Developer Chat

Chat for post release questions/suggestions for the new user interface of 3.1

Hello, welcome to another installment of the GD developer chat. I'm looking forward to your suggestions and ideas for any further enhancements and to fill you in on any other things that are coming up in the game. Without further ado, let's begin. ( Moderator - 1:05 PM)

Would you consider adding the Role Ratings for the players in the Depth Charts where it shows the different Ratings for each player? (fermor332002 - Hall of Famer - 1:05 PM)

Actually, in 3.1 the role ratings are included in the depth charts. They are located at the top in the player navigation section and also along side all of the players.

You mentioned that injuries will be brought back in. How will an injury be determined? I would like to see injures come into play primarily for overfatigued players...not just randomized.....should be a penalty for overusing players....will there be a limit on injuries like no more than 2 players at a time? (da_goat - Hall of Famer - 1:10 PM)

Injuries will be brought back. Injuries will be statistically calculated based on fatigue level. The more fatigue the more likely the player is to be injured. The number of players injured will have a cap. You can have up to one major injury and up to 3 minor injuries.

Can you add an option on the home page to be able to click Game Results without having to see the final score or your W/L record? I typically have to go to my locker for this. I like this because it add suspense as I go through each half (morning and afternoon) and I don't already know the outcome as I scroll through the PBP. (jtd79 - Hall of Famer - 1:10 PM)

Yes, this is a great idea. I have been putting together a quick version of a gamecast type system that I might try to demo for you guys in the next couple of weeks. If I can't get that to work correctly then I will certainly add a element that hides the game scores.

Did the UI changes open the door to implementing a 4-team playoff in D-1? (ddingo - Hall of Famer - 1:11 PM)

Unfortunately not yet. This has been discussed but it would take some serious reconfiguration of how the system currently works. I would like to do something like this in the near term to coincide with the upcoming year. Right now I don't have a time estimate on how long that will take, so I can't say if it will be done in time.

Oriole, please explain fatigue in more detail. At what point (number) does a player become fatigued enough to risk injury? Which is more important when considering the injury factor, stamina or durability? When can we expect to see this implemented? At what point should I consider a sub for my starters (85%) based on these changes? (jjl58 - Hall of Famer - 1:17 PM)

Injuries can happen at any point. They are rare, but they can happen. Players that are highly involved on the play will be more likely to be injured, and Durability and Fatigue are the factors that will go into injuries, along with the caps. 85% is a good line for keeping most your players from getting injured, but it's not a hard line like that. The probability of getting injured at that level is smaller, but there is still a very remote chance that it could happen.

Love the ability to chat with all conferences. Would love even more the ability to simply stay on the standings page and combine the chat tab with it to enable chatting directly to a conference while still being able to see the teams there and the coaches. (jtd79 - Hall of Famer - 1:18 PM)

The chat page has been set up to follow along with what was previously done in hard ball. There have been many questions about adding this back to the standings page. I'm willing to add this back to the standings page to make it possible to do in both locations if it is feasible. I'll discuss this with redhawk and see if we can get this in soon.

When should I expect to tell people that GD will have teams placed in the correct conferences? If not soon, maybe you could recreate the Big 8 and the Southwest Conference? Penn State could be independent again? Just some thoughts for a retro GD league. (ddingo - Hall of Famer - 1:19 PM)

I sort of like the retro league idea. That's a pretty cool concept. Since GD is actually based in a fictional world we probably will not be able to change the conferences very much at this point. I haven't investigated this much yet, but I'll add it to things that needed to be looked into.

Will the play-by-play ever start naming who committed the penalty? That would help in determining the impact of class, formation IQ,or whatever. (hypnotoad - Hall of Famer - 1:26 PM)

Thanks for the note. I will add some this to the play by play as soon as I get the opportunity. (hopefully today or tomorrow. )

What type of decline can we expect to see if a WR is running the ball? What about a RB as a possession guy or a running QB? Since there is no spot on the depth chart for a WR to run, I'm guessing the decline in attributes will be more for them, correct? (jjl58 - Hall of Famer - 1:26 PM)

WR running the ball will take a hit in fatigue. Every time they run they ball they will drop further, so if they keep running the ball the fatigue level will keep dropping precipitously, making his attribute decrease at a much quicker level than other players and making him less reliable. Also, as injuries get introduced multiple runs will greatly increase a chance of injuries.

Can we please, for the love of God consolidate the worlds? Go look at the forums, many coaches are asking for it. The absolute best thing for this game would be to have fewer SIM's and far more human competition. Likely the best way to do this is to spawn 6 or so brand new worlds then let coaches sign up for teams in whatever division they are currently qualified for and allow the engine to award those teams based on standard records/longevity/etc. (jtd79 - Hall of Famer - 1:29 PM)

Consolidating worlds is certainly on the radar of things that need to be done soon. The hard part with consolidating worlds is converting people over to the levels that they currently exist. We are developing a strategy to make this possible without disturbing too much of the existing players enjoyment. Spawning 6 new worlds is not a terrible idea. I'll add it to the conversation about this topic.

Any decision on bringing promised starts back to the game ? (cougdawg - Hall of Famer - 1:33 PM)

As I've explained before, promised starts in this game don't make much sense in the context that they were created and don't offer the appropriate level of value as was intended. However, I've been investigating this over the past couple of days, and since this has caused more controversy over the part of the game that wasn't changed much I've been considering bringing this back.

Can we go back to recruiting players and being able to change their position without penalty? It would put a lot more thought process in recruiting. Every school today recruits players and converts them to different positions. (cfbfan18 - Hall of Famer - 1:34 PM)

This has been on this list, and I think would add some more excitement to the recruiting process and give more power over the team. I don't have a timeline on that particular piece, but hopefully that will happen in a future update.

What are you going to do about the fact that you can't make changes for game planning. Changes are made, but when the "save" button is pushed, a new screen with an error appears and you have to go back and start over. I couldn't get the changes to take after 5 trys. Needs to be fixed ASAP! Thx. (bmbigdog44 - Hall of Famer - 1:36 PM)

I have gotten some complaints on error pages, but I'm not able to reproduce most of them. If you are experiencing errors, please include this in a support ticket WITH your Operating system and the browser that you are currently using and we will fix these as soon as possible.

Will players' size ever come into play? For example, I have a 6'6" WR who would be a great possession player but all that really matters are his attributes. (cjsweat - Hall of Famer - 1:38 PM)

The size of players are not used inherently, it's really all based on their attributes. It would be nice to correlate the size of a player with some of their attributes, but that is a feature that's further out at this point.

This new web design is not phone friendly. Is there any chance that you guys can make a mobile version for those of us that don't have access to a computer everyday? (jsduke1488 - All-Star - 1:41 PM)

Thanks for the question, and I would like to make this as phone friendly as possible. Currently on most of the phones I have tested on the page is functional and usable, but I'm open to any suggestions. If you have a particular page that is tricky to use or a specific suggestion that might increase your usability then please add a ticket to support and I'll try to update the game to reflect any changes that are possible.

When are the game plans going to be corrected? I keep getting error messages. (jjl58 - Hall of Famer - 1:42 PM)

Again, if you are seeing error pages please submit a ticket with OS and browser and I'll fix those immediately.

If you aren't adding promised starts back, can you add least add an option to where I could promise playing time for a sophomore season? (cjsweat - Hall of Famer - 1:43 PM)

I'm attempting to do one or the other in the next week. I've been trying to add promised playing time for sophomores but it's a little tricky. If I cannot figure it out in the next day or so I'll be adding promised starts back in for the time being.

Is special teams play effected in the 3.1 update? (cjsweat - Hall of Famer - 1:44 PM)

The likelihood of a return on a punt has changed slightly, but that is the only change that was made on special teams.

Some accounts received a free credit for 3.1. Will that be extended to everyone or just the ones that have already been notified ? (cougdawg - Hall of Famer - 1:45 PM)

Credits are currently being reviewed now. We will be issuing them over the next couple of weeks and we'll have an announcement about it in the coming weeks.

Have you considered adding a link for Guess Reports? Considering all the work they do, it's kind of a shame that there isn't anything on WIS for them. (cjsweat - Hall of Famer - 1:49 PM)

Guess Reports is an amazing site, and there are links to it in the forums. Unfortunately I cannot add those links to the site itself at this time for various reasons. I would recommend for any newcomers to look at that site too. It's a great complimentary piece to GD.

This past recruiting cycle i spent 23K on a player in DII that was considering myself and a sim team. He signed with the sim team. This seems like an unreal amount of money to spend on a player and not get him from a single sim team considering i was the closer of the two school he was considering. Is anything being considered to look into this issue with recruiting? (dawgnation4 - Hall of Famer - 1:50 PM)

I have not investigated anything with the recruiting system yet. We'll be cleaning some of that up and fixing some of these issues in the future.

Based on a prior topic, I don't think everyone would be for consolidating worlds. If you did it where an existing team was transferred over into the new world that might create some interest but starting over with new teams and losing your previous team would irritate the heck out of most coaches. Forced consolidation could lead to another mass exodus of coaches if not done properly. (tbolt21 - Hall of Famer - 1:56 PM)

This is the part that we are considering when thinking about that change. It is important to come up with a method that will allow as many users as possible to change appropriately. It's a difficult task and we are hoping to fill the worlds before eliminating worlds. This is important to know too. There will be no changes in the immediate future! We will discuss with the community before anything of this magnitude happens.

Are you gong to revisit fatigue/STA? Players are till not getting tired fast enough and I haven't seen any indication that fatigued players actually play at a lower level. (slid64er - Hall of Famer - 1:57 PM)

As the issues with the interface are clearing up I'll be revisiting fatigue and making any necessary updates. Also, this is important to do as I'm reintroducing injuries.

At some point, after the current engine is fixed, could we have an option to vote in the coaches poll and for conference awards? (cjsweat - Hall of Famer - 1:58 PM)

this would be a great addition! I think this would be a much needed feature that would be fun for all coaches.

The past few seasons, SIM teams are pulling off some incredible wins. Is anything being done to lessen the difficulty against SIM teams? I remember a time when I could pretty much guarantee myself a win if it was against a SIM. (cjsweat - Hall of Famer - 2:02 PM)

Prior to the latest update, sim teams have always operated on the same level as human players. There have been no changes to that in any release. The incredible wins have either always been there, or are just a matter of some good timing and small sample size. In this last update, we did reduce the attributes of the sims slightly, to increase the likelihood of a human victory.

Could you add a recruiting feature that lets me offer a recruit a date wid da hunnies if he signs with me? (cjsweat - Hall of Famer - 2:10 PM)

Is that not already in there?

Recruiting vs Sims - It would be nice if the costs to knock off three sims from a recruit would be lowered, especially if I have a high "prestige" (think Hoops Dynasty) from my W/L, Rep, Loyalty over the past 4-5 seasons. Doesn't it simply make more sense for a recruit to choose a school that regularly heads to Level 4/5 bowl games over some bottom feeding SIMs that haven't had a winning season in years? (jtd79 - Hall of Famer - 2:10 PM)

After we finish up the interface and add some minor fixes to the engine we'll be investigating updates to the recruiting. Recruiting against sims in particular is pretty difficult now and we'll be looking into that.

Can you add a page to show past playoff results? HD has this... (cjsweat - Hall of Famer - 2:20 PM)

This would be a fun page to have. I don't have time for it right now, but I'll add it to pages needed in the future.

Thanks everyone for your time and questions. I have gotten some great suggestions out of this chat and I hope it was as informative and helpful for you as it has been for me. ( Moderator - 2:24 PM)

You've mentioned addressing recruiting issues in the future. Are we talking a week? a month? before we see any changes. (orangepace - Hall of Famer - 2:25 PM)

The schedule is not laid out for recruiting. We are discussing options and coming up with other enhancements but this is not in the next week or month.

Thanks everyone for your time and questions. I have gotten some great suggestions out of this chat and I hope it was as informative and helpful for you as it has been for me.