What is MyFootballNow?
MyFootballNow is a free web-based franchise football simulation game. You take on the role of owner/general manager for a team in the league and compete season after season with other people around the world.
You are responsible for signing and drafting players, hiring your coaching staff, managing your roster and depth chart, and assembling your game plan for each game. You can control a team in as little as a few minutes each day, or can spend lots of time digging into the stats, tweaking your game plan, or just exploring the depth of the game available. Games are simulated using an advanced game engine that makes thousands of decisions on each play, with players acting as “autonomous agents” which is a fancy way to say that each player makes decisions independently of anything other than what they are actually aware of.
A direct quote from JDB about MFN.
I can't speak for everyone but I joined this game to play a simulation of football where I was the GM and I played season after season. The expectation was the game would closely mimic the NFL in as many ways as possible.
The problem with the simulation is that many aspects of code fail to address the physical size of players in relation to speed. The result is highly competetive owners take shortcuts to win by turning RBs, FBs and TEs into WRs because they lose weight, gain speed and suffer little negative outcomes by playing a position way below the ideal weight for that position. These elite owners step every player down a position class on defense to improve speed because physical size doesn't factor into the code so DTs are DEs, DEs are LBs, LBs are DBs etc.
The result is teams have a dozen WRs and CBs on the roster and speed is king and every move is another step further away from real football and closer to a bizarre facsimile of football.
I created a new league to experiment with these concepts because I dont want to use these exploits in regular leagues. I dont use them because I dont know how, I don't use them because my expectations for MFN are to compete in a football sim with more of a traditional roster.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. Where do we draw the line in finding ways to break the code instead of building an actual football roster where the size of a player matters just as much as his speed.
CBs and WRs starting as RBs.
Guys like Peterson, Morris, Richardson, Foster and Marshawn Lynch sit in the 215-225-pound range. This seems to be the ideal weight for a running back. But again, it's more about the distribution of the weight and the muscle-mass involved with the player than strictly just their weight.
None of that matters here, +90 speed and +85 avoid fumble means a 190 pound CB or WR can have success. Height and weight are ignored in the sim when the wear and tear on RBs is the single most important factor in the NFL when having a bell cow back.
CBs playing DE
Undersized edge rushers can dominant in MFN. In my No Holds Barred league, I had a 5' 11", 191 pound CB amass 29 sacks the last 2 games playing 71 and 80 plays at LDE.
Again, speed wins out because his size isn't factored into the code when matching up against +300 offensive linemen. In the NFL, a corner could blitz the edge on occasion and get a sack but if a CB ever lined up opposite a tackle every play...he would get destroyed!
What if I told you, on the offensive line only Speed, acceleration and strength were factors? Run and pass block plus size of the player doesnt matter at all. Would the switch to 5 200 pounders on the offensive line be OK? If it works so the running game opens up and the QB doesn't take any sacks....should we all do it?
This game was suppose to be a roster management sim where DEs played DE, RBs playing RB and TEs playing TE. JDB never took in to account all the ways his code could be manipulated by playing players out of position....WRs become interception machines because of pass catching? What does pass catching have to do with playing defense against a WR? WRs have no skills to cover someone, the technics are completely foreign to them but they find themselves in the position to make plays on the ball constantly.
Play selection on offense and defense was suppose to be a random selection based on the play matrix on both sides of the ball with randomly generated results...sure he added rules for managing the clock, when to punt, kick a FG or go for it on 4th down. Rules were even added to use certain defenses when leading or certain offenses when losing but JDB never wanted limited play selection on either side of the ball.
To sum up, its all a question of ethics!
Just because you can do something doesnt mean you should do something!The punt block exploit is a good example.....when these were going off in the game, everyone understood how to do this but only a few actually did it. Why? Ethics!
In my leagues, when I PMed every owner and asked them to cease and dissist the punt block because it wasn't right or good for the league or game in general....most said OK but a few said they wouldn't stop until a rule was implemented because someone could do it to them. They freely acknowledged is was wrong but couldn't stop until a rule was made because they had to protect themselves.
Until my No Holds Barred league, I had never actively, knowingly used the punt block exploit but I lost a League Championship to someone who used it to protect themselves against anyone that might use it against them.
This is a game and its suppose to be fun. If you have to take shortcuts to win and use every little edge to gain an advantage based on parts of the game code that is clearly broken....God bless you!....but you have lost sight of why you even joined this simulation in the first place.
I would rather lose playing this game the way it was intended then win at all cost using exploits because my ego isnt tied to winning....its tied to how I go about playing the game
