My 300th post, so I thought I’d make it worthwhile!

A topic that seems quite popular on the Yahoo forums is ‘How would you make gameplan better?’  I’m going to start the topic here & make a suggestion for the fun of it (because I can’t ever see them being used), & would like to see what you guys think or what you’d do to make the game better?!

The one major change I’d make is that I’d introduce a salary cap to Gameplan.  In Gameplan Baseball, you have to pay wages every week to your roster, but this could be modified to a yearly cap limit for GP.  For example, a 6* QB would cost 6lps against your cap, a 3* player costing 3lps etc.  The one thing I might change would be when a player reaches year 7 or 8, then his demands would go up – say 7lps for a 6* player.  This would represent veteran players who consider themselves deserving of a larger salary for the talents they possess. You could even increase this further at year 11 or 12 to make 6* players cost 8lps of cap space – representing a player looking for one last pay day before he retires.  In order to make this worthwhile, you could set a cap limit of 45 – 55 lps, meaning you’d have to make serious decisions about veterans players in the off-season.

CFA’s would need to be paid the appropriate cap for the skills they possess – 1lp for 1*, 2 lps for 2* etc.  However, players who suffer step-reductions could be paid less, to compensate for the loss in ability & to stop coaches immediately cutting players who cost more than they’re worth – unless you fix them of course!  You could make the same argument for reduced players costing slightly less, say 2lps for a reduced 3* player.  After all, a reduced player is one who injured, so keeping them is a risk as they may not return to full effectiveness.  An example of this would be the Jets re-working Pennington’s contract as he is coming of surgery.  If they should return to full effectiveness the following year, then you are forced to pay the nominal value to them – which could cause you some cap problems!

Draftees would also be paid the nominal value – so if you wish to take that 5* rookie QB, you are still forced to pay the big money.

have actually thought about a cap idea myself as a way to even teams up (though just plain and simple i.e 55 pts players allowed per roster total)though i do like gp as it stands another thing i would like is to make the individuals more individual (it has happened slightly with step ups and some 4* OL,TE and DL and 5* LB's)with a gp baseball style grading of skills i.e world class,excellent,good,average,fair,poor and potential which they start off with and they can improve while they have it and deteriorate after it's gone(more like real life)

Things I would love to see improved in gameplan and would pay extra money for (although I don't have my hopes up):

Leagues that are full, active and competitive like AY should be brought up to existing teams (ie add 8 new teams when you get interest from that many teams). It is embarassing to the game designers IMHO that the divisions are outdated when explaining to potential customers...

More formations, why is there no formation with 2 RBs and 3 WRs? Crazy oversight IMHO.

More plays, occasionally I read on yahoo about players dropping out because there is nothing new to discover and they have stagnated in gameplan and don't get fun out of it anymore. Plays like WR screens, flea flickers, gadget passes, double routes like an out and up, or slant-corner would spice things up.

I'd love to see the Player stats section changed from window dressing to a true representation of stats that could be reported along with team stats, rushing leaderboard, qb rating, sack leader etc. This would involve a small change in reporting.

Quote :

run brocken up, HB escapes for 6 yards.

would become

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run brocken up by DT94, HB36 escapes for 6 yards[#55]

To make the above work better rosters could be expanded to NFL levels, 50 odd instead of 30 odd. But this is probably not stricktly needed.

To make management of such large rosters easier a salary cap could be introduced. Each year you pay the nominal value for each player like suggested, but how about when you sign a play he demands a signing bonus related to his age/experience. 1LP for each 2 or 3 years of experience, thus unproven players are cheaper than veterans.

To allow specialisation of gameplans the personel on the field should be the only ones that contribute to the squad total on that play. This would give players the oportunity to do something different, like grab 2 great TEs and use J U and T alot.

Next logical extention of this is to add another formation box on defence to place each line in a 4-3 3-4 4-2-5 4-1-6 etc etc, how nuts is it that when a team lines up all day in the S for all intents and purposes we are still in a 4-3!

There should be training in formations, just as there are for plays.

I would also like to see the reduced quality of players spiced up a bit with something resembling real injuries more. Imagine how cool it would be if the occasional injury caused a midseason depth chart reshuffle, would probably only work with expanded rosters etc


These suggestions will be very familiar to Paul, Dave and a few others...

Oh and I forgot to mention in the salary cap section that we should sign players for a contract period too. Signing should be nominal value per year, plus a signing bonus. Might take a bit of thought to figure it out...

Alex,

Many great ideas there.  The one about the player stats is a particular favourite of mine.  I hate the fact that we don’t know who makes the plays on defence & would love to see the play descrïptions expanded as per the example you gave.  This is the one improvement (besides the re-structure of the divisions), that I reckon must happen to attract new customers!  I know this form experience as I’ve been thinking a LOT about dropping to only 1 or 2 GP teams & maybe joining an another Front Office Football league, (in addition to the great league Marc runs.)

I had also wished to include the rushing leaders, sacks leaders etc in a league newsletter if I did one.  When I did the KG newsie this was one thing I wished I’d been able to use but, at present, you’d need every coach to mail you their player’s offensive stats so you could do this!    

Also a message line would be welcomed as it would enable us to advertise the website and forum to people without knowledge and experience with the net and congratulate oponents etc

Nick perhaps you would like to gather together the ideas you have found and submit a new Poll here where people can select their favourite improvement or 2 or 3, then all the results you need are in one convenient location.

In answer to the original question...well I'd go and write my own online gridiron game. And I am. Lengthy talks with Alex about what could be in gameplan led me to test my hand at some code. It's a long way from finished but it is getting close to testing.

I've not really mentioned it much to anyone because I wasn't sure how far it would get.

Quote :

divit wrote : In answer to the original question...well I'd go and write my own online gridiron game. And I am. Lengthy talks with Alex about what could be in gameplan led me to test my hand at some code. It's a long way from finished but it is getting close to testing. I've not really mentioned it much to anyone because I wasn't sure how far it would get.

Sounds interesting!  

I hope it is interesting. Hopefully it can clear the testing phase without getting bogged down with features. I can understand why gameplan hasn't change too much over the years.

Of course it was interesting to read the talk of converting gameplan to an online game. I wasn't sure my own project would be appreciated so I haven't mentioned it to Danny & Co.

BTW if I get it off the ground everyone will be welcome to help iron out the creases.

Alex,

I haven't checked in the RB, but isn't Z a 3 WR, 2 RB set...? I'm sure it was when I set up my all Z O in A8 a few years back.

Z has only one RB, one WB three WRs, doubt that RL RI SW and RW would do all that well!!

Ah, I get what you mean now Alex - I stand corrected! You are right, "normal" running plays mostly suck from the Z!!!

IMX 2 RB 3 WR sets are more common in the NFL than any formation where a RB sets up behind a TE, or in the slot.

I'd love a 3WR 2RB formation. But unfortunately it just isn't there.

One thing I'd like to see added (and which would presumably be fairly easy to implement) would be defensive plays - particularly the more extreme ones - reducing in effectiveness the more they get called, as currently happens with offensive plays. In my book, there's nothing more depressing than seeing your Offence destroyed by the imaginative all-BZ defence.

With things like trainings and bonuses improving things you would think a nice counter on the number of "reads" on a defence would decrease the effectiveness of a play. But I think you'd need to keep it to curb extreme play use. A gradual reduction in effectiveness from say 10 onwards.

I like that idea. It is something Alex floated with me. With the match part of my game nearing completion I may consider adding something like this in.

I am working on this game btw. When I get the basic league functions up I'll be opening it up. But these things are taking time.

l would love to see veteran free agent being able to be created again.

S formation looked at.

DP looked at.

Reduce roster sizes a bit maybe so we get some real mismatkes.

More lines for your gameplan to make more interesting gameplans.

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stormin wrote : Reduce roster sizes a bit maybe so we get some real mismatkes.

Give college GP a try!