Yup. Distribution of games is a little bit weird. I play league game on Sunday and friendly on Monday, and then there is a five days of gap...

Just for reference,

I've played two entire seasons on deeproute since this thread started. It's makes a game much more fun to have more than one game a week. And with the new default order system, it would actually be pretty easy to add at least one more game to the week.

And don't tell me that people wouldn't have enough time to get ready for games. In deeproute, every night I set my lineup for EVERY package on both ends of the ball plus special teams from a roster of 53 players (45 active), deal with injuries, pickups free agents while keeping within salary and roster cap restrictions. Then comes the fun part. I edit my playbooks (limitless posiblities) and gametime strategies (run/pass %, % blitzes from each position, package proportions, swaps, lineman dropping to cover %, %FB/HB running, %WR1/WR2/TE first target). It takes me around an hour each night plus 15-20 minutes to watch the game. Oh and did I mention that I actually have 2 teams on the site? It still only takes me one hour!

I do see the point that it could be boring after awhile. I disagree that it always will be boring with that many seasons in a year. I don't think I've ever played a game for as long as I've played deeproute. It stays fresh because everyone is separated into different 32 teams leagues. You never play outside your league. Intense rivalries spring up at a moment's notice. Like you said, you form a bond with your team. Even at deeproute's pace, I'm still on a personal level with all my players on both teams. As for the boring part, if a game gets boring, it's because it is a bad game, not because it's an instant gratification game. I'll give you that this game couldn't hold attention like that right now but given new features, the game becomes fun again. Deeproute has drafts in the offseason to be excited about and free agent periods to prepare for. I'll admit though that half the reason I like DR is because I feel like it's the most complete and all-encompassing test of football knowledge. It makes GLB look like tiddly-winks. The sheer depth of the computer AI is amazing! It's almost better than real! If you can win a championship in that game, you can win a championship in any football game.

I digress, I suppose I want this game to be a deeproute with more economic and training factors. I now realize however that that dream is not possible. Any economic side of a football game outside the salary cap portion ruins the football portion of the game. As long as their is money to worry about, there will never be true skill involved. True skill requires a level playing field from start of the season to the end.


So, I suppose it really doesn't matter after all. If you guys want just another watered down football game that will die in 3 years, so be it. If you want to emulate a NFL schedule without emulating anything else about the NFl, then go ahead. I'll play. But know this, if you ever want to make real money off the game, you need to build a true to life fair and accurate game. It can be slightly off like games such as GLB but if you lose the balance, you will lose everything.

Keep in mind that this game is in beta. The point of a beta period is to find bugs and introduce new concepts to the game. How do you expect to improve the game quickly having one game a week? The more games, the more tests. Why not try adding games momentarily to see how it works out? It's hardly the time to set things in stone. If you want to get this thing out of beta in less than 8 years, you'll need to do that. The player base can only see so many bugs with one game a week! I'm just saying that more games a week can be done and should be done. This game is slow as molasses. I'm actually growing old as fast as my players! What the hell is with that? Seriously, the point of a simulation is to save time by running things faster. This one a week crap has got to go! 2 games, 2 friendlies and 2 training sessions a week would be just fine. It might actually help the game hold people's interest too. God knows I'm bored out of my mind waiting for these games!

Well anyway, just a friendly suggestion from a football fan who has seen the rise and fall of numerous Football sims. I'd rather Grid-Iron.org not be added to that list...

Best wishes,
Squish

Agreed Mercutioh

I suppose with cup matches the schedule would be fine. I didn't realize that there were AFLC matches too! Will those be run every week? Is there a set schedule for them? That should make things better than they are now.

I still argue that there should be at least two training sessions a week. The growth rate of players is fairly slow. Then again, people would probably max out their guys realy quick without some modification.

I guess I'm not sure what the game needs. It needs something, I just can't quite put my finger on it. It's like a donut hole, there is some major filler missing. Perhaps a seasonal league draft for every league would suffice? I'd like to at least see a few more playbook options as well. Perhaps allow 3 different formations on offense and have a player set the proportion of plays between them. A depth chart would be nice too. True stat tracking and league leaders pages could make it more fun too. I'd like to know how my guys stack up to everyone else!

While trying to figure it out, I've come up with a few more suggestions that don't change anything but rather limit the effect of the economy on the game:

1. Salary Cap - for now, I think a $100k cap would suffice
2. Roster Cap - 53 is the max number in the NFL and seems like a good number to me. It allows for backups at every position.

The advantages of these changes would be to limit people from flooding the market with bids for players they only plan to resell. I think it could work nicely. The caps would also close the gap in difference from D1 to D4. Just a thought.

Let me know what you think,

Squish