Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

[MLB14]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

Interesting. Can you share where you are getting this data from?

You know what the word guess means?

[speels]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

So many people on both sides have put together so very well thought out posts only to ruin it by throwing in a degrading statement right at the end in order to get their shot in.

Guys, leave the stupid crap out of your posts like “so people can whine and complain all they want” and your entire point will be taken more seriously. The second you throw out your degrading statement, the rest of your post pretty much becomes null.

You're right, I have deleted that part now. There really was no reason for it, just frustrated I guess. Thanks for calling me out.

[speels]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

I brought it up in one of the MTO threads and it was pretty much dismissed as nonsense by the hardcore, 162 game, custom roster players.

I can't see a ton of people carrying over their saves and giving it a try but I can see others doing so. Maybe I will be one.

I just look at the possibilities. It just gives users a way to try franchise mode without tying them down to the long haul. Also, I may be able to bring a championship to my Blue Jays before 2025.

[bigwill33]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

I think another big and underlying issue these days is not only the lack of attention franchise mode receives in updates, but the way SDS has changed in regard to telling us things. I know a lot of people still feel spurned from recent developments in which modes were removed and kept a secret until just before launch.

Quite simply, a lot of vitriol could be avoided if the studio was more transparent, like they were in the past. How many times do these very forums break into two factions of users where one side fights about having hope and waiting to see what’s in the franchise stream before being upset, versus another side who reads the tea leaves and can infer there will be no news, again?

The wedge dividing people on here isn’t all of our doing, sadly. A lot of this could be avoided. And while a lot of us do need to grow up, or come off from our condescending attitudes, the studio and it’s employees need to stop leading it’s customers on or keeping them in the dark. All of these promos and quick videos that are aligned with sites that are just pure advertising (GameStop Monday’s, IGN sitdowns) that constantly throw DD at the audience and suggest to preorder for those DD bonsuses are a slap in the proverbial face of the rest of the consumers that are waiting for word on how near nothing was done to their favorite mode, again.

People are upset that the developers have gone from focusing on the little things and franchise or season mode updates with entire streams or threads of interaction dedicated to these things, to having the rugs being pulled out from them and having things being removed. Or waiting until 2-3 weeks before release to mention there was not much, if anything done to a major mode.

There’s no excuse to take personal shots at developers or make crazy and uneducated claims of laziness etc. But there also can’t be bending over backwards to accept things for what they are if you’re dissatisfied with a product. Just remember, a lot of fine lines need to be walked in order to be productive in criticizing and have your message be received and respected.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

I just look at the possibilities. It just gives users a way to try franchise mode without tying them down to the long haul. Also, I may be able to bring a championship to my Blue Jays before 2025.

How does it do that, though? Once you're done with MtO, and you elect to begin a Franchise Mode with that team, you are immediately thrown into the "long haul" scenario. It's not like the MtO experience continues for multiple seasons.

And MtO itself is an even lighter than light "Franchise" experience...I mean, no injuries, only one curated trade allowed, no minor league rosters to manage, scouting to perform, training to set up, etc.

So MtO goes from "Franchise Lite-Lite" to the "cumbersome" (dev's word, not mine) full-on Franchise mode. I get why they are doing it, but I really don't know how the "casual" gamer will enjoy that jump from MtO to Franchise.

[RogerDodger]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

The dev's dont interact here anymore because they've largely abandoned the mode that 95% of us use for almost 5 iterations now.

They are not stupid. They know we are a franchise community. Why consistently post on a forum looking for feedback when they know what we want. If we were a DD focused forum they'd be here all the time. Not to mention in the last 5 years there social media presence has taken over as the main form of communication.

You just seem to always defend SDS like you are Leonidas of the Spartans. It's in near every thread. Constructive criticism is okay. After all we are here to talk about the game. Not to please the devs so they can comment on a post once a week.

Take it easy on countryboy. He doesn’t need me to speak up for him but he’s been here every day for the 365 days since last years game was released, by far one of the most knowledgable and enthusiastic contributors on here.

[BA2929]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

But franchise mode took some significant steps forward this year. For the first time ever, contracts for active MLB players will now have accurate average annual values (AAV). Back-loading and front-loading contracts, as well as midseason contract extensions, are now a reality. For the user pleading for a more immersive GM experience, these are massive steps forward to bring an even truer simulation experience to franchise mode..

This is what I've been talking about in other threads. This isn't a significant feature or a significant step. This is something that should have just been added and barely even mentioned. Instead, we're told that fixing contracts so that they have correct AAV, and being able to frontload and backload them (something we've been able to do in NBA 2k's franchise for years), is the big *NEW* thing for franchise. That's literally the only thing that's mentioned to be new in this entire article, so I'm just going to assume that outside of that the mode is 100% unchanged (besides new graphics, sound stuff and Heidi Watney, all of which I don't count as being "new features"). That means, to me personally, that there wasn't enough done to franchise to warrant me paying attention. In my opinion, franchise has been stale and boring for quite some time now because it's essentially been the same unchanged mode for this entire generation, and correct contract AAV and giving Mike Trout a massively backloaded deal isn't going to fix that. Give me relocation. Give me stadium creation. Give me expansion. If some people don't want to use that, then they don't have to use it but the rest of us can.



I do appreciate the hard work from the people who make this game, I really do, but for the past few years their hard work has been on things I do not care about as a baseball fan and a gamer, and thus I haven't spent money on the game in a few years and that will unfortunately not change this year.


I'm not one of those people that continues to visit a forum and post when I've decided I'm not buying a game or don't like it, so see you guys in February of 2020!

[kehlis]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

You know what the word guess means?

I guess so.

[ChaseB]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

Probably true at the end of the season but isn't the way they staggered the immortals and position players pretty much a guarantee that you will wind up having to duplicate some grinds that you may have already done?


It's an honest question. I don't even attempt the grinds when they look as daunting as this past years immortals did.

I think the other part that makes it tricky is that as I'm doing the Immortal programs, I'm also doing tons of other programs or missions etc. So it's not a 1 to 1 comparison for how my time is being invested, while in franchise it's all going directly to that one purpose. I give The Show a lot of credit for being able to multitask in a single game -- it's one reason why not having multiple DD lineups before this season was a pain in the arse -- and so now carrying that over to other modes I really like. I'm not usually a checklist kind of gamer who wants to knock out things just because they exist in a list -- I need more motivation than that -- but getting to do a ton of things at once and scratch off a lot of boxes on that checklist does at least turn me into that a bit more.

I'm worried if March to October is part of a bigger franchise picture. It sounds to me like it would lead to more scripted, story-telling franchise mode without customization and dynamic changes.

This is a good way to frame a concern I think. You're using an element that's been shown to extrapolate something further down the line. I don't think I 100% agree with this concern in that I think a new way of framing a mode doesn't mean the old stuff goes away, but if the thought is more focus is on storyline stuff than OOTP-style stuff down the line, then yeah I get that. When I worked at EA, we had tons of things pointing to how long people played franchises -- which can be chicken/egg arguments because is it the mode or is it just how people play -- but a very high number of peeps played just a single season. It's been a couple years now since I've been there so things could have changed, but I've personally always been more a believer in making that one full season awesome for the player rather than making a perfect sim engine if I have to choose. But, again, I think there is room for both in that you can have a sound OOTP base, but then trick it out with cool linear or branching stuff for that first year. They're not mutually exclusive and obviously they're tuned and designed completely differently.

I agree mostly with your post but like I said you have to call a spade a spade. I was very specific in my post. I wasn't venting (perhaps others were), and I don't toss any criticism at SDS lightly. And if SDS looks at the history of my posts, it will know that. I was addressing this thread and that specific article only. We are rightly asked on this forum to choose our words carefully. I try to do that. If Nick is going to speak for SDS (and I know he knows this) he should too. You have to ask why give an interview whose questions focused primarily on franchise..there had to be a reason for it? Now Woodweaver (whom I respect greatly as a developer and has done an amazing job with gameplay) liked your post so perhaps he (or Nick) can explain where I have gone wrong in my interpretation of Nick's quotes.

I wasn't pointing out your post to call you out as some villain, I'm just saying looking for motives and stuff just isn't worthy of much time because you're not going to get answers or responses from those involved on the whole. It's a no-win situation. You do it again in this post, which is your call, but I'm just saying it's speculation that will go nowhere. Plus, I don't think it really matters here because we're trying to talk about games and how they're doing more than why a person chose to talk about something.

[RogerDodger]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

One of the most frequent requests on here is for create a stadium. I think most of us accept that’s a huge undertaking but where I think SDS could meet us halfway - a goodwill gesture if you like - is allow us some level of customisation to the ballparks. Give us some ribbon board options so it feels a bit different from game to game. A graphics package for the video board so we’re not seeing the same home run, strikeout, etc. graphics. Pick a logo behind home plate or down the foul lines. Have a bobble head or shirt promotion that is advertised around the ballpark and as part of the broadcast presentation they show the bobble head in between innings.

And in the case of the fictional minor league ballparks,make some upgrades. Add seating in the outfield, add a better video screen or scoreboard, etc. Being fictional there’s obviously more scope to customise them.

I’m just throwing around some ideas where I think SDS could make improvements with largely very little work that would at least make an improvement.

[CujoMatty]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

I am pretty surprised they didn't mention that in the interview, or any suggestion that some of the things implemented for Mto might make their way into franchise. They didn't really mention it in the streams either, which again was surprising. I really thought they'd at least try and sell it as a gateway to franchise but they more sort of just mentioned you could go onto a franchise at the and then just moved on without any real attempt to sell people on the idea.

It seemed like a missed opportunity tbh

I think MTO sounds cool and I’m looking forward to trying it but it can’t be spun in anyway to make me feel better about franchise. Partly because we were told that MTOs mere existence is why franchise didn’t get a substantial overhaul. Kinda makes me a little mad at MTO to be honest lol. But the biggest reason why it can’t be spun to me is because quicker ways to get through a franchise isn’t really what most of the people who play franchise are really looking for.

So as it’s own mode I think it’s great. The more modes the better there’s just no way it can be spun to make me feel better about the direction we are headed.

I like franchise and I’m ok with how it is now. It really is what it is. It just sucks to know that they really are headed in the opposite direction of where I would like to go. They really seem determined to figure out how to get more people to play franchise while I wish they would focus more on the ones that already play it. Maybe that’s a necessity. I dunno I’ll leave it up to smarter people than me to decide. It just sucks that it seems like the main belief at SDS to bring more gamers into franchise is by speeding it up.

[Dolenz]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

This isn't a significant feature or a significant step. This is something that should have just been added and barely even mentioned.

To be fair, it seems like this addition isn't that significant from a player standpoint, but working in IT for 30 years I have learned that just because something seems like it should be easy to implement does not mean that it actually is easy.

Maybe it took a week. Maybe it took months. We as the players will never know for sure.

[Archie56]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

One of the most frequent requests on here is for create a stadium. I think most of us accept that’s a huge undertaking but where I think SDS could meet us halfway - a goodwill gesture if you like - is allow us some level of customisation to the ballparks. Give us some ribbon board options so it feels a bit different from game to game. A graphics package for the video board so we’re not seeing the same home run, strikeout, etc. graphics. Pick a logo behind home plate or down the foul lines. Have a bobble head or shirt promotion that is advertised around the ballpark and as part of the broadcast presentation they show the bobble head in between innings.

And in the case of the fictional minor league ballparks,make some upgrades. Add seating in the outfield, add a better video screen or scoreboard, etc. Being fictional there’s obviously more scope to customise them.

I’m just throwing around some ideas where I think SDS could make improvements with largely very little work that would at least make an improvement.

I've never thought about customizing the actual stadium scoreboards and ribbon boards to tailor it to our liking. I really like that idea actually. It would definitely make things feel more unique

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Jeffrey Smith]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

I've never thought about customizing the actual stadium scoreboards and ribbon boards to tailor it to our liking. I really like that idea actually. It would definitely make things feel more unique

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Coming in MLB The Show 20. Stadium Program. Unlock all your stadium customized ribbon boards with all new Stadium Packs available as DD rewards!!!!

Hahaha!


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[speels]

Re: Franchise Mode is Piece of a Bigger Picture Says San Diego Studios

How does it do that, though? Once you're done with MtO, and you elect to begin a Franchise Mode with that team, you are immediately thrown into the "long haul" scenario. It's not like the MtO experience continues for multiple seasons.

And MtO itself is an even lighter than light "Franchise" experience...I mean, no injuries, only one curated trade allowed, no minor league rosters to manage, scouting to perform, training to set up, etc.

So MtO goes from "Franchise Lite-Lite" to the "cumbersome" (dev's word, not mine) full-on Franchise mode. I get why they are doing it, but I really don't know how the "casual" gamer will enjoy that jump from MtO to Franchise.

Right, but remember we are talking about new players to the "franchise" way of playing. So not having injuries means they get to play with their favorite players for the season. I mean who hasn't been peeved to see your best player go down for an extended period of time. Hardcore franchise guys see it as an opportunity to bring up a rookie to give him a shot or trade for someone who can help this season, but the majority of players that they may be trying to attract to franchise just want to be able to play with Bryce Harper all season.

Since there are no injuries the minors become irrelevant, again the people that are perhaps trying this for the first time might not want that concern. Same with scouting, training, etc.

I am not saying this will for sure get more people involved in franchise, but it can't hurt.