Is anyone able to explain to me in plain langauge what OTF means and what its role is in the world of email soccer?

cheers

andrew
gm.

It is a multiplier figure added to your area stats each game, dependant upon your tactics, as follows:

Stall - 2xDEF
Opportunistic - 1.5xDEF
Counter Attack - 1xDEF and 1xOFF
Normal - 1xDEF and 1xOFF
Longball - OTF means nothing
Early Cross - OTF means nothing
Finesse - 1xDEF and 1xOFF
Ball Control - 0.5xDEF and 1.5xOFF
Press - 2xOFF

For example, if you had a OTF rating of 10 and you were playing Ball Control, you would have 5 added to your DEF rating and 15 added to your OFF rating.

It's basically a way off giving an advantage to playing the ball along the ground. If your style is Longball, OTF does not help in the slightest!

D4.5 in the rules has the multiplier chart.

OTF = One Touch Football

I'm not much help, am I !?

More emphasis should be placed upon O.T.F. in SESL to discourage the over-use of L team tactic.
In my view, long ball can be a lazy manager choice.
A savvy manager with a decent O.T.F. rating should Press the Long Ball team into submission if OFF bonus is x2 the O.T.F. rating.

100% true.

That is why I have started using it a lot this season, it is a lazy choice, but also highly effective. Something should be introduced to either provide more option to combat it, or to make it less effective.

OTF is over-rated. Say you have 4 CP to use, what do you spend it on? 2 OTF? Well, with Normal it gives you an extra 2 DEF and 2 OFF. But why not spend in on MF which gives you 2 DEF and 3 OFF. And your MF player(s) have a better chance of scoring. OK your MF can't play 90 minutes of every game whereas your OTF can, and your MF might lose more than 6 in ageing (OTF-10 loses 3 = 6 CP).

Even better spend 2 on DF and 2 on FW. An extra 2 DF gives you 1 more GP as well as 2 more DEF - and it gives you 0.5 extra OFF (assuming a sweeper). And 2 to FW gives you an extra 2 OFF and a better chance of the player(s) scoring.

So why bother with OTF when you often get the same benefits coaching your players? And when you realise that long ball FW multiplier is 1.5 you think about spending a bit more on FW and neglecting OTF altogether because you don't need it for that tactic.

If OTF cost 1 to coach or you could reach 20 then it might change things but I don't think this can be easily changed in the Olmec code.

I must disagree with that notion.

OTF (On Touch Football) is very useful thing to invest your CPs on. Even for a longball team Unlike players - which are restricted to their positions, unless you are willing to suffer the out of position penalties - OTF's contribution changes radically with every tactical change. You get +20 to OFF playing press and +20 for your DEF once you start Stalling away.

Also, OTF do not suffer from EL reduction like the individual players do.

For Ball control OTF is king - huge bonuses in addition to the basic OTF bonus.

That's why the 1st thing I did after taking over Saint Johnstone was to get it up to the maximum of 10.

The important thing is to try to have a long term plan for the type of team you intend to create. If you are going to be a longball team, your CP is wasted if you spend it on OTF. You also wouldn't want to pour too much of your resources into MF. On the other hand, OTF can be valuable to others. The important thing is to have a plan and utilize you resources accordingly.

I agree that OTF doesn't suffer from EL reduction - to quote me, "your MF can't play 90 minutes of every game whereas your OTF can."

Another advantage with OTF is that you can coach it back to maximum in just 3 games, but your MF will take 6 games (probably more as he needs to rest) and might cost you the extra 25k each time.

On the other hand your MF's ShootingSL will go up by at least 5 giving him an extra 15% chance of being on target and an extra 10% chance of scoring.

Ball Control hmm? With a 5-2 advantage in MF your OFF and DEF can only increase by 11.25 with an OTF of 10. But with OTF of 7 they increase by 9 anyway. That doesn't include the basic OTF bonuses which increase OFF by 4.5 going from Normal to Ball Control if you also increase OTF by 3, and increase DEF by 1.5 The difference in MF and DF multipliers for DEF and also the loss of GP make this more difficult to compare.

In a high SL league, like SESL, Ball Control and OTF don't do enough for me. However in SaSo League One where we have an initial total SL of only 200 then things could be a lot different.

I expect to get thrashed by St Johnstone next season as I play 4-2-4 longball to your 3-5-2 Ball Control, Yoav

I think adding OTF and SET boosts to auction items is a masterstroke, as there appears a clear school of thought amongst current SESL managers to either pump up their OTF and SET ratings, or overlook them entirely!

CP'ing players, or using CP on OTF/SET both have their merits, as more astute managers have discussed in detail above on this thread.

I think the benefits of OTF are overlooked by many newbie bosses, while a top SET rating can win you games even when playing Stall for 90 minutes you can still gain set piece free kicks. Overlook this fact at your teams peril.

As long as the refs remain rampantly biased and able to shift entire games based on the ref that is on the pitch and the number of free/penalty kicks given then SET is very valuable indeed and can possibly influence a game more than OTF if there is a big difference between team SET ratings. But this thread is about OTF...

Another way to think about OTF is that it's like investing in a home bonus for every match. Unless you play longball and early cross almost exclusively, then whatever resources you sink into OTF will be like bonus SL added onto every match as if you were spending the Ks to boost your home bonus.

+1 DEF & OFF costs you 2 CP (+1 OTF) or else 5k every match for Home Bonus.
15 home matches = 75k for the same home bonus as 1 OTF gives you.
2 CP = ~100k, but you get the bonus for your Away and Neutral matches as well for a total bargain price. 5k in all 35 matches (not even counting elimination matches) would cost you 175K for the same bonus ~100K gives you in the first match or two of the season. In the end, spending for +1 OTF is a better financial move. Anyone who has ever considered spending for a home bonus but won't spend to get their OTF up to 10 first is just throwing away money instead of investing it...

That is real interesting.
I had never worked out the benefits, and I am sure many people go a full 13 home bonus for crucial matches without realising the waste of money in this.

That HUN seems to know his stuff.
No coincidence he is only manager in SESL with a 100% league record (6 wins in 6 games)

I am sure one day I will make sense of those SESL rules!

Thanks for info on OTF guys.

Have managers found it is worthwhile to invest CP on SET rating?

Has max SET shown an increase in set piece success ratio?
A significant increase?