FOF 2004 Bug/Potential Bug Thread

[Ben E Lou]

Alrighty, I've gone through and tried to consolidate bug reports. Let's try to keep this thread with just true bugs, not needed tweaks, or new little things desired, so that Jim can sort through it more easily.

COMMON NON-BUGS

"The computer keeps tweaking my roster even though I have it set to handle everything myself!"
This is caused by playing solo with the multiplayer window open. When that window is opened (by using the third icon from the right), the game settings that you change for roster management are for multiplayer only, NOT for the single player game you're playing.

"The "lock" button doesn't work when I set my scouts to adjust depth charts."
It wasn't intended to work that way. Quik explained well that there are three leves of detail in setting depth charts:
1. Hand it *completely* over to the staff via the global options.
2. Handle it completely yourself by setting it all manually.
3. Use the "lock" feature to make specific decisions, and then use whatever combination of scout recommendations and manual decisions to go from there.



BUG THAT I KNOW JIM IS ALREADY AWARE OF
TCY Import Issue



OTHER REPORTED BUGS

(FROM WOLVENDANCER) Also, minor bug, the game is not counting certain penalties correctly. Here's an example. Roughness is an automatic first down:


2-10-CIN09 (02:04) CIN 9 Palmer sacked by DEN 93 Pryce for a loss of 6 yards.
Sack allowed by CIN 72 O'Dwyer.
Penalty: DEN - Unnecessary Roughness.

3-01-CIN18 (01:59) CIN 36 Bennett ran around left end for 6 yards.
Tackled by DEN 52 Gold, assisted by DEN 42 Brandon.
Key block delivered by CIN 76 Jones.
CIN 9 Palmer was injured on the play.
This is an old injury, but he's toughing it out

(FROM RAIDERS ARMY) Found a bug...I have screenshots, but don't know how to post them.

Started with a complete draft.
Viewed games only, did not coach.
Scout doesn't control anything.

I was playing the Bears, and the game log is this:

Possession to Oakland.

1-10-OAK35 (06:52) OAK 32 Green ran inside the left guard for 0 yards.
Tackled by CHI 44 Schulters.

2-10-OAK35 (06:23) OAK 7 Leftwich pass completed to 30 Tomlinson for 10 yards.
Tackled by CHI 55 Wong.
Penalty: OAK - Offensive Holding.
--
2-20-OAK25 (06:14) OAK 32 Green ran inside the right tackle for 2 yards.
Tackled by CHI 44 Schulters.

3-18-OAK27 (05:41) OAK 7 Leftwich pass was overthrown, intended for 83 Moss.

4-18-OAK27 (05:34) OAK 10 Player punted 43 yards from the OAK27.
CHI 25 Buckley returned the ball 8 yards to the CHI38. Tackled by OAK 30 Tomlinson.
Ball was fumbled and recovered by CHI 92 Walker for 62 yards and a touchdown!
Penalty: CHI - Offsides.
Extra point by OAK 9 Gramatica was good.

Score: Oakland 1, Chicago 34.
OAK 9 Gramatica kicked off 75 yards from the OAK30. Touchback.

My guess is that the penalty had the extra point go to the wrong team. I wouldn't have seen this since I normally fast sim, if not for the final score being Oakland 1, Chicago 41.

Also, is it just me, or are you backup quarterbacks playing in only half of your exhibition games?

(FROM EASY MAC) When displaying negative averages, the game messes up.

My D has allowed the following rushing stats on the right side:

3 carries, -1 yards, 0.0-33 average.

As you can see, it is having trouble doing the decimal correctly.

No big deal, just a surface mistake.

RPI-Fan
Grizzled Veteran

Member ID: 479
Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 2806 [2.54/day]
Status: offline Penalty Bug?
Missed a 53 yard field goal, but running into the kicker was called. Yet my team declined (and it wasn't unusual circumstances or anything - middle of the 1st half, no score)
__________________
Go Red!
Add RPI-Fan to your buddy list | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged


11-14-2003 11:04 PM

Eaglesfan27
Division I

Member ID: 2465
Registered: Nov 2002
Location: New Orleans
Posts: 589 [1.64/day]
Status: offline
I've had a couple of games where my team has had a illegal shift penalty but the opposing team has declined, including one play where I had a 11 yard completion which gave me a first down. No logical reason I could find for the opponent declining. I have game logs if anyone is interested.

(FROM MCKERNEY) I've seen the following bugs involving penalties

1. Teams do not have the option of declining false start penalties, though I've been given the penalty choice option when opponents committed false starts.

2. Illegal touching of a pass on the offense should result in loss of down, though the CPU was given 1st and 15 following such a penalty.

3. Not so much a bug as a rule update. Teams are no long allowed to repeat an onside kick if it goes out of bounds anymore, though the game still allows more than one kick if the first goes out of bounds.

(FROM lighthousekeeper) One of the players (Ben Hamilton if using real player names, Josh Poe if default file) is 10 years too young. Check the Denver team and you'll notice he's 16.

"Cannot Find FrFront4.hlp File"

I keeping getting this error message when trying to acces the help directory file sublistings.(not F1)

I do not have Front office Football 4 installed on my machine.

(FROM CELEVAL) Add in the possibly cosmetic bug of having the FB/RB in the wrong places on the Personnel screens. (Strong/Weak)

(FROM EASY MAC) DOn't know if this is a bug, but in the preseason I set my starter's playing time to 1 all around (It actually gave me a pretty good balance all around)

However, now that the season has started, I just hit the "scout recommend" button on all but the backfield screen. The starter's playing time does not adjust, even with no player locks on. Not sure if this is a bug, but its kind of annoying to have to go through and set each starters PT.

And no, I don't have any of the scout controlling roster things going.

(FROM FANTASTIC FLYING FROGGIES) Very minor display bug.

On all personel depth charts, the label RT is missing on the O-line.

( LT LG C/QB RG is displayed, and the RT is gone out to lunch... or something !)

(FROM ALAN T)
I didnt see it listed here so...

If you do an initial draft, anyone who's contract ends after the first year is unable to be resigned. The AI thinks you just signed them and can not offer them a new contract that year.

(FROM BEE) I think Fritz reported this at some point, but when you get the email that a player is suspended, the name doesn't match.

don't remember exactly what it says, but basically something along these lines:

Cuervo72 was suspended for a year by the league. Fritz was suspended after being caught in bed with SkyDog's horse.

(FROM PETROCHILE) Small bug, nothing big... The game has the Bears playing in a dome instead of an open air stadium.

(FROM DUKERULESMAB) Definately add the fact that teams other than the commissioner don't get the day-to-day e-mails (such as injuries, suspensions, holdouts, etc.) in a multi-player league. Only one they seem to get is the general stage (in-season, etc.) e-mail.

(FROM SJSHAW) If you select "Begin with Complete Draft" in MP mode, you better be ready to go, because you cannot exit the draft once you click OK. The only way to exit is to give the 3-fingered salute and shut down FOF.

So, how could the other league members see the draft file as generated by the game and X-factor (if used)?

(FROM DUTCH) In order to start a new game, you must restart FOF. If you click on NEW GAME after one is already loaded, it brings up the MP New Career instaed. Again, nothing major.

[quote]


THESE SORTS OF THINGS AREN'T "BUGS," BUT POTENTIAL TWEAKS, AND BELONG IN ANOTHER THREAD.
Too many >4000 yard QB’s?
Some have reported very low rushing yards per carry across the board, but some haven’t.

[petrochile]

Another bug I had was with rookie OLBs. I drafted one and wanted to switch him to an ILB, but all the choices I had were for for the secondary. My veteran OLBs had options to chance them to ILBS or to the Dline. I do not know if this is a one time thing, but I will try to replicate it.

This is an issue of his weight.

--Ben

[Mike D]

Not a bug but in the category of "You awake?" would be the staff hiring of coordinators that has been mentioned before.

I *almost* hired my DC without a contract to the headcoaching position that was already full when I really wanted to hire him again as my DC.

Now, I don't know how to fix that to make it less dangerous for your current head coach, just saying it looks easy to screw up.

[33sherman]

I get an access violation when importing TCY draft files, but it doesn't crash the game and the draft still shows up.

[33sherman]

In-game interface--opponents statistics during playcalling have wrong names? In-game play reports and logs are fine, and boxscore is fine. Pretty minor.

Anyone else seen this?

[thomkev22]

Originally posted by 33sherman
In-game interface--opponents statistics during playcalling have wrong names? In-game play reports and logs are fine, and boxscore is fine. Pretty minor.

Anyone else seen this?

I've seen this as well. Also, another in game playcalling problem. When trying to make changes to the depth chart, another teams players are listed.

I haven't had these things happen to me in season 1, but starting in season 2 is where they appear for me.

[yabanci]

It looks like there is a bug in generating return ratings when you start a career. Players rated 9/9 for returns in the player file are showing up with no return skills.

See here:

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...101#post289101

[Maple Leafs]

Two issues from FOF4 are still there:

- Clock management at the end of a game is still bad, especially in FG situations. It seems pretty clear that the logic is something along the lines of "If a FG will win the game, and if in FG range with less than 60 seconds to play, run the ball on every down and call timeout. When no timeouts are left, kick the FG regardless of down". The problem is that the timeouts get called right away -- there's no effort to let the clock run down. So the end result is usually that the other team gets the ball back with 30 seconds or so to play, even though the AI could have easily run the clock down and kicked the FG with, say, five seconds to go.

- I also think I'm still seeing holding calls on kick returns result in teams starting off at unrealistic field position. For example, starting at your own two after a kickoff, etc.

[OldGiants]

A couple of odd things have happened to me:

1) the help file can't be found sometimes. Not always, but often I get a popup screen asking for where its located.

I have the game installed on an external hard drive (f: on my machine) and I have a sneaking suspicion, but no proof, that that is a factor involved.

2) When I start up a new game and check out the available FA's from the "recommend" screen, I don't have all the actual FA's come up. This is using the anybody setting.

When I go to the transaction screen and go through the listings, I find quite a few cut players who I was able to sign, but who never appeared in the recommend list.

[korme]

Reposted:

I got a nifty email about a league suspension.


------------
The league office has decided to suspend Buddy Vickers of Baton Rouge for the 1968 season.

Wilcox was arrested for assault, in violation of the league's strict anti-violence policy.
------------


The problem of course is that 'Buddy Vickers' and 'Wilcox' appear to be two different people.

[korme]

Also, I think this is a bug since it was supposed to be fixed:

When loading FOF, you have to re-place your toolboxes each time.

[Sweed]

This happened to me on a game opening kickoff.
St Louis at Oakland I'm the Rams, using the real name rosters with me calling the plays.
Raiders win the toss and I kickoff Oak returns the kick to the 30 yard line where the runner is tackled by Williams. After the play I see that Oak has been penalized for holding on the return so I accept the penalty. The ball goes back to the one yard line so I think ok here's the one where the ball should go half the distance but is taken back the full 10 yds to the one, but that's not the problem. Look at the log, I now have the ball on the one. I think this is screwy but it's my first preseason game so I think maybe something happened I didn't see so I run Faulk for a yard. Touchdown right? No I don't think so I'm on my one not Oakland's and have 99 yards to go to score. What's more on first down the log reads " 0-00-Stl 01" then after Faulk runs for a yard I have first and ten at the two. Here's the log...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Weather: 81 degrees, rain.

Oakland won the toss and elected to receive.

Beginning of First Quarter.

STL 14 Wilkins kicked off 68 yards from the STL30.
OAK 84 Porter returned the ball 28 yards to the OAK30. Tackled by STL 35 Williams.

Possession to St. Louis.

Penalty: OAK - Holding on the Kick Return.
0-00-STL01 (14:27) STL 28 Faulk ran inside the right guard for 1 yard.
Tackled by OAK 93 Armstrong, assisted by OAK 97 Parrella.
Key block delivered by STL 76 Pace.
--
1-10-STL02 (14:21) STL 34 Gordon ran around the left tackle for 5 yards.
Tackled by OAK 59 Page, assisted by OAK 26 Woodson.
Key block delivered by STL 76 Pace.

2-05-STL07 (13:53) STL 13 Warner pass completed to 80 Bruce for 8 yards (OOB).
Tackled by OAK 24 Woodson.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even with the little glitches that are bound to appear this is still a great game.

[jshipman2]

I had a half end with a defensive penalty and the game went on to the 3rd Quarter without me getting to run another play.

[33sherman]

I'm actually not having problems importing TCY draft files(I got an error message the first year but the file was still imported OK).

[FrogMan]

I have not read every thread possible, so this may have already been reported...

Little AI bug with the calling of time outs...

4-14-NE 37 (00:44) TEN 15 Daggett sacked by NE 54 Boyd and NE 98 Janis for a loss of 5 yards.
Sack allowed by TEN 62 Northrop.
The ball goes over on downs.
TEN called time out.

Score was 24-19 for the Pats at the time. A coach shouldn't call a time out when the ball goes over on downs, should he?

FM

[joshcoonradt]

Bug??

Playing season 2 using the real name player file, the wrong names are listed in my depth charts but only when i am calling the plays.??

[dolf34]

Yea me too. During in game play calling during season 2 I get some other teams roster showing up in my depth charts.

[EagleFan]

I'll have to mess around some more with my game plan settings to see if it's just something in my game plan, though right now I have just been using the scount recommended settings. There seems to be a lot of passes being attempted by my punter, most noticably in the preseason. It seems like every preseason game my punter is 1 for 1 in passing. I know it happens, but it seems like it's happening quite a bit. (Unless it just keeps happening because of the success rate, I must have the Joe Montana of punters).

No real complaints except for the passing numbers being so high. My starting quarterback completed almost 75 percent of his passes last season (just using game plan, not calling plays). There were also 6 QB's with ratings over 100 last season and 12 threw for over 4000 yards, 2 with over 40 touchdowns.

That's something that I can just adjust my expectations to be able to live with it (but wouldn't mind seeing that tweaked to be a little closer to real numbers).


Oh, a minor tweak that would be nice would be for the number of active players to display correctly when you come out of rookie negotiations. I noticed that after signing 5 rookies the active and roster numbers stayed the same until I chose a different view of the roster.


None of these issues are major complaints. I LOVE the extra stats that are tracked and I like that there are holdouts (though I wasn't too thrilled when my top 3 draft choices held out through several offers the first time I came upon rookie negotiations).

Time to get some sleep, have a good night all.

[mckerney]

Not a bug, but it'd be nice if you still got emails after a bye week.

[spleen1015]

I read through this thread and don't see this covered.

At the beginning of my second season, I got an e-mail that Fred Taylor was being suspended for drug use. Cool! But the wrong player is indentified late in the e-mail. Here is the e-mail.

From:League Office

The league office has decided to suspend Fred Taylor of Jacksonville for the 2004 season.

Riley tested positive for drug use, in violation of the league's strict ant-substance abuse policy.

[Easy Mac]

Not a bug, but a necessity tweak

Please have it so when I start the game up again for my boxes to be in the same place. It is annoying to have to open all of the boxes again whenever I want to play. Is it possible to just have them already open, remembering where they were the last time? I call plays, so I normally only play 1-2 games at a time, which means I have to play 8-10 times per season, and it gets annoying having to reopen them all and situate them.

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by mckerney
Not a bug, but it'd be nice if you still got emails after a bye week.

I would really like an email telling you the trade deadline is coming up as well. "Last week for trades" as subject or something.

[Northwood_DK]

When i try to call my own plays and open up the Depth Chart i can only see the players from the other team?

Also the players i select in my depth chart prior to the game are not used? My stud rookie WR was selected as starter in the chart in every game. In the end of the season he had 0 starts target 4 times and catch 2??

[dacman]

Potential Bug:

Everytime I try to get a free agent to sign to a longer term deal than he wants, I get the "my client would prefer to wait for offers closer to our asking price" even though I'm WELL over his asking price on every item (bonus and per year salaries).

[cthomer5000]

minor bug that has been kicking around since FOF2001 (at least).

When you draft multiple players in the same round, your draft recap email mixes up the order the players were selected in.

I got this email:

Amateur Draft Report:

Rnd 1 - Alex Sanford, WR, Navy
Rnd 1 - J.R. Garcia, DT, Florida
Rnd 2 - Howard Krueger, FB, Wisconsin
Rnd 3 - Antonio Wheeler, DE, Tennessee
Rnd 4 - Bernard Ozment, P, Georgia
Rnd 5 - Paul Fuller, QB, Notre Dame
Rnd 6 - B.J. Idler, DE, Minnesota
Rnd 7 - Gene Schroeder, RB, King's


But I drafted the DT #6 overall, and the WR at 18.

[Easy Mac]

I too can confirm the playcalling bug.

This seems to only happen after the first season.

When calling plays, if you click on your depth chart from the playcalling screen, the opposing team's players are listed in your roster spots. I can only confirm for offense right now.

[cthomer5000]

when searching free agents "special teams" isn't listed as an attribute you can sort by under Running Back.

[korme]

[korme]

----------
From: Archie Halton

I have decided to hold out until I receive a new contract.

As your starting wide receiver last season, I believe I had a solid season. I believe I'm very seriously underpaid, and will not report to camp without a new contract.
----------

Archie is actually my starting Tight End.

[yabanci]

I found a bug in changing the player numbers. If you change a player's number and then change another player's number, both will have the second player's number. I have screenshots but I can't attach them.

[SnowMan]

After you delete your emails for the week, if you go back to the "Simulate Games" window, and then close it, the emails come back.

[Ben E Lou]

Too much stuff to add to the first thread. I have gone through and deleted non-bugs (like the 4000+ yard passing issue--That's a tweak, not a bug.) and commentary. I want to make this as easy-to-sort-through as possible for Jim. Some things that were borderline between bugs and tweaks, and the simplest of tweaks, I left in here. We should really start a "tweaks and small fixes" thread for stuff like the 4,000 passers issue, no e-mail in bye week, etc.

[Ben E Lou]

Dola--

I also deleted everything that I copied and referenced in the first post of the thread.

[corbes]

I second Sweed's issue. I kicked off, the opposing team returned, but had a holding penalty. I accepted, and the ball became mine on 0 down, 0 to go, on the 00 yard line. After running a play, it became my ball 1 down, 1 to go, on the 1 yard line.

Other penalties on kickoff returns seem to result in 1st and 10 at the 1 yard line, instead of half the distance to the goal.

SMALL TWEAK? After a dispersal draft, all teams had 100 cohesion ratings in everything. I guess that makes sense and all?

Oh yeh. I also have a starting guard who is 17 years old!! (Josh Poe) He's real good, though, so I don't mind having him around for the next 20 years...

[korme]

Bump for Jim if he missed this thread.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Thanks for the bump Shorty, I don't know about Jim, but I couldn't find this joker until now.

[Ben E Lou]

I guess I oughta link to this in the sticky. Doing it now.

[Kam]

1) My kicker went down with a 6 week injury. It allows me to set my depth chart with the punter taking over the kicking duties. However, my punter is still listed as the holder. Therefore, when he kicks field goals he is also holding the ball for himself.

2) Overtime AI - I have noticed in a couple of different overtime games, that the offense will get the ball inside the opponent's 10 and will still keep throwing on every down. And inevitably they throw an interception. In overtime, the offense, once they get in the red zone, should be protecting the ball. Especially once they get inside the 10. Kick the FG, take the three points and the win, forget the touchdown.

[PineTar]

In generating fictional player CSV's, I am looking at a 0 year RB who went into the CSV w/ 21% of potential. In FOF, looking at him in the dispersion draft he is showing as 77% developed. Is this a bug in the CSV conversion process, or just a function of scout bias.

On a side note, when you launch a game using full draft, you don't have a chance to check out your scouts ratings before entering. Are the ratings we see in the initial 53 round dispersion draft through the eyes of our own team scout, or through the eyes of the bureau scout?

[nilodor]

In looking at the coach of the year under the season awards section if the coach is from your team it will be listed as not yet awarded. However if you look at the history for the coach of the year award it will show up properly there.

[rexallllsc]

Using NFL rosters, when I go to pick my play, the players I see are the default "fake" names...this only started happening in the second season, and only to the away teams.

[fantastic flying froggies]

Haven't seen this reported yet, so here goes.

Here are the receiving stats for my 2003 Minnesota Norsemen.

Receiving Statistics

Player Pos Team GP GS Targ Ctch Yards Avg YAC Lg TD
South, Dre' WR MIN 16 16 216 123 1734 14.0 297 45 11
Sonkin, Damien TE MIN 16 12 125 86 881 10.2 249 30 6
Harvey, Charlie WR MIN 16 16 82 54 700 12.9 103 47 2
Cotter, Jimmy TE MIN 16 9 58 52 341 6.5 145 18 0
McKinney, Oliver RB MIN 16 16 32 24 200 8.3 106 24 2
McEwen, Ryan WR MIN 16 3 31 19 246 12.9 23 45 2
Walker, Paul G MIN 11 11 6 5 24 4.8 19 8 0
Gupta, Grant RB MIN 16 0 5 5 25 5.0 19 13 1
White, Orlando WR MIN 14 3 10 5 54 10.8 3 20 0
Roupenian, Ty RB MIN 16 0 9 4 22 5.5 10 11 0
Palmer, Derek FB MIN 16 2 5 4 21 5.2 3 8 0
Oroumieh, Jim CB MIN 16 5 4 2 29 14.5 6 16 0
Reese, Priest C MIN 16 16 4 2 20 10.0 4 13 0
Roberts, Brock FS MIN 11 0 2 2 3 1.5 2 4 0
Gameau, Marc G MIN 10 1 3 2 11 5.5 3 8 0
Kuffrey, Vic ILBMIN 16 15 1 1 3 3.0 3 3 0
Thomson, Jim ILBMIN 16 8 1 0 0 0.0 0 0 0


That's a lot of passes thrown ton non-receivers. This is not a stat compiling bug, I have checked the game logs and the passes are actually thrown to those guys.

One pass I specifically remember is a 3rd down completion for 4 yds to my punter. Who incidently is not in the stats page, which is probably a bug in itself.

I have saved all box scores and logs if anyone is interested.

damn, can't seem to get the table to look right, hope this is readable...

[Francis_Cole]

When viewing the plays from the playcalling menu during a game, after a while the game will crash. Restarting the game or in fact restarting my laptop doesn't seem to help, once if has crashed once then from then on clicking on the "view" button for any play will result in the game crashing (The usual windows crash box), however once a new season begins the view button seems to work.

Very bizare, and seen as nobody has reported it then maybe its just my computers which do it

[Francis_Cole]

heh - Just remeber this as well.. Its not major
When you let the cpu call your plays they do not seem to accept a offside penatly in a field goal situation if you miss the field goal. For example if I am 3rd + long with second left and I miss the field goal but the other team is offside then the cpu will reject the penatly, where as, obviously, they would accept the penalty so they can have another chance at hitting a shorter field goal

Fran

[KWhit]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this one yet.

When playcalling on offense, during some games when you hit "view" to see the X's and O's of the play, the depth chart listed on the left side of the screen is not your players.

[Bee]

Originally posted by KWhit
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this one yet.

When playcalling on offense, during some games when you hit "view" to see the X's and O's of the play, the depth chart listed on the left side of the screen is not your players.

That reminds me of another error I found.

When calling your own plays on offense...the depth chart listed isn't your players.

I'm really surprised this hasn't been reported yet.

[cthomer5000]

when hitting the "recommend" button for depth chart, playing time is no longer adjusted.

is everyone else getting this?

[FrogMan]

yes, cthomer, I'm getting this too...

FM

[Honolulu Blue]

1) Had a player suspended by the league. I released him, he was re-signed by another team, and he was no longer suspended.

2) The same player was voted Legend of the Game three years in a row

3) Player report screen is slightly too wide for an 800 X 600 display.

4) Balance sheet should be called income statement (this has been around since FOF Classic, so I have little hope it will be changed now).

5) Offensive guard selected as the #1 overall pick three years in a row (different players).

Save game available for all issues, if necessary.

[thenols]

I am starting up my fifth season and have hit a bug that has prevented me from going any further. When I try to click on my depth chart screens, nothing happens. The screens won't pop up, so I cannot set or even see my depth charts. I won't play this game if I have to let the computer set my depth chart and roster every week, that takes away too much from the game. Is there a fix for this out there?