I wanted to start a thread here about contract offers in light of some of the comments from Zoot in the thread about IR.

Here's why I did the contract offers the way that I did: my #1 pet peeve of text sim type games is the amount of mindless rote actions you have to do to play the game. One example of that in both Madden and FOF (those are the games I've played most) is the contract offer. If you don't want to offer the default amount, and let's say you are offering a long contract, you have to go through each year and enter the dollar amount that you want the contract to be at, which in my opinion is a pain in the **** to have to do every time you want to change a contract. Someone even wrote a program in FOF to calculate those numbers so you wouldn't have to. So I set it where there was a standard increase per year, you just set the first year contract value and it fills the rest of the numbers for you.

Phinsfan suggested that we have the ability to backload contracts, so that you can for instance make an offer where the first year is all bonus and no base and the base increases through the years. I like that idea and thought that a good way to do that would be to have a slider that moves from a standard contract to a fully back-loaded one.

While I agree that having the ability to enter in a number for each year does give you more control, I'm just not keen on adding that because with that control comes a significant increase in the amount of work you have to do to perform a very basic task in the game. But as always I can be convinced otherwise. Perhaps the solution would be to have the ability to switch back and forth between the sliders and a data entry version, similar to how you can switch between the graphical and slider views on the game planning screen.

I like the idea of having both, if the user wants to be simple in entering contracts they can, if they want to be more complex and are willing to spend the time at it, let them put it in manually.

Maybe another way to do it, is to have the main slider as you have now, below it 6 columns with each column a dollar amount as an input, and then have a slider below it to work out what the base and bonus is for that year. The dollar amount is the total for that year the slider controls what the percentage to base and bonus is. Then have it default to what you currently have as the standard contract and adjust as it would normally with the standard slider, but then you can go in and manually adjust the mix if you want in each column.

Yes, a game where you can have choices is always good. I have a specific strategy in dealing with contracts and the cap. My strategy requires me to input each year salary offer in, rather than having the computer compute it for me.

Also, when going after free agents, being able to put in a specific offer can be the difference between winning and losing a battle over a free agent. With the slider, different teams make slightly different offers in the same general area. The team that gets lucky and has the highest number at that point on the slide will win the FA battle.

I think a slider with a box to enter a specific number is a great idea. It allows people like me to be very specific, and others who don't want to do all that do use the slider and be fast and simple for them.

Until a manual input method is put in, is there a way you can add some more increments to the slider bar? If I want to sign a veteran for 2-3 years, I can not offer the league minimum, as it requires a bonus % be given. The minute you move the slider to just a 1% bonus, the base drops under the 132,300 and you can not sign him. So the only options to sign are 1 year for 132,300, or the next increment, which jumps to 263,277. Having some incremental options in there would be helpful (for example, I could then offer 150,000 and be able to sign a multi year deal while still meeting the bonus requirement).

Perhaps just having an open slider without pre-defined increments may be a solution to this, and the other points on this topic?

I know what you're talking about, I've been doing the same thing on low value contracts - I have this on the next queue and hope to have the new contract calculator at least on the beta site within the next couple of weeks.

So what are you going to do here, JDB? Are you going to allow both, manual input and slider? Or are you not doing the manual input option at all?

Again, my problem is that three teams go after a guy, and all move the slider to half a million. Who wins the FA? The team that luckily has their slider $20 higher than everyone else. No strategy involved, only luck of the slider.

For me, when it comes to strategy, I don't mind the rote, because that is where the fun is in strategy games... trying to outstrategize my opponents. (Is outstrategize a word?) I don't mind having a slider and manual input, as long as I have a chance to truly control my strategy.

Anyway, years ago I played any 4X strategy game I could find... and if you know these games, you know the beginning of the game is always the same. I loved it, because the early stages are the foundation for the rest of your game. Same here.. the salaries you pay are the foundation for your entire team. Good financial planning and handling of salaries creates a good financial position for you to pack your team with quality players. Poor management results in a team being forced to not be able to resign players because it will put them over the cap. Unfortunately, many people don't realize the strategic importance of the financial aspect of sports simulation games, and don't put that much thought or planning into it.

Right now I plan on keeping the sliders, but changing the bonus amount to where you can manually override the slider value, as well as in the table that lists each year's salary below. There will be a minimum annual salary increase but you would be able to backload to your heart's desire. I'll probably add a minimum bonus amount as well as a maximum bonus %.