Developer Chat

Welcome to the Dev Chat about the November 2011 update. The update is covered in the forums and the biggest change will be the Formation IQs, but feel free to ask about anything in the update or anything about the game in general. Thanks.

We all know that GPA and IQ will go in hand. What relation will formation practice and playing time for a player have if any on IQ? In what respect will these effect a player? (fermor332002 - Hall of Famer - 2:11 PM)

Formation IQ will be raised based on Practice Time, Work Ethic, and GPA. The higher the player's Work Ethic and GPA, the higher Formation IQ can be raised, and the more practice time they spend on a formation, the more it will increase. Formation IQs will develop similar to other ratings, except Formation IQ will not decrease. Spending no time on a formation will hold the Formation IQs steady, while spending even 1 minute on a formation can increase the Formation IQ. How much time you should spend is something you will have to figure out, but the formula is geared towards a player reaching average or above Formation IQs by their Junior or Senior year with around 7 minutes of practice. Formation IQ, like the other ratings, will be more difficult to raise as the rating gets higher so you may find your practice doesn't increase the same as your players' IQs get higher.

Just so we can better understand, please describe what the difference will be between an team who runs an offense which they been practicing and have a high formation IQ and a team which runs an offesne where they have a very low formation IQ? (chalvorson - Hall of Famer - 2:21 PM)

Formation IQ will affect Blocking, Tackling, Hands, Game Instinct, and Technique ratings by raising or lowering their effectiveness when using the given formation. There is about a 5% swing in effectiveness for IQ rating with 50 being the average and not affecting the player's effectiveness. So a team running a formation in which many of their players have low IQ will make their players a little less effective and lowering their chances of a favorable outcome. Of course, higher IQ means they have a higher chance of a favorable outcome. So while a team isn't totally against the wall by using a formation they don't practice, they won't be getting the most out of their players. This doesn't mean that a team can't fail with a formation they do practice or succeed with a formation they don't on any given play, but over the season, you will have a better chance with practiced formations. Also, Formation IQs will now be used when checking for penalties. Lower IQs will have a higher chance of getting a penalty on a play.

Formation IQ/Experience- The previous developer quantified this at 12.5%. Roughly 7% for formation IQ and 5% for experience. Question- Will there still be an experience factor? I have not heard this mentioned at all. Also, will we be able to quantify a 12% combo for formation IQ and experience? (tigerpark135 - Hall of Famer - 2:28 PM)

Experience is not being activated within the engine, just Formation IQ. Formation IQ essentially raises or lowers your player's effectiveness while using a formation, so it's tough to put a hard percentage on the effect since each play mixes in various player ratings for various checks. The formula essentially swings a few player ratings up or down 5%, but that doesn't necessarily relate to a play's overall chance of success.

Are there any plans to incorporate a scouting service, like the one in HD? (caesari - Hall of Famer - 2:29 PM)

No plans to add this and certainly not in this update. If we make an update to recruiting, we will most likely make it in a major update.

Rockne just rolled over 11/12 and starts recruiting 11/15. Will the formation IQ be effective this season (season 75) or the following season (76)? thanks (tomjoad147 - Hall of Famer - 2:36 PM)

The changes will be effective next season, season 76, for Rockne. It looks like Camp and Hayes will use Formation IQ on their upcoming seasons as they are currently in the process of rolling over to the new season.

Keep in mind that you will still see Formation IQ on your players, but it will not be used in the engine until you roll over a season.

If I put in 15-20 minutes for a formation practice is there any indicator of practice growth or are we to assume after a certain point that the formation is at maximum strength? (jjohn45 - Hall of Famer - 2:39 PM)

You will see Formation IQ on your player profiles and they will show how much the IQs raise, just like your other ratings. Generally, you can treat it like the other ratings in that you don't want to put more than 20 minutes in a practice. You might still get some increase over 20 minutes, but you will then be taking more time away from your other practice times.

what do you mean by "effectiveness"? Is there an actual boost/decline in playing attribute ratings? (DKC - Hall of Famer - 2:44 PM)

By "effectiveness" I mean the change in the rating value that goes into calculating the chances of certain events happening in a play. So for instance if you are in the Pro-set and a player has a really low Pro-set IQ, when it uses his Hands rating in the simulation, his effective Hands rating will actually be lower. The opposite is try for a player with a high IQ.

will the engine take an average of every player (in a formation) formation IQ, or will each player's individual IQ be somehow taken into account? (DKC - Hall of Famer - 2:47 PM)

Formation IQ affects each player individually.

Will All freshman start with the same level of formation understanding? essentially all coming in with zero formation IQ. Or, will some have better understanding of certain formations over others? (chalvorson - Hall of Famer - 2:47 PM)

Recruits will start with IQs averaging around 10 and ranging from 1 to 20 for each formation. Each recruit can be different, so some may come in to your program with high IQs in some formations and low IQs in others.

What are the chances of FAQ's being updated. I still refer to them on occassion and I know there are some that do not apply. (iamthetwo__2 - Hall of Famer - 2:49 PM)

We will be reviewing and updating everything in the FAQ, adding to it in some cases.

since GPA mattes now, in compiling our recruiting list, can you include GPA in the search result? (DKC - Hall of Famer - 2:50 PM)

We do not have GPA or Formation IQ on the recruit search with this update, but hope we can get another minor update to add a few UI updates and that would be something we would look to add.

Will we be able to see each recruit's formation IQs when we are recruiting them? (aneratergos - Hall of Famer - 2:52 PM)

Yes, there will be a Formations tab on the recruit profile. The recruit search will not be updated yet.

Can you describe what additional information will be included the expanded box score? (chalvorson - Hall of Famer - 2:56 PM)

Some of the new stats I can think of off-hand are return yardage for the team, first downs broken down by rushing, passing, and penalty. For receiving, we will show times thrown to, drops, and yards after the catch. Rushing will show longest run, runs over 20 yards, stuffs (0 or negative yards). There are a few others. Nothing earth shattering, but hopefully will provide a little more info in examining a game.

is formation IQ the only thing used to determine rate of penalties? (DKC - Hall of Famer - 2:58 PM)

No, Game Instinct and Technique will also be factored in - which if you've read above, you'll know that Formation IQ is already factored in to those some, so you could day Formation IQ is the major component, while GI and Tech are secondary.

Formation IQ is going to be a big thing. Will you tell us about the other big changes that we might or might not be awar of? (fermor332002 - Hall of Famer - 3:09 PM)

There are a few other things I would consider big in this update. Probably the biggest which will actually affect the games is that the engine will now take into account the formation match ups when determining the chance of the defense stuffing the run on a play. It should have been doing this all along as formation match up does have effect for other things like passing plays. Now the formations should be a little closer to what it says in GD 101, so a Dime will have a much more difficult time in stopping the run out of the Wishbone, for instance.

The SOS formula has been updated to be more correct, but the WIS Ranking formula is the same. It will take more effort to actually improve the rankings formula, but at least the SOS component should be a little better. This is something for another time.

Also, we've changed the conference tie breaker to use the teams' head to head results before the overall win percentage.

We also have some changes to recruiting. These ended up being very subtle and we may need to re-evaluate them as some recruiting periods process through. We found some situations where Sim AI teams could continue to build interest with a recruit without any limits and at the lower levels the amount it added was just a little too high to allow a non-AI to really compete with the Sim AI recruiting unless they timed everything just right. We've tweaked that down a little.

When you change teams, will you inherit the formation IQ's of the players from under the previous coach? Will SIM teams be practicing formations and so have players with above average formation IQs? Will we be able to see opposing teams' players' formation IQ's when we pull up their player BIO's? (aneratergos - Hall of Famer - 3:15 PM)

Formation IQs are just like other ratings for players. They stay with the player and are not affected by changing coaches. You can see Formation IQs for other players by looking at their player profiles, the same as looking at their ratings. Sim AI schools will practice formations at about an average amount (around 7 minutes) for all formations. So a coach taking over a Sim AI team will not see a bunch of players with low IQs.

Will fumbles, fumbles lost, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries be included in the stat update? (buckeye_jg - Hall of Famer - 3:19 PM)

Fumbles and Fumbles Lost are already part of the box score at the team level. We do not have them as stats at the player level.

Confused about what very conservative, conservative, balanced, aggressive and very aggressive mean both with passing and running on offense. Is a RB screen pass conservative or very conservative? What about a WR screen? How about an off tackle play? Is a long pass an agressive play or a very aggressive play? How about about a breakdown of how various plays relate to the various classifications? (dpj0122 - Hall of Famer - 3:28 PM)

For the aggressiveness settings, they do not force a play to a specific range, but provide the chance for a play to fall within each of the ranges. For instance, a Very Aggressive passing play doesn't mean there will only be deep passes, but means that there is more likely to be a deep pass. You can still occasionally see a short pass with a Very Aggressive setting. Where the ball is thrown to can also be affected by whether or not a target is open and if the QB tries to force it to them or checks down to another target, so that can change the distribution as well. Overall, you should see more screen passes with Very Conservative and more long passes with Very Aggressive, but you can see other passes as well.

For rushing, Very Conservative has higher chance of running between the tackles and Very Aggressive has higher chance of running wide. Just like passing, this doesn't limit a play to running inside or out, but just provides the chances.

Currently, the pass and rush aggressiveness are both tied to the same setting.

Turnovers and safeties were going to be addressed if time allowed. Has there been any type of changes to them with this update? Will Formation IQ have any impact on turnovers? (tnscout - All-Star - 3:33 PM)

As far as changing the chances of turnovers or safeties, we did not change them for this update. Safeties were not being saved for game results, so we could not get a good idea of how many there actually were. Looking at how these are played out in the simulation, I think these are going to be bigger issues than tweaking a few numbers here and there. We will need to look closer at how the player and team ratings factor in and how match ups factor in. We could probably also add some settings to help in the case of safeties. So probably things we will review with a more major update, but at least we got it tracking some more info for safeties.

It's been said that the defenses play a zone coverage. Will there be a future update to incorporate a man coverage and/or with the coaches' ability to choose the DB/WR matchup? (tsut30 - Hall of Famer - 3:36 PM)

When we look at a major update, probably next year, we will review game plan settings and having better defensive play books and options is definitely something we will consider.

I like a varification on CAMP using the IQ'a. The season starts at midnight tonight and you are doing the update at ~5:00 pm eastern tomorrow. (stingray002 - Hall of Famer - 3:42 PM)

The date the change will key on is after the signup period, so Camp will be using the IQs in their upcoming season. We have been looking at making the IQ effectiveness date a day or two later, so Camp and Hayes will have one season before they take effect. I will look at that and make the decision tomorrow and post it so you will know definitively when you will use IQs. I'll post something in the forums about this as it requires more discussion.

When formation IQ takes effect, will recruiting be similar to HD in the area of, during recruiting, when sending your AC (or HC) scout, getting a response back of which formation he best performs in? (tsut30 - Hall of Famer - 3:43 PM)

This will not be necessary as you will see the recruit's Formation IQ on their recruiting profile.

Any idea if the top recruits will be strong in multiple formations (for IQ purposes), or at least very strong in 1, maybe 2, and on par with the others? (tsut30 - Hall of Famer - 3:50 PM)

Currently, all recruits have the same chance to be good or bad at each formation, so top players are not treated differently.

You have stated better realism for formations..IE..dime not as good as 43 against the run etc. However, will formations on offense do the same? ND Box with two additional blocking TE's be better at the run vs trips or pro? (tigerpark135 - Hall of Famer - 3:55 PM)

Yes. However, this change is only affecting the chance to stop or stuff the run, so they can still get a long run on a Trips formation. This is something that we will most likely address for future updates to improve even more, but in general the stuff have a trickle down effect that causes overall rushing to be better or worse based on how the stuffs are treated. This change should bring a balance between formations that are good rushing vs good passing for both offense and defense.

Will YAC be shown for each play, or as a cumulative result only ? (bhazlewood - Hall of Famer - 3:57 PM)

At this time, it is only the cumulative result. One of the things we want to do on a major update is totally update play by play to provide more information and I think YAC is definitely something that would be good to see.

wait, can you clarify regarding Hayes? Is formation IQ active or not for the upcoming season? (DKC - Hall of Famer - 4:00 PM)

I will post in the forums with more information, but I have decided to not have it be effective this upcoming season. So you will have one season to see your current IQs and work on practice time before they take effect. I believe it is the same case for Camp and Hayes. All other worlds have pretty clear roll over dates for their next season and they will have IQ take effect then.

Where does the blocking back go in the depth chart? Sheesh (jeffkahleb - Hall of Famer - 4:00 PM)

Full Back.

Where does the blocking back go in the depth chart? (jeffkahleb - Hall of Famer - 4:00 PM)

Full Back

Where does the blocking back go in the depth chart? (jeffkahleb - Hall of Famer - 4:00 PM)

Full Back.

Thanks for joining the Dev Chat. If you have any other questions or follow up questions, please post in the forums. Thanks!