When do I apply Franchise Tag?

[Synge1]

Hello, kinda new to FoF8 and I understand what the tag is but i cannot figure out when/how to apply it?


I get the player plays out his contract and i assume i need to tag him prior to FA but the option is always grayed out?


Thanks for any help...

[Ben E Lou]

You apply the tag right immediately before you start Free Agency (after the Staff Draft).

[Ben E Lou]

To be 100% clear, the menu items available at the time you can apply the tag are "Import Draft", "Set Ticket Prices", and "Begin Free Agency."

[Synge1]

TYVM Ben!

[Auntie Hose]

Okay, none of this works. No player on my roster shows any option to tag them as a franchise player, not on any screen. I finished the staff draft, set ticket prices and...nothing. The advice given here doesn't apply. Could someone please tell me the secret, hidden information for how to apply a franchise tag? What screen is it on?


The moment I click on "Begin Free Agency", a dialogue box pops up and says once free agency has begun you can no longer place the franchise tag on a player or change ticket prices, but the program never gives any option anywhere to tag a player, and of course because it's the 21st century instructions no longer exist. I assume you have to click on "begin Free Agency" and THEN you'll have the option to tag a player but how could I know? There is literally not a single word in the index or anywhere else about WHEN to tag a player and HOW to do it. Or maybe somebody could show me where it is and prove me wrong? I really don't want to start free agency only to find out there was a secret process for tagging a franchise player that I had to complete first so I just lost that option until next season because that secret process isn't described anywhere nor, apparently, is it allowed.

[QuikSand]

The information is on the player card itself. Pull up his card, the fourth button along the bottom should be "Franchise." The secret process is you click this button.

Only usable during the stage you're apparently stuck on, when you are just about to Begin Free Agency. In other stages, it should appear grayed out.

Hope that helps.

[Gallifrey]

The player also needs a number of seasons, I think their 4th year if I remember right. You can't tag a younger player until they reach the required year.

[QuikSand]

Fun cycle. Guy storms in, digs up a years-old thread on an unofficial fan site for a years-old game, shouts at clouds for a while about how the game doesn't work in the way that it clearly does work, demands an immediate response and solution to the problem likely of his own oversight, gets an answer within a few hours, another the next day, but is never heard from again.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Fun cycle. Guy storms in, digs up a years-old thread on an unofficial fan site for a years-old game, shouts at clouds for a while about how the game doesn't work in the way that is clearly does work, demands an immediate response and solution to the problem likely of his own oversight, gets an answer within a few hours, another the next day, but is never heard from again.

You left off "and leaves totally unfair seven-paragraph scathing review of a game that he clearly does not understand."

[Solecismic]

I never know what to do with customers headed down that path. In the end, it's pretty clear he wants a type of game that doesn't really exist - like an RPG for football players with some sort of physics going on underneath rather than a simulation.

It's an interesting concept, but every time a product starts down that path, there are rabbit holes. It could make for a good discussion.

But then you get into the instant Defcon 1 aspect - the rant about an instruction manual when the "F1" message is always visible at the bottom of the game's frame. So now you have to address something that you have covered, but people in rant mode don't respond well to being corrected.

No matter what's said at that point, he'd still be angry that he spent time wanting to franchise a player and it wasn't clear to him how to do it. I use warning-continue pop-ups, even though I hate pop-ups in general, as sparingly as possible. Perhaps I should include more text with this one, but given this is a complaint that's never been expressed to customer service and aside from the OP here (who seemed fine with the answer given), it's never been an issue before.

Sometimes, the Defcon 1 people have a lot to say, and I would value those discussions, but are so used to waging wars that there's no way to have that discussion without leading immediately to war. It's hard to have a good discussion with people who will always lead with "you're an idiot..." So I don't engage and hope that the situation deescalates before war is declared (the review) and there's no hope. You just wish at that point there was a nuke button so that person can't buy any other product of yours on Steam.

Silence is best. It's really always best. In my old age, I find myself nattering about "would-of, could-of" far too much.

One major frustration I think we all have with these games is the chess match built into football's structure. A football coach has a team of people who help him analyze everything an opponent has done and can do, and they boil everything down to a relatively simple game plan every single week. Football coaches do not sleep during the season. During games, another chess match breaks out - you see how your opponent has boiled things down and you have to adjust.

No one wants all of that in a game. You call a play, your opponent calls a play, and mayhem ensues. None of the hundreds of hours of preparation come to the forefront. How much of that preparation should I expose and how much should I leave to the engine to assume?

The book I've re-read the most is Pat Kirwan's "Take Your Eye Off the Ball". It's a great read if you want to understand how strategy is built. Another book I've read, and hated, but it's still a respected framework coaches have to understand and modify for the modern game, is Steve Belichick's (Bill's dad) "Football Scouting Methods". That introduces you to the tedium of coaching - the reason why coaches have so many assistants and interns and scouts out there. A third book I've recently read is Nicholas Dawidoff's "Collision Low Crossers", which takes you through a year with the New York Jets' coaching staff.

In many ways, a coach is an old-fashioned librarian managing an answer desk. A game designer has to decide what questions to ask. And while the customer is always right, the answer is always going to be that the perfect game for each customer cannot exist because each customer is different.

[Gallifrey]

And with all that being said Jim FOF is still the best American football game ever created. The engine is the best.

The only thing missing to make the world a more cozy place to play a football sim is a TCY built off of where FOF ended.

[Solecismic]

Thanks. That's nice of you to say. I wish I still loved college football the way I did 20 years ago. There's nothing like that walk to the stadium on a crisp autumn afternoon. I grew up close enough to Michigan Stadium that when we saw the cars parking in front of our house and could hear the band warming up and helicopters with ad banners circling the area, it was time to head out.

I just don't know what I'd do with the modern game, or what's going to still be part of the game when this transition to professional sport is complete. Maybe I'll love it again then, but I'll probably be too old to start a new project. Already, my brain doesn't do 16 hours of development a day, day after day, any more. This is a young person's profession.

[Gallifrey]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

I wish I still loved college football the way I did 20 years ago.

Interesting in that I made almost that same comment to my dad recently with all the changes that have been going on. The era I grew up in down in Georgia, the 70s and early 80s... college football was pure magic.