I do want to jump in here and make a statement about the philosophy of the game engine development, which has been my philosophy from the beginning, but since it's been awhile since we've had much movement in the game engine development it's not been stated recently and a lot of you may never have heard me say it.
There are two parts to MyFootballNow - the more obvious one is the user interface. That's been the focus of mine for the last several years, because the old UI was dying (and indeed it did die before I was completely ready for it to). The changes in the UI are primarily cosmetic - improving ways to interact with the game data (and by 'game data' I mean both the way you input your plans and the way you view the results of the sim). I'm still pushing changes there throughout the month and am making these monthly updates to let you know what happened.
The second part is the game engine itself. This is a separate system that actually performs the simulations. This code has not beet touched (save for bug fixes) for some time until about last month. But because this is the heart and soul of the game itself, it's significantly more controlled in it's releases. Here's the release process:
1. Work is done on the game engine. There is one league, MFN-1, where those changes are released immediately. When this happens, I'll make an announcement in that forum as to what changed. All other leagues continue to use the stable engine. 2. Feedback is received by users in MFN-1 and the product committee. Once the changes are considered stable (usually after a full season has run in MFN-1 with the changes and everything looks good), I will make a general release. The general release will go this way: a. I'll make an announcement here that 'game engine version x is released!' All changes in the game engine will be detailed in that announcement. b. Leagues do NOT start using the new engine right away. They will switch to the new engine after the END OF SEASON stage. That way every league's season completes using the same version of the game engine. c. If there are UI changes (i.e. new warnings, interfaces, etc) as a part of the game engine update, those will not display on any leagues until those leagues are using the applicable game engine version.
My goal as we get back into the game engine is to make incremental changes, and release much more often. But the rate would be at most once per one or two seasons, so that MFN-1 has plenty of time to beta test the changes.
But rest assured that no changes to game logic, player signing logic, etc, will be made to any existing leagues (except MFN-1) mid-season or without proper announcements.
Is there any chance of either improving the play Overuse Penalty or getting rid of it entirely? Would greatly prefer that a league admin be able to set minimum or max # of active plays and maximum use per game. The AI coach would be triggered to change the play at max use level. I know that there are those who would not like to play the game with those rules, but without a doubt, it would be the best way to both increase variety and challenge in gameplanning along with ensuring compliance and fair play.
If that can happen, I would strongly urge a change in the AI coaches play selection to limit the GL offense to GL or 0-1 yd to go situations only, instead of on 1st and 10, or other inappropriate play situations. Otherwise you get way too many GL play calls, which is one of the reasons RO leagues are much less of a simulation of NFL play, as the GL offense, the 2 TEs, and 311 "autos" the use of the GL defense.
Those are my two major asks, have several minor, but those two would be game changing.
End of 2nd qtr, when you have the opposing team pinned in their red zone or inside the 10, would like to see full use of time outs to increase the chance of either getting the ball back at midfield or better and/or getting a sack. Otherwise, that advantage is totally wasted. As it stands, maybe one Time Out is used. Getting the ball with no time outs with 30 seconds left is still better than just letting the clock run out IMO.
