OOC scheduling contracts:
The first big feature is a totally new OOC scheduling system, which now uses contracts to schedule opponents. These contracts can be single home/away games, or home-and-homes, or 2-for-1s, and each may pay or cost money for your school. This system is more realistic, and forces you to choose wisely when scheduling OOC opponents. Do you take an easy win against a 2-star school, at the cost of a couple million dollars? Or do you schedule a home-and-home with a more evenly matched team, at the risk of higher SOS? This feature can be toggled on/off in the "Scheduling" section of the settings.
Permanent OOC rivalries:
The second big change to scheduling is the addition of permanent OOC rivalries. These can be imported in league universe files, or set up manually in the "Game Settings" page near the top. These rivalries can be configured to be played yearly or more infrequently, and teams can have more than one OOC rivalry. This is a huge boon to immersion, as those legendary rivalries can now be played every year, and you can add more as your league plays out if any pop up. The default universe has had several OOC rivalries added too, so check it out!
New fullscreen "Play Game" page:
There have been a few changes to the "Play Game" experience, first among them being a new fullscreen play game page. This can be opted in to, and provides a fullscreen view of the field, which now moves as the drive progresses, and puts the play selections front and center. I think it's a more fun way to play through a game, but you can always revert back to the old view if preferred.
Audibles:
The biggest addition to the play game experience is the addition of audibles, which allow you to change your playcall after seeing what the defense does. You only have 5 per quarter, and occasionally audibling is disabled, if the crowd is too loud of if your QB is confused (higher chance when lower QB IQ). But these allow you to outsmart the opponent on some key downs, and provide more realism for the playcalling experience, especially on offense. After selecting an offense (or defense) play, you can choose to "Line up", which will lock in your personnel for that play can line up on the field. From there, you can peek and see what the defense is lined up in, and choose to audible to a different play before running it. Additionally, you can now sometimes get hints about what the defense is showing; for example, you may see that the defense is in Nickel and showing blitz, which might make you want to audible to a different play. Hope everyone can enjoy this new system!
Formation tendencies:
I've also added a new formation tendencies configuration in the "Game Plan" page. Now, on offense and defense, you can control how often each formation is used when simulating games. For example, if you're running an Air Raid offense you might want to lean even more on "Shotgun Five Wide" and less on Singleback formations; this can be done easily by adjusting the weights of each. Some formations may have minimum weights based on your playbook, and its important to maintain some balance to avoid repeating playcalls too much, but this is an easy way to further customize how your team calls plays when simulating.
New recruiting penalty for transfer NIL deals:
One last minor feature I want to call out is a new recruiting penalty, specifically made for transfers who receive bad (or no) NIL deals from teams. This is to balance the game a bit better, preventing good teams from scooping up highly valued transfers without an NIL deal anywhere near market value. The size of the penalty is proportional to how far off the offer is from market value, and how much the recruit values NIL. And this is a new setting in "Recruiting", so it can be disabled, or penalty halved, if desired.
You can read the full list of changes below.
Features:
- Add OOC scheduling contracts (behind league setting)
- Add permanent OOC rivalries, configured in the "Game Settings" page
- New fullscreen play game page, UI changes to field and more
- Can now 'line up' on offense and defense and then audible out of plays
- Added new game plan option to configure offensive and defensive formation tendency weights
- Add league setting for applying a points penalty when recruiting transfers if they do not receive a fair NIL deal
Minor improvements:
- Adjust evasion for OL to be lower, TE to be higher
- Use higher of HC and coordinator level for base playcalling level
- Explain playcall level breakdown calculation in-game via tooltip
- Decrease coach counter offer salary slightly, change max offer to be based on prestige
- Coaches who exceed expectations but still have low coach opinion are more likely to have their contract renewed, but at lower salary and shorter length
- Improve auto-assign recruiting action logic to use better actions first
- Increase extra point chance by 0.5%
- Add pattern/different color for targeted route to help colorblind users
- Better late game logic, prevent teams from running the ball on 4th down in late game scenarios when it doesn't make sense
- Added UI to make it clear the game auto-saves
- Add 'Total money earned' to school updates page
- Add hometown & personality to recruiting class history and My Team roster tables
- Don't show week dialog on game start if in-progress game
- Clarify top 3 for realignment means by prestige
- Change how stamina substitutions work for QBs to avoid them sitting out in the middle of games
Bug fixes:
- Move man defenders smarter (by X distance instead of 2D distance)
- Remove 'Nationwide Fulfill Systems' from zipcodes
- Fix punt fumbles being treated as 4th down conversions
- Fix win probability calculation when kicking extra point with very little time
- Fix issue where game excitement stats would fail to insert into DB
Thanks for playing, and have a great Thanksgiving!