Another month has passed, and here we are with another update!

Here are the updates that were released in June:

UPDATES

• Added player photos to player cards and league awards
• Changed gameplan rules to use sliders
• Grouped the player selection dropdown on the player page by position
• Improved the player position change matrix for league admins with convenience buttons and automatic reciprocal settings

BUG FIXES

• Fixed player game stats showing incorrect win/loss indicators
• Player cards now properly show special teams attributes when viewed from the special teams depth chart
• Fixed the "All Except Kickers" filter on the draft search page
• If there are no pending owners, the pending owners page now displays a message instead of redirecting to the home page
• Fixed the "Not In Depth Chart" filter
• Fixed an issue where disabling common IP address trade restrictions in a league still blocked trades
• Fixed the Current Season filter on the team home page progress section
• Improved the default sort order for team and player stats on the home page
• Fixed the league trade filter so it persists between pages
• Fixed transaction sorting where training camp and the final draft rounds could appear out of order
• Continued improvements to the player and coach contract offer forms
• Coach offers now default to the position you were searching for
• Tweaked the Rename Player form so browser autofill no longer gets in the way

I also wanted to bring everyone up to speed on the status of Game Engine 4.7.

We're currently actively testing it in the MFN-TEST league. So far, we're seeing significant improvements to the medium and long passing game, which is very encouraging. However, as of this morning, there are still a few concerns that I want to address before rolling it out to the live leagues. I'm not going to push an update until I'm confident it's ready.

If you'd like to help test the next version of the game engine and provide feedback, I'd love to have you join the MFN-TEST league!

In addition to the passing game improvements, we're introducing some new controls for roster management.

One challenge I've wrestled with throughout the development of MFN is finding the right balance between giving you complete freedom and maintaining a realistic football simulation. Technically, the game has always allowed you to put a 160-pound kicker at defensive line if you wanted to. My hope was that the simulation itself would naturally discourage unrealistic strategies.

Unfortunately, every simulation has edge cases, and over time players inevitably discover roster constructions and gameplans that would never succeed in real football but perform extremely well within the game. I've even had players tell me they've stopped playing because they felt they were competing against people exploiting the simulation rather than managing football teams.

That's not the experience I want MFN to provide.

The goal has always been to create a simulation of professional football—not a game of finding loopholes in the engine.

To help accomplish that, Game Engine 4.7 will introduce roster validation controls to ensure teams maintain a reasonable roster and depth chart. League administrators will still have flexibility through the existing position matrix, which defines what positions a player can fill on the depth chart. These new controls simply prevent those restrictions from being bypassed by carrying unrealistic rosters in the first place. League admins will continue to have the ability to customize how restrictive or permissive those rules are for their leagues.

Thanks again for playing MyFootballNow! I appreciate all of your feedback, bug reports, and suggestions—they continue to make the game better every month.

Thought I was going mad, but whilst the thread title says July, the first post title says June - I'm assuming copying and pasting means the title of the thread and a post can get out of alignment?

Would you like me to go through the position stuff with Smirt? You may need to increase security.

Meh - gaining an advantage is perfectly normal in all walks of sports - be those Sims or not. I'm sure more would leave if you cannot allow positional mismatches, or do not reward good game planning by a coach who puts in the time & effort.

Last thing we want is a "3-yards & a cloud of dust" sim. It would be incredibly boring tbh.

The core game needs to be realism. People want to immerse themselves thinking they are real head coaches - playing other owners.

Do people want to play the engine? Sure, I'd suggest the number wanting WRs as RBs and CB as DE is a minority.

The last part is key. Configurable by league admin.

People want the unrealistic side? Those leagues will be full. People want a realistic sim? People will play that.

Realism has to be the bread and butter, the bonkers stuff a niche. As long as both can be accomodated...

On the mobile depth chart, when you click the arrow on a position, it shows the list of players you can put there. Can we please remove from that list all of the players who are already in at that position?

Also, I've said this before, but we need an easy way on mobile to identify players who are not assigned in the depth chart. This would be most useful for just signed players. It is a massive pain to identify new signings and get them assigned in the depth chart as it is currently.

Forums are acting weird. Some new posts highlighted and others not. No indication of what page of the thread you're on.

Already on it, it should actually be fixed now.

i'd really like to have player search option beyond excluding kickers.
I would like to have player search options that permit me to include specific positions.
Prolly through radio buttons as currently used in rules but...

It would be great to goto player search and search for RBS, AND WR, FB.
Or TE+FB
WIth the new player matrix, this old idea of mine is only better.

In fact, having a "Search within position matrix" option (Choose RB, then "Search within position matrix") might accomplish the idea further.

De facto: it would be easy to search lg and choose to also search lt, c, rg, and rt with the new depth chart separations (errr OBSTACLES).

All except kickers is very useful, Unless you want to exclude other positions.

All but (select singular or multiple positions) would be even more awesome.

Keep up the great work

Player search already has an option to select players not in that positon that can play it as per matrix.

Click "Include players not in this position group".

Example; MFN-TEST, search for RBs, click it. You'll not get any defensive players, O linemen, kickers etc.

Have posted in TEST about it and will do so again here. The Play Overuse penalty is terribly broken. So is the "Hot Read", Which is why we still get games with owners using one or two defensivie plays more than 8 out of 10 calls.
It has also become common to blitz on every play, which is def farther away from a simulation of RL NFL.

The only way to correct this, from what I know, is to increase the ability of the auto AI coaches to 1. select a minimum # of plays if the minimum is not selected by the human team owner, same as making a roster correction which is nearing use coming out of the beta TEST league. 2. Have a variable auto coach algoritm based on the HCs preferences. The current AI coach significantly overuses the GL offense, which triggers the GL defense. Anyone who has an RO team will know what Im talking about. To avoid the problem, you either have to have GL plays not active or only used by rule, with rules to prevent it being auto called vs the 311 and 2 TE formations, which is a disadvantage vs quick short pass plays if the receiver gets open right away or beats the CB bump.

The AI coach is the key to increasing the simulation, in my opinion. Would like to hear any other ideas or suggestions relative to the issue of play overuse and hot reads, which only happens with the use of the GL defense and 2 or more blitzing LBs. 90% of the time, the "reward" for a hot read is the ball being thrown into the rush pile for an incomplete or catch for no gain or loss.