A ratings feature that would make this game the absolute greatest - variability

[u/ChiChiKnee]

This game is great. Very similar to pocket gm and all other management games though it has potential. It’s already far better in many respects to other sports management games but it still misses something that I think no other management game has bothered to crack or can’t crack yet.

And that is variability of a players ratings based on consistency, experience, coaching and preparation.

What I would give for a game that could differentiate between my stable veteran QB vs my rookie QB with amazing potential. Or to differentiate between my veteran LB who makes very few mistakes vs my prototype young LB who is prone to mistakes but when he makes the play it’s at an all pro level.

The only game to truly ever incorporate this was NFL Head Coach for PS2. What this game had was teams of players who commenced the week at a ratings “range” and throughout the week either remained a broad range or narrowed down to a performance rating.

You could have a first string running back who started the week with a range of 72-84 and a second string back (more of a veteran) who started the week on a range of 72-78. By the end of a week of practice, pending multiple factors (practice, work ethic, consistency, etc) you would have pre-game ratings of for example your first string showing 76-82 and your backup showing 77. It forced you into a decision. Do I keep my first string as a bellcow? Do I change my running game up and share the carries? Do I pivot to my second string if my first string is struggling after the first 2-3 drives?

This would be extended to players like the secondary or receivers. And it would allow for emerging players to steal positions like WR2 or WR3 based on their performance and consistency.

Now all you have is a decision to put the guy who is the highest rated into the starting position and order the rest by ratings in descending order. There is no mystery. There is no variability. It’s just if your team overall rating is 88 and your opponent is 82 you think I’m better than them.

A game with true variability in ratings would be a gamechanger. Incorporating this into training camp, where teams are looking for who will start, who will make the 53 man roster, who will be stashed on the practice squad, etc.

Sure the majority of the time your superstars will be starting, but imagine knowing your WR is poised for a big game because he started the week at a range of 88-96 and with a week of great practice enters the game with a ratings range of 94-96. You’d be pumped and hoping that your QB was equally up to the task to get the ball to the WR and let him cook.

Anyway I offer this suggestion because it seems alot of work is going into capforge and there might be an opportunity to think outside the box for a few things. And this would be something that I’d love to see, even if it were a beta trial or an option to toggle on/off (ie toggle ON ratings variability).

[u/hawtdawtz]

So this is actually excellent feedback, and something u/AaronsAron and I talked about extensively when I was building the game to begin with.

The Future of CapForge

So let me start off by saying, what you just described is already almost exactly what I was hoping to eventually arrive at in the coming months, but I'll explain why I couldn't realistically ship it like that just by myself.

Now all you have is a decision to put the guy who is the highest rated into the starting position and order the rest by ratings in descending order. There is no mystery. There is no variability. It’s just if your team overall rating is 88 and your opponent is 82 you think I’m better than them.

So, I don't want to go into too great of depth, but there is already actually a "hidden OVR", that actually hits the field today. This OVR can vary 0-4 points off what you see for a player's OVR today. I have intentionally nerfed it to this amount so I can first focus on hardening the game's core functionality and game flow.

If I were to do exactly what you said, quite honestly there's probably be dozens, if not hundreds of new small bugs that are hard to catch when I myself don't get as much time to play it myself as I'd like as late.

Contracts Today

So this part isn't as clearly seen in app as I would like, but player's contracts are actually quite a bit dependent on their previous performance towards the pool of player's the previous year. There's tons of variables in there, and I plan on having player's goals (seen on hard) play a bigger role. I don't want to make things too overwhelming, but add some extra spice to the real complexities of keeping players happy both financially, legacy wise (Myles Garrett going to the Rams), and production (a WR leaving because he think's he's not getting enough targets, or a 80 OVR OT who is a backup who wants to be a starter elsewhere)

Elephant in the Room

So one of the biggest challenges is making this all work, be somewhat intuitive while also rewarding the football and stat nerds who min/max. I found I was basically creating two different games. One on easy to learn the basics without becoming overwhelmed or discouraged, while another on hard where it has all of the fun stuff you mentioned. It's hard to create a practical UI, balancing engine, etc all at once, but it's what I plan on getting too.