Half the game missing

[marc420]

From looking at the demo, it seems to me that half the game is missing.

I see the part about finding players, signing players, contracts, ticket prices etc. But to me, that's only half of running a football franchise.

Once you've gone out and done your best to try to get the best players for your team, the other half is using those players. That means stuff like the following.

If your search for a running back is less than sucessful, then you need to devise an offensive scheme that can make a mediocre running back sufficient. You probably use more short possesion passing to cover for a weak running attack.

If your search for a good man-to-man corner back is less than successful, you devise a defensive scheme where a lot of zone is played or a safety can come over and cover.

And to me, the joy of football is watching the teams compete and counter each other. One team may be trying to cover weak linebackers. The other team is trying to attack those weak linebackers. Or as one team moves its SS up to the line to help those linebackers, the other team attacks with deep seam routes down the middle to hit the hole left by that aggressive SS.

That's what football is all about to me. Yet that half of the game seems missing from the demo. There's just an artificial coach who does some unknown things. And the player is given the vague advice to try to make all positions as strong as possible. Well duuuuuhhhhh!

Work on getting the other half of the football game in here, and I think you'll have a much stronger game.

[James Grove]

Marc -

Thanks for the frank feedback.

I've forwarded your comments to the Development Team to review and think about.

-James

[marc420]

Hello,

I downloaded Baseball Mogul's demo at the same time.

I'm really enjoying that game. There's just a little bit of detail missing from the day-to-day games in BM, but its much less noticeable in the football version.

For instance, I'd like to see different lineups for facing lefties and righties.

But in the baseball game, I can live without that extra detail. There's enough detail in setting the lineups and the pitching rotation that you get a good feel for how your actions as GM are interacting with the game. If you feel your bullpen needs a middle reliever, then you go out and get one, then over the time frame of many games being played you can see the impact of this. You also have control over the bullpen so you can put the reliever where you want them.

But football's a little different. The season is shorter, and the game is played very differently by different teams with different personel. That's what I was trying to get at in the above comment. In football its fun as GM to build a good offensive line and get a great running back, and then control the strategy of the way the game is played so you work to that strength.

To me, the connection between front office strategy and game strategy is stronger in football.

Thanks a lot for the great games. I appreciate the amount of work that goes into these games. The baseball game looks great. And I suspect that the football game will be something I'll really like as well. That just might be the next version instead of this one.

[James Grove]

Thanks for even more feedback.

Do bear in mind that Baseball is now on version 5, while this is only version 2 for Football. So we've had more time to add features and work out the kinks in Baseball.

Cheers,
James

[takaplan]

Baseball Mogul has had 7 years of programming time, while Football Mogul has probably about a tenth of that.