you're just the latest in a long line of developers on here who have thought that if they could just get a sim engine, a decent product would follow. But that's the problem...the sim engine is the most important piece. It's also the most labor intensive (by far). I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought of giving it a go myself one or twice or five times. But realistically, the amount of work to create something that is one quarter as good as what Jim has is beyond the time limits of what anyone doing this in their spare time could afford to do.

Ah, good post. :)

IHOF is incredibly well presented even if you ignore the graphics and just look at how the data is laid out of the pages. Very easy to get to where you want to be.

The thing is: i don't even know how to APPROACH designing a sim engine. I've thought of a few ways, but they seemed like they'd be terribly unwieldy...

If i had a starting point and maybe a pointer here and there, i may be able to piece something together. I'm looking for a time consuming and interesting project, and a footbal sim seems to be at the top of my list of prospects.


What are you talking about?

Aran, I am truly getting what you are talking about, but because of TPF vs. FOF controversy of the past, people are going to take sides on different sides of the fence. To be truly honest, I wish that Jim would work with an Interface Designer.

People didn't seem to have a problem when there were rumors that Jim may be joining Sports Interactive, everyone seems to drool over the possibility at getting Jim's engine with a better interface.

I may lean heavily on the side of FOF, but I must admit I loved the graphical presentation of the draft in TPF. And because of that, I had seen the possibilities of how something that seems so minor can actually immerse you even more into the game.

So I commend you for actually offering to help out on developing the UI. You are not saying that FOF is bad, you just want to help the game grow. I just hope someone take you up on that offer.

Not only would i help, but i would help FOR FREE. Absolutely voluntarily. The problem is that Jim would have to code the damn thing, because i don't know how to code windows applications in C++. Maybe there is some way i could write a Java front-end for FoF that would take the raw data from the game and simply display it in a different UI? I don't know how Jim designed FoF with regards to how the sim engine works with the interface.

(I'd also like to work on the HTML export feature and rework the presentation of that, as well. :))

Java, my friend. I don't know the win32 APIs necessary to code a GUI in C++ or C. I assume that Jim wrote FoF in either C or C++.

I'm going for my masters in computer science, pal. Don't try to argue something that you appear to know very little about :).

Java has a GUI called Swing, which i can easily learn and use to decent effect.

I agree with you aran. While I love the features of FOF, I rarely play it because it's so damn ugly. On top of that, it's a pain in the ass to maneuver around in.

I often try to sim a game, then realize a player is injured and I have to adjust my depth charts. If I haven't played the game in a few weeks, it takes a minute just to remember how to get to the depth charts. Go to adjust my depth charts, and I start at the backfield. Realize that isn't where I am missing the player. Close the window, then move on to O-Line (a NEXT button is desperately needed here to advance between the lineups). Continue doing this until I find where I need the player.

That's just one of my pet peaves about the game, but the maneuverability (real word?) is about as bad as I can imagine. I guess I am just spoiled by the decent layout of something like OOTP. Though OOTP isn't perfect, it's quite easy to find exactly what you are looking for in a few quick clicks of the mouse. I don't think it's too much to want the same for a game like FOF.

FOF is the KING of all football sims. I will admit, however, I do wish it had a better looking interface. I'm not ashamed to say it but it would do so much for me to see actual player pics on their cards (think OOTPBB) & a sharper interface. I trust that same day Jim will eventually go this route.

Oh and I would also like to see the option to import careers and have a "CatoBase" feature built into the sim itself. Now that would be insane. :cool:

I don't understand some people. A guy posts a thread to offer help and yet certain people in this thread just want to argue or "FIGHT"! over it. Aran isn't bashing FOF........even a monkey could tell that.

FoF has a great engine. The Interface leaves more than a bit to be desired. The Demo should be dragged out and shot. The engine is the best by leaps and bounds. The game is solid as well, very rare bugs. Most of the bugs are fairly obscure items.

Specifically the game planning interface could be changed to allow for a more segmented approach. The ability to save whole gameplans is nice, but The ability to save or load/replace pieces of a game plan would be much more functional. That is something I think I'd like to see.
I'd love to see a more TPF like draft. That was by far the best feature of TPF.

The biggest problem I have playing FOF now is the off season. It seems too much like actual work for me. I have to write down all these FAs and their requests by position. I've gone to using a spreadsheet some times, but really that part of the game just seems too much like work for me. I have no constructive way to fix it...I'm just going over what I have trouble with.


As for coding but not in Windows. Heck in my opinion, if you can code in Java, then you aren't very far from being a proficient C or C++ developer. As for being essentially a student, and telling a number of people who might have a lot more experience than you that they probably don't know as much as you. That seems to have been a mistake. Most C-Sci folks who are in/just out of school don't know how to hit their ass with both hands when compared to someone who has even a few years of experience.

Needing a pretty interface is faggoty.











There, I know some of you were waiting on it, so I went ahead and said it. :p

OK, now that we've got the above out of the way, let's move on to the meat of the matter. :)

The most important question isn't "pretty" versus "unpretty." *THE* most important question is "functional" versus "non-functional." The problem with, for example, the TPF interface, wasn't that it looked nice. The problem was that it was not very functional. The reason that the "spreadsheet" look of FOF goes over well with some is not that people want a non-pretty interface. No, the reason that it goes over well is that there is no better way than a spreadsheet to present lots and lots of information on one screen. The FOF interface is set up so that it takes one click to get to the main area of the game you want, then usually no more than one or two clicks more to get precisely the needed information. The biggest problem with the FOF interface is that multiple windows can't be open at all times to allow access to even more information without having to click back and forth. My biggest beef with the TCY interface, for example, is that when I'm setting time management for my freshmen, I have to look at three different screens (bars/academics/girlfriend) to determine what settings I want to use, then go to a fourth screen to implement those settings. If there were spreadsheet-style information on that same implementation screen, along with the green/red bars, then it would be a one-screen affair.

Playing text sims is all about making decisions. Give me the vast majority of the information that I need to make a decision on one screen. On another note, all text sims need to consider the model that TCY Helper uses with regard to ranking coaches: Let me enter *my* universal weights for each attribute, and present a report to me based on those weights, rather than scrolling through dozens of coaches/scouts and having to remember or write down which ones I like best. The same thing would apply with other long lists, such as recruits in a college game. Imagine the increased fun of recruiting in TCY if you could enter, once in your career, something like this:

IMPORTANCE WEIGHT OF...
Distance from your school: 25%
SAT Score: 35%
Scouted Rating: 40%

And then, for each position group, have the ability to enter what attribute is most important to you, and how important on a scale of 1 to 10.

QB: none
RB: yards per carry, 5
FB: run blocking, 10
etc...

Then, the computer would give you a list of recruits in order of YOUR criteria, rather than spending the first 15-20 minutes of recruiting every year sorting all that information out by hand. If all I care about in a FB is run blocking, then push to the bottom of the list guys who have a "worst rating" in run blocking, and push to the top guys who are best at it, with my dist/SAT/talent modifiers applied as well. It wouldn't be a "perfect" list, but its sure would go a long way toward an initial sort of the recruits.

SD, what is your opinion on the OOTP interface? While not a "spreadsheet" format like FOF - it still does a very good job allowing the user to get to the information nicey imo. .

SD,

Then you aren't recruiting. You are simply reading a recruiting list that someone else has made.

No, recruiting is resource allocation. The list would be merely a list by which I would then be able to decide where I want to allocate my resources. Remember, at their core, all text sims are really just glorified problems in optimization. Information gathering is not "recruiting." Deciding how I want to allocate resources toward the particular players who interest me is the "recruiting" part of the game.

Plus, that's a list I've made according to *my* personal weights, which might be very different from yours. If I know beyond the shadow of a doubt (which I do) that I'm going to sign a FB with "run blocking" as his best rating, then why not have the game go ahead and spit out those guys, rather than cycling through the 40 or 50 FB's with SAT scores >1250 and overall impression >50 every year to see which ones fit my criteria? The process I've laid out is generally the process I go through on paper and in my head. I weigh the different attributes--sometimes even in my own spreadsheet. It is a very simple calculation. Why not automate it?



maximus:

The OOTP interface is OK in places, and sucks donkey scrotums in others. The "transactions" screen (with all the players listed at each level in your organization along with star ratings and stats) is very useful and functional. However, the piss-poor way that sorting lists is handled is really awful.

I see recruiting as finding the right players to fit your system. If you are able to click one button and find that player, you haven't done any work at all and you didn't really recruit.

That would be accurate if there were a severely-limited number of guys who fit into one's system. (Like, for example, looking over a free agent list in FOF, where there might only be one or two guys available in a position group who truly fit into the system a team is running.) However, there are SO many recruits in TCY, and therefore SO many guys who fit, that I spend at *least* 15-20 minutes just identifying all the potentials. There's no skill whatsoever involved in sorting a long list of players, cycling through them, and writing down names. It is just a repetitive task that should be automated. For example, I just ran a check. Loaded up TCY and started a career. There are 56 FB's in this recruiting class rated 50 or better. 14 of those 56 have "Run Blocking" as their strength. 11 have it as their biggest weakness. Any idiot can hit the "N" button to cycle through the list and identify the 14 guys you want and the 11 guys you don't want. There's nothing magical about "finding the players who fit your system." Heck, I'd settle for just having a sort function that would let me see just those 14 guys, and then does nothing else. Automate the mindless stuff whenever possible. You can't tell me that cycling through that list and writing down the names of those 14 players is anything remotely resembling a decision. Give me the ability to see a list of just those 14 guys I would consider signing at FB (An "interest list" perhaps?).

Similarly, there are 97 CB's rated 50 or higher in the current class. A second-grader could hit "N" 96 times and tell me that 21 of those guys have M2M defense as their strength. If I play M2M only, then obviously those are the guys I want. However, in the TCY interface, there's no way to quickly identify those 21 guys apart from that rudimentary task.

I'm not picking on just TCY. FBCB has the same shortcomings. If I know I need a rebounder and shot blocker, then I should be able to filter out everyone who has, say, 7 RPG or more in HS and look only at those guys, THEN sort by blocks, rather than scrolling through a list of dozens and dozens of guys to find guys with a solid number of RPG and BPG.

"Automate the rudimentary tasks!" is going to become my new battle cry, methinks. ;)

I know this is tounge and cheek, but why do you have to pull this every time someone mentions something about improving the interface. While I understand there are certain things you like to see in the game, you shouldn't demoralize things that other people would like to see. If you read most of the post, he is trying to deal with the functionality of the game. A nice UI, not prettier or fancier as you may imagine it, would help this game a lot if it is much more easier to not only get information.

If Sports Interactive had taken that approach over all those years, they would never see the success they have now. All people want to see is a better representation of thier players and hopefully the game on the screen. Imagine Front Page Sports all of that, yet people are still freaking playing that game because of the content (stats, profiles, etc.), UI and the graphical representation of the game and that game is over 10 years old.

I must apologize since I am long from the days of playing Zork. I usually like more than just text nowadays. And if a graphical UI is so bad, I don't know how you manage to get through OOTP, Puresim and FM. No one is asking for Madden like presentation. FM, Puresim, and OOTP are great examples of that.

I agree, but time and time and again, I've seen functionality sacrificed for better-looking. I will always speak out against that.

Can't speak to FM, but OOTP and Puresim both have some serious functional flaws in their interfaces. I can't say with 100% certainty that they are there *because* of the emphasis on having a GUI, but they are there. For that matter, OOTP isn't really a GUI situation. OOTP's GUI functions are just five little icons at the bottom of the screen anyway, so I rarely/never end up even seeing them, let alone using them. The vast majority of the usable ui in that game is via drop-down menu, which is a pretty solid way of going about it (although the ability that FOF4 and FOF5 have of being able to click right on what the user wants is a little better). OOTP has a *colorful* UI, I guess (although I don't pay attention to that sort of junk), but it definitely isn't graphical.

The bottom line is that more information can be gotten on one screen with text than with graphics in nearly every case. No icon is going to take up as little room as the words "Hall of Fame" or "First Draft Pick," as in the FOF interface. This allows the user to get to those screens with *one* click. No going to a drop-down and *then* going to the HOF button. No clicking on an "Awards" icon that then takes the user to another page with a bunch of icons for all the various awards. Just one click, and there's the information I want. By my count, there are 97 different screens accessible with only one click in FOF5--from just the one main page. There's no possible way to fit 97 icons on one page and make it remotely usable. Either the user would have to scroll down a long page, or have to do multiple clicks every time he needs to get somewhere.

Ditto. Remember CM2 96/97? Spreadsheet-O-Rama, but it was great! And that was 10 years ago. Who knows what Jim will come up with in another 10 years. :)

Yeah, that's where the thread went off the rails. Plus, I suspect GE's been drinking, because he doesn't normally type that badly. ;)

Two suggestions, aran:

1. A lot of what you're talking about has been talked about at length before. Do a search and browse some previous threads on the topic.

2. This forum is filled with people who have extensive experience in real-world programming. I don't recommend acting like you know it all "Java, my friend" when you're 19 years old and just learning the trade.

SI kind of proves Skydog's point, though. If you look at the evolution of CM/FM (and yes, I played them from CM1) you'll see that SI rarely, if ever, sacrificed functionality for prettiness. That's the distinction Skydog's talking about.

I don't want to speak for SI (but I'm sure Mark's around, so he could chime in), but I think they realized early on that for any text sim you had to have screens with a lot of info on them, so you have to keep those screens, but make them more usable. In my opinion, they've done a good job keeping the functionality while always improving the usability.

Wouldn't a java interface require a java run-time engine as well?

So, from your thread title... do you judge FOF to not be "good" because you don't like the user interface?

This is funny to me. aran posts a message saying he'd like to help out and would do so for free...maybe even develop a new game if others would be willing. Sure, it's been talked about before, but how many times have the same politics, TCY 2 rumors, etc. been brought up before? I think this is where you get your elitist tags.

Consider me on the side of the fence that thinks the UI could use some work. Why have there been workarounds to make the windows within the game open up in a specific location? The biggest turnoff for most people with the original FOF was that it was too many clicks. Jim's done a great job listening and being able to reduce the number of clicks (see FOF 2004 and being able to bring up player data in the records screens), but it still has a long ways to go.

Just because aran hasn't produced anything yet, he's belittled and dismissed. I guarantee you that if he had made a plugin or utility, Skydog would be defending him (see Fido).

Yeah, leave the guy be. He wants to develop something for FREE, which can't possibly hurt anything.

Some of you guys really need to get a life. Just support the guy and maybe throw some idea's at him.

Well said.

I too agree the the UI could use some improvement. The issue I, and apparently some others here, had with his posts was his attitude. He came off like a know-it-all. It wasn't his message, it was the messenger. It's as if he assumes that knowlegable people haven't taken a look at this issue in the past. Heck if he can work something out with Jim, and bring a new perspective to bear on the project, then more power to him. One thing for certain is that Aran could learn a lot from Jim. His post came off like he would be the one imparting the knowlege.

I hear what you're saying - I think we all thought that we were hot shots when we were 19 or so. Just chalk it up to being young. I'd rather see someone who's 19 and being ambitious and maybe a little overconfident, than timid and weak.

Try looking at some of the better tabletop football games. I say this, because this might give you an idea of what to do. I think in any sports sim, you have to work out percentages. and the players stats would modfiy those percentages... Much like rolling a dice on a tabletop game. I know a few of the sports sims out there were based on tabletop games...

I fully agree that you can't have functionality sacrificed for better-looking (or have it hide the flaws). I do also agree with the need for a good (and up-to-date) UI that allows the user to get into the game with its presentation and ease of use. From the screenshots that I have seen over the years, I think SI has done superb in improving in this area. Personally, I want any strategy game, whether sports sims or the 4x ones (Civ, etc.) to present the critical information to the user easily and clearly in order make the decisions without being bogged down in the mechanics and overload of extraneous data.

There's a big difference between Fido and aran. Fido was a computer geek while aran is a computer nerd.

The difference, of course, is that geeks get shit done.

But I would agree aran, the UI needs some work, hell, I even made up my own version in Visual Basic just to let people better visualize what I was talking about. It wasn't pretty, but I thought it was functional.

www.explodinghouse.net/misc/UIsuggestion.zip

I think its more saying "The dire lack of good American football management games". That comes off as a bit pretentious. If he had come into the thread with clear ideas, designs, and direction, then maybe the response would have been more tempered.

Hey, wait a minute, did someone delete a post or two. I remember reading this when GoldenEagle came out with an awesome counter argument in regards to penile size :D . I see maximus' respons to it in Post #18, but I can't find the original post.

Anyway I just find it hilarious how defensive people get whenever anyone wants to suggest any changes to the UI. If you read his post, it is mainly talking about functionality. He begins by complaining on how salary cap issues are presented and tracked. But then everyone immediately jumped on him that the interface doesn't need to be changed.

And you said it yourself, the UI was improved for FM while they still focused on functionality, but you also failed to mention that they did improve the graphics over each release, plus they added that visual match engine a few versions ago. So why is everyone ignoring the fact that you can improve functionality and visual appearance at the same time. No one is really saying that you should change the game, just minor adjustments to how it is presented and better ways to track and access information.

Skydog mentions that you can get over 94 odd screens with just a click, but also says in the same post that it is hell since you can't open multiple windows at the same time. Well that is something that can be improved with a better UI. At like I said before, everyone seemed to be excited by the rumor that Jim may join SI. They would have revamped that whole interface and I didn't see many posts about how that would just kill Front Office Football. So why is this different?

I actually think the FM UI is far less fluid than in the past. Started poor, got very good, but its creeping towards being a little unusable.

Maybe I didn't interpret it the same way, but I read it as if there is no other alternative to FOF. He even mentions this at the beginning of the post. He says he likes FOF and TPF left little for him to desire. So if this is his belief/opinion, then he is correct, there is a lack of football management sims since there is only one very good lone wolf.

Out of curiosity, is EHM 2k5 more like FM or more like the last CM? (I haven't tried FM, so I can't really compare).

The reason I ask is because the sheer number of clicks required for certain routine tasks in EHM2k5 might be the one complaint I'd have after a couple of otherwise pretty doggoned enjoyable days.

Eh, I don't have 2k5. I'm still rocking the freeware EHM. I saw it at gamestop the other day, but I'm damn poor right now.

Bingo.

It's real easy for people here who've been playing FOF for years, all the way back to v1, to say that the interface is great. But how many people have tried the game, struggled for a half hour with the interface and quit, never to come back?

I remember my brother-in-law telling me about how much fun he was having with Madden franchise mode. He loved it, but wished it went deeper (this was around the time of Madden 2004). He wasn't even playing the games, just using the sim engine and making front office moves. I told him about FOF and suggested he give the demo a try. He was pretty pumped -- he had no idea that there were hardcore management sims out there.

Anyway, two months later I see him again and he starts in with the Madden stories. I ask him about FOF, and he kind of shrugs and says he tried it but couldn't get into it. I asked him far he went, and he told me he didn't even get out of the pre-season.

That's the interface at work, folks. This guy has a science degree and sells technical equipment for a living -- he's no dummy. But he couldn't quickly figure out how the FOF interface worked and had better things to do with his time than spend hours learning it.

This doesn't happen to everyone, clearly, but it does happen. The new users are the ones who are leaving because of interface issues, not us oldtimers.

There is another side of the UI argument and that is "familiarity". No matter how much a UI is criticized, for those that love the game can get used to any UI. But these only speak to the hardcore users of the game whereas a better and easier to use (and see) interface can get more of the less hardcore users and certainly would prevent casual users from being turned off. I remember the widespread criticism for Gothic's interface (the first game) but for fanatics of the game like myself, I got used to the interface where it become very intuitive - but it certainly turned away too many others. I think FOF and TCY are that way from reading the reviews but like those games (and OOTP as well), those that are really into it, can easily play the game without even thinking about where anything is and go right to the desired screens.

Maple Leafs read my mind.

Somewhere in between them, but probably a little closer to the old CM. The guys have done what they can to make the old interface easier to use, but FM has the advantage of starting from scratch. The slick right-click menus in FM vastly reduce the amount of screen-to-screen moves you need to make, but the limitations of the old code prevented a perfect implementation of that in EHM. So you get some right-clicking, but not for a lot of things you'd like to have it for.

Retrofitting hockey-specific things like the draft, individual line instructions, and so on into an engine that was originally intended for soccer has made parts of the interface a little clumsy, too. That's gradually getting smoothed out, though.

My mind as well. It took me awhile when I first got it to actually WANT to play the game rather than feel like it was a chore to play. I still don't play it that often mainly because of the interface.

I personally think the FOF GUI isn't bad - presentation-wise it could be nicer and there are some usability issues kicking around (but the same could be said of FM :D) ... but I've seen much worse in my time.

I have in the past tried to nudge Jim towards a less 'windowsesque' style of presentation, but he wants to spend the time on gameplay rather than window-dressing which is a decision I personally respect ....

...because he can better support and manage a few thousand sales/customers instead of hundreds of thousands as with SI. For a solo developer, that is a brilliant decision (much like with Brian as well). Jim even said that if he had a staff (or at least someone who could design a better interface), his games would look and be different.

I can respect it to, and in Jim's case it's probably the right call. But in general terms, there does come a point where user interface is a gameplay issue. It's not the either/or situation that some people around here like to pretend it is.

1. I know it probably has been discussed to death. The FoF bit was an aside in my post. I wanted to know about the math side of assembling a football sim.

2. The guy who responed to me with annoying unproductive comments wasn't an expert. I took that tone with that one person who essentially proved to me that i knew more about CS than he did. Don't generalize so easily. I have a lot of respect for the people at this forum who know their stuff and have significant experience. I just want to improve things, and i have the time to try.

You're a funny guy. Just because i haven't done anything for this community doesn't mean that i have never done anything in my life. :p Why should i sit here and brag about what i've done in the past? I'm looking forward at things, not backwards. I could sit here and preach to you about the concepts of UI design that i think work the best, but i'm not. I'm just putting my foot forward, saying that i'd like to help with FoF or i'd like to put my own finger in the football sim pie.

Sheesh. Talk about a cursory judgement taken to extremes.

How do you know I am not an expert? Just curious how you can make this conclusion.

Then do it, more power to you. In all brutal honestly, don't be surprised (or irritated) that pretty much no one here will take your plans seriously until we've seen something produced. Just the way things work.

Good luck to you aran, I hope you find someone to team up with on this project.

I find it hard to believe so many guys are being assholes about a desire to make a new game, but then again maybe there are just a lot of assholes.

Thats exactly what I meant (and probably would have posted if my wireless network wasn't up and down all the time at the moment, leading to shorter posts and lots of frustration ;) ).

I'm sure in time Jim will implement a 'funkier' GUI for his games, however at the moment I think his decision to concentrate upon gameplay is sensible - SI have the advantage of more man-power and so those people who aren't particularly 'into' gameplay can concentrate on GUI areas and similar functionality ..

all of this sounds eerily familiar.

Sorry. I was being pretty rude. I agree with most of what you say. FWIW.

Let me start by saying that I'm bewildered by people who think the FOF interface is complicated or confusing. I think it is about the most self-explanatory interface you're ever going to see. And if you can't figure out how to use the interface, then RTFM.

I have always firmly believed that people use the FOF interface as an excuse, on both sides of the equation. Fans of FOF argue that the interface doesn't matter as long as the AI is solid and there are no bugs. Those who dislike FOF blame it on the interface.

But there are two main groups of interface critics: those who say it is complicated and those who say it is boring. The boring group I take at face value; I think these are folks raised on Madden and are unable or unwilling to accept an interface that doesn't have a soundtrack or lots of splash. That's their prerogative. But I don't buy the argument from the complicated group at all; I think their "real" complaint is that the game is complicated and they choose to blame the interface rather than admit that they game has more elements than they are looking for. If you are looking for a franchise mode that is deeper than Madden, FOF might not necessarily be for you because it is considerable deeper than Madden. I don't think that is an indictment of those users, I think it is just a reflection that it's not the interface.

I think by and large the interface for FOF is ideal for its audience. I have no doubt there are people who like FOF who wouldn't want a TPF-style interface. Would FOF increase it's market appeal with a different interface? Very likely, but I think it would come with a different set of headaches. A modified interface would certainly draw new users but almost cetainly with different expectations. I think FOF is designed for serious text-sim gamers; a "prettier" interface would likely attract people who are interested in eye-candy but not as much in substance, which would lead to disstatisfaction. I think FOF's current interface creates a realistic expectation of what the game will be like.

Since this is the only question you want answer to, the answer is no. Doesn't sound like you're interested in much other feedback, which if I can offer constructive criticism isn't necesssarily the right approach for someone considering an open source project.

I hated the TPF interface. It's not about pretty, it's about being intuitive. FOF wins that battle. If "pretty" is a feature, that's fine, but if you find out 30 minutes in that a majority of the time coding the game was on making it pretty, you'll probably lose me. I love realistic football stats and easy to get to stats. Front Office Football wins that battle every day of the week.

I think the problem I have with FOF is that the more "fluent" I become with the design interface, the more I wish certain things were available. Such as opening multiple windows to make comparisons. Back and Next buttons on Gameplan screens so we don't have to set one part of the game plan, exit, open up another, set it, close the window, open the other gameplan screen, verify numbers, close that window, open the other window, plug in numbers, rinse and repeat. (The Set All button is fine, but I hardly use it except in testing.)

A simple "back" and "next" button on the gameplan screens would allow us to more easily set our gameplans each game.

That's all I interpret from the UI complaints. Is FOF the best out there as far as game engine? There is really no doubt. Is the FOF UI the best? Probably. But it can still be improved. And not by adding more color!

That's very well put Dutch. I agree wholeheartedly with that comment. I think there's a difference between people wanting to improve the FOF UI, and the people who want to "graphicize" the FOF UI. Point A doesn't necessarily mean Point B, which is what some people seem to think. The MFC-library might not be the prettiest out there, but it serves it's purpose and lets Jim focus on writing a good sim-engine rather than invent a whole new control-framework.

Really? From the perspective of a first-time user, you think it's self-explanatory?

You load up the game and get a blank screen. The New Game button is small and out of the way, but you find it. The new game setup is pretty simple, but now you're back at a blank screen. Hopefully you notice that the icons at the top are now active, but there's really no way to know what they do. You mouse over them and don't get any sort of tool tip or other indication. The first three are all the same -- clipboard with colored lines on them. Chances are you click one to see what happens, and a screen appears, so you click them all. Now a lot of windows open up, but they don't all fit on the screen you have to start resizing and moving them (wow, hope you don't have to do that every time).

Now since it's pre-season, the first thing you want to do is look at your roster. There's a ton of links on your screen but you probably find the roster pretty quicky. Looks nice. Might want to make some changes, though. Where's the free agency button? Not on the roster screen. Not on the main screen. There's a trade button, but no free agency anywhere. Is it not in the game? Weird.

Forget it, it's only pre-season, let's just sim a game and see how that works. There's a big button at the top of the screen that says "Simulation Window", so that must be it. You click it and... nothing happens. You click is several more times. Nothing. Well, nothing except that the teams in the standings area of that window over there seem to be changing order for some reason. Hey wait, that window is called Simulation Window too. Oh, now you see the little Simulate Games link. Wonder why that's not more prominent. You're starting to get a little frustrated now...

This is the sort of thing that is probably happening all the time to new users. Some get through it, some don't. But none of this has anything to do with "I don't like the color scheme" or "I want spinning animated buttons". Interface design is more than that.

www.explodinghouse.net/misc/UIsuggestion.zip

Maple Leafs, you should really check out how I organized FOF's menu in this Visual Basic exe (above). I know many people don't like drop down menu's, but this could easily be incorporated into the many windows that FOF2k4 provides (and still keep the linear drop down menu).

Forgive the bad look and feel, I'm not a programmer, it's just that Visual Basic allows non-programmers to do some things.

The idea is that the menu's are organized into Pre-Game, Global League Vantage, General Manager Duties, Coaching Duties, OC Duties, DC Duties, and then post-game stats (almanac).

You could almost design an active directory object oriented system for FOF, but I digress.

Some people think there are only two choices: a spreadsheet-type interface or a spinning animated button-type inteface (ala Madden). I think Maple Leafs is right, it is about the interface controlling the gameplay and flow. I believe FBCB with its spartan interface does the best job at this.

kcchief, you missed my earlier point. You can play FOF in your sleep and the exact same thing can be said of those playing OOTP, FM or whatever. It doesn't matter how good or bad the interface is, the hardcore users of the game will allow it to become intuitive.

And you missed mine. Yeah, I can play FOF or OOTP in my sleep, but it takes me one or two clicks to get where I want in FOF. It takes me four or five in several places in OOTP. *That's* the issue. Yes, if I like the game, the interface is going to eventually become intuitive (even with a radical change like there was from FOF3-->FOF4), but no matter how much the user has memorized the interface, he still has to click and move to get where he needs to go. The question I'm concerned with is this: "Once I learn the interface, how long does it take me to do what I need to do?"

A few other comments, based on replies I've read in this thread...

• If I recall, gameplanning screens *used* to be on tabs in earlier versions of TCY (which is a close cousin to FOF4 and 5, I'm pretty sure), allowing one-click movement from one screen to the next, but they were removed because the easy-to-use tabs were found to cause crashes on some systems.
• The beginning-of-game and gameflow issue for newbies does *NOT* require an interface overhaul, just a few more e-mails. FBCB and TCY, for example, send the player an e-mail during every phase of the game telling the player exactly what needs ot happen during this stage. I'm not sure why this isn't offered in FOF, but it is the best solution I've seen to this issue.
• It's not like I ever denied the "elitist" tag. I don't get the point that was being made there.
• To the person that asked, yes, I count five posts in this thread that have been deleted--all by the person who posted. (Yes, admins, and perhaps mods, can see deleted posts, and who deleted them, and--if the person deleting chooses to post it--why the thread was deleted.)
• That's a great point about the interface fitting the audience.

That's pretty cool. The breakdown by coach and co-ordinator is an interesting idea.

More on what I'm talking about regarding experienced users and interfaces...

As I said, I know the OOTP interface pretty darned well by now, but the fact remains that in order to evaluate my roster to see what FA's I need to sign, I have to go through the following annoying set of tasks:

(Screen comes up on the "SIGN FREE AGENTS" screen, with all 0-0 standings.)
1. Click on my team's name. (C'mon, the game should *always* default to viewing the human player's team.)
2. Select the catchers.
3. Select "general ratings/info". (Because I want to see star ratings.)
4. {sometimes} Click on each individual player card. (Because often star ratings aren't enough information to determine if I need a FA or to make a trade. OOTP could really use a simple one-rating "Cur/Pot" model like FOF uses here. I've got a 24-year-old one-gold-star catcher. Can I give him a shot at the bigs? I don't know. I need to look at his card. If there was a simple "45/80" overall rating given, I'd be able to do it. There's not, so I need to look at the player card for positions at which my best player is 2 stars or less.)
5. Select the first baseman.
6. Select the @$%(*$@% "general ratings/info" category AGAIN!!!! :mad: (This is a classic example of intuitiveness versus functionality. Yes, I know exactly how it works. I know exactly what I need to do, but it is STILL annoying as all get-out to have to select this EVERY TIME I SWITCH POSITIONS. Very bad.)
7. Repeat steps 2-4 for every position group.

By comparison., when I want to evaluate my roster in FOF, I do the following:

1. Hit the "View Rosters" button.
2. Sort on "Current Estimate."
3. Sort by position. (Ah, this reminds me to another major issue I have with OOTP: no Excel-style sorting. The second sort does not take the first sort into account...)
4. Look at my QB's. (Hmmmm, Orlando Ozguner is signed to a five-year deal, and is rated 31/73. No need to sign a QB.)
5. With no extra clicks, just scroll down through the rest of the roster, which is neatly sorted position-by-position. (Because of the nice overall rating, I *might* need to check player cards for maybe one or two guys, but I *know* that since my second-best receiver is rated only 27/32, I need to look for one in free agency.

Yes, I know they are different sports, but the fact remains that with 16 position groups in FOF, I can evaluate my needs with 5 clicks, a little down-arrow scrolling, and maybe 4-8 total clicks to open and close the 2-4 player cards I might need to look at more carefully. On the other hand, with 11 position groups in OOTP, it takes me at least 34 clicks to look over my roster, and any additional looking at a player card requires 3 or 4 additional clicks to get all the information I need to make a decision, and close the player card again. The number of clicks that the OOTP interface requires cannot in any way be lowered by "knowing the interface" or "knowing the game" any better, either.

Even being an experienced FOF2001 user, you just gave the play-by-play on what i went through when playing 2004 for the first time (except for the FA part).

The interface can be extremelyt confusing to a new user.

Thanks everyone for making this thread much more productive. Your ideas about interface design are interesting and insightful. :)

This is how i would approach designing a UI for a football management sim:
The first thing you need to do when designing a UI is examining how your game flows. You make an outline of this.
ex:

Next, i'd see what information is appropriate and necessary for each stage of gameplay. Using this analysis, i can determine what windows should display what information, and how prominent those windows should be. If i find certain bits of information that are needed or useful at all times, i'd put them in easy-to-find, hotkeyable alt menus (right below the title bar).

I'd also be sure to include information on the rules of, for instance, contract negotiations, free agency, etc. in easy to see locations, so new players have a good idea of what they're doing. I'd strongly consider giving the play reports on the general salary status of the league: the mean and median salaries for each position and other appropriate info, to give the player all the information that they need to make decisions.

The idea here is to give the player the information that he needs, the analysis that he needs, and the ability to easily and intuitively do what he needs to do, while not giving the player information that is too in depth so as to take away from the player's ability to make decisions.

SD, in OOTP, you could have just hit gen ratings, and sorted by position, then started with catchers, clicked on the player card, and hit next all the way through catchers. Done? Now you are on 1B. Why even go back to the gen ratings screen when you are going to click on the 1B player cards anyway? I know you've logged enough hours to already know that, but didn't think you were quite being fair to OOTP there.


I also don't think everyone wants a straight up Cur/Pot rating shown for all players. While it has it's advantages, it also seems to make things a little easier (maybe too easy?). Granted, it requires a lot less sorting through unnecessary players, but wouldn't it just incline people to base trades and a lot of their moves on those numbers alone (without much thought given)? Unless of course you could apply your own weights to create the Cur/Pot ratings themselves, like you mentioned earlier (I agree there, btw). Either way, I think enough people would support those ratings, and enough people would oppose them. I see advantages of both, and am torn on which I prefer.

Agreed.. perhaps my favorite thing about OOTP and FM as well is that there is no overall type of rating for any player, besides the stars, which are really only seperating players into 5 different levels, which is no biggy..

I find the future/current overall rating for players in FOF to be much less important then I did before, so it is not as big of a deal to me.

If you develop an offense, then get the guys who have the right skills for that offense you can often have your 55 rated guy out perform that 78 rated guy. I almost see the overall rating as something fairly deceptive actually, and guys can get screwed by it. So in that way it can add to the game. Seeing a guy sign a player probably just because he is rated in the 60's, even though that rating is higher then maybe it should be (ex. a RB who has decent return and receiving skills but fairly bad running skills), and think that guy will be the answer to his running game problems is funny to me.

I think you are missing an entire set of people here kcchief - I think I am part of a significant group of people who love FOF, but find the interface unwieldy, and in my case, tiresome. Its not that I cannot figure it out - I know how to get to everything, but hate how many clicks it takes me to do so. When simming, I find my team has an injured player, so I need to close the sim window, open the roster window, change the inactive/active status of two players (opening and closing another window for each), close the roster window, and then open the depth chart window, make the changes, close that window, and finally open the sim window and sim the rest of the week.

I don't care so much about pretty (although I do think it would sell more games) but I think the ease of use of the interface could be much improved. I just think there are some terrible design choices there. Two simple changes, that would not require any tech differences, merely some design choices, would greatly streamline the above.

Why do I need to open a players window to change his active/inactive status. Why can't there be a button on the roster screen to change that status?

Also, there not being buttons linking the roster screen and the depth chart is inexcusable IMO. Those functions to me are so inextricable linked, they should not be separate windows linked from other separate windows.

I love the game, just hate the whole modal window thing, and my enjoyment of the game would be enhanced by a more user friendly interface.

i fully support you and respect what you might have to bring to the table.

i've long felt jim has had the luxury of doing it his way more so than not primarily due to there being a lack of competition. MP in FOF was functional and rather stable for a first attempt, but it had that "tacked on at the last minute" feel, or moreso it felt that he included it in only after having his arm twisted. my biggest gripe w/ the FOF series is the lack of editability and customization you find in the OOTP series. i want to be in a league where the Commish has complete and total control over the league and what can happen in it, not where the Commish is a glorified "designated simmer" (all a MP FOF Commish does is hit the "sim" button and has to get grief when something goes wrong). jim has been stubborn in giving us *his* vision of pro football, rather than like OOTP which gives the user the tools to create their own versions of pro baseball.

so if you have a way to make the FOF experience better, i'm all for it. if you have the desire to make a new pro football text sim altogether, especially one that focuses on MP and particularly one that is free - i would support it.

i like jim, not personally since i've never met the guy, but i mostly like his online "personae", but i'm long past the "i'll buy anything he puts out and anything he puts out pwns other games" phase. just because as a customer you can interact with the creator in this website doesn't mean you have to blindly accept the creator's way as the *only* way.

go get 'em kid.

I confess to being one of the people who is just to familiar with the FOF interface that I am probably past the ability to recognize shortcomings that might prove confusing to a newer player. I think it's very fair to be concerned that a new player might have trouble with a user interface, and diminish his ability to enoy the game quickly -- which has to be an important factor in determing whether he will stick with it long enough to appreciate the actual game engine. So, I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing the value of a usable interface.

I guess I am prone to saying that the interface works for me, but am open to the idea that it might not work that well for everyone.

Specifics aside, I think aran's general idea of taking things a little more step-by-step is probably pretty sensible... right now, that function is done (to some degree) by the series of emails you get suggesting what it's time to do, but the game could certainly provide a little more direction in that regard, I suppose. As a veteran player, I don't need it, but for a new user, perhaps it could be useful.

I must be special because I've never quit playing any game because I couldn't figure out the interface. I've stopped playing games because the interface was poorly designed, but there's a distinct difference between the two. To me, one is not being able to figure out how to get from A to B...the other is the way to get from A to B is poorly designed. I don't think the FOF interface is easy to figure out, but it doesn't strike me as overly complicated either. It wouldn't surprise me if the people who give up on FOF before figuring out the interface, would give up on the game even if the interface were simpler. In my view, FOF isn't a simple game overall...if you can't even stick with it long enough to figure out the interface, I have doubts you'd stick with it long enough to figure out the rest of the game either. That's not to say, it wouldn't be better to improve the interface to make it easier for gamers to figure it out. That's always a positive thing, but in the end I don't see it being a major hurdle to overcome for the series. At least that's my opinion, and we've already established that I'm special. :D

I think some aspects of the interface in FOF are a little daunting and I must confess that I was a little overwhelmed the first time I played it (personally, I still think the interface for FOF2 was better). That said, if you are into the game, it becomes intuitive. I like pretty graphics as much as the next guy, but honestly if it comes down to substance or eye candy, I'll go with substance every time.

Dang. This thread even got the attention of Joe Stallings.

Okay so that's where that dramatic soap opera music is coming from.

With my approach, i'm attempting to give the player more direction as to where he's going. I think that FoF will become MUCH more addictive and fun if you know where you are going, what you've done, and what you are doing, and you have fairly easy access to a vast majority of the information and analysis you need to make important decisions. The main problem is seeing where the analysis you provide is actually MAKING the decisions (or making them too easy).

FOF

Front Office Football, not Front of Football.

Sorry, but that's been bugging me throughout the entire thread... :)

I work on a game myself and as a student don´t always have enough time to get the stuff I want done. I personaly hate to work on the GUI, it is boring and I would love to work on the "cool stuff". I´m a person who looks on the gameplay first and then on the graphics (I still play Ultima 7 and my all time favorite is Ultima5) but sadly, today a lot of people don´t even try a game if they don´t like the graphics even if the game is better then other games. So I try to get a "better then average" GUI and hope that people still try the game out once it is finished.

I like Jims approch ("gameplay first") since I have the same. So I want a realistic game-engine first (so far about 10.000 lines of code) and then an average GUI and then hope that people try it. ;)

Here is an example of my GUI:

Screenshot

palli

Who knew Tim Wakefield was 74 inches tall. Cool.

hahaha.. wow. I can't believe i was using "FoF". So used to little o's. FOF it definitely is.

The only thing that would make this better is the ability to set a default sort or to have the game remember the sort. I always do the "sort by potential", "sort by position" thing, but then setting a player inactive or renegotiating their contract resets to the default sort. When you have to keep going back and forth between screens, not having to re-sort each time would be nice.

Looks cool - I agree that the GUI isn't a lot of fun to work on (GUI stuff is my 'weakest' area of game design/implementation imho) but its essential if you're going to truly immerse people in your game (as a great GUI is one that people just use and forget about imho).

If you want a little constructive criticism on the screenshot you posted:

* The internal and external items should 'match' in their outside/inside layout.
By this I mean the top bar with the buttons should have a 'reflecting' bump with the player profile section displayed in the center of the screen.
This would make the screen layout look much easier on the eye to your average user.
* Ensure that all divisions within the GUI are equal where possible. By this I mean the gaps between the items in the internal area of the screen.
This makes the items look better 'balanced' to a user and again means their eye flicks around the screen more naturally.
* Ensure that all buttons are 'centralised' properly in the area they're displayed within, the ones at the bottom look like they're a tad too low and because of this I find my eye drawn to them.
* Use buttons which 'fit' with the overall GUI design, the circular buttons on the top right of the screen seem to be 'floating' around because of the angular nature of the screen design.

That being said I think its a very cool screen and at the end of the (1) there are 100 ways to skin a cat and there is no 'perfect gui', (2) as I said at the start my GUI design is crap so feel free to ignore me, (3) its the game play that counts at the end of the day.

Hope this helps,

Marc

That's pretty sweet. What did you write it in?

Marc, thank you very much for your words. Like I said, I don´t like to work on the GUI and I always have to do something else first. :)

I will definitively look into your points but I don´t understand the first one, maybe if you have the time you could explain it a little bit more? I have a few month left for my game since the planned release date is somewhere around season opener next year (there is another game released around that time, if I could just remember the name ;) , say hello to Markus from me, we are just 50 km away from each other right now). One more thing: I realy appreciate your work with small developers like me because it is a great motivation to keep up the work. I mean, I play your games since 99/00 and now I got some hints on my own game from you. :)

@ moriarty:

I write the game in C++. I use WXWidgets to write the GUI but will look into alternatives down the road since I´m not always happy with it.

For everyone:

If you are interested in more screenshots or you want to follow the development of a baseball manager text-sim game or have ideas and/or criticism on the game just visit my project-page with board. As I already said, the planned release date is early April next year and a first snapshot (or demo) is planned for the next few weeks.

Perfect Game

palli

My three favourite text-sim interfaces:

1. FBCB
2. TPB 2K5
3. OOTP6

I have to say that FOF is one of my least favourite interfaces and it still takes me a while to find my way around in stuff. That's one of the reasons why it took me so long to get FOF 2K4 was because the interface was a pain in the butt to navigate.

It's also why I never bought the CM series until FM/WWSM because I hated the interface beyond anything else.

Ditto the first incarnation of the SI-led EHM. The second one I haven't bought because I simply don't have money these days after I found out I get accepted into Wyoming.

Does it have to be gorgeous? No. I think FBCB being my favourite interface proves that.

But it does need to be functional, streamlined, and as intuitive as possible.

Its a personal concept which most commercial GUI's follow.

For instance if you look at the quick reply section on this board ...

Its basically a series of squares within squares. This makes the styling complimentary to each of the components whereas if you have squares and circles mixed then it feels less well organised (imho) and coherant.

If you look at the FM GUI for instance we use square shapes with rounded edges, where these are placed within each other we try to ensure that each object fits into its 'parent' like a loosely fitting jigsaw puzzle, this to my eye gives the gui a coherant and thought out look.

In your screen shot the central area looks like its been placed in the wrong section on its 'jigsaw' because it doesn't fit its 'parent' shape (ie. the surrounding box with buttons etc. on it.

Hope that made some sort of sense ...

Marc

Thank you very much Marc, now I understand and I will try to work something out that looks more professional.

But now I will continue first with some stuff for the player-importer (there is always something to to before I get to the GUI :rolleyes: ).

palli