TuscanSota

Yes

TuscanSota and Washington State are participating. Discord = TuscanSota

What does it mean to blitz safeties or corners? Are there benefits to doing this?

I’m an admin but I’ll be volunteering either way

Hey everyone, TuscanSota here again with another update with the Interface. This is our biggest update yet, and includes a number of changes to existing functionality and with new features. Link to the Interface Landing Page: With the inclusion of the new basketball sim and the upcoming NBA sim, the stadium background has been removed. This is to keep the interface in scope, as this is the app football coaches and basketball coaches will use to manage their teams. At the moment, it's been replaced with a white background and new Landing Page features. CFB Landing Page At the top of the landing page are four buttons, each representing a sports league in the sim. Leagues that you are actively participating in will be part of this button group. For those with only a college football team or a college basketball team, you will only be able to see those two respective buttons. The request team page has been placed at the top. The landing page is planned to proved users with the latest info for their team in the active season. Users will be able to view results from the previous week, their current matchup, and their existing standings. The bottom of the landing page are active buttons that allow users to navigate to specific features relevant to the state of the season. These buttons will change depending on the selected league. CBB Landing Page The Request Team page has been updated to accommodate for all existing leagues. College Football functionality is still active for this page. Please only request teams in the CFB and CBB leagues -- NFL and NBA are NOT ready at this time. Football Functionality With the updated scope of the landing page, the CFB Team page has been retrofitted to provide the coach with relevant info for their team. We're going to be updating our football DB in the near future to provide teams with relevant information related to their school and team. The roster page has also been revamped and has a working dropdown -- so that users can select and view other teams. Sorting and player cards will be re-implemented in the future. Basketball Functionality The current functionality available for basketball teams is the team page and the gameplan page. The teams page will be used for viewing your teams' roster, and for scouting other teams. You cannot view anotehr team's minutes and gameplan allocations on this page. The gameplan page is where coaches will set their proportion, pace, and minutes for their respective gameplans. There are currently two gameplans per college team, and three planned gameplans for NBA teams. These gameplans will be used for each team's Game A, Game B, and Game C games. Minutes can also be saved for each player on this page. I am only showing my gameplan here simply because these numbers aren't relevant to any of my team's current gameplans, and the minutes are for the example. I'm pretty sure the Cougs aren't making it to the tournament. The save button also works. Go ahead and start saving your gameplans. They won't work in this current season, but will be planned to be functional for the next season. This is the planned functionality at this time. Other features for basketball such as the Recruiting UI, Recruiting Board (for teams), and Stats will be later implemented as we get closer to the next season and the inaugural NBA season. As for football functionality, the depth chart page, recruiting, and scheduling are the next planned steps for SimFBA. For those that encounter any issues with the interface, please provide screenshots and information to the Interface Feedback thread. The roadmap will be updated shortly. Thank you again for your patience. We look forward to the start of both the CFB season and the upcoming NBA season. Cheers, Tuscan.

Washington State is looking for a challenger. Preferably one that meets the following criteria: - Is a school located in the south - specifically Texas - has bears on their campus - has a certain desire for drinking Dr. Pepper if you meet this criteria, please reply. If not, I guess that’s okay too

So would the gameplan look like this: Scheme: Formation 1: (Ratio) Formation 1: (Ratio) Formation 1: (Ratio) Run to Pass Ratio: Type of Run: Type of Pass: Targeting Metrics: Will the user be selecting plays, or will it only be these?

Another significant step towards our authentic David Ross simulator

Hey Everyone, It's been a while since I've written one of these so I figured now would be the best time to provide an update on the Interface. With the additions of SimBBA and the upcoming SimNBA, the team over the past month has been working on a set of changes that will fully integrate the basketball sims into the Interface. This will help the commissioners with managing their leagues and handling things such as statistical data, which can be tedious in the long run. What does this mean? Well, here are some of the features users can look forward to using directly from the interface: Signing up for a Basketball Team (College & NBA) Setting your gameplan Managing your team's roster For College: Recruiting players Viewing statistical data, from individual game stats for teams and players by week, by season, and career. View your team's schedule for a season. Along with these new features, however, will be a significant revamp of the current UI for the interface to accommodate the new leagues. Once work is completed on the API for the basketball leagues, expect the above changes to be available soon. How soon? I won't make any promises but we're hoping to start the UI changes by May. ~TuscanSota

Hey everyone, Hope you are all doing well. Just wanted to give you an update on the project to keep y'all informed, and to be transparent. Since the new year, we have not been able to make much progress on advancing the sim. This has nothing to do with technical obstacles, but rather we want to make sure we have the proper design implementation for the features we are focusing on. We have not been able to meet recently, which is why we haven't been able to provide anything new since then. As far as to why we haven't been able to meet, I will take responsibility for that. Lately, I have not been able to put in the time to meet with the team, which is why development has slowed down. I'm going through a bit of a life change, which has caused my free time to be minimal. To be specific, I'm going to be working remotely and moving across the country. I'm excited about the opportunity, and because of this change, many of my priorities have been towards ensuring that this life change goes smoothly. Fortunately, this move is happening soon; and in a few week's time, I should be settled in. I've promised the team once this moving process is complete, that I can commit back to the project and get back to developing. Thank you all again for being patient during this time. I'm excited to returning back to the project once I've settled these changes. In the meantime, I highly suggest participating in some of our side projects here on SimFBA such as the DFL and MFN league. I'm also putting together a game for the short-term that I can manage in my spare time while conducting the move. The rules are almost complete and won't carry away time towards the move or from development. Will provide more info later this week for those interested. Until next time. ~Tuscan

Hey everyone, I'm a bit late with this, but I had a few things written up on New Year's Eve as a means to reflect on the year with the progress made towards the game. This post wasn't planned, these are just some of my thoughts as someone who's helped with development on both the interface and the simulation. Since 2019, the idea of SimFBA came to fruition. Many of us here are passionate American Footballl, and love management style games. SimFBA is a game we're developing where users take on the role as the head coach for a sports team and manage almost every aspect of their team. You can set your gameplan each week, build your playbook, assign your players to a depth chart, and build out your team through recruitment (and hopefully transfers). This is a project that's been in development for a little over a year now, and we reached many milestones that we consider very important to our progress. In 2020, we have: - Developed the base for pass plays and run plays within a 21 formation (2 WR, 1 RB) - Developed an algorithm allowing for defenses to pick plays based on the offense's play - Succeeded in allowing substitutions in-game - Completed an alpha version of the simulation. We've simulated a few test games, in fact! - Deployed an alpha interface application allowing players to register, request, and view their roster. - 5+ Seasons of DFL and MFN With that said, here are some of the things we're hoping will be delivered in the new year: - Full-depth chart management through the interface - Viewing schedules through the Interface - Viewing & Adjusting gameplans through (you guessed it) the interface - Penalties implemented into the simulation - Kicking off the Inaugural Season The team is very proud of the progress made this year, and we're proud of having a community like y'all here. In 2021, we look forward to continuing development on SimFBA so that we can host and begin our inaugural season. These are some of the things I wanted to highlight. If the rest of the staff wants to place their thoughts below, they're more than happy to ~Tuscan

NOT SURE YET

Hey everyone, If you're reading the title of this Dev Diary and wondering why it's being released on Thursday as opposed to today, it's because this one was delayed for a very important reason. I'm proud to announce that the SimFBA interface site is successfully deployed and running. After many months of development, we are confident in deploying and placing the site out for the public. You can now register on the site, login, request a team, and look at your roster. Below, I'm going to provide instructions on how to register for the Interface website. REQUIREMENTS: Use a desktop browser, preferably chrome. Mobile functions aren't enabled yet. STEP 1: Navigate to the following link: https://simfba-interface.azurewebsites.net You can also click the "Interface" tab on the navbar on simfba.com to access the interface. STEP 2: Click on the SIGN UP button in the top right-hand corner STEP 3: Please input your username and credentials and hit the SIGN UP button. If it doesn't return you to the Landing Page, then click on INTERFACE in the top left-hand corner of the screen. If you see your username in the top right-hand corner of the nav bar, it means you have registered successfully. STEP 4: PLEASE REFRESH THE PAGE, LOG OUT, AND LOG BACK IN. THEN, Hit the REQUEST TEAM button to navigate to the AVAILABLE TEAMS page STEP 5: Request your team! Preferably the one you chose on the SimFBA website. STEP 6: Once you have requested your team, please wait! An admin will be there to approve your request, in which you will have instantaneous access to your team. What can you do once you've been approved? At the moment, you'll only be able to navigate to the Rosters page. Please check your roster page with your team page on the SimFBA site to confirm that both list of players match. The Depth Chart page IS available for navigation, but you won't be able to see any of your player on the UI. That's because the next patch to the interface will allow users to add players to their depth chart in the order they choose. TROUBLESHOOTING: This is the very first release of the interface, so I will be transparent that I am expecting some issues if users run into them. I have my team but none of my players are showing up on the roster page This is due to a strict security issue. Log out, refresh the page (CTRL + F5), and log back in. Once you've done that, try viewing the Roster UI again. I am an admin but I cannot see {example user}'s team request on the Admin UI Same scenario as above. Have the user log out, refresh the page (CTRL + F5), and log back in. Make sure they request their team again. If you still cannot see their request, then the issue is on your end. Follow the same procedure. I don't see my team on the Request Team page! That likely means that someone either took your team, you're requesting the wrong team, or you actually do have that team. Admins will review and look into the issue. This site doesn't work on mobile Again, as stated above, use desktop. Mobile site will be implemented later. Thank you for your patience The site is really slow That might be because of this dev diary and everyone is very excited to check out the interface. If you're reading this article after 11/5/2020, then this shouldn't be an issue. If it is, reach out to me and I will investigate. I'm special and I think I should be an admin. We really appreciate you and think you are a special, wonderful part of this community. However, there can only be a handful of admins. Better luck next time. David Ross isn't on my roster That's a shame. With that said, the interface is free to use for the time being. Additional features will be implemented in the future which will ensure that using the interface is an enriching experience that gives you full control over managing your team and strategizing for your games. Road Map for the near future: - Depth Chart UI will be resolved. - Sorting on the Roster Page - Mobile implementation? Also, special shoutout to @gheavy for helping me put together the interface and for helping me deploy the site. He has been a tremendous part of getting the site up and functioning the way that it currently runs right now. Another shoutout to @TheSam for helping me with testing the Interface earlier today and helping me with catching a few small bugs. Also, please gift him with a new set of dice so that he can roll more than 1's and 2's. With that said, I'm exhausted. TuscanSota out.

Lol no need to apologize @Rocketcan. I’m sorry for the embarrassment I placed on the field

Yes, he will be a

I can’t speak on recruiting but I can answer the first part of your question: We’re designing the simulation in an automated format, so there is no manual work in between weeks within the season from running each game to deploying results. Each week is one week of CFB, so users will have time in-between games to set their depth charts, their playbook, and gameplans. I’m not sure how the schedule will be set in regards to the bowl season but I’d like to think it would follow the same format as simulating one week, it’s just the time slots will represent days rather than a specific time on a Saturday. We haven’t discussed the bowl season in detail, as we have been focusing on the regular season format.

Will there be an option for users to create or provide input on a custom high school recruit before the inaugural season?

@subsequent, USE TACKLE!

Hey everyone, TuscanSota here with another Dev Diary. I'm going to go over the Team Request & Approval process one more time, and then will provide some interesting analytics on the initial team generation. Where we last left off in #13, I provided this screenshot showing y'all that you can now request teams from the available teams tab. When the interface deploys, you all will ideally be using this UI to request your respective team here. Well, now I'm going to show you some of the behind the scene stuff on what the admins will be taking care of. Don't tell RocketCan that I'm showing you any of the admin UIs, because no one is supposed to know how the admin UI looks like. It's simple, okay? Ignore the test data for the first row, this is what the Approve Requests UI will look like for Admin users. It's straightforward. If one highlights over either the approve or reject button for a respective row, the button fills in with the respective color. Ooooh. And when approving the above request, the team related data on the request will be sent to your profile in the Firestore DB we're using, and the request will be filtered from the existing list of requests. Voila So does this mean that team requests and approvals are implemented? Yes. Does this mean the interface is ready for you? Almost. We need to take care of a few quality of life changes & minor fixes, but the main gist of the current rendition for the interface is about ready. We're not sure when we will deploy it, but I would like to say it could be in the near future. We want to make sure the site is robust, secure, and ready for everyone. So please be patient over the next couple of weeks as we work on deploying the interface successfully. With that said, I came across the first dev diary which detailed the buckets, and thought to organize the data a little bit. Here is every conference with their teams and respective buckets: Fun facts: - Each P5 team but the Pac 12 has four Bucket-1 teams. - The Big 12 is the only team with two Bucket-2 teams - Oregon State makes history as the most relevant Pac-12 team at this very moment. Oregon State. - Central Michigan is the best non-Big Ten team besides Illinois. Something more relevant is that Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan were rated better than Michigan - Of the three admins (Kirby, Subsequent, Rocket), Kirby is the only admin with a Bucket-1 team. - Texas State is the #2 team in Texas. You read that correctly. - The Mountain West is the most diverse G5 conference, having four teams within Buckets 1 and 2, but having four teams in Bucket-5. - With that same metric, the ACC is the most diverse P5 being although they have 7 teams in Buckets 1 and 2, they are the only P5 conference to have three Bucket-5 teams. - Clemson has been banished to the shadow realm bucket 5. - Rutgers made it to Bucket 2. Maybe they indeed keep their momentum after their premier matchup against Princeton in 1869. - The state of Oklahoma is the strongest state in the sim, with all three Oklahoma teams being within the top 10. (#4 Oklahoma State, #7 Oklahoma, #9 Tulsa). - Of states with more than one team (Sorry Hawaii), Louisiana is perhaps the worst. Disregarding LSU as the outlier at #13, the state of Louisiana is #55, #114, #125, and #126. Utah takes the #2 Worst State place with #108 Utah and #113 Utah State - Any Bucket 1 team that loses to a Bucket 5 team joins Clemson in the shadow realm bucket 5 list. Looking at you, Vivid. (Good luck in our scrimmage ) - Even in this sim, Notre Dame and Alabama top the list at #1 and #2. Nick Saban still exists. (Seriously if Clemson made it to Bucket 5 how did Alabama not get lower?) Anyways, this is all I have for now. Be on the lookout next for our next dev diary!

This will be in a future implementation

Shoot... I remember when we were working together on CFBHC gameday. And you're a senior in HS now? Man, time flies...

The credit doesn’t go to me alone - @gheavy put in a tremendous amount of work in getting the backend servers up and running in a robust, efficient fashion

Hey everyone, TuscanSota here for this week's dev diary. I'm going to keep it simple but over the past weekend we were focusing on finalizing the depth chart page by allowing the user to set the starting position of their squad. While it's difficult to show at this time (someone show me how to gif), I'm providing two screenshots below to demonstrate how the user can swap around their players. As shown, users will have access to two buttons under the Promote header, which will swap the rows between players at a specific position, and where they are on the depth chart. As shown here, Kyle Fultz is our starting QB, with Reed Philips at 2nd string, and Vinny & Kalen on the bench. Let's say that this past weekend that Vinny starting playing exceptionally well. He's making his throws, and was even giving the 1st team defense a hard time in practice. So, I decide to promote him to 1st string. Voila. I can promise you that the data isn't hard coded, as shown here: Relax, this is test data. There's no way Wazzu would have these talented QBs... So what does this mean? This means that the depth chart page is about ready for this current release. Which brings us to one final thing to mention: the Available Teams page is about done too. When users register & login for the first time, they will be able to read through the list of all available teams which do not yet have a coach. Pick the team that you applied for here on SimFBA, and hit that request button. Once that button has been hit, you will receive the following response on your screen: Your request is sent, and from there, the admins will approve your team. When that happens, you will be able to access your roster & the rest that the interface site has to offer. What are the next steps at the moment? Well, we still need to put up the admin page that will allow admin users to approve team requests. Once this is finished and when we've implemented a few other security features, I would like to say we would then be closer to seeing a deployment soon. I can't put it on a timetable yet, but I would like to say it would be in the near future. That's all I have for now. Until next time. ~TuscanSota

Hey everyone, TuscanSota here. Hope y'all are doing well and staying safe. Just wanted to give you a progress report on things going on behind the scenes for the SimFBA interface. First thing's first is the visuals. We went ahead and revamped the Depth Chart page to be friendlier on the client side. Our previous rendition of the DC page relied on placing EVERY possible position and their backup on that one page. It at first didn't seem bad, but we concluded that it was perhaps too much information, so we wen't back to the drawing board. We decided to go for an approach that I think players in the community are more familiar with and went with a design similar to the roster pages seen on the Madden and NCAA football games. The Depth Chart UI is also the place where players will be able to select which players they want to start for their team, and ultimately set their depth chart. The depth chart page comes with two dropdowns: A team dropdown and a position dropdown. On accessing the page, your current roster will load from the DB and will filter based on the current position. The default position is always QB, but you will be able to select all other viable positions. Look below for an example. Upon selecting a different position from the list, the roster will filter to display all players under that position. Below is the same page, but you will notice the position dropdown now reads: WR. Despite the fact this team needs more wide receivers, this is specifically for this demonstration. The table on the Depth Chart UI will display all attributes for said players at those positions. Users will be able to view their different players' archetypes, overall, potential, and all player attribtues for that specific player. There's two columns that I want to point out: String and Promote. Both are located on opposing ends of the Depth Chart table. String specifies the current role for that player in that position. As shown above, Cal Beckham Jr is the starting WR for this roster. In the first example, Aaron Kotar is the 1st String QB while Marquise Mariota is the 2nd String QB. Promote will be the function allowing players to sort who they want to start and who they want either as backup or on the bench. Ideally, the player data will change up and down along the depth chart page, with only the string values of the players remaining the same. When the user leaves the depth chart page, their Depth Chart will be set and stored in the DB. The Depth Chart page is a key component to the SimFBA interface, important for setting your team and for (potentially) viewing the starting roster of other teams. We are working on ensuring this page functions as intended so that it will be ready for launch. As I stated above, this is a visual representation of the depth chart page. Progress will be made this week on ensuring its functionality so that the application is bug-free on launch day. On progress after the Depth Chart page, we are currently discussion but are looking to implementing Team Requests, which will allow players to request the team of their choice, and allow admins to approve said requests. Once this is implemented, we will (hopefully) look into slowly deploying the interface for the users so that they can view their rosters for the first time. Thank you for reading this week's dev diary. We're excited on the progress made, and we hope you're excited on the future of sim football. Until next time, TuscanSota