AFL Evolution 2 Concept + New Ideas

They need to make a Creation Suite/Social Hub, like with NBA 2K how you can upload a custom sponsor or logo so others can download,like or share that content and you can apply that content to your custom Guernsey or Stadium.

Create a Guernsey should consist of a selection of basic design templates for each club, collar/cuff designs,team logos,sponsors, licenced manufacturers and a colour editor.

Create a stadium could just consist of a selection of stands, scoreboard and barricade templates. For example if you wanted Metricon Stadiums stands for your custom clubs home field but your team colours are predominantly blue, you should be able to edit the seat colors from red to blue.The stadium name could be a combination of up to 4 words e.g 'Perth Dome' or 'Royal Sydney Stadium'.

Dynamic weather/time/lighting would be pretty sweet too.
This would be SO good. I’d gladly buy this. It baffles me as to why you can’t at least recolour custom jumpers.
 

mike123

Cancelled
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Which are?
Mainly the fluidity or lack thereof of player movement. Whilst that marking glitch may have been fixed the marking system is still quite broken and the way players move before going up for marks makes no sense. So whilst you consider that a big change, I'd still consider it minor becuase it's becuase the rest of the marking is still poor.
 

Samiam_98

One Club Playa
Aug 27, 2018
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Some cover art I made
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Last edited:

GoldbergsGold

Premiership Player
Sep 30, 2015
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Live was between Wii and Live 2, so really it’s only 5 years in which time the league has only commissioned 3 games.

AFL Challenge was their first AFL simulation game, all the way back in 2009. Basically 10 years ago. Think about why they're commissioning them in the first place, they're out to make a profit, not to make a decent Football game. They would have stuck with Big Ant if they cared about growing some sort of playable Football series. They have a "balance sheet" and want to make a profit, they don't care about the quality.
 

GetAroundHim99

The World's Biggest Overreactor!
Apr 29, 2012
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AFL Challenge was their first AFL simulation game, all the way back in 2009. Basically 10 years ago. Think about why they're commissioning them in the first place, they're out to make a profit, not to make a decent Football game. They would have stuck with Big Ant if they cared about growing some sort of playable Football series. They have a "balance sheet" and want to make a profit, they don't care about the quality.
If the main problem with AFL Games is because the AFL won't take a loss and properly fund a video game to build a FIFA/NBA 2K like series, How do we convince the AFL that Video Games are a huge market and to go with a better dev team in your eyes?

That seems to be the main problem here.
 

GoldbergsGold

Premiership Player
Sep 30, 2015
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If the main problem with AFL Games is because the AFL won't take a loss and properly fund a video game to build a FIFA/NBA 2K like series, How do we convince the AFL that Video Games are a huge market and to go with a better dev team in your eyes?

That seems to be the main problem here.

Could start by not supporting their sub par products. They're going to have to do what The NFL and FIFA do, they make losses to promote their sports through video games. This isn't unprecedented. The AFL is a billion dollar industry that already blows millions on things they'll never get money back on, no idea why they're neglecting this.
 

GetAroundHim99

The World's Biggest Overreactor!
Apr 29, 2012
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Could start by not supporting their sub par products. They're going to have to do what The NFL and FIFA do, they make losses to promote their sports through video games. This isn't unprecedented. The AFL is a billion dollar industry that already blows millions on things they'll never get money back on, no idea why they're neglecting this.
You sure that this will work? Normally this tends to kill things in their tracks. While it would get rid of Wicked Witch, Would it really inspire confidence for another dev to make another AFL game knowing that it probably won't make money on their end or the AFL to really invest in an AFL game?

Unless there is a campaign behind it making the message clear that this is what we want the AFL to do, All I can see that doing is killing AFL Games for the next 5-10 years. Like, There really aren't many Aussie Devs out there and Big Ant won't take it back without the budget.
 

GoldbergsGold

Premiership Player
Sep 30, 2015
3,104
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You sure that this will work? Normally this tends to kill things in their tracks. While it would get rid of Wicked Witch, Would it really inspire confidence for another dev to make another AFL game knowing that it probably won't make money on their end or the AFL to really invest in an AFL game?

Unless there is a campaign behind it making the message clear that this is what we want the AFL to do, All I can see that doing is killing AFL Games for the next 5-10 years. Like, There really aren't many Aussie Devs out there and Big Ant won't take it back without the budget.

The AFL don't even hand over the license for free, they're money grabbing which isn't even what FIFA and The NFL necessarily do, it's a marketing tool for them. They're literally looking for the cheapest developers, so to say they're progressing when their products are cheap and inferior to an almost 8 year old game is beyond me. They're gonna have to change their attitude towards the billion dollar gaming industry. Lol, AFL games have really been dead for a long time, now, so it doesn't make much of a difference.
 
Seeing as this is confirmed. We'll start to get some information about the features of the game(I believe as early as next week.) Hopefully it's more than just a re-skin. Free-agency is one of the biggest things I would add.
 
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Need to nail the coaching, trading, drafting etc aspect of the game. Thats where you will get people interested.

- more security in job to give coach freedom to develop the list through trade and draft
- free agency
- better draft model and scouting pages similar to premiership coach. Have more draftees ready to play with high ceilings. Have super drafts some years, average drafts others.
- realistic trading value based on points worth. I.e. a 28 year old 90 rated player would be worth around pick 12, 25 year old worth pick 6 etc.
- have first draft for the year include draftees that are already touted as going top 50, use the bigfooty board. Fans now track these kids.

Otherwise oppurtunity to create a team from scratch in the AFL, replacing a team of your choice.
- use free agency model to get priority access to one player from each club
- replaced clubs players. New club gets access to 10 of their players, remainder act as free agents to remaining clubs to replace lost players to new club.
- strong draft hand similar to Gws and gc start up (picks 1,2,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,19,37 etc)
- create own guernsey, colours, choose home ground
 
Oct 27, 2016
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I played Evo the other day and realised that marking is still fkd up. Try to master it but theres just a million things I need to get perfect yet the AI on easy difficulty gets it without sweating. Does anyone remember the marking being this bad in AFL Live?

On [device_name] using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
I played Evo the other day and realised that marking is still fkd up. Try to master it but theres just a million things I need to get perfect yet the AI on easy difficulty gets it without sweating. Does anyone remember the marking being this bad in AFL Live?

On [device_name] using BigFooty.com mobile app
They changed the controls for it between Live 2 and Evo. Hold triangle until the two circles meet and then let go when they meet. Or just triangle when they meet. Either one works.
 

chinvpl

Draftee
Oct 26, 2018
2
0
AFL Club
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I played Evo the other day and realised that marking is still fkd up. Try to master it but theres just a million things I need to get perfect yet the AI on easy difficulty gets it without sweating. Does anyone remember the marking being this bad in AFL Live?

On [device_name] using BigFooty.com mobile app

I've been reading this thread, and others, and keep seeing the marking aspect of the game being touted as broken. I am not Australian but have bought the game and been playing it a bit. Seems fun. But would be interested to get a proper breakdown of what people think is broken with the marking.
 
Oct 27, 2016
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I've been reading this thread, and others, and keep seeing the marking aspect of the game being touted as broken. I am not Australian but have bought the game and been playing it a bit. Seems fun. But would be interested to get a proper breakdown of what people think is broken with the marking.
It's not broken per say, it's just convoluted. You have to get the timing right, then you have to be in a better position than your opponent, and finally you can't bee too far forward or too far back. It's just so much to think about and really hard to master and you'd think a skill such as marking should be fairly easy to do well in. Madden's marking (or catching) mechanics are so simplistic to learn and time. Not saying the game should be dumbed down and made super easy, but this one aspect of the game brings so much frustration because of how it was executed.

I like the circle idea, 9/10 I will get the timing perfect but it's all those other things to worry about and it just makes it a chore to play the game because you know you're always going to get outmarked even if you're Brodie Grundy up against Caleb Daniel. What doesn't help is that the AI does all of this perfectly which makes it seem like an 80/20 contest when both sides should have an even chance of getting it.
 

mike123

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Then there’s also how finicky the player movement is so it’s hard to control your player to get into the right position.
 

chinvpl

Draftee
Oct 26, 2018
2
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Does player stats not come into it? So it would be some combination of Jump/Marking/Position/Timing? So is the ratio of those things out?

I find the speed of the game makes it very difficult to try to position your player for the mark. It could probably do with being slowed down a bit? Is it because it is fast that the player movement is difficult to get right for the mark?

I think the speed in general is too fast. It feels like there is not enough time sometimes to offload a ball before being tackled to the ground, but that might just be my inexperience of the game.
 
Does player stats not come into it? So it would be some combination of Jump/Marking/Position/Timing? So is the ratio of those things out?

I find the speed of the game makes it very difficult to try to position your player for the mark. It could probably do with being slowed down a bit? Is it because it is fast that the player movement is difficult to get right for the mark?

I think the speed in general is too fast. It feels like there is not enough time sometimes to offload a ball before being tackled to the ground, but that might just be my inexperience of the game.
I would’ve though stats come into it. If I play with the international teams even if I time it perfect and position it perfect they usually drop the mark.
 

Bobsuruncle123

Draftee
May 16, 2019
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I reckon it would be awesome to create your own draft like in 2k and to be able to have better home screen and gameplay. Like geez I know they’d find a way to focus on a my team/ultimate team thing but imagine if we had 2k (preferably) or ea on board. Unrealistic but dare to dream
 

netslave

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 6, 2017
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Warning- long post ahead.

Since I'm more interested in the coach/career/sim mode of footy games, I sat down and had a brainstorm of the stuff I'd like to see.
These ideas were for Premiership Coach but would be awesome to see in Evolution imho.

PLAYERS

How do we differentiate players from each other?
Well, from player position right? Backs, forwards, midfielders etc.
Also by size, Tall forwards, Small forwards etc. that's all swell and dandy.
But it doesn't seem realistic enough to me.
If we can avoid cookie cutter players we can keep interest high and feel more attached to the players.
The goal would be to try and make each player different or even unique from each other player, even if they play the same position on the ground.
We need some way to add more customisation to our players.
If you have played PC for years, you would remember your favourite Tall Forward who was a contested marking beast and could boot goals from 60m out, played for 12 seasons winning multiple Colemans and premierships with your team for sure.

So, the idea of player Types, Traits and Tendencies comes in.

Player Type is basically like a player style or specialty. I saw a great post on Reddit recently by u/NitroXYZ that gives great examples of player archetypes



This label would also let you know at a glance, what range of attributes/skills are high for this player.
Lets decide to give our Tall Forward the Type of Old School Full Forward. This gives him a bonus to Strength and One on One Marking contests.
With this, we would now have a Tall Forward, with a Type of Old School Full Forward.

Adding to this, we could now assign a Trait to our Tall Forward.
Traits are basically bonuses in any area or skill that apply to the player.
Traits can be permanent, for a fixed period of time, maybe for 4 or 5 years during the players peak period or even for just one season.
So lets give our player the Trait of Booming Kick, this would give him a bonus (ie. +15 to kick distance or just a % boost to an existing skill so it scales better) to his kick distance.
Now we have a Tall Forward with the Type of Old School Forward and the Trait of Booming Kick.

Lastly we could give our player a Tendency. A Tendency is like an instinct or a preference the player has to perform a certain action or skill.
Lets say our player has a Tendency to take set shots at goal instead of snaps or kicking them on the run. This would give him a slight bonus at set shot goal kicking but may also give him a penalty for snaps or shots on the run.

We now end up with a player who is a Tall Forward, with the Type of Old School Full Forward, Trait of Booming Kick and Tendency of Set Shots.

Using something like this system makes players different enough or unique to other players and gives you more player variety. It maintains your interest and gets you more invloved with your players and adds to the longevity of the game in my opinion.

Traits and Tendencies could be pretty much anything you could think of:
type - marking forward, rebounding defender, big bodied midfielder
trait - contested marking beast, quick hands, booming kick, injury prone, inaccurate, hot tempered
tendency - tends to play on, snaps for goal, run and bounce, avoids contact, always tries speccies

I also believe there should be negative traits and tendencies.
ie. a player has the tendency to run and bounce but he is slow and ends up being caught with the ball a lot. This also adds to the variety of players and give them more personality.
You could also have players with no traits or tendencies at all or star players with multiple positive traits.

I also thought that perhaps you could have something called Organic Traits. These would be assigned to a player automatically by the game if they continually performed a skill or action and did it to a high level.
They could be tied to a players season stats somehow.
ie. a player finishes number one in the league for handballs. The game engine then automatically assigns him the trait of Quick Hands (% bonus to handballs) for a season or perhaps permanently.
It could also perhaps assign the tendency of Handball Gives which would have him shoot out more handballs than kicks.
This would also be another way to add more variety to players.

TRAINING
Weekly training could be broken into different training sessions and types such as training player position, gameplan, and skills/attributes.
You could also select the training intensity - lighter intensity to manage injury chances or high intensity sessions for gameday bonuses.
Bonuses from researched training technology or upgraded training facilities could also apply.
If a player has a good week on the training track they may get a random temporary gameday bonus for the upcoming game and vice versa if they have a bad training week.

Each team has a fictional gameplan they use, what it is exactly is not really relevant.
They just have an overall team gameplan value they need to meet to have a median performance.
If they are under that gameplan value they suffer a gameday performance penalty, or if they are over, a bonus to gameday performance.
The gameplan team value consists of the value of all the team's players individual gameplay values that play on match day.
ie. let's say the team gameplan value is 1100. There are 22 players playing on matchday, so each player would need to have an individual gameplan value of 50 or more to not suffer any penalties to team gameday performance. Players can increase their gameplan rating by weekly training and playing matches.
At the start of the season, the players will have a limited grasp of the gameplan and will therefore suffer a gameday penalty as they are not fully versed
in the gameplan and how to execute it effectively.
As their training progresses each week throughout the season and their individual gameplan values increase due to training the gameplan and playing together, they finally reach the team gameplan value.
They then suffer no penalties on gameday as they are now proficient in the way the gameplan works, understanding and how to execute it properly.
Towards the end of the season, the players are now fully versed in the gameplan due to extensive training and playing together and now receive a gameday bonus to their performace due to their thorough knowledge and the ability to react to any situation when using their gameplan.
If players are injured and drop out of the team, the new players coming into the team will have lower individual gameplan values and may hurt the teams performance, if the team gameplan value drops below the 1100 value.
This hopefully simulates how a team evolves during the season using their own gameplan and perfecting it.
This idea is probably a little janky but I think there needs to be some sort of way to simulate a teams gameplan and how they progress with it through the season.
Maybe it could just be a basic team chemistry value that increases as they train and play together.

Borrowing the idea from Football Manager, Mentors.
Mentors are senior players who can tutor and pass on some skills or attributes and even possibly traits.
You could restrict mentors to captains/vice captains and senior players from each position.
Players being mentored would need to be in the same training group and maybe even need to be the same playing type as the mentoring player.

FINANCE
This really had me stumped, what to do with the extra money?
In Madden you could upgrade your stadium with extra bonuses for your team. Since that really doesn't translate to AFL maybe you could improve your training and medical facilities instead.
You could spend your extra cash on researching new training and medical technology ie. VR helmets to help gameplan scenarios, cryotherapy, saunas, simulated altitude training etc.
These should give bonuses to various aspects of your training and medical stats.
Maybe you could also spend extra money on trying to increase your club membership. Membership drives with more advertising and plans to open up new market segments.
Pumping money into creating your own future tv/online worldwide streaming deal to televise matches would increase your teams brand awareness and new memberships but cost bulk money.

PRE SEASON
I couldn't think of many things to add to the preseason.
You could introduce Pre season team camps. Players would get a boost to their training and gameplan.
This may also give you a chance to change player roles ie. change a player from a forward to a defender, or a midfileder to a forward etc.

COACHES
When starting a new game you currently get to add points to training bonuses and relationships for your coach.
You could add more choices to these like retain staff, morale booster, finance bonus, membership boost etc.
Maybe you could randomly generate some as well, like choose 3 and have 2 randomly generated etc.

When I'm hiring coaching staff, or any staff really, I just sort by the relevant attribute and hire the highest rated one with the lowest wage.
How about we add an incentive or choice to not do that, just to spice things up.
Let's add Coaching Specialties (I got sick of the T words)
So a coaching specialty would be a bonus that a coach has in a random skillset used in that coaching area. This gives them a bonus to training players in this area (a slight % boost).
ie. a midfield coach may have a specialty in clearences or ground strength.
This would add another strategic layer for you to consider when hiring new staff, you could also formulate a strategy when hiring new staff to bolster the areas you feel are important for your team.

CLUBS
Clubs should have some of prestige level.
If you win a premiership, or multiple premierships, you should turn into a destination club.
This would give your club a bonus to attract players and free agents and better sponsorship deals etc.
If you claim the wooden spoon, you should get the opposite.

Team and Player morale could give gameday benefits (or penalties) and also affect contract or trade negotiations.
Winning and losing games should affect team and player morale. Getting injured should also affect player morale.
Speculation about a star players contract could affect team morale as well.

Some new staff that could be added:
Marketing and Communications - favourable team media or membership bonuses
Membership - increase membership numbers
Business Development - sponsorship bonuses
Merchandise Officer- sell more merch.
Fitness and Conditioning - training bonuses?
List Manager/Recruitment Manager - for trading/draftpicks/contracts etc
Opposition Scouts/Game Analysts/Data Analysts - scouting

SCOUTING
Like Coaching, you could add in (you guessed it) Scout Specialties.
ie. bonus to scouting Youth League, Tall Defenders or SA clubs etc.
This would also let you develop a scouting system to suit your specific needs.

To add some more realism to the scouting system, you could introduce some "fog of war" to scouting information that your scouts gather.
I believe you have something similar to this already in the game.
The first round of scouting would uncover a grade system (A,B,C etc) to show players details. If you continue to scout the same player, then it shows a more accurate range of skills/attributes (ie.80-85).
Finally when the player is fully scouted, it would show his true skills and attributes.
This adds more interest to the scouting process.

Along with this you could add in more scouting staff - Opposition Scouts, Game Analysts and Data Analysts.
Opposition scouts would provide an email report for your next match, before team selection, with relevant info. to help select your team.
It would tell you the opposition players to watch, their in form ball winners, goal kickers, etc.
Data Analysts and Game Analysts would add thier info. to the report as well to provide more information.
Opposition scouts could also perhaps scout opposition players for traits and tendencies and medical/injury details.

DRAFT
To help with club drafting you could add more staff, List Manager and Recruitment Manager.
These staff would work with your Scouts to try and get the best list possible for your team.
Perhaps first round draft picks would have a higher chance of having good traits assigned to them as well.
You could also include Draft Combine scores for players, to add to the scouting game.
To add extra flexibility you may look at adding custom draft classes for those who would like that option.

CONTRACTS
When it comes to contracts I think that players need to have some sort of agenda they want to follow.
They have some randomly set contract goals, like money or playing time or playing at a successful club and demand a contract that fulfils that goal.
If they have high prestige or are free agents they should also demand more.
It's then up to you to try and manage that in your contract negotiations.
Not only do you have to deal with that but then you should also have to deal with the player's manager, they'll try and get the best deal for their client.
If you have a poor relationship with the player's manager they will try and drive a harder deal, or if you have a good relationship with them it will be easier to negotiate a new deal.
The List Manager, would give advice on whether to re-sign based on player contract cost, depth chart, morale etc.

INJURIES
Rather than having one injury rating for a player we can get more detailed and introduce injury ratings for different body parts instead of one overall rating.
This will let us overhaul the injury system and make it more detailed. Along with this, you could include a new individual recovery value for each body part as well.
The recovery value will add or reduce the time it takes to recover from an injury to that body part.

We could also change the way you are notified of a player injury.
If a player is injured during a game, your doctor gives an initial diagnosis using his medical skill, then the player gets scans and a full injury result in a few days, with expected weeks to be missed etc. The higher the doctor's skill, the more accurate the initial diagnosis and more accurate the recovery time.
This is more realistic and gets the doctor's skill involved and then makes you wait on the scan, hopefully making you nervous to see the results :)
ie. a player is injured during a Saturday game and gets diagnosed by the doctor with a leg injury, he thinks it's a hamstring and the player could be out for 4 weeks. The player then goes in for scans and your doctor gets the scan results on Monday and forwards it to you, it is confirmed to be a hamstring injury and he is expected to be out for 6 weeks.
When a player is due back from injury, a fitness test for the injured player is performed. He then either passes and plays, or fails and he waits another week or plays injured with lowered stats.

Along with this you can add in Physio Specialties, adding bonus recovery to different body parts or injury types.
ie. you have a physio who has a bonus to hamstring injury recovery time or arm injuries etc.
On the AFL site, this Injury Survey shows injury rates and types of injuries and injury recovery times
you can download the full report at http://www.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/2017AFLInjuryReport.pdf
and import the injury data into the game code, this should give you more accurate injury details and recovery times.

MEDIA HUB
During the season there should be some sort of Media Hub section (kinda like the old newspaper) for dealing with all of the news and views of the league/s.
It could have weekly league roundups, showing match reports, stats, ladders etc.
You could include social media feedback, like twitter feeds from journalists, players and fans. Some of these could add pressure on clubs, coaches and players if they are losing games etc.
Also things like random events such as player scandals including sexting, drink driving, nightclub incident, fights, gambling, drugs etc.
Early player retirements due to concussions, catastrophic injury, lost their passion for the game etc.
Club scandals as well ie. drug scandals, tanking, salary cap breaches etc.
The random events can't all have negative outcomes, otherwise you feel screwed over unfairly so you need to include positive events as well, like new random player traits, club traits, training bonuses, financial windfalls, staff upgrades etc.
You could also have something like a player taking his game to the next level - ie. a player has a breakout game then he has an increase overall, as well as skills/attribute/trait bonuses/increased peak.
Or the player sets his own random goals to achieve next season and if he reaches them then he gets a big attribute bonus or something.
There should also be an Offseason Hub with random player news/updates, club news etc.
 
Last edited:

footyfan000001

Cancelled
Jun 8, 2006
5,086
4,901
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
Warning- long post ahead.

Since I'm more interested in the coach/career/sim mode of footy games, I sat down and had a brainstorm of the stuff I'd like to see.
These ideas were for Premiership Coach but would be awesome to see in Evolution imho.

PLAYERS

How do we differentiate players from each other?
Well, from player position right? Backs, forwards, midfielders etc.
Also by size, Tall forwards, Small forwards etc. that's all swell and dandy.
But it doesn't seem realistic enough to me.
If we can avoid cookie cutter players we can keep interest high and feel more attached to the players.
The goal would be to try and make each player different or even unique from each other player, even if they play the same position on the ground.
We need some way to add more customisation to our players.
If you have played PC for years, you would remember your favourite Tall Forward who was a contested marking beast and could boot goals from 60m out, played for 12 seasons winning multiple Colemans and premierships with your team for sure.

So, the idea of player Types, Traits and Tendencies comes in.

Player Type is basically like a player style or specialty. I saw a great post on Reddit recently by u/NitroXYZ that gives great examples of player archetypes



This label would also let you know at a glance, what range of attributes/skills are high for this player.
Lets decide to give our Tall Forward the Type of Old School Full Forward. This gives him a bonus to Strength and One on One Marking contests.
With this, we would now have a Tall Forward, with a Type of Old School Full Forward.

Adding to this, we could now assign a Trait to our Tall Forward.
Traits are basically bonuses in any area or skill that apply to the player.
Traits can be permanent, for a fixed period of time, maybe for 4 or 5 years during the players peak period or even for just one season.
So lets give our player the Trait of Booming Kick, this would give him a bonus (ie. +15 to kick distance or just a % boost to an existing skill so it scales better) to his kick distance.
Now we have a Tall Forward with the Type of Old School Forward and the Trait of Booming Kick.

Lastly we could give our player a Tendency. A Tendency is like an instinct or a preference the player has to perform a certain action or skill.
Lets say our player has a Tendency to take set shots at goal instead of snaps or kicking them on the run. This would give him a slight bonus at set shot goal kicking but may also give him a penalty for snaps or shots on the run.

We now end up with a player who is a Tall Forward, with the Type of Old School Full Forward, Trait of Booming Kick and Tendency of Set Shots.

Using something like this system makes players different enough or unique to other players and gives you more player variety. It maintains your interest and gets you more invloved with your players and adds to the longevity of the game in my opinion.

Traits and Tendencies could be pretty much anything you could think of:
type - marking forward, rebounding defender, big bodied midfielder
trait - contested marking beast, quick hands, booming kick, injury prone, inaccurate, hot tempered
tendency - tends to play on, snaps for goal, run and bounce, avoids contact, always tries speccies

I also believe there should be negative traits and tendencies.
ie. a player has the tendency to run and bounce but he is slow and ends up being caught with the ball a lot. This also adds to the variety of players and give them more personality.
You could also have players with no traits or tendencies at all or star players with multiple positive traits.

I also thought that perhaps you could have something called Organic Traits. These would be assigned to a player automatically by the game if they continually performed a skill or action and did it to a high level.
They could be tied to a players season stats somehow.
ie. a player finishes number one in the league for handballs. The game engine then automatically assigns him the trait of Quick Hands (% bonus to handballs) for a season or perhaps permanently.
It could also perhaps assign the tendency of Handball Gives which would have him shoot out more handballs than kicks.
This would also be another way to add more variety to players.

TRAINING
Weekly training could be broken into different training sessions and types such as training player position, gameplan, and skills/attributes.
You could also select the training intensity - lighter intensity to manage injury chances or high intensity sessions for gameday bonuses.
Bonuses from researched training technology or upgraded training facilities could also apply.
If a player has a good week on the training track they may get a random temporary gameday bonus for the upcoming game and vice versa if they have a bad training week.

Each team has a fictional gameplan they use, what it is exactly is not really relevant.
They just have an overall team gameplan value they need to meet to have a median performance.
If they are under that gameplan value they suffer a gameday performance penalty, or if they are over, a bonus to gameday performance.
The gameplan team value consists of the value of all the team's players individual gameplay values that play on match day.
ie. let's say the team gameplan value is 1100. There are 22 players playing on matchday, so each player would need to have an individual gameplan value of 50 or more to not suffer any penalties to team gameday performance. Players can increase their gameplan rating by weekly training and playing matches.
At the start of the season, the players will have a limited grasp of the gameplan and will therefore suffer a gameday penalty as they are not fully versed
in the gameplan and how to execute it effectively.
As their training progresses each week throughout the season and their individual gameplan values increase due to training the gameplan and playing together, they finally reach the team gameplan value.
They then suffer no penalties on gameday as they are now proficient in the way the gameplan works, understanding and how to execute it properly.
Towards the end of the season, the players are now fully versed in the gameplan due to extensive training and playing together and now receive a gameday bonus to their performace due to their thorough knowledge and the ability to react to any situation when using their gameplan.
If players are injured and drop out of the team, the new players coming into the team will have lower individual gameplan values and may hurt the teams performance, if the team gameplan value drops below the 1100 value.
This hopefully simulates how a team evolves during the season using their own gameplan and perfecting it.
This idea is probably a little janky but I think there needs to be some sort of way to simulate a teams gameplan and how they progress with it through the season.
Maybe it could just be a basic team chemistry value that increases as they train and play together.

Borrowing the idea from Football Manager, Mentors.
Mentors are senior players who can tutor and pass on some skills or attributes and even possibly traits.
You could restrict mentors to captains/vice captains and senior players from each position.
Players being mentored would need to be in the same training group and maybe even need to be the same playing type as the mentoring player.

FINANCE
This really had me stumped, what to do with the extra money?
In Madden you could upgrade your stadium with extra bonuses for your team. Since that really doesn't translate to AFL maybe you could improve your training and medical facilities instead.
You could spend your extra cash on researching new training and medical technology ie. VR helmets to help gameplan scenarios, cryotherapy, saunas, simulated altitude training etc.
These should give bonuses to various aspects of your training and medical stats.
Maybe you could also spend extra money on trying to increase your club membership. Membership drives with more advertising and plans to open up new market segments.
Pumping money into creating your own future tv/online worldwide streaming deal to televise matches would increase your teams brand awareness and new memberships but cost bulk money.

PRE SEASON
I couldn't think of many things to add to the preseason.
You could introduce Pre season team camps. Players would get a boost to their training and gameplan.
This may also give you a chance to change player roles ie. change a player from a forward to a defender, or a midfileder to a forward etc.

COACHES
When starting a new game you currently get to add points to training bonuses and relationships for your coach.
You could add more choices to these like retain staff, morale booster, finance bonus, membership boost etc.
Maybe you could randomly generate some as well, like choose 3 and have 2 randomly generated etc.

When I'm hiring coaching staff, or any staff really, I just sort by the relevant attribute and hire the highest rated one with the lowest wage.
How about we add an incentive or choice to not do that, just to spice things up.
Let's add Coaching Specialties (I got sick of the T words)
So a coaching specialty would be a bonus that a coach has in a random skillset used in that coaching area. This gives them a bonus to training players in this area (a slight % boost).
ie. a midfield coach may have a specialty in clearences or ground strength.
This would add another strategic layer for you to consider when hiring new staff, you could also formulate a strategy when hiring new staff to bolster the areas you feel are important for your team.

CLUBS
Clubs should have some of prestige level.
If you win a premiership, or multiple premierships, you should turn into a destination club.
This would give your club a bonus to attract players and free agents and better sponsorship deals etc.
If you claim the wooden spoon, you should get the opposite.

Team and Player morale could give gameday benefits (or penalties) and also affect contract or trade negotiations.
Winning and losing games should affect team and player morale. Getting injured should also affect player morale.
Speculation about a star players contract could affect team morale as well.

Some new staff that could be added:
Marketing and Communications - favourable team media or membership bonuses
Membership - increase membership numbers
Business Development - sponsorship bonuses
Merchandise Officer- sell more merch.
Fitness and Conditioning - training bonuses?
List Manager/Recruitment Manager - for trading/draftpicks/contracts etc
Opposition Scouts/Game Analysts/Data Analysts - scouting

SCOUTING
Like Coaching, you could add in (you guessed it) Scout Specialties.
ie. bonus to scouting Youth League, Tall Defenders or SA clubs etc.
This would also let you develop a scouting system to suit your specific needs.

To add some more realism to the scouting system, you could introduce some "fog of war" to scouting information that your scouts gather.
I believe you have something similar to this already in the game.
The first round of scouting would uncover a grade system (A,B,C etc) to show players details. If you continue to scout the same player, then it shows a more accurate range of skills/attributes (ie.80-85).
Finally when the player is fully scouted, it would show his true skills and attributes.
This adds more interest to the scouting process.

Along with this you could add in more scouting staff - Opposition Scouts, Game Analysts and Data Analysts.
Opposition scouts would provide an email report for your next match, before team selection, with relevant info. to help select your team.
It would tell you the opposition players to watch, their in form ball winners, goal kickers, etc.
Data Analysts and Game Analysts would add thier info. to the report as well to provide more information.
Opposition scouts could also perhaps scout opposition players for traits and tendencies and medical/injury details.

DRAFT
To help with club drafting you could add more staff, List Manager and Recruitment Manager.
These staff would work with your Scouts to try and get the best list possible for your team.
Perhaps first round draft picks would have a higher chance of having good traits assigned to them as well.
You could also include Draft Combine scores for players, to add to the scouting game.
To add extra flexibility you may look at adding custom draft classes for those who would like that option.

CONTRACTS
When it comes to contracts I think that players need to have some sort of agenda they want to follow.
They have some randomly set contract goals, like money or playing time or playing at a successful club and demand a contract that fulfils that goal.
If they have high prestige or are free agents they should also demand more.
It's then up to you to try and manage that in your contract negotiations.
Not only do you have to deal with that but then you should also have to deal with the player's manager, they'll try and get the best deal for their client.
If you have a poor relationship with the player's manager they will try and drive a harder deal, or if you have a good relationship with them it will be easier to negotiate a new deal.
The List Manager, would give advice on whether to re-sign based on player contract cost, depth chart, morale etc.

INJURIES
Rather than having one injury rating for a player we can get more detailed and introduce injury ratings for different body parts instead of one overall rating.
This will let us overhaul the injury system and make it more detailed. Along with this, you could include a new individual recovery value for each body part as well.
The recovery value will add or reduce the time it takes to recover from an injury to that body part.

We could also change the way you are notified of a player injury.
If a player is injured during a game, your doctor gives an initial diagnosis using his medical skill, then the player gets scans and a full injury result in a few days, with expected weeks to be missed etc. The higher the doctor's skill, the more accurate the initial diagnosis and more accurate the recovery time.
This is more realistic and gets the doctor's skill involved and then makes you wait on the scan, hopefully making you nervous to see the results :)
ie. a player is injured during a Saturday game and gets diagnosed by the doctor with a leg injury, he thinks it's a hamstring and the player could be out for 4 weeks. The player then goes in for scans and your doctor gets the scan results on Monday and forwards it to you, it is confirmed to be a hamstring injury and he is expected to be out for 6 weeks.
When a player is due back from injury, a fitness test for the injured player is performed. He then either passes and plays, or fails and he waits another week or plays injured with lowered stats.

Along with this you can add in Physio Specialties, adding bonus recovery to different body parts or injury types.
ie. you have a physio who has a bonus to hamstring injury recovery time or arm injuries etc.
On the AFL site, this Injury Survey shows injury rates and types of injuries and injury recovery times
you can download the full report at http://www.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/2017AFLInjuryReport.pdf
and import the injury data into the game code, this should give you more accurate injury details and recovery times.

MEDIA HUB
During the season there should be some sort of Media Hub section (kinda like the old newspaper) for dealing with all of the news and views of the league/s.
It could have weekly league roundups, showing match reports, stats, ladders etc.
You could include social media feedback, like twitter feeds from journalists, players and fans. Some of these could add pressure on clubs, coaches and players if they are losing games etc.
Also things like random events such as player scandals including sexting, drink driving, nightclub incident, fights, gambling, drugs etc.
Early player retirements due to concussions, catastrophic injury, lost their passion for the game etc.
Club scandals as well ie. drug scandals, tanking, salary cap breaches etc.
The random events can't all have negative outcomes, otherwise you feel screwed over unfairly so you need to include positive events as well, like new random player traits, club traits, training bonuses, financial windfalls, staff upgrades etc.
You could also have something like a player taking his game to the next level - ie. a player has a breakout game then he has an increase overall, as well as skills/attribute/trait bonuses/increased peak.
Or the player sets his own random goals to achieve next season and if he reaches them then he gets a big attribute bonus or something.
There should also be an Offseason Hub with random player news/updates, club news etc.


To sum up - be more like the fifa manager mode!
 
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