Let's face it, the game is beautiful. The graphics are on-point, the players look great for the most part, the create-a-player feature has more or less everything you could ask for, but there is one thing lagging behind: Franchise Mode. It's gotten a little dusty as other features like Diamond Dynasty, March to October, Moments, and other features have gotten a lot of love. I think OSFM shows how big of a deal Franchise mode is to the fans of this game, and I really hope that 2021 is the year that they put most of the energy into upgrading it because as much as I enjoy it, we could really use a facelift in that department.
It would be awesome if we could pool our ideas together and get SDS's attention on a few things that I think are very attainable that could really make big strides in playability and uniqueness that we all crave.
1) Larger Rosters - OSFM is a perfect example of the constant struggle to get all of the "top prospects" but also the organizational filler guys onto one 90-Man Roster. We've all chosen to bump out Low-A guy we like into Double-A because we want to be able to either play as that player or at the least get stats for that player over the course of a franchise.
I think having a 120-Man roster would be the best way to go with full playable 26-Man rosters for MLB, AAA, and AA as we already have, and then a 26-Man unplayable league for Single-A that would combine the best of your High-A and Low-A potential prospects that is sim-only, with a 16-Man "Rookie League" option that doesn't even sim, it just holds players like a vault that may graduate into Low-A the following year.
I'd even be willing to drop AA as playable to get that feature.
2) Better Free Agency - The logic for Free Agency is a little bit of a mess and I think it could really use an overhaul. My suggestion would be that as part of your end-of-the-season clean-up, you have to choose an "Agenda" for the teams that you're controlling and then the CPU would choose an "Agenda" for the teams that you're not. They would base this information off of where they finished in relation to the other teams in their league and division, the productivity of each position, what their farm system looks like, and what their reputation/budget looks like.
The Agendas would be tier based.
So maybe something like: "Making A Splash": and they're going to go after one or two of the 90+ OVR free agents. "In The Hunt" and that team is in on guys in the 80+ OVR range. "Retooling" and that team is looking to build around the edges of their major league roster to slightly improve on the previous season and may only add someone in the 75+ OVR. "Value Shopping" and that team is only going to be interested in guys who at say 75 OVR or under.
Just something that will make it clear that Mookie Betts isn't going to be signing with the Royals or something like that and create some consistency to the way these teams approach their offseasons.
3) Contract Terms - We all have this issue, don't we? Someone super valuable that would sign a 10-15M/yr multi-year deal is willing to take a one-year deal worth like $2M. Or a younger player is furious he's making renewable or arbitration numbers because some young player who signed a mega deal has kinked up the expectations in morale. This has been improved upon a ton already for younger guys, and that's great, but the veteran guys are still lagging behind on this one.
4) International Free Agents - I would kill to have NPB and KBO players posted each offseason in MLB the Show. Maybe like a tab or an "seasonal event" that has 10 players that are being "scouted internationally" and each team whether it's user controller or CPU, they can signal interest or lack of and then come winter maybe 2 or 3 of those 10 players gets posted to the free agent pool. I imagine a similar process could even be done to include Cuban players into this system. Just something that will allow teams to bring in a potential star to their clubs almost instantly, and some fresh blood into the game.
5) Uploadable Draft Classes - Much like you see in other games where they have draft classes ready to be uploaded, this would be amazing. Once OSFM stops, you would have people working on the draft class and by the time you hit it in-game, you'd be able to select "Generate Draftees or Upload A Draft Class" on Draft Day and off to the races you would go.
6) Import Teams - Rebranding a team is so cool, but I really don't want to have my half-*** attempt at turning the Tampa Bay Rays into the Montreal Expos look so off that I can't even enjoy it. Someone who is far more talented who can make the team and then I can import them over a team is definitely the way to go. Look at how NBA 2k20 does it with their vault. That's by far the best way to do it. Let's get some ability to rebrand our teams that doesn't make it look like crap. There's a reason we import player faces into our rosters, some of us just aren't made to be building faces or uniforms.
Those are just a few of my ideas, what does the rest of the community want to see happen to Franchise Mode for 2021?
Community Ideas:
It would be awesome if we could pool our ideas together and get SDS's attention on a few things that I think are very attainable that could really make big strides in playability and uniqueness that we all crave.
1) Larger Rosters - OSFM is a perfect example of the constant struggle to get all of the "top prospects" but also the organizational filler guys onto one 90-Man Roster. We've all chosen to bump out Low-A guy we like into Double-A because we want to be able to either play as that player or at the least get stats for that player over the course of a franchise.
I think having a 120-Man roster would be the best way to go with full playable 26-Man rosters for MLB, AAA, and AA as we already have, and then a 26-Man unplayable league for Single-A that would combine the best of your High-A and Low-A potential prospects that is sim-only, with a 16-Man "Rookie League" option that doesn't even sim, it just holds players like a vault that may graduate into Low-A the following year.
I'd even be willing to drop AA as playable to get that feature.
2) Better Free Agency - The logic for Free Agency is a little bit of a mess and I think it could really use an overhaul. My suggestion would be that as part of your end-of-the-season clean-up, you have to choose an "Agenda" for the teams that you're controlling and then the CPU would choose an "Agenda" for the teams that you're not. They would base this information off of where they finished in relation to the other teams in their league and division, the productivity of each position, what their farm system looks like, and what their reputation/budget looks like.
The Agendas would be tier based.
So maybe something like: "Making A Splash": and they're going to go after one or two of the 90+ OVR free agents. "In The Hunt" and that team is in on guys in the 80+ OVR range. "Retooling" and that team is looking to build around the edges of their major league roster to slightly improve on the previous season and may only add someone in the 75+ OVR. "Value Shopping" and that team is only going to be interested in guys who at say 75 OVR or under.
Just something that will make it clear that Mookie Betts isn't going to be signing with the Royals or something like that and create some consistency to the way these teams approach their offseasons.
3) Contract Terms - We all have this issue, don't we? Someone super valuable that would sign a 10-15M/yr multi-year deal is willing to take a one-year deal worth like $2M. Or a younger player is furious he's making renewable or arbitration numbers because some young player who signed a mega deal has kinked up the expectations in morale. This has been improved upon a ton already for younger guys, and that's great, but the veteran guys are still lagging behind on this one.
4) International Free Agents - I would kill to have NPB and KBO players posted each offseason in MLB the Show. Maybe like a tab or an "seasonal event" that has 10 players that are being "scouted internationally" and each team whether it's user controller or CPU, they can signal interest or lack of and then come winter maybe 2 or 3 of those 10 players gets posted to the free agent pool. I imagine a similar process could even be done to include Cuban players into this system. Just something that will allow teams to bring in a potential star to their clubs almost instantly, and some fresh blood into the game.
5) Uploadable Draft Classes - Much like you see in other games where they have draft classes ready to be uploaded, this would be amazing. Once OSFM stops, you would have people working on the draft class and by the time you hit it in-game, you'd be able to select "Generate Draftees or Upload A Draft Class" on Draft Day and off to the races you would go.
6) Import Teams - Rebranding a team is so cool, but I really don't want to have my half-*** attempt at turning the Tampa Bay Rays into the Montreal Expos look so off that I can't even enjoy it. Someone who is far more talented who can make the team and then I can import them over a team is definitely the way to go. Look at how NBA 2k20 does it with their vault. That's by far the best way to do it. Let's get some ability to rebrand our teams that doesn't make it look like crap. There's a reason we import player faces into our rosters, some of us just aren't made to be building faces or uniforms.
Those are just a few of my ideas, what does the rest of the community want to see happen to Franchise Mode for 2021?
Community Ideas:
- Rotating Inter-League Schedules.
- Editable Managers (YES, PLEASE!)
- Add Custom Uniforms without losing the existing uniforms.
- Better CPU Bullpen logic so that the proper relievers are called into situations that they should be called in form.
- Roster logic, this will be a big help to start a franchise with just one team and not all 30 in order to make the roster, lineup and rotation make sense. Maybe just have the CPU not able to change the roster you load before starting a franchise.
- Import players into an already created franchise.
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