OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

[tessl]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

Uhhh, this thread is three days old, what did you expect to happen in that time? I was actually excited to see this thread when I logged on today. I agree with a lot of the posts on here. I would gladly pay more for the game in order to get some new features implemented in franchise mode, but these things take time, a lot of time.

Personally, I would like to see scouting, drafting, progression, and regression get some attention. They could have sliders for draft class quality, progression, and regression, and better presentation for the draft for starters.

I've quit making "official" suggestions because mine are ignored but I have seen other suggestions implemented. Last year under bug reports there was an option to make a suggestion. I took a quick look at the bug report format and it appears they have changed it this year. They also usually at some point have a "wish list" on this forum. Who knows, maybe they will implement your suggestions.

One obvious change in franchise is how they handle a player's contract when he is called up to the majors. IRL a milb player's salary increases to the MLB minimum when he is called up but in the show if his salary is 80K in milb it remains 80K when he is called up. The reason it is a problem is twofold. First his morale declines due to low salary. Second, morale impacts performance and progression is based on performance so his progression may be negatively impacted. I submitted a bug/suggestion last year but it was never changed.

[AC]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

The draft, scouting, and development (so young players, generally) are the biggest flaws in my mind. If the game had those on point I probably wouldn't care about any of the other flaws.

Scouting/Draft

-How do you run out of prospects in the middle of the 7th round? Like, is it not reasonable that every team at least draft the same number of prospects?The real draft is 50 rounds long. I know we aren't working with various low-minors levels here, but I think even 10 full rounds would be fine.
-Taking high potential 18 year olds isn't supposed to be easy. They are supposed to want to go to college and you should have to pay them. there's no real draft budget.
-I don't even KNOW who's going into the draft half of the time. I discover an amazing 70/80 SP and he doesn't even end up in the draft for 2 years and I have no way of knowing. This is annoying if I'm deciding between two free agents, one of whom requires draft pick compensation.
-There isn't enough time. You have 2 months to discover players from 20 different pools and scout enough players to have a good draft while also not knowing who will be in the draft. Discovery should take place in June-March; scouting should be done April-May.
-Kind of annoying that you can't do anything with prospects until the following offseason but maybe that's a roster size/CPU logic thing.
-There are never really any prospects with character. I've never even seen a clear-cut #1 draft pick, honestly. I also see the difficulties with confining generated players to archetypes and things getting too boring, though.
-There need to be WAY fewer reliever and first base prospects. These are both very, very rare in real life, and are almost never taken exceptionally high. The reason being...

Player Development

-Changing position. Right now, there's no real way to realistically swap positions. I like OOTP's lassez-faire approach of having a primary position but not really sticking to it, going more so by "experience" at the position. Switching a starter to a reliever should be about a 17% bump in talent; an SS to a 3B should see a fielding bump; a catcher to an OF should see a hitting bump. It would be nice to have a somewhat hands-on interface to switching positions.
-Is it just me, or are there no more "Stock is rising" emails? I don't check that too frequently so I might've missed those. I think they've greatly improved the randomness of development this year and i enjoy seeing guys develop beyond their potential or bust. For future improvement, 2k has a nice peak start/end idea.
-Coaching should probably play a role in development somehow. Coaches are kind of figureheads in this game. It'd be nice to have an expanded coaching system and having better coaches suggest better development paths (promotions, adjustments, training focuses, etc).
-Player quirks opens an interesting path again similar to OOTP and 2k. Having hard-worker or lazy badges could be interesting in affecting development.


I'm enjoying the mode a lot this year and I think the devs have done great work. But it'd be nice to see whichever of these are actually feasible implemented. Baseball's prospects are entirely unique from other sports, and it's part of what makes the sport so fun. I think more attention needs to be paid to it than trying to pander to less hands-on players with things like critical moments as, while I'm enjoying it a ton, I think automation is more likely to help sim players than to bring in new players. Franchise has a niche target audience (that I'm sure would pay if there was real DLC). It's a hard sell to a casual player that they should manage every aspect of a team (and potentially 29 others), as even the automated logic is more of a last resort than it is a good manager of a team.

[Speedy]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

I've quit making "official" suggestions because mine are ignored but I have seen other suggestions implemented.

If your suggestions aren't being heard or used yet, don't let that stop you!

tnixen is a good example on this forum...always has little ideas things to fix and sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.

[tessl]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

If your suggestions aren't being heard or used yet, don't let that stop you!

tnixen is a good example on this forum...always has little ideas things to fix and sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.

Right, but at some point after years of trying I feel like a fool for wasting my time.

[kric9132]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

They focus more on RTTS and DD. According to them there the most popular, but I wish they would spend a lil more time on franchise mode. I would say it's still the #1 sports game but they can never compare to Madden' s franchise mode.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Operation Sports mobile app

[Speedy]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

Right, but at some point after years of trying I feel like a fool for wasting my time.

I think we have to keep trying.

I like Bill's overall theme of the thread and what somebody over at the 2K forum suggested...a collaborative wishlist thread from OS: 10 things we as a community would like to see implemented either as a new feature or fixed current feature.

[335TDC]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

I think we have to keep trying.

I like Bill's overall theme of the thread and what somebody over at the 2K forum suggested...a collaborative wishlist thread from OS: 10 things we as a community would like to see implemented either as a new feature or fixed current feature.

If OS could sticky a thread like that, assign someone as a point person to be responsible for updating the main page, and "guarantee" that SDS would look at it and provide at least SOME feedback...

...lots of us would volunteer our time and ideas.

But would that actually happen? I'd volunteer to write the list, in order of priority, and use feedback from OSers to update by majority-rule.

Honestly, though, how many years have we had the same crap prospects, the same crap scouting, the same stripped-down financial system?

[bcruise]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

If OS could sticky a thread like that, assign someone as a point person to be responsible for updating the main page, and "guarantee" that SDS would look at it and provide at least SOME feedback...

...lots of us would volunteer our time and ideas.

But would that actually happen? I'd volunteer to write the list, in order of priority, and use feedback from OSers to update by majority-rule.

Honestly, though, how many years have we had the same crap prospects, the same crap scouting, the same stripped-down financial system?

OS cannot guarantee the devs will look at anything - they are not obligated to be here or to interact with us. Nothing OS can do will change that.

That said, they've said many times (and even provided pictures pre-release) that they read the forum constantly - they just don't post here very much.

[335TDC]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

OS cannot guarantee the devs will look at anything - they are not obligated to be here or to interact with us. Nothing OS can do will change that.

That said, they've said many times (and even provided pictures pre-release) that they read the forum constantly - they just don't post here very much.

Yes, I know that. Hence the quotes, right?

[Caulfield]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

They focus more on RTTS and DD. According to them there the most popular, but I wish they would spend a lil more time on franchise mode. I would say it's still the #1 sports game but they can never compare to Madden' s franchise mode.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Operation Sports mobile app

I wonder if that has to do with the Show having to deal with over a thousand players more than Madden. And part of that problem is that extra 1000 players still is less than what there is in MLB's real life farm systems.
I think if SDS focused only on MLB and didnt have to factor in a partial and incompete minors, theres no doubt in my mind they would easily surpass anything football or basketball or hockey video games offer. I dont know about soccer. I havent really played soccer on playstation in years.

[tessl]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

The draft, scouting, and development (so young players, generally) are the biggest flaws in my mind. If the game had those on point I probably wouldn't care about any of the other flaws.

Scouting/Draft

-How do you run out of prospects in the middle of the 7th round? Like, is it not reasonable that every team at least draft the same number of prospects?The real draft is 50 rounds long. I know we aren't working with various low-minors levels here, but I think even 10 full rounds would be fine.
-Taking high potential 18 year olds isn't supposed to be easy. They are supposed to want to go to college and you should have to pay them. there's no real draft budget.
-I don't even KNOW who's going into the draft half of the time. I discover an amazing 70/80 SP and he doesn't even end up in the draft for 2 years and I have no way of knowing. This is annoying if I'm deciding between two free agents, one of whom requires draft pick compensation.
-There isn't enough time. You have 2 months to discover players from 20 different pools and scout enough players to have a good draft while also not knowing who will be in the draft. Discovery should take place in June-March; scouting should be done April-May.
-Kind of annoying that you can't do anything with prospects until the following offseason but maybe that's a roster size/CPU logic thing.
-There are never really any prospects with character. I've never even seen a clear-cut #1 draft pick, honestly. I also see the difficulties with confining generated players to archetypes and things getting too boring, though.
-There need to be WAY fewer reliever and first base prospects. These are both very, very rare in real life, and are almost never taken exceptionally high. The reason being...

Player Development

-Changing position. Right now, there's no real way to realistically swap positions. I like OOTP's lassez-faire approach of having a primary position but not really sticking to it, going more so by "experience" at the position. Switching a starter to a reliever should be about a 17% bump in talent; an SS to a 3B should see a fielding bump; a catcher to an OF should see a hitting bump. It would be nice to have a somewhat hands-on interface to switching positions.
-Is it just me, or are there no more "Stock is rising" emails? I don't check that too frequently so I might've missed those. I think they've greatly improved the randomness of development this year and i enjoy seeing guys develop beyond their potential or bust. For future improvement, 2k has a nice peak start/end idea.
-Coaching should probably play a role in development somehow. Coaches are kind of figureheads in this game. It'd be nice to have an expanded coaching system and having better coaches suggest better development paths (promotions, adjustments, training focuses, etc).
-Player quirks opens an interesting path again similar to OOTP and 2k. Having hard-worker or lazy badges could be interesting in affecting development.


I'm enjoying the mode a lot this year and I think the devs have done great work. But it'd be nice to see whichever of these are actually feasible implemented. Baseball's prospects are entirely unique from other sports, and it's part of what makes the sport so fun. I think more attention needs to be paid to it than trying to pander to less hands-on players with things like critical moments as, while I'm enjoying it a ton, I think automation is more likely to help sim players than to bring in new players. Franchise has a niche target audience (that I'm sure would pay if there was real DLC). It's a hard sell to a casual player that they should manage every aspect of a team (and potentially 29 others), as even the automated logic is more of a last resort than it is a good manager of a team.

I'm reminded of the sight gag where a guy flips a modern art painting upside down and it looks better. I don't sim any games. What great improvements are there to franchise mode? I've played 20 games in manage mode and 15 were 1 run games or tied after 9 innings. Of the remaining 5 games 4 were 2 run games. 19 of 20 games were won by 2 runs or less after 9 innings. Several balls which used to land fair curve foul every game. I attended my first baseball game in 1968 - Roger Maris got the game winning hit - and I've never seen balls curve foul like this in 50 years of watching baseball.

Sorry - just my opinion - I don't see the great improvements.

[nomo17k]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

OS cannot guarantee the devs will look at anything - they are not obligated to be here or to interact with us. Nothing OS can do will change that.

That said, they've said many times (and even provided pictures pre-release) that they read the forum constantly - they just don't post here very much.

I'd also mention that the OS has had (at least in the past) what I consider is a fairly decent (and fortunate) venue for directly reporting game concerns to the developers by means of community events.

I think for some reason some people here have a misconception that all these "CD guys" who attend the events are just there to push their "personal agenda" and nothing else, but in my observation participating the events a couple of times myself, they do spend a lot of work addressing community concerns (I've seen people like thaSlab and Knight literally gather an itemized list to ensure community concerns are reported, directly to the devs). I don't know how the dynamics has changed after their marketing efforts appear to have shifted more toward appealing to the gamer crowd in social networks (as opposed to franchise nerds on OS), but I'd be very surprised constructive discussions on OS would be left ignored after all these years of good relationship between the community here and SDS.

As to the original point of the thread, I think there is always a desire to improve franchise mode... after all that's as fully-blown simulation of a professional sport as it can be. I think it comes down to prioritization (based on what the user base appears to want out of the game) and constraints that they have to work with.

Even those new features to quicken franchise experience this year (critical moment, quick manage, etc.)... I think a lot of people here might interpret them as "dumbing down" of fully authentic franchise experience... but that is still an effort to attract more users to play the mode. If franchise mode isn't getting attention because of a smaller user base, it still doesn't hurt to add some mechanisms in how the mode can be played, to see if more users get attracted to the mode if it doesn't require so much time/learning curve.

I wouldn't want the fully extended experience to be taken away (like it somewhat got done on RTTS in the process of quickening the mode), but it might be that the devs' focus might have been more on accessibility to re-evaluate where the next batch of "love" should be put in.

[consecutive27]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

The draft, scouting, and development (so young players, generally) are the biggest flaws in my mind. If the game had those on point I probably wouldn't care about any of the other flaws.

Scouting/Draft

-How do you run out of prospects in the middle of the 7th round? Like, is it not reasonable that every team at least draft the same number of prospects?The real draft is 50 rounds long. I know we aren't working with various low-minors levels here, but I think even 10 full rounds would be fine.
-Taking high potential 18 year olds isn't supposed to be easy. They are supposed to want to go to college and you should have to pay them. there's no real draft budget.
-I don't even KNOW who's going into the draft half of the time. I discover an amazing 70/80 SP and he doesn't even end up in the draft for 2 years and I have no way of knowing. This is annoying if I'm deciding between two free agents, one of whom requires draft pick compensation.
-There isn't enough time. You have 2 months to discover players from 20 different pools and scout enough players to have a good draft while also not knowing who will be in the draft. Discovery should take place in June-March; scouting should be done April-May.
-Kind of annoying that you can't do anything with prospects until the following offseason but maybe that's a roster size/CPU logic thing.
-There are never really any prospects with character. I've never even seen a clear-cut #1 draft pick, honestly. I also see the difficulties with confining generated players to archetypes and things getting too boring, though.
-There need to be WAY fewer reliever and first base prospects. These are both very, very rare in real life, and are almost never taken exceptionally high. The reason being...

Player Development

-Changing position. Right now, there's no real way to realistically swap positions. I like OOTP's lassez-faire approach of having a primary position but not really sticking to it, going more so by "experience" at the position. Switching a starter to a reliever should be about a 17% bump in talent; an SS to a 3B should see a fielding bump; a catcher to an OF should see a hitting bump. It would be nice to have a somewhat hands-on interface to switching positions.
-Is it just me, or are there no more "Stock is rising" emails? I don't check that too frequently so I might've missed those. I think they've greatly improved the randomness of development this year and i enjoy seeing guys develop beyond their potential or bust. For future improvement, 2k has a nice peak start/end idea.
-Coaching should probably play a role in development somehow. Coaches are kind of figureheads in this game. It'd be nice to have an expanded coaching system and having better coaches suggest better development paths (promotions, adjustments, training focuses, etc).
-Player quirks opens an interesting path again similar to OOTP and 2k. Having hard-worker or lazy badges could be interesting in affecting development.


I'm enjoying the mode a lot this year and I think the devs have done great work. But it'd be nice to see whichever of these are actually feasible implemented. Baseball's prospects are entirely unique from other sports, and it's part of what makes the sport so fun. I think more attention needs to be paid to it than trying to pander to less hands-on players with things like critical moments as, while I'm enjoying it a ton, I think automation is more likely to help sim players than to bring in new players. Franchise has a niche target audience (that I'm sure would pay if there was real DLC). It's a hard sell to a casual player that they should manage every aspect of a team (and potentially 29 others), as even the automated logic is more of a last resort than it is a good manager of a team.

Yes! This is good stuff, especially the scouting aspect. You can switch positions using player edit, but it would be cool if there were a process for it. I move guys based on secondary positions and moving to a similar position but further down the defensive spectrum. More interaction and influence from the coaches would be great too. Some of the changes we are talking about here would be great for multi-season franchises, and having carry over saves should mean more players getting deeper into their franchise.

[Caulfield]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

I'm enjoying the mode a lot this year and I think the devs have done great work.

What great improvements are there to franchise mode?
Sorry - just my opinion - I don't see the great improvements.

theres no doubt they did great work, but they did great work in past years too
whatever improvements quirks bring is minimal not great.
the great improvement to franchise is the by product of great visual improvements not in gameplay or franchise-only features. now if a future patch can slightly tweak ball physics, that will probably be the great improvement from last year. still having said all that, Show 17 has great work, just not great improvement.

[AC]

Re: OS community: How can we improve Franchise Mode?

I'm reminded of the sight gag where a guy flips a modern art painting upside down and it looks better. I don't sim any games. What great improvements are there to franchise mode? I've played 20 games in manage mode and 15 were 1 run games or tied after 9 innings. Of the remaining 5 games 4 were 2 run games. 19 of 20 games were won by 2 runs or less after 9 innings. Several balls which used to land fair curve foul every game. I attended my first baseball game in 1968 - Roger Maris got the game winning hit - and I've never seen balls curve foul like this in 50 years of watching baseball.

Sorry - just my opinion - I don't see the great improvements.

What you are describing is a normal distribution. As you can see, this is fairly typical. Unfortunately I only had time to include 2016. Calculated as home runs - away runs, so from the home team's perspective (meaning maybe a slight home team advantage).



You cannot criticize the devs when, having played just a sample of 20 games (less than an eighth of the season not nearly a big enough sample to draw any meaningful conclusions from), your score distribution is slightly more narrow than what happened in real life last year.

I'm not in any position to comment on your ball physics argument, but I've personally enjoyed them this year. That's neither here nor there, though. This is for Franchise mode.

Critical moments are a welcome addition. Free agent logic has gotten better, with contract demands beginning to line up to value somewhat. Prospect progression has gotten infinitely more realistic, even if it's not entirely hands-on. CPU teams don't draft quite as stupidly. It's enough to take it from, i dunno, a 7 to a 7.5 for me. But that 5% boost is still more work than anyone will ever give them credit for. It's okay to recognize their contributions while also giving feedback on what can be improved.

Yes! This is good stuff, especially the scouting aspect. You can switch positions using player edit, but it would be cool if there were a process for it. I move guys based on secondary positions and moving to a similar position but further down the defensive spectrum. More interaction and influence from the coaches would be great too. Some of the changes we are talking about here would be great for multi-season franchises, and having carry over saves should mean more players getting deeper into their franchise.

Yeah I know you can use player edit but that ruins it for me too.


Another nitpick is award voting. This is literally the worst I've ever seen it and Bill James has actual algorithms for these that are great every year! I ran an Angels franchise and it got so old so fast seeing Joey Gallo's .240/40 with 2 WAR win over Mike Trout's .330/.425/.650, 30/20, 10 WAR years for me. Honestly just stopped checking them.

But that's a huge nitpick. Not like real life is any better