Play Creation Guide

Play Creation Guide

Postby francua4 » Sun Feb 18, 2018 7:43 am

Play Creation Guide
I tried to make this as quick as possible, but as it would turn out there’s quite a few components that I wanted to make sure to explain. I pasted an example of a play below so that you can reference each aspect of what would be needed to successfully create a play.

First things first, when your creating plays what I recommend doing is making a copy of the plays.xml file and save to your desktop so you can keep the default file for the game and have a work in progress file. The file can be found in the following folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Wolverine Studios\Draft Day Sports - Pro Football 2018\Data. I’d also suggest downloading Notepad++ (Its Free!) to do any modding for any of the XML files for either DDSCF or DDSPF.

IMPORTANT
For the next part please keep in mind that spelling and capitalization must be exact. The play that is copy and pasted is a working play that I’ve added to my mod and will use as a reference for this guide.

Play Headers:
Play Requirements & Definitions for All Offensive Plays:

Play Freq – This is how frequent the play is called in game. In my plays mod I believe I set this to “1” for every play to ensure even distribution.

Formation – This must be one of the actual in-game formations that have been pre-programmed: Shotgun, Spread, ProSet, Iformation, TwoTE for pro and you can use Wishbone if you’re modding for the college game.

Name – This can be anything you want. If you want to name the play “Spider Two Y Banana” you have that flexibility. However, I try to keep my names as basic as possible because I used a good amount of custom movement (more on that later).

Type – Must be either “Run” or “Pass”

OffScheme – Must be one of the following four: Power, ProStyle, Vertical, or Spread. (Note: There may be others already preprogrammed in the game but I didn’t test them to see if they worked.)

For All Pass Play Requirements
Play Example Header for Pass:
<Play Freq="1" Formation="ProSet" Name="LWR Short Out" Type="Pass" OffScheme="ProStyle" PassPref="Short" PassTargetPref="Outside" RBRole="Catching" TERole="Catching" BaseForm ="true">

PassPref – Must be one of the following: Long, Balanced, Medium, or Short

PassTargetPref – Must be one of the following: Balanced, Outside, OverMiddle, Runningbacks, Tightends.

RBRole – Must be either Catching or Blocking

TERole
– Must be either Catching or Blocking.

BaseForm – I’m not really sure what this does as I’ve seen cases where its “True” or “False”. Listing it as either for any play hasn’t skewed results or caused errors on my end.

For Run Play Requirements:
Play Header Example for Run:

<Play Freq="1" Formation="ProSet" Name="RB OffTackle Left" Type="Run" OffScheme="ProStyle" RunPref ="Balanced" BaseForm ="true">

RunPref – Balanced, Draws, Inside, Outside, or Power

BaseForm – I’m not really sure what this does as I’ve seen cases where its “True” & “False”. Listing it as either for any play hasn’t skewed results or caused errors on my end.

Player Identification:
Ok, so that’s the basics of setting up the headers on an offensive play. Next is the actual components of what each player will do on the play but first a quick overview of what everything is:

Slot ID - Each Player is identified as a number that is aligned with where they fall on the depth chart for a particular formation. Very important to pay attention to which formation you are creating for as the Slot ID’s for each position vary based on the order of the Formation. Example: Slot ID 3 for Shotgun = TE, but Slot ID for IFormation = FB.
There is a percentage marker for how often you want a player to get the ball for a play. The “Pct” is followed by a number that is to be on a 1-100 scale. The Pct can be used for any skill player position.

Player Movement:
Path – Every player action must open and close with this command.

Action – This is the fun part. There are two ways to create movement within a play. The first and easiest is to use the pre-programmed “routes” that have been provided with the game. If you pop open your Plays.xml file and export/open it with Excel you’ll see that there are predefined movements such as “QB Drop Back Medium” or “Pass Block” etc. With these I don’t have a clear definition on just how far each player moves so I tried to limit using them all together when I created plays. However, if you’re just getting started and looking for an easy way to create plays I’d suggest using this route.

The second and more complicated way of creating a player “route” is by manually creating a route for him using the games X, Y, Delay Axis. The X, Y axis works in a feet metric, so every 3 points = 1 yard.
X Axis – Negative Numbers = Left Movement, Positive Numbers = Right Movement
Y Axis – Negative Numbers = Backwards, Positive Numbers = Forwards
Delay – This works in Seconds, so if you use a 1 here, the player will “freeze” for a second before going on to his next movement.

Example of Player Movement:
This is about as basic as it gets. What you see below is my version of a Deep QB Dropback. Basically with an “X” movement of 0 I’m telling the QB I don’t want him moving left or right at all, with a “Y” movement of -30 I’m telling the QB he needs to drop back 10 yards before throwing the ball.
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="-30" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>

Multiple Player Movements:
You can have more than one movement in a single play for a player. The example below is an “Out and Up” route for a receiver. The first line is telling the receiver to go forward 5 yards, the second line tells him to go left 2 yards and the third line tells him to go forward 15 yards.
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="15" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="-6" DeltaY="0" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="45" Delay="0"></Action>


Play Creation Example:
<Play Freq="1" Formation="TwoTE" Name="Out and Ups" Type="Pass" OffScheme="ProStyle" PassPref="Long" PassTargetPref="Outside" RBRole="Catching" TERole="Catching" BaseForm ="true">
<Slot ID="0">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="-30" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="1" Pct="10">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="33" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="-6" DeltaY="0" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="-9" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="2" Pct="10">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="12" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="30" DeltaY="0" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="3" Pct="10">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="12" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="-30" DeltaY="0" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="4" Pct="35">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="15" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="-6" DeltaY="0" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="45" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="5" Pct="35">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="15" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="6" DeltaY="0" Delay="0"></Action>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="45" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="6">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="-15" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="7">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="-12" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="8">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="-12" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="9">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="-12" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="10">
<Path>
<Action Type="Move" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="-15" Delay="0"></Action>
</Path>
</Slot>
</Play>



One thing to keep in mind is that the game’s AI is smart enough to know what each position is supposed to be doing. Meaning if you tell you’re offensive line to shift 5 yards to the right on a play and that’s all you enter they will block all the way through their movement and sustain blocking even after the movement has been completed.

Lets say you’ve created your plays and you want to add your modded plays.xml file to your game. You can do this by simply dropping the plays.xml file in the following folder: C:\Users\Documents\Wolverine Studios\DDSCF 2018. When you drop the file here the game will pick this file up over the default file in the data folder. Note: You must drop your plays.xml file in the folder prior to beginning a season, otherwise you’ll have to use the play tool in-game to drop plays in.

Lastly and probably most importantly is make sure you test the created plays before starting any type of league. Easiest way to do this is to create a test league in sandbox mode or Online mode whichever you prefer and just pop open any team’s strategy screen. Go to playbooks and if all of the information is filled out on the screen then your playbooks are working correctly. If not you will more then likely get an error or the game will not allow you to sim. Either way there’s a mistake with your modded file and you’ll need to fix it. The good thing about this is Brooks & AKH were nice enough to include an “Error Log” for each of the games. The Error Log will outline where you have issues and point you directly to where the problem is in your xml file. The Error Log can be found in the following folder: C:\Users\Documents\Wolverine Studios\DDSCF 2018.

I know this looks like a lot, but once you understand the mechanics of it, its very easy and quick to do. One thing to keep in mind is due to the specificity of the XML files YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES and cause the game to crash at some point. This is no big deal, just be patient and use the Error Log file to help you find your mistake(s). Even though I have a pretty good understanding of how it all works I still manage to crash the game because of a typing error or forgetting a key component. If you have any questions or get stuck modding this or any file, shoot me a PM or post your error log message and file here and I'll try to help you out as best I can. Enjoy!
francua4
Junior Member
 
Posts: 144
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2015 1:02 pm

Re: Play Creation Guide

Postby AKH » Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:57 am

Nice work frankie.

TO clarify: The baseform parameter indicates whether it is a 3 WR set. So for shutgun and spread it is 'true' and for the others it is 'false'.
User avatar
AKH
Moderator
 
Posts: 1142
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:15 pm

Re: Play Creation Guide - Wishbone

Postby regenerator » Thu May 24, 2018 3:14 pm

Hi I'm having problems with my plays created by editing plays.xml in Notepad++. They are being completely ignored - when I first loaded DDSPF there was an installation bc of the changes to plays.xml, but after that the plays seem to not exist - not even generating a log file. I'm trying to create an Option Wishbone play. Please let me know what I''m doing wrong -

<Play Freq="1" Formation="Wishbone" Name="Option-3back" Type="Run" OffScheme="Wishbone" RunPref="Balance" BaseForm ="False">
<Slot ID="0" Action="QB" Pct="1">
<Path>
<Action Type="Dive" />
<Action Type="Offtackle Left" />
<Action Type="Sweep Left" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="1" Pct="34">
<Path>
<Action Type="OffTackle Left" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="2" PCT="30">
<Path>
<Action Type="Sweep Left" />
</Slot>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="3" Pct="40">
<Path>
<Action Type="Dive" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="4">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Center" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="5">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Center" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="6">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="7">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="8">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="9">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="10">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
</Play>
regenerator
Senior Member
 
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:51 pm

Re: Play Creation Guide

Postby regenerator » Thu May 24, 2018 4:07 pm

Here's another play, this with a standard format of pro=set, and it was still ignored

<Play Freq="1" Formation="ProSet" Name="FB OffTackle Right" Type="Run" OffScheme="ProSet" RunPref ="Outside" BaseForm ="true">
<Slot ID="0" Action="QB"
<Path>
<Action Type="OffTackle Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="1">
<Path>
<Action Type=Draw/>
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="2">
<Path>
<Action Type="OffTackle Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="3">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Center" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="4">
<Path>
<Action Type="Streak" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="5">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Center" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="6">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="7">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="8">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="9">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
<Slot ID="10">
<Path>
<Action Type="Run Block Right" />
</Path>
</Slot>
</Play>
regenerator
Senior Member
 
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:51 pm

Re: Play Creation Guide

Postby AKH » Sun May 27, 2018 5:19 pm

you have several formatting errors from what i can see...

for instance you are missing the > to close the first slot.
User avatar
AKH
Moderator
 
Posts: 1142
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:15 pm

Re: Play Creation Guide

Postby regenerator » Sun Jul 22, 2018 12:45 am

Couple Questions/Comments:

1) I think you got it opposite - BaseForm ="False" is on every Shotgun and Spread play, as well as every 3-3-5/Dime/Nickel play. BaseForm=True correlates to 3-4 and 4-3 defensive plays. I have found that BaseForm = "true" does not correlate to 3 WR sets. BaseForm ="true"(lc) I believe corresponds to all Pro-Set, I-Form, and Two TE.

2) I'n choosing routes, for instance Left Slant, does that first direction tell which direction the receiver is taking the route? So if the player is on the left-side, does this Left Slant now become a corner? It makes sense with a pattern like "HookR" they reach the end of the route and hook to the right. But that direction is also after the route, so does that make a difference? Left Slant doesn't mean that receiver lines up on the left-side of the formation does it?

3) What does a direction coupled with a "Fly" pattern even mean? For instance, how does a Left Fly differ from a Streak?

4) I'm still not sure about this - in 3 WR sets, should we place our best WR in the FL position, or should we place our 3rd WR in this position? In other words, I would assume this third receiver would be the Slot WR, typically third in the depth chart, as the other two WR positions still read LWR and RWR like starters, LWR as the split end and RWR as the flanker. But, perhaps the RWR becomes the slot instead since this new position says "FL", clearly indicating Flanker, which would def make it not the slot. Can you clarify?

5) Still wondering about that "Start" command. I know you said you'll get to it tomorrow, looking forward to that.
regenerator
Senior Member
 
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:51 pm

Re: Play Creation Guide

Postby brooks_piggott » Sun Jul 22, 2018 8:24 am

For #2 the left/right tells you the direction of the play. A left slant means they'll run from the left to right. A left out means they'll run up field and then turn left. So if you have a right WR running a Left Out it will be the same as a Right In.

For #3 a fly breaks towards the back corner diagonally at the end of the pattern... streak is all straight.
User avatar
brooks_piggott
Moderator
 
Posts: 3676
Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 2:23 pm
Location: Austin, TX

Re: Play Creation Guide

Postby regenerator » Sun Jul 22, 2018 12:10 pm

2) Ok so just to make sure I've got it, a Left Slant from Left WR would mean a Corner/Flag route essentially(WR runs straight,then diagonally runs left) even though I know that's not one of the default routes. I was hoping so since a Corner Route is missing from the default routes (although I see from the Guide you can create any route using X and Y coordinates). How would a Left Out for a RWR equal a Right In? A Right In should send the RWR to the right, irregardless of the In. Same logic with the Left Out for our RWR - the direction (Left) supersedes the route in this case - he'd have to run a Right Out to run an actual Out route from his position.
I'm think I'm confused...

3) Oh and thanks for the knowledge - in all my years of playing football for real and on the computer I always thought a Fly/Streak/Go were the same route. It suddenly occurred to me that the Corner route I was just talking about is essentially a sort of Fly route.
Last edited by regenerator on Wed Jul 25, 2018 2:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
regenerator
Senior Member
 
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:51 pm

Re: Play Creation Guide

Postby AKH » Sun Jul 22, 2018 12:17 pm

Ok finally got home. Sorry for the delay.

The start command is really simple should just be:

<Action Type="Start" DeltaX="0" DeltaY="0" Delay="0"></Action>

Where you fill in X and Y to get the position you want.

as the first action of a player on a play.
User avatar
AKH
Moderator
 
Posts: 1142
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:15 pm

Re: Play Creation Guide

Postby AKH » Sun Jul 22, 2018 12:22 pm

as for the others:

The flanker is the slot WR. Whether or not you want to put your best WR there is may depend on the play and is up to you :)

You are correct that baseform just indicates wheter or not there are only 2 WRs/CBs on the field.
User avatar
AKH
Moderator
 
Posts: 1142
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:15 pm

Next

Return to DDS: Pro Football 2018 General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests