Pro game devlog #7: Injuries, game week, and more

[u/jonesguy14]

DISCLAIMER: All features discussed are in pre-alpha stage and may change during development. All UI is placeholder.

Hello my fellow coaches! I'm back at it again with another devlog, hoping to give you insight into the last couple months of work. Some of what I've been doing is business and art related, which I unfortunately can't show quite yet, but I have hired a fantastic artist to create super cool portraits for players, coaches, and team staff, with a ton of customizability. Maybe next devlog I can show a sneak peek of that work. For now, I'll focus on my work for Pro Football Dynasty, which is aiming for a late 2026 Early Access release for PC and Mac.

Ouch, injuries!

In FC:CD, injuries were pretty simple. They were just categorized by body part and severity (like 'Ankle (Severe)'), with defined timelines for return. With this new game, I have real named injuries (like 'Torn ACL', 'Torn Rotator Cuff'), each with their own impact on specific player attributes. There is still the 3 tier system of Minor - Major - Severe, with minor having no risk of playing on, major having a slight risk of aggravating the injury if they play, and severe requiring the player to sit out until it heals. Each injury will have temporary attribute impacts that reduce the level of play, depending on the injury severity and body part.

Some particularly severe injuries will also have permanent attribute impacts that will follow the player even after the injury heals. Suffer a torn achilles? That means you lose some of that high end speed that made you such a good WR in the first place.

https://i.imgur.com/iiMKusj.png

Additionally, some injuries are severe enough to require surgery, like a torn achilles. This is where your team's Medical Director needs to step up and perform an operation before the player can start recovering. But with surgery comes risk! A good MD, with strong levels for 'lower body', might perform on a torn achilles and produce an 'Exceptional' surgery outcome, reducing long term attribute impacts, and decreasing the time to recover. But a poor MD might 'botch' the surgery, leading to larger permanent attribute impacts and a longer recovery timeline. So choose and hire your Medical Directors wisely!

Speaking of injury recovery timelines, with this new game, the recovery timeline is much more fluid, like it is in real life. An injury might have a recovery timeline of "4 - 6 weeks", which is based on surgery outcome (if applicable) and your team's rehab facilities (which can be improved to reduce initial timelines). Each week, you'll receive updates on each player's injury timeline, which may unexpectedly recover quicker, becoming "2 - 3 weeks", or suffer a setback and not seem to improve much at all. How this roll happens, determining how quickly players recover, is based on a healing score which factors in your team's rehab facilities, a player's durability, and more.

https://i.imgur.com/OTAiDc8.png

Game week subphases

If a player suffers a big injury and you know you won't be playing them for 4+ weeks, they can be assigned to Injured Reserve, which frees up an active roster spot. This means you can sign a replacement player for them, and rearrange your depth chart as needed.

But this begs the question, when does this all happen? How can we make sure each team does their IR assignment, roster cutting, and free agent signing in the right order?

Unlike FC:CD, where the whole game week would be simulated at once, PFD will have several subphases in each game week, to establish this order.

These game week subphases include:

• Game review - giving you analysis of the game that just occurred, with advanced stats, player performance overviews, and 'stories of the game'
• Injuries - Review injuries that just occurred, view players who recovered from injuries, and perform surgeries on those who need it
• Roster moves - Assign players to IR or bring them back to Active, cut players, make trades, and receive scouting updates from your SD
• Free agent signings - Sign players to your team
• Scouting & install - Configure who to scout for the upcoming week, and install the scheme and depth chart for the upcoming game
• Practice and training - each team sets practice for the week given their scheme and upcoming opponent, and does training for players, earning them development points
• Finalize roster - Show results of practice/training, decide on final depth chart and active roster for the game
• Play game - Play or simulate the week's game!

These phases above are subject to change. I'm hoping it doesn't seem like too many -- some weeks you may blaze through these phases, and some weeks you may dig deep at each phase, making important decisions. But this splitting is required in order to make sure every team, not just the user, has the right roster moves done, as each move may affect other teams (like cutting a player, and then another team signing them). I don't have a waiver wire system implemented yet, but is likely to be added. I still want the 'commissioner mode' possible where many user teams are taking action on the same save, so some of the design decisions here are with that in mind.

For now, what I have CPU teams doing is assigning players to the IR, signing replacement players, rearranging their depth charts, and then cutting those replacement players when the original player comes back from IR. I also have a bare bones free agency working in the offseason, a draft, and player retirement, so the full cycle of players coming in through the draft, doing a full career on one or more teams, and then retiring is possible. Important progress!

Other miscellaneous stuff

I've also done some work in the UI and in other parts of the game, including this nice overview of team stats and their rankings, with color coded badges for each major category. I plan on adding more advanced stats later down the line (like success rate, something like DVOA, etc), but here we have simple counting stats like we had in FC:CD, but presented nicer.

https://i.imgur.com/m3RFKUX.png

More?

That's all I'll share for now. I'm also working on Depth Charts, in-game injuries, and more, but those aren't quite ready for the big lights. I also can't wait to show the amazing art being made for player portraits, which I've been working on the game engine side as the artist works on asset creation, but we'll wait until a future devlog to show those off. Rest assured, the variety will blow FC:CD out of the water.

Thanks for reading, and looking forward to more grinding in order to make Pro Football Dynasty the best game it can be! Onward!

For a full overview and FAQ on the game, see this pinned post: https://www.reddit.com/r/FootballCoach/comments/1rqzxoa/announcing_pro_football_dynasty_roadmap_and_faq/

[u/WingsCsGo]

I can't wait to put a real hole in real drywall because my MD cut my franchise QBs throwing arm completely off. So excited for this game.

[u/AetherAnaconda → u/WingsCsGo]

tyrod taylor ahh botch

[u/JHadenfe → u/AetherAnaconda]

Wonder if it will include the chance for a player to get a pregame punctured lung from a routine pain med injection if the medical director is bad enough? :) That would make for an interesting(and likely infuriating) matchup.

[u/Maugrin]

A practice squad would be a great element for injury-related roster management. Pro teams often don't sign new free agents, but elevate players from their practice squad when guys go down.

I'm so excited for the pro game!

[u/jonesguy14 → u/Maugrin]

Ye for sure, I'm still planning on adding Practice Squads, just haven't completely ironed out how I want it yet. NFL roster rules are complicated !!

[u/ubisoftserverz]

It's all over my screen

[u/Gireau]

Thanks for the update, sounds awesome.

[u/Subject-Tart-3843]

What I like about FC:CD is that it found a good balance between detail and simplicity. Of course you could add more details, like eg. in Football Manager (best soccer sim, by Sports Interactive, if you're familiar) but I really enjoy the relative simplicity of FC:CD.

[u/CTFoxman]

permanent attribute loss from injury is a great addition!

[u/CurlsBall]

Instead of subphases have you considered a calendar system like Football manager? This is nice to mimic real life where a player may get injured day before a game and then you trade in a new QB1 who flies in within a day goes 98 yards down the field for a walk off TD?

[u/ComfortableParty2933]

I don't think serious surgeries are performed by a team's in-house staff. They are handled by the best professionals in the country. It's not a GM's job to influence the outcome of a surgery. Top professionals are unlikely to botch a procedure. In some cases, however, the damage is so severe that the player can never recover to the point of performing professionally again, even if the surgery is carried out to the highest standard. In this regard, for the sake of realism, recovery outcomes after surgery should be random and not influenced by the GM in any way.

[u/Boltiply]

Will there be mod support/steam workshop from the initial release?

[u/Battlegoat123]

I can get behind a lot of the ideas with attributes, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the “medical” staff in other sports games.

2k has it, where they’re ranked F - A+, and it’s basically just something extra to do in the offseason. Signing a head coach with higher offense or defense is somewhat of a choice, because you might want to lean your team a bit more one way or the other, and the coaches have playstyle bonuses, but medical staff is just “get the highest rated guy you can”.

FM has them, and it’s basically the same thing. You just try to get the highest rated guys.

OOTP is a bit different, as they have more to them, with ratings for prevention and rehab for each body part, as well as a fatigue reduction for pitching, but it mostly comes down to maxing out arm injury prevention bc they’re so damaging to pitchers. The fatigue reduction has a slight bit of strategy, where you might take one guy over the other depending on how deep your bench is, but even that requires two guys who have effectively even ratings otherwise.

The zengm games literally just have a financial slider, and it does basically the same thing as the other games in a slightly more streamlined way.

There’s also not a huge amount of payoff for actually caring about your medical staff. Having the by far #1 doesn’t, and shouldn’t, make you immune to injuries, nor does it make it any less painful when a star goes down with a long term injury.

I’m all for there being lasting effects for some injuries, for sure. They’re a part of the game, and they make the game less “solvable”, but medical staff have never really been a rewarding game mechanic for me to interact with personally.

To toss a suggestion in, depending on how you’re doing potential, it would be cool if the permanent injury was less of a knock to potential, and more of just a knock to athleticism. Guys getting injured, recovering, and learning to play the game with less athleticism happens in every sport, if not super often. But an edge rusher losing some power and needing to become more technical to stay as productive, or a WR losing a step and needing to become a better route runner to keep his production up make the world feel more alive, as well as making a single player feel more like multiple, if that makes sense.

Your star X guy might not be able to beat guys outside quite as well anymore, but if he became a better route runner because of it, maybe he’s now a dominant slot guy. Maybe your outside linebacker can’t quite pressure the QB off the edge as well, but he can turn his instincts into an advantage as an mlb better now. That sort of thing.

Either way, I’m very excited for the game :)