Retirements
As
in all things, you've gotta take the good with the
bad. The regular season has just ended and players
have to announce whether they wish to retire or play
another season and risk injury. For some retirees,
they are lucky and get to finish their careers playing
a playoff game.
Retirement
Ages:
Max Age: player will retire next season no
matter what
Critical Age: player will consider retiring at this
age depending on the retirement logic posted below
Position |
Max
Age |
Critical
Age |
QB |
15 |
10 |
HB/FB |
13 |
8 |
WR/TE |
12 |
7 |
C/G/T |
14 |
9 |
DE/DT |
13 |
8 |
LB |
14 |
9 |
CB/S |
12 |
7 |
K |
15 |
10 |
P |
11 |
6 |
Critical age does not mean other younger players are
automatically safe! Younger players are also at risk
for retirement depending on where they are slotted
on the roster. See more detials below!
Retirement in FPBro98:
The following is taken from an old, old post on
the VPNFL forum where someone actually was able to
view the game code and follow how retirements work
in the game. This is as close as we can get to the
actual retirement mechanism.
Retirement in FBPro has FOUR factors and THREE random
number generations. So nothing is set in stone...
you simply can't know exactly what's going to happen.
You can run the "Start New Season" function on the
same league file with no roster alterations twenty
times, and you're going to get twenty different results.
A single team may get fairly consistant results, but
because of the random factors involved I seriously
doubt all 20 executions would be identical for even
one team. So the first rule is "be prepared for randomness".
The first of the four actions to occur is the automatic
retirement of any player that has reached the mandetory
retirement age for his position. Those ages are listed
as the MAX AGE in the table above. For example, if
your QB's current age is 15, he WILL retire when the
"Start New Season" button is pressed... it's that
simple!
As the game retires players who meet this requirement,
it counts how many it has booted off your team. The
code calls this count "numRetired", short for "the
numbers of players retired so far", or something like
that. The next action is the first random number generation,
which is called "numToRetire". This is exactly what
the code name says... the number of players that the
game will try to retire from a given team. The number
can be as low as 4 or as high as 11. It will never
be any lower or higher. If you have less than 4 players
retire, it's only because you got lucky with (or planned
properly for) the later calculations and events!
So now, the game has two numbers... "numToRetire"
and "numRetired". There are three more actions the
game might take to try and eliminate players from
your team, but only if the "numToRetire" is still
less than "numRetired". If the random "numToRetire"
is 5, and the automatic retirement takes 6 players
(numRetired) from your team, retirement is over...
no more players will be lost! But if "numRetired"
is for example only 1, there is much more work to
be done.
FBPro98 has three more actions it might take to retire
players from your team. It will only stop if the "numRetired"
finally becomes equal to or greater than "numToRetire",
or it finishes all three actions. Staying with the
example above, where the automatic retirement only
took away 1 of the 6 players the random number generation
asks for, we've still got 5 more players to lose,
so the game begins it's first test.
The first test is for "early retirement". This is
why a team sometimes loses a player who is quite young,
for seemingly no good reason. Well, here's the reason!
The game builds in a 40% chance that one player (and
it's always only one) will retire up to age 5... that's
anyone age R through 4 on your current roster.
The logic works something like this. A random number
(1-100) is generated. If that number is between 1-40,
the game will try to find an eligible young player
to send golfing. If it's greater than 40 (41-100),
the first test ends with no more players retired,
and the game moves on to the second test.
If the random number generated IS between 1-40, the
game must pick a player to retire early. First, it
looks to see if anyone is eligible. Each position
is searched, and the very last player is looked at.
This might be a player in an inactive (I) slot...
say you have 7 LB's, one of whom is "I". Or it could
be a player in an open (O) slot... maybe you only
have 4 RB's, the last of which is "O". It could even
be a player in an active (A) slot, such as QB2 if
you only have two QB's on the roster. Each "last player
on the depth chart" is looked at. If any are age 5
or younger, they are selected for early retirement.
If more than one player meets the criteria, one of
the bunch is selected at random... the game will never
retire more than one player by this method. If no
players are eligible, the game moves on to the next
action.
The next test is very similar to the first. Again
a random number is generated, and if it's between
1-40 the game will try to take two more players away.
Again the last player at each positional depth chart
is queried. But this time the game is looking to find
players that have at least 6 years experience... anyone
5 or older on your pre-retirement roster. One difference
is that this query starts at the bottom of the entire
roster... the last IR slot... and works it's way up
until it either retires two players, retires only
one but reaches the random "numToRetire" value, or
runs completely out of "last depth slot" players to
choose from. This small difference means this method
COULD retire two players at the same position. For
example, if you have 8 LB's and two are inactive,
it's possible that they could be in the lowest two
inactive slots on the overall roster. If both are
6 or older, the game will take away both. The second
guy from the end actually becomes the last one on
the depth chart after the first is retired, so he's
eligible to be the second! The only saving grace here
is that the player in each position's #1 slot (subpositions
such as WR/TE for groups like REC are treated separately
here, but the #1 player must be in an "Active" roster
slot) will not retire by this method.
If, after eliminating any automatic retirements, maybe
taking one young player away via early retirement,
and maybe taking one or two players away who are 6
or older the "numToRetire" has not been met yet, the
game has one last action it will take to try to meet
that number. Again starting at the bottom of the overall
roster, each player is queried. If he is within 5
seasons of the automatic retirement age for his position
(listed above) and NOT in the #1 slot for his position,
the player will be retired, then the game moves on
to the next player. Each player is checked until the
"numToRetire" is reached or there are no more players
to look at.
WHEW... that's a lot of stuff going on to generate
the retirements for just one team! In much more simplistic
terms, it goes kind of like this...
# The game makes a random choice, from 4 to 11, of
how many players it wants to retire from a team.
# Any player who is at the automatic retirement age
for his position is removed first.
# If more players are needed, there is a 40% chance
the game will try to find one young player to retire
early.
# If still MORE are needed, there is another 40% chance
the game will try to retire two players with 6 or
more seasons of experience.
# If the random number to retire is STILL not met,
the game will retire ANY player on the roster, starting
at the bottom, who is within 5 years of his position's
automatic retirement age.
# A player that has reached the auto-retire age for
his position will ALWAYS retire... there is absolutely
nothing you can do about it.
# Conversely, a player in the #1 slot at his position
will NEVER retire unless he's at the auto-retire age
as long as he is "Active".
# Beyond those two givens, it's all a matter of chance
One other question you may be asking is "who can you
guarantee WON'T retire from my team?" There are very
few guarantees due to the random selections, but here
are a few...
# A player currently under the mandetory retirement
age (i.e. a QB less than 15) will not retire as long
as he is in the #1 slot for his position. These slots
are: QB1, HB1, FB1, WR1, TE1, C1, G1, T1, K1, P1,
DE1, DT1, LB1, CB1, S1. Unless a player is old enough
to retire automatically, there is no way he will if
placed in one of those roster spots and it is an "Active"
slot.
# No player currently age R, 1, 2, 3, or 4 will retire
UNLESS he is the very last player at his position...
QB2 if you have 2 QB, LB7 if you have 7 LB, etc. If
he's last, there is a chance. If there is a player
older than 4 years below him (unless that player will
be removed by auto-retirement), no R-4 player will
be retired.
A simple anti-retirement strategy might go like this...
# Fill your #1 slots (QB1, HB1, FB1, WR1, TE1, C1,
G1, T1, K1, P1, DE1, DT1, LB1, CB1, S1) with players
at least age 5. Put the guys here that are older but
you definitely want to keep around. Don't put anyone
who is R-4 here, as you'd be wasting the protection.
# All other players should be ordered in reverse of
how much you need them.
# As an example, you might do this at the LB position.
LB1 is a stud, age 7... he's guaranteed to stay. LB7
is any guy you can deal with losing... this is the
most vulnerable spot. LB5 and LB6 are young guys,
age R-4... with the expendable player in the LB7 slot,
these guys are now guaranteed to stay too, so put
them as low as possible! That just leaves LB2, LB3,
and LB4. Fill these spots in reverse order of who
you can afford to lose... the most painful at LB2,
the most replaceable at LB4. Using this setup, only
LB2-4 and the sacrificial lamb at LB7 are candidates
for retirement, and you've done what you can to protect
the most valueable players!
Even with this elaborate look into FBPro98's retirement
logic, there are times where anomalies happen--especially
when you sim more than 350 seasons. If a player retires
even though it doesn't seem to fit the above logic
then we have to chalk it up to bad luck and the evil
random number generator run amok again! Plus,
with our holdout rules,
any retired player who has not reached their max age
can be brought back...for a price of course!
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