AFL 2007 talk

[Fiery Hawk]

Top idea FH.

Just something though, will the difficulty have a "slider bar" kind of thing like in AFL 99 for the PS1?

No, you'll still only have Easy, Normal and Hard. This time around though there is a thing called Dynamic Difficulty which increases or decreases the skills of the AI to keep the game close. The harder the level the closer the battle unless you are really good at playing hard where you may occassionally put a side away. We're still very much tweaking it to get a correct balance. Not sure if it's an option you can turn on/off yet either. Could be a good idea. The point of it is not to have ridiculously large scores which is something I'm sure you guys will appreciate with regards to consistency and even playing field with statistics.

Also, with Edit-A-Player, can you choose a player photo to use (say you're swapping players from team to team to reflect real-life trades, would be good to use their real picture)?

That's not a bad idea...so you mean the actual photos of the players that appear in profiles?

Has the general gameplay engine been improved this year?

General play has been improved. A lot of it was worked on for our other sports titles and brought across to AFL. Hard to be specific without waffling on for pages - I haven't got time for that at the moment unfortunately as it's all AFL, AFL, AFL at work at the moment!

Oh yeah, the ball.

It looks shocking logo-wise, no visible laces...

Players drop it SIDEWAYS and it spins very awkwardly.

I suppose we can ramp up the texture quality of the ball but I didn't see it as a big problem. The behaviour of the ball is probably more so. The unpredictable bounce of a football is very hard to mimmick and takes quite a lot of our dev time to tweak so unfortunately this time around we've been unable to work on it. If you were to take a positive out of this it's that you know how it's gonna behave

 

[Fiery Hawk]

Don't know if its been said but Fantasy draft much like the NBA games...

That would be AWESOME!

This was on the agenda for 2007 but didn't make the final cut. Maybe next time!

 

[Fiery Hawk]

What might be able to stop cheaters partially, would be a slider system difficulty, this is different to the one offered by Tarkyn, this would be a slider like what is used in NBA 2K7 where they use a bunch of things and you can put the sliders up or down considering the toughness/easyness of the game.

You can have things like Tendancies which would be the slowing down of play, flooding, running with the ball, kicking long, manning up, playing loose etc.

Another Slider would be Attributes which would impact on things like Marking, Kicking Accuracy, Goal Kicking, Handballing etc.

Now I know what you are saying and that is that that is what the player attributes are for and you are partially right but it would just be a slider to control how opponents play according to how you want them.

I probably haven't explained it that well so if anyone down at IR Gurus has NBA 2K7 give it a try and look at how the sliders work.

Will do but we're running out of time to get something like this going. In fact we're running out of time to remove the option of changing difficulty settings and quarter lengths so it looks like we're leaving them in.

 

[Fiery Hawk]

Forgot to mention....for all you stats nuts...

You can now access the match and player stats at anytime during a game! Also, in season stats you can see the top 10 in all stats categories listed on a leaderboard. Coleman medal race anyone?

 

[Tristagi]

Forgot to mention....for all you stats nuts...

You can now access the match and player stats at anytime during a game! Also, in season stats you can see the top 10 in all stats categories listed on a leaderboard. Coleman medal race anyone?

Sorry to be annoying but can you post up whats been upgraded/improved/added?

Is All Australian in this year?
The Brownlow Should be more realisitc IMO. Reiwolt winning with 47 votes each season is not believeable.

Is it possible to have something where winning the Brownlow or Coleman or get AA can boost stats a little bit like in TAR?

And one last thing, when will Screen Shots be out?

 

[Lucev23]

Forgot to mention....for all you stats nuts...

You can now access the match and player stats at anytime during a game! Also, in season stats you can see the top 10 in all stats categories listed on a leaderboard. Coleman medal race anyone?

Sounds good

 

[Fiery Hawk]

Sorry to be annoying but can you post up whats been upgraded/improved/added?

Is All Australian in this year?
The Brownlow Should be more realisitc IMO. Reiwolt winning with 47 votes each season is not believeable.

Is it possible to have something where winning the Brownlow or Coleman or get AA can boost stats a little bit like in TAR?

And one last thing, when will Screen Shots be out?

I can and will post eventually but I'm snowed under at the moment - I'm going on a two week holiday as of Friday so there's a lot to be done between now and then so sorry.

There are definitely plans to include it but I'm not sure what the status is with AA at the moment.

There's a new player ranking system which will identify the contributions of midfielders and more importantly, defenders. This should mean votes for players are awarded more accurately and CHF's won't dominate proceedings.

Brownlow and Coleman already boost players stats. AA may if it's included.

No screenshots yet. There's still a lot of final art to be added so screenshots wouldn't be polished.

 

[Lucev23]

Is there still gonna be multiple jumpers for every team FH?

 

[Tristagi]

Is there still gonna be multiple jumpers for every team FH?

alternative uniforms? can you choose like on NBA?

 

[Lucev23]

alternative uniforms? can you choose like on NBA?

Earlie on FH said that there may be many different Jumpers to choose from when play. Like jumpers that the club may have previously worn.

 

[Fiery Hawk]

Is there still gonna be multiple jumpers for every team FH?

That's still the plan.

 

[chickens_law]

It should have all the jumpers ever worn.

 

[Fiery Hawk]

In an ideal world yes but they do take a long time to produce and get approval from the AFL and the clubs. It's quite a task!

 

[Tristagi]

i don't know how long this would take to work in, but could you have a 'trainning' mode?

Just like a kick to kick thing where the players roam around so you can practice goal kicking, marking, spoiling, and all the stuff just for fun like on FIFA?

 

[blueheart]

Any word on player contracts FH??

 

[ShinSplints]

I'd really like to hear more replies to this question....

ADJUST by yourself.

Quick notes

Most annoying aspects of AFL 2006

Gameplay - Have no chance of manning up properly on FF no matter what! Once they get it out of centre straight to forward line and goal
Can the FB at least be near the FF to spoil???

WHEN SHOOTING FOR GOAL: players dont kick the ball off one step they run up and kick.

TACTICAL options was a good start in 2006 but any chance of deciding EXACTLY where your players line up and individually what they do??
I know there is tagging but when you have two players tag the FF the sit in the square and not ON the FF. Maybe we could choose what space they can roam??

More Stats would be great. Tally of season and AFTER MATCH STATS. ACtually kept on record for the season would be great.
Youve already menioned the brownlow and other awards will be better and more thought out in 2007 so that would be cool.

AND MOST IMPORTANT FINALS!!!

When choosing FINALS LET US CHOOSE WHO WE WANT IN THE FINAL 8!!! FFS that is highly annoying and easy to rectify no doubt!!!

Draft is ajoke no point playing 2008 season geelong was sydney and sydney was bulldogs just stupid. More control over who gets chosen where would be nice.

As it stands these AFL games give you control over a lot then take it away when we need it (eg. draft) Is this a game of getting to the next level or a game of giving you control and the illusion you are playing AFL as it is??

i want the later and i think most fans do. We want to beat essendon with loyd in the team or choose him to be out if he really WAS out that week. is this making sense??

Sorry for rambling on.
If anything can we please choose who is in final 8?

 

[RoosterLad]

What do you mean choose who is in the final 8? When you just want to play finals (no H&A)? I don't think i've done that before.

 

[ShinSplints]

What do you mean choose who is in the final 8? When you just want to play finals (no H&A)? I don't think i've done that before.

go to finals on the main menu. You can only choose YOUR team and the rest are chosen for you IT SUKS. I want to play how the REAL finals are ahy cant i?

 

[matera_goal]

That's not a bad idea...so you mean the actual photos of the players that appear in profiles?

General play has been improved. A lot of it was worked on for our other sports titles and brought across to AFL. Hard to be specific without waffling on for pages - I haven't got time for that at the moment unfortunately as it's all AFL, AFL, AFL at work at the moment!

I suppose we can ramp up the texture quality of the ball but I didn't see it as a big problem. The behaviour of the ball is probably more so. The unpredictable bounce of a football is very hard to mimmick and takes quite a lot of our dev time to tweak so unfortunately this time around we've been unable to work on it. If you were to take a positive out of this it's that you know how it's gonna behave

Yeah, the player photos that appear in the profiles. That "that's not a bad idea" makes me feel like if I see in in 2007 I will dance around taking all credit for the game . Kidding

Sound awesome mate.

This is sounding promising. How much do you s'pose the RRP ($) will be at release?

Cheers

MG

 

[chickens_law]

Who will be the commentators in the game? please not dermott.

 

[Lucev23]

I wonder how the Teamsheet thing is gona be set up...

Whether its just gonna be set up liek this:

FP
CHF
FP
HFF
CHFF
HFF
W
C
W
.... Etc.

Or Like this:

FP FF FP
HFF CHF HFF
W C W
.... Etc

IMO the second one is heaps better, Makes it heaps easier to arrange your team before the game and ********.

 

[Fiery Hawk]

i don't know how long this would take to work in, but could you have a 'trainning' mode?

Just like a kick to kick thing where the players roam around so you can practice goal kicking, marking, spoiling, and all the stuff just for fun like on FIFA?

There's a training mode but it doesn't work as you described. It's the same as last years in that you play a regular game and the game pauses to explain controls etc.

 

[Fiery Hawk]

Any word on player contracts FH??

That was the plan initially but I don't think they're making it this time around.

 

[Fiery Hawk]

Gameplay - Have no chance of manning up properly on FF no matter what! Once they get it out of centre straight to forward line and goal
Can the FB at least be near the FF to spoil???

We have identified a number of issues that caused the FB to play off or rather be found lacking in the speed department. We are busily working to address them. (man, I sound like a politician these days!)

WHEN SHOOTING FOR GOAL: players dont kick the ball off one step they run up and kick.

In what could be described as a miracle we are finally addressing this issue. My years of campaigning are finally coming to some good!

TACTICAL options was a good start in 2006 but any chance of deciding EXACTLY where your players line up and individually what they do??
I know there is tagging but when you have two players tag the FF the sit in the square and not ON the FF. Maybe we could choose what space they can roam??

We're looking seriously at extra roles for players that involve playing a) a spare man in the def50 close to the square and b) a spare man in the def50 about 35m out. This player will roam those areas and move into the 'holes' in theory. We'll see how it pans out.

More Stats would be great. Tally of season and AFTER MATCH STATS. ACtually kept on record for the season would be great.
Youve already menioned the brownlow and other awards will be better and more thought out in 2007 so that would be cool.

Believe it or not we have season stats this year. After match stats are accessible in the in-game menu before heading back to the front end. Once back in the front end these stats are added to season totals. You can view by team or by the leaderboards for each stat category.
Yes the season awards and the BOG awards are figured out in a better way this year.

When choosing FINALS LET US CHOOSE WHO WE WANT IN THE FINAL 8!!! FFS that is highly annoying and easy to rectify no doubt!!!

Clearly you are passionate about this but to be honest it hasn't rated as a high priority issue until now. Unfortunately I don't like yer chances there. That would require new screens to be generated and it takes up crucial dev time. I understand your need to replicate the actual season being played however - don't get me wrong.

Draft is ajoke no point playing 2008 season geelong was sydney and sydney was bulldogs just stupid. More control over who gets chosen where would be nice.

There are clearly issues with the current draft/trade logic and we are looking at improving it.

As it stands these AFL games give you control over a lot then take it away when we need it (eg. draft) Is this a game of getting to the next level or a game of giving you control and the illusion you are playing AFL as it is??

i want the later and i think most fans do. We want to beat essendon with loyd in the team or choose him to be out if he really WAS out that week. is this making sense??

It's sorta making sense. Unfortunately that's not the vision of our game. If we were looking to make a game where you playout the current season we'd have it online with patches for download. Ours really is a fantasy arcade experience.

 

[Fiery Hawk]

This is sounding promising. How much do you s'pose the RRP ($) will be at release?

No idea sorry.