NMLs proplaybooks

[nmleague]

Im sending my 4 pro playbooks for release 3 to FBmax. Once you unzip the folder just copy all the files in the folder to the "plays" folder in the Maximum football directory. I also have 3 team/draft profiles for a 45 man 35 round initial draft, if these are put in the team profile folder of the maximum football directory and if you set up a league with 45 men rosters with a 35 round initial draft, the game will random assign one of the profiles to each team.
The three profiles are set to draft teams based on three team strategies, Run offense, pass offense, or defense.

My goal with the pro playbooks is to have a variety of solid playbooks for the teams in a league so that computer controlled teams will give human teams different looks and be competitive.

The playbooks are combinations of two offenses, T formation plays, One back offense plays, 43 pro defense and 34 pro defense.

I have just done basic profiling, users may want to do more indepth profiles, I just wanted to cover basic situations so that teams wouldnt be passing when they had a 3 TD lead with 2 min. left in the game.

These are version 3 of the playbooks, as I get feedback I will try to correct any problem plays and improve the books.

My 9 college playbooks will follow shortly, Im trying to get the defenses completely updated for the new m2m coverage, however they will probably not have any profiles complete. Actually I could use help on creating profiles so if any one is interested let me know.

[nmleague]

The playbooks are now in the unsorted files section of FBmax, nammed  "NMLs pro playbooks V3"

[nmleague]

Just uploaded to FBMax the 3 team'draft profiles that I created.  When unzipped the folder "team profiles" should be copyed to the maximum football folder.  These profiles will only work for a league with 45 man rosters and an initial draft of 35 rounds.  If the league has those settings the game will randomly assign profiles to each team in the league.  Currently the game will only draft a maximum of 35 rounds, the last 10 players are picked at random for each team, so even if you have the game set for a 4 round draft only 35 rounds will be run.  If you have the league set for 45 rounds then these profiles will not work, the profiles have to match the number of players on a team roster and the number of draft rounds.  For drafts in following years they also wont work if the number of rounds is changes to something like 5 or 10.

The profiles are now in the unsorted files section of FBmax with the name "NMLs team profiles".

[cbelva]

nm,
 
First let me say thanks and well done on your playbooks. Can't wait to see the college ones.
 
I have found one error in the "11-PRO1" playbook. The defensive play "43O 43Z S 2" doesn't exist. It is listed in the playbook, but there does not seem to be a play on the drive. I found during a  game that my system would lock up whenever I selected that play. When I checked the playbook in the utility, I realized that the play didn't exist. It was just a shell and the computer would freeze because it had no play to refer to. I have deleted it from the playbook so that it would not temp me from selecting it. However, others may want to do the same.

[nmleague]

Thanks cbelva, I will take a look at it, that defense has been modified, and I just added the 2 to the new play.  When I deleted the old one something must have happened.

[nmleague]

Found the problem and have fixed it, but will wait for a few days before I upload updated playbooks to FBmax.

Anyone else trying these out please post if you have any problems or suggestions.

[jcd38]

nmleague,

now that we have release 3 i was going to go to work on profiles, maybe some sort of template to use for different playbooks.
i can help you with some of it. let me know; send me a pm if you'd like.

[nmleague]

jcd38, that would be great! Last night I worked on the college playbooks and updated all the special teams plays. At this point I just want to add about 6-10 more dropback or sprint pass plays to the I formation playbooks, which should be done tonight. So I hope to have the college playbooks upload to FBmax tonight.

The college playbooks have very little in the way of profiles, mainly just for goaline defense. After doing the limited profiles for the pro playbooks I found it can be a big project by the time you hit all the situations and add the plays for those situations into the profiles. So I can use the help.

My thought was to at least cover the obvious situations, like the offense ahead near the end of the half/game, or behind. Mainly so teams down by 3 TDs at the start of the 4th quarter arent running every play[:-].

But feel free to do as little or as much as you want. These playbooks are just a tool for those with the game to use to make it work better. So the more that the community wants to modify or improve them the better.

One last thing I did more work on the pro playbooks goalline and short yardage defense, but havent upgrade the college playbooks with that work yet. That will probably be one thing I will try to do for the next version.

[jcd38]

nmleague

we got a plan and a real big job to do!
using PDS 1 i created a template with all of the possible situations. very much so a task.

i'll check to see if i can cut&paste the templates that i did into the new playbooks. that will save some time.

let me know what versions of your playbooks you want me to start with.

as a process, as you update your playbooks perhaps we can just copy my updated profiles into your updated playbooks and then update your latest version of the playbooks as we go on..we'll have to figure out how we should work in tandem on this.

from playing fbpro i have a pretty good idea about what situations should be a priority; we'll get those first and then we can add more situations as we go on.

if anyone has comments about situations should be priorities please put them on the table.

[nmleague]

Since the pro playooks have some of the basic profiles set, maybe it would be better to start with the college playbooks. The college playbooks only have a few profiles for the GL defense and these will be changed anyway, so its a clean slate.

[nmleague]

Just a heads up, next I plan on doing a pro style I formation playbook with mutliple receiver combinations. Again I would probably make it into 2 playbooks, one with a 43 defense and one with the 34 defense.

[jcd38]

i downloaded the college playbooks. i'll start taking a crack at them over the weekend. i'll keep you posted; i'll do a version one and then post it so you can take a look at it.

[nmleague]

Jcd38, if possible could you try to work on one group of playbooks at a time, for example playbooks 1-3 the I formation playbooks.  I wont edit any offenive plays until you have done some profiles and sent them to me.  I dont think there is an easier way to do this, I think you will have to create profiles and then I will have to take those playbooks and make any play edits or improvements, then pass them back to you to create profiles.


Just thought of something, I plan on editing and adding to the goalline defensive plays for the college playbooks, so it might be better to not create any profiles for goalline situations for the time being.

[jcd38]

i'll follow your suggestion. i'll start with 1-3 college. i don't have an eta for deilvery back to you at the moment. as i make progress i'll keep you posted.

[Tbird]

Something that would help is a list of all possible situations
A simple text file so you can use it kinda like a checklist .

[nmleague]

A situations list would be helpful, Im not sure that profiles have to be set for every situation.   More situations should be coverd than what I did for the playbooks, but a line has to be drawn somewhere.  There are not only the time, yardage etc. situations, but also the formations used, if the offense comes out with 4 WR the defense isnt going to want to play a goalline or shortyardage defense even if it is 3rd and 1. 

[jcd38]

previously i created a list (in access which isn't too time consuming) of almost all of the possible situations for 8,11, and 12 man playbooks that the game allows.
i agree that we don't need all of the situations. thats overkill and redundant i believe.

some questions:

1) naming conventions. i.e. the name of each situation i left at the default; i.e. DN1, <1, TIH <1, etc. . i found this ok for me but do you think we should name them like you did in your playook, Goalline etc.

2) i was touching up my list last night in access; since it was pretty easy to create them in access, i figured i'd start with all of the possible situations and then eliminate them from the list as i go on. i'd like to put as many situations in that make sense to do; getting the best possible AI we can get.

3) here's a question about the profile logic;

A) Any down, Any yards to go, Any Time, Any Score
B) 1st down, Any yards to go, Any Time, Any Score

will the AI look at A or will the AI look for a play in B?

i.e. in the case above, does B overide A?

[jcd38]

i forgot to mention the situation below is first down:

3) here's a question about the profile logic;

A) Any down, Any yards to go, Any Time, Any Score
B) 1st down, Any yards to go, Any Time, Any Score

will the AI look at A or will the AI look for a play in B?

i.e. in the case above, does B overide A?

[nmleague]

Some answers/thoughts.

1. In most cases user of the playbooks probably wont even look at the profiles, so I think naming is more for the convience/organization of the creator. I had a hard time with the naming convention used when creating the profiles, so changed the name to be for me, more discriptive of the situation. Whatever works best for you. Note though that I tried to distinguish situations that were similar though dealt with different offensive formaitons, 2 TE vs, 3 WR, etc..

2. Im open to any number of situations, but it seems that the system used by the games forces the creation of to many situations. It would be nice of there was a way to make more all encompassing situations. As example when I was trying to handle the situations when a team is ahead near the end of the half/game, I needed to create profiles for 3 different time ranges, as well as for about 4 different scores ranges.

3. I wish I had an answer for this. Notice that for my profiles for a team behind with little time in the game, I have used the any down. But what happens on fourth down, in my testing it seems the team down will still punt on fourth down, even if there is only a min. left and they are down by 4-5 points. On the other hand teams are punting on 4th and 7 with 5 min. left when down by 3, so they arent following the profile at that time either.

So in answer Im not sure if the computer gives preceedence to one profile over another.

[jcd38]

fyi

i'm going to be busy tonight and maybe the next two nights with work. my goal is to get your first three college playbooks back to you over the weekend. wish me luck [:)]