Wish List - DDS Pro Football ‘24

[dcfox1]

Agree with the comments about player progression. OOTP Baseball sim has a very good player Progression system with Potential included and good UI.

[Punter715]

One area of the game that could really use some polish, in my opinion, is receiver routes on offense.

To be fair, there are already a lot in the game's base files, which is great! But, there are a few that are missing which make it hard to really capture the feel of a real life football scheme: the wheel route and a true WR screen.

The Wheel Route is a very important route for WRs, TEs, and RBs/FBs to run in almost any modern-day offense.
The game DOES have screen route coded in, however, they're little more than flat routes.

[servo75]

Contract negotiations. I think I mentioned something like an interest meter but what would be great is if players made counter offers. I notice that in College '24, we got more in-depth feedback from recruits so I'm hoping something similar makes its way into 2024.
Also given the vast improvement and streamlining done to recruiting, I'm looking forward to something similar in the pro game. Just like scouting points and recruiting points and everything got merged into a single budget number, I'm hoping we'll see that in Pro. Because the way it works now with all scouting done in one week, and you either scout or not, interview or not, so that at draft time you'll have 30 players well-scouted, and 200 that you know NOTHING about. Should be a bit more gradation. Just like in college we'll add/remove $ on various aspects so that some players you'll know better than others for the draft, but we'll have 100+ players that we at least have semi-accurate information on, instead of 30 that are 75% accurate and 200 that are 1%.

And I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but in the training emails, including the number of points improved, just that alone would make keeping track of progress and evaluating our training plans much smoother.

[servo75]

Also, I've brought this up before, but there's the issue of Position skill. I know it's here to stay and am starting, thanks to the devs, to understand better what it does. But I still think it's a bit too strict. If a CB has say an 80 in CB skill, I can understand a 0 skill for offensive line. But he should, if he's a decent level starter, at least have 50-ish for safety, or a 80 safety have 40-ish for linebacker. Or an 80 TE have a 65-70 at WR, for example. It shouldn't be such a huge dropoff. IMHO playing an OL at TE (tackle eligible which is common) should not be the same "penalty" as lining him up at DB, yet that's the way it seems to be set up, there's never more than 2, maybe 3 positions a player can play. The NFL is increasingly blurring the lines between positions. More and more you see depth charts with just two safety positions instead of SS and FS. You'll see 3-4 defenses with 2 tackles and one end. Or nickel defenses with 3 ends and 1 tackle. My understanding is that the NB1 and NB2 positions use the position skill of CB, but teams putting a safety there is not unheard of. Perhaps we want to go "big nickel" and have 3 safeties instead of 3 corners. This does happen in the NFL. And IMHO the thing that should prevent a DT at WR is that he'll have 40 speed and 15 hands. Similarly in the depth charts, it would be nice to see things like lining up an OT at TE, or even a lineman at fullback (Refrigerator Perry, anyone? Okay kidding about that last one). So while I understand there should be stopgaps to prevent exploits, I think we can have a LITTLE more inter-position flexibility.

[servo75]

DDS PF ‘24 Wish List Ideas:

5) Improve FG logic: Right now, there are still a lot of instances of teams kicking FGs down by more than 3 points in last few minutes in games when it’s like 4th and 1 on the 30 where it makes no sense to kick a FG. Maybe could make sense more since if it is like 4th and 15 maybe but you would always go for it on 4th and 1 if a FG doesn’t even tie it or take the lead. Why kick a FG on 4th and 1 if you are still behind a point even if you make it when the chances of making it aren’t all that much higher than making a 4th and 1. Would be great to have more strategy settings on this though in general to have coach/GM impact this strategy specifically

1) More Varied Progression / Regression: I would love much more varied regression and progression player to player tied to a potential rating (visible) but still hard to predict. Right now players slowly gain ratings until they hit 30 and then slowly regress in 99% of cases. There is some variance but not a lot. In real life guys sometime will decline very early while other players stay good into their 30s.

2) Improved Draft Scouting: I think scouting is ok, but room for improvement. I'm not a big fan of the current all-or-nothing scouting option for draft prospects (either you scout them fully by checking a box or you basically don't scout them at all). Not sure the best answer but a more strategic system that allows you to scout some guys 50%-70% with less accuracy. And if you want to put all your eggs in one basket and scout a guy to 100%, it should cost a ton to do so. In-season scouting would be great for this as well and create more in-season excitement for the draft vs waiting until the scouting phase to know anything about players. Separately, would be great if there was a way to scout potential / future development in players. If there was some sort of "potential" rating that was scoutable, it could add some strategy to the draft. Do you take the player with a C+ OVR rating and B- Potential rating in round 3 or the D- OVR player that you have as an A potential rating. It shouldn’t at all be a guarantee at all that players reach their potential rating (just a scouted estimate) but right now seems like players develop way too similar too each other. Not many bust (guys that just don’t develop at all or even regress early) and gems in draft (guys that develop crazy fast). The Gems should be rare but would be fun to have a 68 OVR WR that develops into 88 OVR WR in just a few seasons. Last note, projected rounds and coach grades are very accurate making the draft pretty easy at the top. The top ten projected picks are usually always the best picks with very little error. Would be great to allow the option to get rid of the projected pick order provided and let GMs come up with own order. Or have less detailed projects and put more good picks projected very late to make scouting more fun to try to find the late gems.

4) In-Season Free Agency Change: Right now game uses a claim system for in-season free agency. Would love to have a more typical $ bid system as you see in the off-season even in-season. Maybe have a setting so players below a certain overall threshold still can be claimed for league minimum but the rest of the players can sign 1-year deals for the team that offers the most money.

8) Improved Coaching: Really not sure of the exact answer here but coaching is such an important part of real football but feels like mostly a limited factor in game currently. Playbooks feel like just a large collection of plays and doesn't seem like coaches have an identity or system they run to match to personnel to run that system. With improved coaching, I think Leagus could better get away from running things with custom playbooks and let leagues run with coach only (even for user) and be more of a true GM only.

9) Roster Structure: It's frustrating to have a FS that has no idea how to play SS in game. Or a 270 lb LB that plays a more edge rusher in a 335 or 3-4 system that has no idea how to play DE if goes to a 4-3 or Nickel system.

Amen to all of that! Especially with not just FG but end of half clock logic. I've had several games where my team is at their 20 yard line with 30 seconds and no times-out and instead of the FG they call a running play. Time-outs are called at weird times. Maybe there can be a game planning setting for "FG/4th down aggressiveness" or something like that. I'm seeing runs out of I formation on 3rd and 5, and on 4th and goal from inside the 1, teams go for FGs too often. Again having a setting where we can define how aggressive we want to be on 4th down, 2 point conversions, or FG vs. going for 4th would help a lot I think.

To the issue of progression/regression, I would add that I think speed should be at max for rookies / age 23-24. Also I see players regress in intelligence. Does a player become dumber after 30? A lot of times it seems like the bulk of a player's progression is in categories either completely or mostly unimportant to his position. Hands for OL, Strength for punters, Pass blocking for WR are just a few.

Roster structure I will also second. I'm starting to see the point of the position skill rating but it should be a bit more flexible as the OP said. Pretty frequently NFL teams don't differentiate between SS & FS. They'll line up a TE at FB or an OL at TE (tackle-eligible). Personally I find myself having to carry 4 tight ends because I can't make that sub in an emergency. Other teams are going with the "big nickel" concept with 3 safeties instead of 3 corners. Or "big dime" or even a 4-0-7 lineup, or 2-4-5. This can be done with the current formations but if there wasn't such a huge "penalty" for lining a safety up at LB (I can understand there will be a small dropoff but not 90 skill down to 1).

[NBryant]

Relegation. Not for everyone but would be an interesting twist for league play. See it in "another" pc football game and it provides an interesting theme to the common American football game.