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Opening Up The Playbook
Despite the fact that the majority of my waking hours are devoted to the iterative improvement of all things Quick Hit Football, I recently decided to take the plunge and join a handful of the hardcore in a fan-fueled league known simply as the Masters Football Union.
It’s not the oldest league in the Quick Hit community, but with 5 of the 8 teams in my conference making their mark on the Quick Hit Top 20, it is definitely one of the game’s toughest.
So why on earth would I carve out even more free time to endure regularly scheduled beat downs from leaderboard legends like Jrcgehmtwe, Creeke, SBT, Stan “The Man” Lovett, Roamer54 and Season One Champion Throche18?
Ultimately it came down to the fact that no matter how much I enjoy beating up on Trevor Stylez and Co. in the Coaches’ Challenge, there’s nothing like stepping up to the sidelines to match wits against the game’s best. I mean you train your players, you sign a few Free Agents, but when you’re finally out on the field, it all comes down to how you call the game.
And these guys in the MFU? Man, I tell ya what – they really know their stuff.
Not only do they have uber-talented teams, but they all appreciate the intricacies of the QHF playbook and how each play call factors into the virtual “chess match” that takes place between downs.
It means I’ve had to endure a ton of turnovers from my once-confident QB and more than a few deep passes surrendered by my defense, but the way strategy takes center stage in these games has been nothing short of awesome.
It’s been a fun experience so far, but one that points to a crucial question currently making the rounds here at QHHQ: How on earth are we going to up the ante on the awesomeness in Update 1.7?
Well, the simple answer is that we’ve decided to give the play-hungry folks in the Quick Hit Forums a little love in the form of an expanded playbook and all the trimmings. Here’s a look at how it all came together:
Playbook unlocking
As we mentioned in the last Dev Diary, Dave Z and the Gameplay Gurus have been working on a massive playbook update and we’re finally ready to roll it out. So how massive is massive?
After all was said and done, Coaches are about to expand their options to the tune of 150+ new plays, including top requests like the 3-4, the Wildcat, onside kicks, Fake FGs and Punts and much, much more!
Now an addition this big could easily confuse any Coach, so we decided to ease y’all into it with a “Play Unlocking” system. Here’s how it works:
- New Coaches will begin with a playbook of 18 basic plays.
- Veteran Coaches will get to keep their existing playbook for free!
- Each new Coach Level reached will unlock a set of 6 new plays.
- In addition to these “Play Sets,” Coaches will be able to unlock “Coach Sets” by defeating bosses in the Coaches’ Challenge.
- Once Unlocked, plays can be purchased with Coaching Points in the Playbook Shop.
That means that each new level will bring cool new strategic options. It also means that the size and scope of the playbook is totally up to you.
Here’s a look at the shop itself:
The Playbook Shop
Built on the framework of the Playbook Manager, the Playbook Shop was designed to be a one-stop shop for all your playbook needs, including the ability to do things like:
- Purchase Plays and Sets
- View Play and Set Details
- View Purchase history for each Set
- View Upcoming Play Unlockables
Your available inventory depends on your progress as a Coach, so be sure to hop on over to the Playbook Shop to see what you already have unlocked, including a handful of free plays and any awards unlocked in the Coaches’ Challenge.
Gameplay
Obviously, an Update of this magnitude is a balancing beast, and the gameplay team has made a number of adjustments to help adjust to the sea of new strategic options. I won’t bore ya with the nitty-gritty, but here’s a high-level look at the big-ticket tunes:
- Match-Up Mash-Up: Many of y’all have noticed that low-level players aren’t getting burnt as often as you’d like, and we wanted to help accentuate the skill difference between players a bit to make it happen. To that end, the 30-point cap has been removed from all match-up tables, so differences of +/- 30 will now matter. In other words, before the match-up results were the same for a 50 WR against an 80 CB as they were for a 10 WR against a 80 CB. Now, the 10 vs. 80 matchup will have different results.
- Skills To Pay The Bills: We’ve also fielded more than a few questions about Skill effectiveness, and decided to take a whack at some of the less impactful abilities to help balance things out, including Ball Hawk, Crisp Routes, Nose for the Ball, Road Grader and more. For a full list of changes, check out the Patch Notes on your Team HUB.
- A Boost To Blitzes: The defense’s ability to get to the QB is always a hot topic, and to that end, Dave took a pass at the positioning of blitzing players, moving them into better positions to perform their blitz assignments to make the plays more successful. We can practically taste the smelling salts now!
- Added Punch To Pass Blocking: We also appreciate the line’s role in pressuring the passer, so we made some adjustments to Big & Normal Win results in pass blocking match-ups to try and help the OL/DL match-up matter more when there are advantages either way.
- Less Bumping More Running: For Good measure, we also tweaked the durations of the bump-n-run match-ups, lessening the timing in these interactions across the board.
Freeze Fixes
The final major change in Update 1.7 isn’t exactly a feature, but one we think most Coaches will welcome with open arms: a fix to one of our most common “freezes” during gameplay!
As you may have noticed, the game used to force coaches with spotty internet connections to quit out when they lost connectivity, but as of Update 1.7, we’ve added a new system that detects these disconnections and attempts to repair the split.
If you see the pop-up above, it means you’ve dropped out. Provided your ISP hasn’t conked out on ya, we’ll do our best to reconnect you.
This should help the majority of coaches out there with connectivity problems, so let us know if you’re still seeing crashes and we’ll continue to stamp ‘em out as quickly as we can!
Quick Tips – The User Action Widget
A beefy Update, to be certain. Now it’s time to talk tips! This installment of Quick Tips covers one of our most common questions:
“How do I add people to my Friends List?”
Well, coach, have ya ever noticed the little colored dot next to every Coach name on the site? That little bad boy is the called the Status icon, and hovering over it will make following appear:
We call this pop-up the Coach Action Widget. Each of the icons displayed allows you to interact with the Coach in question by doing things like:
- Send a Game Challenge
- Start a Chat
- Send a Friend Invite
- View their Team Card
- View their Team Page
Give it a try from the Lobby, Leaderboards, Recent Games or opposing Coach Pages. You just might find a new friend or rival in the process!
As for me, I’m off to add some new plays for my Week 5 match-up with the Columbus Crushers. Anything I can do to get an edge and keep my win streak alive, know what I mean?
Until Next Time,
Brandon Justice
Design Director, Quick Hit, Inc.
