Suggestions/Requests

[woolymuffler]

You mentioned on discord you preferred these on the forum so putting them here:

1) Bugfix: Clicking Matchup for Bowl Games crashes the game.

2) Idea/suggestion: Slot locks on package creation screen; this would enable you to set the QB, RB and whatever other positions were important for this package, lock those in place and let a coach set the rest of the positions and depth slots. If you don't like what they pick, you can lock additional slots until every position you have a preference on is set and locked in place (not clearing or being changed without unlocking the slot). Would increase the speed of package creation immensely.

3) Idea/suggestion: Show player attributes on the depth screen to save having to flip back to the roster tab or having to create a spreadsheet outside game to have attributes available on depth screen. Or make the player names hyperlinks for their cards on the depth screen (not sure how workable that would be since click is already assigned to setting the player in the slot).

4) Idea/suggestion: In recruiting, have any known coach or scout grades available in a view outside of the player card. Annoying to have to click through every recruit just to find the ones with bad intangibles.

5) Idea/suggestion: Allow mass selection using standard keys (ctrl for selecting individual entries, shift for selecting ranges) as well as right-click menus to perform actions on players. Annoying to have to click into every recruit in order to hide them, or individually click on each action for each player. If we could select 25 players we wanted to call at once and right-click to call them, would save a lot of time and carpal wear and tear. Obviously would have to adjust the pitches individually but would still be useful for thing like interviewing or targeting or hiding everyone who showed an F at a key attribute.

6) Idea/suggestion: More options in Game Plan.

"Short Yardage QB": would allow using a dual threat QB as a change-up in short yardage more easily.

Change "Goal Line Back" to "Short Yardage Back" (and use accordingly); most of the time the same player would be used on Goal Line and on 3rd/4th and Short.

"QB Contain" and maybe even additionally "QB Spy". Would allow some sort of direct mitigation of running QBs. Shouldn't be a guarantee of stopping them of course, just similar to setting a receiver focus. Contain would emphasize holding the edge, keeping them in the pocket and maintaining lane integrity for the pass rush, giving a small bonus against QB runs and scrambles (this could even be another option in Defensive Focus, giving up the bonus for general Run or Pass in return for a bonus specifically against QB Runs). QB Spy could be a check box that gave an additional bonus against QB runs at the cost of a penalty to pass coverage, because someone is removed from their normal pass duties to watch the QB.

7) Idea/suggestion: Additional options during league creation (before the rosters and recruit pools are created). Max Budget and Depth Chart Position Min/Max are the main ones that seem to affect initial setup and can't be changed for the first season. On a related note, having the recruit pool position numbers adjusted to reflect the roster min/max settings would be gravy; right now TEs and FBs are limited and adjusting the roster numbers up just means running out of recruits in those positions.

8) Idea/suggestion: Split up hard mode into multiple options, on-field and off-field. I'm fine with more expensive coaches and harder recruiting but I don't want my fumble rate increased in hard mode.

8) Idea/suggestion: Add additional schedule creation options to the teams.xml logic; currently there in only one FifteenTeam option and it only works for two divisions. 13 Teams seems the same (two divisions only) based on the naming pattern but I haven't directly tested it. Having different options for number of conference games played would also be nice.

Also, the two division scheduling could use a look. I set up a potential 15 team Pac-12 with 8 and 7 teams in the divisions and not one of the 15 teams actually played every team in its division (several of the teams only played two teams in their division with 7 or 8 cross-division games). It could be that it just doesn't work mathematically if every team plays their entire division, not sure. ChatGPT certainly struggled with it when I tried to have it make a functional 15 team, two division schedule with every division opponent played, so may not be a game issue so much as a math issue.

9) Idea/suggestion: Fix the roster creation logic for new team creation during realignment to follow the roster min/max rules for the league. Adding the ability to export league setups as valid teams.xml files from the game would also be great. And having the realignment interface available during league creation would be great (may not be possible due to the phase of the season the game starts in, no idea).

10) Idea/suggestion: Have recruiting history affect transfers; if you recruited a player coming out of high school and had visits, etc. but lost out on them, it would be cool and realistic if this made them more likely to transfer to you later. The recruiting history is already stored with the player, or at least the visits are, so seems potentially doable.

11) Game planning suggestion:

The current way it's done is unintuitive for me; currently you assign personnel packages to specific formations and individual playbooks to game situations. It seems much easier and more intuitive to me to have the playbooks assigned to the personnel packages/players and then assign the personnel packages to the game situations. Then the situation on the field determines what package is in, not the formation that a play-call happens to use. Assigning packages by formation makes sense if the packages are strictly defined and can't be used for formations that don't match the personnel (such as having an 11 Personnel package that ONLY has 1 RB, 1 TE and 3 WRs and can only be used for play-calls that specifically have 11 personnel) but with the way packages are defined in-game, every position is defined for every package so linking package to formation makes less sense to me.

So in my perfect world, if for example I want a short-yardage package for my good dual-threat backup QB, first I create a personnel package for him featuring my best run-blocking linemen and beefiest power back, then create a playbook for that package featuring plays suited to these players (inside RB runs and QB runs, with some short and PA passes mixed in). That playbook could use any play from any formation since every package includes all position groups. Then I assign that package to the situations I want it used (4th and short, goal-line, etc.). This makes it easier (imo) to group personnel together for a particular game scenario and run plays suited to that personnel package.

As a follow on from that idea, playbooks could be assigned to QBs individually, so that if your backup is a drastically different kind of player, they can have a different playbook if they come in for an injured starter. It would be cool to do similar with RBs (for RB by committee and injury subs); scatbacks have playbooks emphasizing outside runs, screens and receiving from the backfield, Power backs run inside more). I imagine RBs having individual playbooks is not possible though as some sort of merger between the QB and RB playbooks would have to happen.