Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

[Mattanite]

Hello all,

Last year I produced a couple of forum posts analysing the progression system and how to un-retire players and aim to do the same for M17. I'm going to post all my different tips and theories in here as I try to answer a lot of the Q/A thread questions and it'd be nice to have a single place if anyone has any questions regarding the info here.

Enjoy

M17 Player Progression
Un-retiring Players
Owner Creation Tips
Coaching Carousel
Moving Players, Backup regression and Season Goals
Player Archetypes
QB THP Regression
Player Scheme OVRs
Draft Class Archetypes
Practice Squad Contracts
Player XP and OVR Over Time
Depth Chart Archetype OVR
Icing your own Kicker
Rookie "Grey Picture" Change
Player XP Development Dilemma
Practice Squad Stealing Caps
Adjusting Player Weight
Advancing weeks: Ticker, Set vs Random Games
Injured Rosters: Preseason vs Active, IR Bug
Draft Class: Group X & Group Y
Dynamic Development Lottery
Post-Draft Free Agency

Shameless plug for unrelated articles:
Position Flexibility Idea

[Mattanite]

M17 Player Progression:

I posted last year regarding the CPU progression of QBs and how the system was flawed when selecting between progression settings of weekly, monthly and end of season. See the link below:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ogression.html

You will be pleased to know, after a quick look at the player attributes over 10 years (mostly QBs) that the progression system works properly for all 3 settings. End of season progression no long buys all the really expensive stats and neglects things like AWR. Choose whichever you prefer I am going with monthly as I believe you can only evaluate a change in real life attributes over a couple of games instead of 1 good game.

It should be worth noting that due to the relatively cheap cost of INJ in M17 then it appears CPU picks this up more often but will need to look into this more in depth (I like it being cheaper, a player gets injured and his INJ stat drops, so you need to rehab him with XP instead of focussing on playing attributes, just like real life).

[Mattanite]

Un-retireing Players:

The method for un-retiring a player for M16 works pretty much exactly the same on M17 offline. But not online...

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-retiring.html

In online/cloud franchise, the restriction of 1 character per user means you can't really do the method the same way anymore, you have to give up your current character to control the player and then un-retire them in week 1 of the offseason. The good news is that when you re-take over a coach in Week 1 of the offseason you regain the ability to resign players whereas in M16 you lost that when starting a new coach in Week 1.

WARNING: Don't give up an owner in online or offline, it won't let you pick them again (unless the method still works where another user logs into your CFM online and picks that owner and then quits straight away).

This trick should also work for Coaches but you need to control the coach the week before they retire (as soon as wilcard weekend) but I haven't found a coach that retires consistently early in CFM (hello Pete Carroll).

[Mattanite]

Owner Creation Tips:

Fun fact, created coaches and players get their digi-pictures in CFM this year, not the blank grey man pic. Sadly created owners do not get a picture and this sucks.

Existing owners have last years pictures but when you change the player archetype in the Coach Schemes menu, it will not stick when you exit. Only created owners can change the player archetypes in the Coach Scheme menu.

Edit: Some coach appearances can also result in an actual photo being available. I've seen John Fox clones and there is even a report you can get Josh McDaniels to appear with the right combination of name and appearance??

[Mattanite]

Coaching Carousel:

So there is a legacy issue that has been in EVERY CFM AND IT REALLY ANNOYS ME!! I've reported it every year and ask in the Dev section if it is ever going to be fixed... but sadly, it has not been fixed in CFM for M17.

When a coach is fired or retires in CFM, the owner has to hire a new coach. If the coach is a real life existing coach, when hired, they bring their playbooks and schemes and change all the player archetypes to their types. However, when a CPU generated Coach is hired, they bring their schemes and copy various coaches playbooks. They also move players immediately to suit their scheme (i.e. if changing from a 3-4 to 4-3 move the pass rush LB's to DE and 3-4 DE's to DT).

What the new CPU coach doesn't do is change the player archetypes from the previous real coach! Therefore after moving the 3-4 LB to DE the archetype at DE is still a 3-4 Run-stuffer, therefore the Physical, Intangible and Size ratings are all wrong!

To counter this, I would advise turning Coach Firing to off. At Wildcard Weekend, if you believe a coach deserves to be fired (bad seasons etc) or retires anyway, create a new character of the coach you want firing and “Demand Release”. You can then either retire the coach un-hired or keep controlling the coach to choose your new destination. Another alternative is to create an owner, fire the coach and hire a new one for yourself, but as soon as you relinquish the owner, they will be locked out of use forever.

To avoid this, if a new team hires a CPU coach that changes defensive scheme (and it bugs you), you can create a character for the new coach (change the players back to their original position) and demand release again (has to be before advancing from the Superbowl) and hope the owner hires a 2nd coach with the correct defensive scheme. Even if the team hasn't hired the 2nd coach before Free agency starts, they will still try and sign players according to the previous real coaches archetypes.

2rd Alternative is 32-team control of the coaches, then you can set whatever player archetypes you want and then turn autopilot on.

If any of the Developers or Game Changers ever read this, can we please (one day at least) have this patched, it would be so awesome for CPU coaches to set full schemes as it breaks immersion otherwise.

UPDATE: This can be achieved at any point in CFM. If you don't like a new CPU coach or you want to fire a coach midseason for poor performance, create a new Coach for that team, instantly retire that created coach and the team will have fired the previous CPU coach and hired a new one out of the Available Coaches pool. If you don't like the new new CPU coach, create another Coach, rinse and repeat. Eventually the team will hire a new coach with a scheme you like/think fits or they will hire a Real Coach who was fired from another team.


UPDATE2: This has not been patched after testing it on online CFM which is a real shame because it is CFM breaking when the CPU moves their defensive players then cuts them etc, or the CPU coach uses a read-option playbook but sign a pocket passer QB based on scheme archetype. Picture below to show what I mean.

It's easy to fix, make it so whatever playbook the CPU coach uses matches the same scheme archetype, so if you use C.Paganos playbook, you have a 3-4 Pass Rush ROLB and Run Stuff LOLB. If you use R.Riveras offensive playbook then you have a mobile QB and power HB... grrrrr!

UPDATE3: Thanks to ajra21 for almost coming up with this idea in this post:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...3-4-4-3-a.html

A slight workaround for offline CFM, if a team hires one of the generic CPU coaches and you are pooped off that the player archetypes do not match the scheme, if you create that coach and change the playbooks and offensive scheme and defensive scheme, then retire the coach, the changes will stick. So you are forced to always use a 3-4 or 4-3, whichever the team starts Madden CFM with, but at least you can force coaches to use playbooks that match the original scheme and change the off/def scheme to vary the coach's/teams playstyle.

Hopefully this gets fixed for M18, but right now, there is a sort of workaround Sorry to online users, there is no workaround...

[Mattanite]

Moving players, backup regression and season goals:

So full player edit is in, which is great, but a head scratcher is that the Level 1 and 2 season goals for backup players is no longer automatically 0'd. This means that at the end of every season, any backup that hasn't made a “Starting Players” amount of stats they will regress and possibly lose a Dyna-Dev level.

Another head scratcher is the message of “adjust roster – last chance to move players” in the CFM menu after the draft but before starting pre-season... why put that message in if full player edit is switched on??? Well, it's a carry over from M16, but once you advance from that screen, it creates the season goals for that player dependant on the position they were left in.

Therefore, if you have a Superstar backup you are sitting behind the current incumbent starter (Aaron Rodgers to Brett Favre) and are worried about the Backup Regression and drop in Dyna-Dev, you can move which ever player to FB or any position on the O-line, then advance to Pre-season. Once in Pre-season Week 1, move the player back to their original position and they will keep the FB or OL season goal. Why FB or OL you say? Well its because those positions have team dependant goals as oppose to personal stats goals, so all you need to do is hit the Level 2 goal for Rushing Yards or Pass Yards and the backup player will avoid regression.

Update: Example picture attached, here is my backup QB with FB season goals at the QB position in Preseason Week 1.


Update2: There is also a 2nd goal shift when advancing from the preseason to the real season, so you want to get your players into position for Week4 of the preseason. If you aren't a fan of cheesing too much, I suggest backup QBs to OL as there is a chance they'll still get Passing Yards as a goal.


Update3: Hahahahahah, its almost like the developers read this cheesing post...? New patch means season goals now only develop once a player registers as "in a game". So QB3 with FB goals doesn't work properly now, as who wants to get a 12OVR FB in the game?? So, QB3 wont show in team goals until he gets in the game as a QB. It doesn't work for OL either, the player appears as OL in goals, when you shift the player they go blank in Week 1 of team goals until they appear in a game...

However, if this is true, it means that backup players that don't get into a game all year likely wont be affected by regression from season goals, like injured players do (as they arn't listed in the goals section)

[malky]

Quote: Originally Posted by Geodude

Coaching Carousel: So there is a legacy issue that has been in EVERY CFM AND IT REALLY ANNOYS ME!! I've reported it every year and ask in the Dev section if it is ever going to be fixed... but sadly, it has not been fixed in CFM for M17. When a coach is fired or retires in CFM, the owner has to hire a new coach. If the coach is a real life existing coach, when hired, they bring their playbooks and schemes and change all the player archetypes to their types. However, when a CPU generated Coach is hired, they bring their schemes and copy various coaches playbooks. They also move players immediately to suit their scheme (i.e. if changing from a 3-4 to 4-3 move the pass rush LB's to DE and 3-4 DE's to DT). What the new CPU coach doesn't do is change the player archetypes from the previous real coach! Therefore after moving the 3-4 LB to DE the archetype at DE is still a 3-4 Run-stuffer, therefore the Physical, Intangible and Size ratings are all wrong! To counter this, I would advise turning Coach Firing to off. At Wildcard Weekend, if you believe a coach deserves to be fired (bad seasons etc) or retires anyway, create a new character of the coach you want firing and “Demand Release”. You can then either retire the coach un-hired or keep controlling the coach to choose your new destination. Another alternative is to create an owner, fire the coach and hire a new one for yourself, but as soon as you relinquish the owner, they will be locked out of use forever. To avoid this, if a new team hires a CPU coach that changes defensive scheme (and it bugs you), you can create a character for the new coach (change the players back to their original position) and demand release again (has to be before advancing from the Superbowl) and hope the owner hires a 2nd coach with the correct defensive scheme. Even if the team hasn't hired the 2nd coach before Free agency starts, they will still try and sign players according to the previous real coaches archetypes. 2rd Alternative is 32-team control of the coaches, then you can set whatever player archetypes you want and then turn autopilot on. If any of the Developers or Game Changers ever read this, can we please (one day at least) have this patched, it would be so awesome for CPU coaches to set full schemes as it breaks immersion otherwise.

Good stuff! How do you turn auto pilot on?

[Mattanite]

Player Archetypes:

So in previous Maddens, a player starts with an archetype (Speed DE, RZT WR, Power HB etc) but when you moved positions (even from LE to RE etc), the Archetype would reset to whatever had the highest OVR irrelevant of the style of player, so if you moved a 3-4 Versatile DE from RE to LE, if he had slightly better speed, his archetype could change to Speed Rusher, even though he was 300lbs. Annoying for some.

This year, the projected Archetype is shown in the first page of the Edit Player screen, so you know what they would change to before saving any edits, and if you didn't like it then just don't save the changes! Woo I hear you say?

It possibly gets better, it seems if a player had a previously assigned Archetype (i.e. had been set at that position in previous CFMs/Madden) they revert to that Archetype instead of the highest OVR one, e.g. When I moved Scott Crichton for the Vikings from DT to LE, the edit menu said he would become a “Speed Rusher” but when I exited, his player card said “4-3 Run-stuffer” instead, which was his archetype for M16. Amazing!!.... or it is an anomoly where the “edit player archetype” doesn't quite match the requirements of the “OVR archetype”.

There are some anomalies though, for instance, when changing a couple of Power HBs to FB I noticed the edit menu would state “Blocking FB” but the archetype would end up “Runner-receiver” even though that player had never been a FB before so didn't have the preassigned Archetype.

However, this year, thanks to full player editing, if the new Archetype goes funny and you don't like it, you can edit it!!!!! Move the player, save the change, go back to their player card and edit player again and change the archetype. You have to change it after the move as it will revert to highest OVR archetypes whilst editing for the move.