Madden Franchise Mode - house rules

[QuikSand]

My son and I have wandered into the world of Franchise on the Madden console game. I know it gets slings and arrows from its critics, and deservedly so, but he's into it and I want to make my time with it more worthwhile.

Will follow my usual FOF path, and do some spitballing here of a specific set of House Rules to employ. I like everything about roster building, but tend to lose interest if/when things get too easy and the roster gets too good just through banal effort rather than serious effort. I am a tough customer.

Anyway, stay tuned.

[QuikSand]

Son and I have started a Panthers career, with a short list of house rules (with reasoning):

-we'll leave $60m in salary cap space either unused, or sunk into a nobody player as a "cap crunch" to make roster building more difficult

-we'll execute no more than one trade per draft cycle (it's just too easy to deal down and accumulate easy value, and then trade all that junk to move up when it suits us)

-any trading of our own players can only be via the trade block - we post a guy, get offer(s), and can accept (too easy to manually build trade-away deals)

-in free agency, no more than 1 offer in stage 1 (the best players), then 2 in stage 2, and 3 in stage 3 (avoiding gathering too much value this way, though this isn't really the way to cheat the game overall)

-when signing free agents mid-season, only can sign player on a team's practice squad, or guys who are PS eligible (too many quality late-career veterans sitting around ready to play)

[QuikSand]

So we did the 2022 draft with a file from online, created to include the actual 2022 draft class. Since my son (9) and I spent a lot of time studying for and mocking and predicting the 2022 draft, it was huge fun to do a Madden rookie draft with all those familiar names and faces. We went in heavy.

Edge rushers Kayvon Thibodeaux (1.3) and Trevon Walker (late 1st) are the stars of the show. Speed freaks WR Tyquan Thornton and CB Tariq Woolen are great-for-Madden with absurd speed/size and no other real skills. Grabbed RB Spiller and S Nick Cross, both of whom have stepped into major roles.

[QuikSand]

Well, mixed bag from that venture.

Initially, the limit on the number of moves made it feel like I wasn't making the team "my own" quickly enough. I bent a little, mostly just to shed real world players and pick up new young players.

That made a huge wave of payers mostly on the same contract cycle, so that was a real thing. The 22 draft really dominated the team (Thibodeaux became a superstar, several others major contributors) and they all came up for extensions together, etc. So, that felt a little too regimented.

That said, the difficulty level seemed about right. I won my first title after the 2031 season, but it was behind a team that only sneaked into the playoffs with a week 17 win to grab a wild card at 9-8. No bye weeks, no dominant seasons (12+ wins) through that point - a solid playoff contender, but not a force of nature.

In 2032, we faced a couple tough re-signing decisions on older players, but put together a really nice 14-3 season, our best. And it felt like we were peaking just in time, as Thibodeaux was coming up for a new deal, and our star QB was just a year behind, and affording those two was going to be awful.

Then, the game crashed on me, and the career is no longer accessible. Game over, I guess.



So... the set of rules seems about right for me. I'm a bit fearful about it becoming too "skill player focused" for button mashing advantages, but... i reckon I will play again. Maybe soon, maybe later in M23, where there are some new advances in the franchise mode being introduced. I'm keeping hopes tamped down, but it would be nice for this part of the game to get at least a little bit of TLC.

[NobodyHere]

Have you tried the Browns house rules? Trade all your draft picks for Deshaun Watson and sit him for at least half a year.

Also make sure you get the advice of a homeless person person before making any future draft decision.

[QuikSand]

Boy pushed us to restart. Seattle now, with the built-in "no 2022 1st rounder" that nerfs the first year sell-off/tank mechanic.

Anyway, a few years in, using basically the same rules. Mostly cleaned house for draft picks, drafted deep in 2022 and 2023 and then have followed my FA/trade rules since then, plus the $60m cap hit as a penalty. Having trouble spending money with my rules, to be honest, it's a bit less than exciting... other than remarkably getting QB Lamar Jackson wayyyy under market rate. But the roster is building... feels a lot like my old FOF "empty cupboard" careers. Now many players are creeping upward from decent to good to very good and the team is catching up with the field along with them.

[QuikSand]

So, final analysis on Lamar is: probably hurt us in the long run. Turned some terrible too-young teams into semi-competitive teams, so depleted our draft capital through the building years.

My Hawks win it all in 2033 after we dealt Lamar in his final contract year. I had decided to go in with a very young no-good QB as a stealth house rule, but the boy found a super-duper-fast QB and we went for him... basically I'll consider it my last hurrah for the "Escape Artist" skill being neutered in next year's game. I'm 10-0 in 2034 behind the young QB in his year 3, but will be shedding talent for the second straight season due to the cap limits.

I might be close to the right level of difficulty. I'm hoping that when this young QB wants $40m I end up completely at a loss on whether I want him, or the star-caliber CB+DT+RT that we could buy with the same cap space.

[QuikSand]

Just had to make the call with our young, brilliant, scrambling superstar QB. Decided to re-up his contract at about 46m/yr... that on top of a $60 house rules cap hit each season will make the budget super super tight for the years ahead. I'm just leaking decent talent everywhere as I let quality players depart.

The team has been solid, but only one title in hand - last three seasons have been one-and-out in the playoffs, maybe that's the thin roster showing (OL quality stinks, pass rush is tepid) or maybe it's just a bit of bad luck.

Anyway... playing all out within the rules, and it's challenging. That's more or less what I want from a game like this. Madden 23 drops in a week or so, and once I return from some out of town stuff, I expect to switch gears and get back to the Ultimate Team game primarily, but I'll keep the franchise mode afloat for another spin when time permits it.