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.