Front Office Football Seven Review (PC)

[Ben E Lou]

FYI, a fair bit of your post is outdated or incorrect. A few points...

Quote: Originally Posted by shimshammy

The problem is that too many interceptions go for TDs, field goal kickers have far too low of accuracy on 40+ kicks regardless of their ratings, most draft picks stink and QBs underperform big time. The NFL hasn't seen passing like that since the 80s/early 90s.

None of these statements have been true since Fall 2014, when version 7.1 was released. (Some of them were incorrect prior to that, even, but no point getting into all of that.) INTs for TD are right in line with NFL totals, FG kickers hit right around 70% of 40+ yard attempts, and league-wife QB rating is in the upper 80s with around 7.3ypa.

Quote:

Oh and the CPU can cheat with contracts by constantly renegotiating every single high priced player each year while my guys almost never renegotiate. I tracked a QB of a CPU team for a few years and every season he'd have the vet min for the salary with the remainder coming in a signing bonus. He'd have cap hits of 30+ mil before this and it just kept increasing and increasing yet there he was continually renegotiating pushing the salary into the next year on a perpetual basis and taking a bit more of a signing bonus each year. I also saw a team for a few consecutive seasons be 25+ mil OVER the cap and then after this renegotiating with players somehow have 15+ mil in cap room each time. That would never happen in real football.

Incorrect also. The AI uses the "Cap Out" option very frequently. This option is available to humans, and NFL teams use it so frequently that you won't read about it in the papers. It's simply moving the current-year salary into bonus so that it gets distributed over the rest of the contract. The renegotiation LOOKS like he's getting less money if you don't understand what you're seeing.

NFL teams routinely use this option; it's just that the cap reporting is a little different in FOF versus the NFL so you see teams free up $30M-$40M in one shot in FOF. A smart human player can do the same. The reality is that *EVERY* contract should be examined *EVERY* year for a favorable renegotiation or cap out. The game is complex and success requires great attention to detail, particularly regarding the cap. Based on the post, maybe it's just not the level of difficulty that works for you. But for those who want a strong and competitive AI, FOF7 is very clearly light years ahead of anything else out there, and a huge improvement from the last version.

[Oinkersthepig]

I've been looking into this game big time and I'm thinking of picking it up on steam. It's $25 right now and that seems like a pretty low price for the amount of time I'm expecting to play it.

The only thing I couldn't find is the latest roster update. I'm under the impression that it was updated the start of this season, and I just want to confirm that.

Also, does anyone have an opinion on whether I should get this, or just wait until Beyond the Sidelines comes out? I'm a big fan of the OOTP series, but I can't even be sure that BTS will be up to par with what I've seen from this game.

[Ben E Lou]

Quote: Originally Posted by Oinkersthepig

The only thing I couldn't find is the latest roster update. I'm under the impression that it was updated the start of this season, and I just want to confirm that.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

A free update to Front Office Football 7 was released this morning, adding 2014 rosters and coaches and tweaking/fixing a few outstanding issues. Details can be found by following the link in this thread: http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/...ead.php?t=6574 (For some reason I can't post links correctly to FOFC here.)

The default rosters for a new purchase are 2014 begin-season.

Quote:

Also, does anyone have an opinion on whether I should get this, or just wait until Beyond the Sidelines comes out? I'm a big fan of the OOTP series, but I can't even be sure that BTS will be up to par with what I've seen from this game.

The big question mark for me on BTS is that it's a first-generation game that seems rather ambitious. I'm sure it will miss the mark in some areas. I just don't know if the areas in which it misses will be ones that I care about. (For example, I couldn't possibly care less if historical rosters suck or if the "watch-a-game" presentation stinks to high heaven. Those are features that I'll never use anyway. But if the roster-building AI stinks, sim speed is too slow, drafting is too easy or too random, or there are major statistical accuracy issues, I'll have no interest in the game.)

That said, there's no release date set, and the company likes to *try* for releases near the beginning of the season. Knowing those two facts, my guess is that we're at least six months away from seeing this game. Even if BTS blows FOF7 away, $25 is a steal of the amount of enjoyment I get out of FOF in 6 months. Seems like a no-brainer if you're into this type of game.

[DocHolliday]

I rally wish FOF could incorporate real life historical records, so you could see your guys climb the ranks of the all time best.

[bkrich83]

Hey Ben E. I don't see any release notes for Patch 7.1b, are they on FOC Central somewhere?

[GroundNPound]

I like this game in terms of approach to team building, game simulation, and financial management. In goes into great deal ... to the point Madden CFM looks silly in comparison. The problem with this game is its lack of usability -- and specifically readability. I do not need a lot of fancy graphics -- but I do need to be able to easily read it and interact with it. My native screen resolution is 1920x1080. The game is totally unreadable at this level. When I reduce the resolution I can read the main window but I cannot use any of the sub-windows (e.g., open a free agent player profile to evaluate and sign him). I can read the sub-window but it is overlaid on the previous window but is not scrollable nor resizable -- thus I can not see the buttons at the bottom of the window as they are cut off and there is no room to move the window up or down to see the cut-off parts. The layout is also chaotic and everything is about opening one window at a time -- doing what you need to do (often opening more windows). Then closing it. Tedious -- particularly when straining your eyes so much. The lack of a right-click context menu is also notable as it makes the interface so window dependent. I could love this game --- if only I could actually play it for more than 10 minutes without feeling like my eyes are going to fall out. In it's current form I think it is really more of a "proof of concept" and needs some serious investment into it's interface before it could attract anything more than an ultra-niche audience (with perfect vision). If anyone finds this feedback useful and can forward to developer, please do. Edit .. have no idea why this post looks so garbled and is ignoring spaces and paragraphs. Apologies.

[Cheatriots]

this is a fun game but i am amazed how little is has improved in some ways over the years. it's a shame there is no competition on the market for this game, because i suspect that would "force" FOF to improve its game in ways badly needed for so long, mostly meaning please god come into the 21st century already. i don't mean fancy graphics or any of that because that's not the kind of game it is, it's not EA (thank god). what it needs badly and has for its entire existance as far as I can tell is in 2 areas, 1 improvement in the menu or game navigation which has always been poor and now tragically dated in numerous respects (like the menus with those clunky and vague "which button does that again" stuff, and a saved game can only be 8 characters? seriously? is this guy a DOS junkie? and so on) and 2 which is also the one you wouldn't expect, more logic and accuracy/consistency with the numbers. for example on this 0-100 scale you would think 70+ is good, 40-60 range is OK, less than 40 stinks, but no, you find players 70+ very rare and 50s are good (and so on). also I routinely found the number weren't consistent or didn't "work" as you would expect, like guys with zero endurance rarely getting hurt while guys with good endurance hurt a lot or QBs with low accuracy ratings completing as many passes as guys with high ones, and many more examples i could give. don't get me wrong for one guy to do most if not nearly all of this is impressive, very impressive, but this guy seems very reluctant about improving areas that again have needed it for a long time. if he's not good at an area (like menu navigation) swallow your pride and bring someone on board, or whatever. anyway all that said again it's a worthwhile game but frustrating that improvement is glacial at best. I don't get the impression FOF8 got it right either but can't say for sure