Front Office Football: The Fourth Edition. Patch to version 4.0c.

To install the patch, use WinZip or another standard unzipping program to move the patch files to a temporary directory. Do not unzip the patch files directly into the installation directory.

Use the "Run" command from your Start menu to find the CPatch program. Run that program.

If you see a message indicating successful installation, you're all set.

Front Office Football: The Fourth Edition must be installed properly on your computer before you run this patch. After running the patch, you can still open old careers, though bugs that affected the start of those careers will not necessarily be fixed (such as the bug with players imported from TCY not healing properly). 

This patch includes everything from the 4.0a and 4.0b patches. You do not need to remove an earlier patch, nor do you have to have it installed in order to keep your game up to date.

The following changes are included in the 4.0c patch for Front Office Football: The Fourth Edition:

- For leagues beginning before 2002, game should not check for expansion draft, causing empty draft pool when not found.
- For overall career records, player's last season should not be shown as current simulation year.
- For player filed editor, Add Player to Draft button should not reverse OLB and ILB.
- Ensure QB win-loss records are tracked based on true starter.
- Ensure playoff and bowl appearances statistics are properly tracked for coaches.
- Correct labels on the access window for the last three defensive game plan screens.
- Extra point opportunity given at end of fourth quarter, even when it does not affect the score.
- Teams should not trade for injured players during the draft.
- Teams should not sign injured players to long-term contracts.
- Pre-game email about concerns with starting players reverses SS and FS.
- Teams should not make trade offers for players you just signed.
- QBs should not spike the ball when the clock is stopped.
- Correct drive chart for successful onside kicks.
- Allocate extra WR properly when using the play-calling interface - this corrects a crash when accessing "Any WR" on the play display.
- When moving a team, parking lot construction and turf installation should be assumed and have nothing to do with old conditions.
- Ball should go over when there's intentional grounding on fourth down.
- On defensive game plan screen, the double-team selection buttons are reversed.
- More descriptive text for preview, illustrating difference between defensive front and defensive line.
- Expand size of email so that injury report can't get cut off due to influenza outbreak.
- Ensure that individual awards do not disappear after about 40 seasons (note that fix does not apply to seasons played pre-patch - that information is unfortunately lost).
- Increase the size of the popup for confirming the franchise tag.
- Ensure that players reinjured during a game don't have the length of the injury incorrectly reduced to zero.
- Add text to show that players reinjured during a game will remain active.
- Increase effect of training room time when calculating injuries.
- Eliminate discrepancy between TCY imported drafts and internally generated drafts.
- Improve the draft logic, making more checks to determine weaknesses and reflect current development projects (this slows down the draft quite a bit).
- Highlight values in contract screen when a dollar amount receives the input focus.
- Increase the range of past experience for incoming freshmen.
- Greatly reduce the chance of firing a GM for weak performance after switching teams.
- Eliminate the green portion of the talent bar for attributes that do not develop with age (this had been a telltale sign of the direction of the scouting error).
- Tie the graduated scouting error to the difficulty level.
- Increase rate of retirement for mediocre players (this adjusts a previous tweak that probably went too far).
- Add years spent on the current team to the scout overview on the roster window.
- Remove the confirmation for activating/inactivating a player, as this is easily reversed.
- Highlight player's team in the power ratings.
- Add a hot key for accessing the contract screen off of the player screen.
- Add a hot key for exiting the contract screen.
- After simple renovations on parking lot or turf, support for a new stadium should not drop entirely.
- Automatically move players to new positions for training camp when defensive alignment means those positions don't exist (a WILB becomes a MLB in a 43, for example).
- Adjust the AI for determining starting players, trying to avoid more talented players sitting on the bench (this increases the importance of pre-training-camp position moves, which also have been adjusted).
- Add use of AI for determining controlled team's position moves and game-plan adjustments prior to training camp, but only when global options are enabled.
- Revise weight algorithm for created players to look more at the height, decrease weight extremes.
- Inactive injured players should be colored green, like other inactive players.
- Ensure hot keys N and P work properly when actively using hot keys on the player report.
- Adjust game AI for overtime in an attempt to reduce the number of ties.
- Increase the effects of team chemistry during game play.
- Add a yes/no confirmation for setting a stadium plan, as it's too easy to exit that screen inadvertently.
- Add score of championship game to list of bowl winners.
- Add the ability to click on the season awards screen and see active player records.

The following changes were made for the 4.0b patch for Front Office Football: The Fourth Edition and are included in this patch:

- Email indicating a team move has correct origin and destination.
- Season ticket sales no longer drop dramatically without reason for certain
teams in second season or later.
- Starters play a little bit less in the pre-season. Starting quarterbacks no longer take every snap possible.
- Players seriously injured late in the season heal during the off-season. They are much less likely to retire.
- Scouting adjusted to make busts less obvious, change after initial training camp less dramatic.
- Free agent pool at start of new career no longer has players with unusual heights and weights for their positions.
- Depth chart recommendations no longer put the same NT or ILB both at a starting position and its backup.
- Jason Hasting of Houston no longer acts as a ghost when placed in the depth chart.
- Defensive team should call time outs when trailing in last three minutes and human team is calling plays.
- When play-calling, both teams can no longer call time out at the same time.
- Outside linebackers should be able to play defensive end in depth chart, inside linebackers should not.
- Retired coaches should not still be active coaches, and should not be listed as having 50-plus-year contracts.
- Logic for selecting Coach of Year should be less dependent on stadium status and more dependent on team peformance.
- Play-by-play should not mention defender beating a block if the run results in a key run block.
- When a punt return is fumbled and there's a penalty, the correct options should be given for accepting the penalty.
- When printing statistics for pass defenders, the correct headers for the statistics is printed.
- Lower illegal contact penalty percentage on run plays.
- Lower fair catch interference percentage on punt returns. The NFL all but stopped calling this in 1999.
- Add protection for depth chart errors to depth chart changes accessed through play-calling.
- All-time General Manager records for careers now display properly.
- Increase the penalty for depth-chart use of tired players.


The following changes were made for the 4.0a patch for Front Office Football: The Fourth Edition and are included in this patch:

- Remove "The College Years" from the help section of the new game screen.
- Properly enforce limit of inactive players (7 during season, 14 during pre-season).
- Franchise designation should be removed between seasons.
- Players on injured reserve should not count toward roster limit.
- On player screen, stats for fumbles forced and returned for touchdown are reversed.
- Pass defense percentage displayed improperly on player screen.
- Ensure free agents can be signed at all times during the season.
- Icons for restricted free agents and red-colored injured players are not easy differentiated from regular positional icons on roster screen.
- When printing team statistics from the summary, the defensive turnover total is not included.
- Short penalties when other team is running for first down should not be declined.
- Holding penalty in end zone resulting in safety should not be declined by opponent.
- An unnecessary roughness penalty may result in first down inside the 10-yard line without yards to go being updated correctly.
- Adjust Key Run Blocks so that FB and TE receive a higher percentage.
- Don't record a tackle when the QB takes a knee.
- Out of bounds plays should not result in fumbles.
- Adjust field goal choice AI so that punts are not executed inside 30 - even with bad kickers.
- Teams should not call time out before punting.
- When human team is calling plays, AI should not call time outs.
- After computer calls time out, it should not spike the ball.
- Fumbles returned for touchdowns on punts should be recorded on screen and in game log.
- Teams should not settle for ties rather than going for field goals at end of overtime or half. In general, there seem to be too many ties, and several cases of teams running a play rather than kicking obvious field goals.
- AI should not use formations quarterback doesn't understand.
- Starters should play less during pre-season.
- Player of the Week screen should sort properly, and clicking on player record should bring up correct player.
- Greatly reduce random player retirement percentage for players who have no reason to retire. Currently 1 in 30, should be more like 1 in 2000.
- Reduce initial player popularity with fans for mediocre players.
- Players imported from TCY should heal from injuries.
- Positional requirements should be enforced when human team not allowing scout to make signings. This results in depth chart errors as well as most reported in-game crashes.
- Change how scout estimates are made. This should result in higher correlation between green bars and overall estimates as well as more understandable draft-time decisions.
- On execute trade screen, player salaries should be listed without including bonuses.
- The scout recommendation button in the game plan should not recommend negative value for rush direction, rush directions and pass directions should add to 100%.
- Training camp time setting should not change lunch time to a negative value on first click in an editable field.
- The player salary screen should update all totals when changing field focus.
- Replace the print function for roster strengths screen.
- Fix large attendance drops when ticket prices aren't increased and no other reason is obvious and increase neutral field attendance calculation, since it's always the championship game.
- Stadium condition should not drop to poor when a renovation plan is rejected. This is the major cause of mysterious attendance drops.
- In the Player editor, endurance for receivers and punt return skill for running backs should be displayed and set properly.
- When creating a one-player player file, without draftees, game should not create an unstable universe or add garbage characters to names.
- When editing a player file by creating a free agent player, team number should be imported properly. This could lead to crashes after week 17, as well as other problems.
- Cornerbacks imported from TCY should have bump and run ratings.
- Reduce number of times human player can change a player's position.
- Printing on statistics screen sometimes lists incorrect player position.
- Reduce use of injured reserve when players not very seriously injured during pre-season.
- Leadership choice should include bonus for veteran status.
- Created rookies should have home towns in states after F in the alphabet.
- In the GM career record screen, if team has had tie, record should be displayed properly.
- When printing standings, conference record and division record should be labeled correctly.
- When printing statistics, hurries should not be called TFL.
- When human team renegotiates with player who had voidable year in contract, the old voidable option should be removed.
- Stadium renovations should not be locked into a starting year earlier than the initial year specified in an edited player file.
- The team single-season points per game record is calculated incorrectly.
- If the human team's coach is fired, he should not continue to accumulate stats with your team.
- Computer AI draft adjustment, resulting in low chance of repeatedly drafting the same position and lower weight to kickers, even if team is strong in all other areas.
- Protect from possible crash when AI recommending players for trade with other teams.
- Blank player editor file should have miscellaneous data default to useable form, including year set to 2002 and salary cap set to $71.1 million.
- When construction is in place in initial data file setting, it should be indicated on stadium information screen.
- Text of injury email should not be cut off when over a certain length.
- Disable resume button when taking part in initial player draft and human team selecting.
- Lower the experience gained when a player takes part in a game, especially if he doesn't play a lot.
- When opening an alternate player file, wait cursor should be displayed.
- AI for changing a player's position and defensive front should be accessed during training camp.
