CHEMISTRY!?

There isn’t really a single primer out there to the best of my knowledge. I wrote an intro on the GML forums once I think...will see if I can find it

The video I did with Quik was more the strategy of it, not so much the actual nuts and bolts of how to do it

Here we go...I posted this to FOFC once...this is what I was thinking about

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Players only seem to qualify for affinity stuff if they have 8 starts or more (except players drafted in rounds 1-4 playing in their rookie year, who count towards affinity regardless).

Whoever has the highest LDR among the players with 5 or more years of EXP is normally the leader. Having more EXP is the tiebreaker when the LDR is close between guys, say within 10 points or so.

You then add up the PER of the leader and the follower (i.e. the players in the right affinity groups, so 3 likes 5 and 10 and so on) to gauge the affinity. More often than not >150 is exceptional, >100 is strong, >50 is mild.

That's why you want leaders with high PER. In the draft, if a player is badged as 'cheerful' they typically have PER > 66.

Same approach applies between the QB and the position leaders on offense, if they are in groups that like each other, add up the PER of both and look for whether it beats 150, 100 or 50.

As a rule of thumb, but I would say that if you get more than 10 exceptional affinities on a roster, and 3 exceptional affinities between the QB and the position leaders, you're well on the way to a .500 record in any MP FOF league, and you will completely dominate in SP.

As garion quite rightly points out, teams following this approach across MP FOF such as my GML and IHOF teams are often capping out...for my teams lately the cap-out is at 12-win regular seasons and divisional round playoff exits. Quik performs far better than this, so I'd say my failings are likely my execution, but it might be chemistry as a strategy more broadly, I don't know.

What I would say is I don't think I've ever seen a team with >10 excep affinities, plus QB excep affinities, pick in the top 10 of an MP FOF draft regardless of talent level, cohesion, gameplanning or anything else. I think there's a lot more leeway when drafting when you know the player will be a strong or excep affinity if he gets 8 starts.

I haven't got enough experience to have a view on whether the impact of any of this is different in FOF 8 vs previous versions. The mechanics got harder as the 8 starts conditions came in with FOF 8.

I've never even tried to work on chemistry on any of my teams.. But I do get fascinated by the fantasy of it on occasion. Mostly I just prefer a green highlighted guy if I have two guys I am looking at that are similar in the FA pool. It just seems like such an eternal struggle to keep subpar players around with weird bars just because they like each other when I am so dialed in on which bars I like at which positions that I doubt I would even be able to assemble a full chemistry roster that I liked unless I had free access to all the players in the entire league.

That said, I'm not trying to shit on chemistry, as I do believe it is a viable way to make things go. I think if there was a way to sort by chemistry in the player search, I would definitely give it more of a look.

I think Squirrel's note above lays out most of the basics.

Here's a thread from FOFC that mostly details the "uncovering" of how this system worked as FOF8 was initially released (and chemistry was, believe it or not, purposefully pretty nerfed by the developer)... but it might offer you some more context and insight, if you're really digging into this stuff:
forums.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=92074

And here's the seminal "oh wow here's how it actually works" thread from some FOFC jerk way back in the day:
forums.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=16893


IMO, there are multiple levels to this:

-ignore it completely
-avoid conflicts (they sound bad) but otherwise ignore it
-use it as a sort of tiebreaker
-accept that it can be helpful and use it as a roster-filling tool
-consider it an important part of roster building
-consider it central to your roster building approach

I might be the only active, serious, FOFer out there who actually stakes full claim to Group 6, and I now am that guy by reflex and habit. I do not hold firm to claiming that this is an absolute maximizer, but after building teams this way as long and as frequently as I have, the amount of effort and discipline required has come WAY down for me to do this.

I will very much agree with a centerpiece that came from the video squirrel and I did together: if you build via chem, you end up valuing a lot of guys that the game doesn't really value, and neither will many of your MP rivals. In that sense, it can be a sensible route to higher cohesion, which carries its own powerful benefits. Many of my successful MP teams have 10th year cohesion monsters rated 15/15 but actually on the field as FB, TE3, WR5, RG, WILB, FS, etc. I love and keep these guys because they are great leaders or affinities, but then over time they develop added value (just to my team) for their massive cohesion boosts to their respective units. That 19/19 run-block-only TE in his 10th year with us and actually getting 200 snaps is probably as valuable to my team as a 2nd round draft pick.


If you actually want to get into this, drop me a line... I'd gladly spend 5m with your roster and offer you a thought on a free agent player or two you might pursue to help get things going.

I dig it Quik, I may one day take you up on that. I can see how there would be a sort of added pleasure in having those schlubs who nobody wants but they just have the right fit on your team. I think I have a guy like that in NAFL, he's a 25 OVR FS who might end up in the hall of fame if his numbers keep where they're at. He's not there for chemistry or anything, but he is super duper cheap and ultra effective in his role and I seem to be the only bastard who wants him around. I can see where the draw might be to get deeper into that side of team building, especially once the chemistry chart becomes hard wired into your head.

For now I am a zig when they zag guy, and the trend is heavy on chemistry these days. Too many kids, not enough easter eggs.

Is sociable medium per and mellow is low per?

I went this direction with defense a couple off seasons ago primarily because the whole thing needed to be torn down anyway. Going to keep at chemistry with defense... and go for big bars on offense. Sounds good to me anyway.

As for the results so far... I don't know...