Made up Promos or Traditions for Franchise Mode Players

[FSanchez12]

Re: Made up Promos or Traditions for Franchise Mode Players

Before City Connects were a thing, I always did "Flashback Friday" and alternated between different throwbacks. That was also when I played anywhere from 1-2 games/week.

Now with the new sim mechanic, my full-game playthroughs are much less common since I can go a week without playing to playing the 7th on for 5 of the 6 games in a given week. Might have to get back to some of these traditions.

[Cycloniac]

Re: Made up Promos or Traditions for Franchise Mode Players

One thing I do is play as both teams in the ASG, alternating between pitcher or hitter depending on who I want to play as in that AB. I never use my own players, since I've used them all year. This is my chance to test out players I don't normally get to use and facing my own guys is fun.

But when I do this I want to "optimize" the rosters as best I can. I save a new franchise file on the Sunday before the ASG. I play my game and sim all other MLB games and then make my changes. Once you advance to Monday the ASG rosters are "locked" so that's your last chance. Changes I make involve everything from giving everyone I don't want on the team a stomach ache for a few days so they will be left out, to changing positions to get certain guys there.

Really it comes down to playing around with the algorithm and to this day I don't have it down exactly but I know the basics and it's a bit surprising on how stubborn the CPU is with its ASG rosters.

Pitching is the most straightforward - top 5 SP, top 1 RP, top 6 CP. The only time I've seen it change is if it has 4 or more teams that don't have a rep and in that case it might boot a SP whose team is already well represented. In my franchise I have no CP, only RP. So the game wants to carry the top 7 RP on the roster. But I can move any 6 pitchers I want to CP and guarantee they make the team automatically, along with it almost always carrying the top 5 SP it's nearly impossible to not have full control over the entire 12 man pitching staff. I make it so my teams have 7-8 SP like in real life.

BUT this is where the algorithm gets whacky. Take the A's. They are terrible and the only player worth making the team in my game was their closer Zach Jackson. In real life he'd be the easy choice to be the lone A's guy. Moving him to CP ensured he makes the game. Easy, right?

Not so fast. As far as I can tell if you're not one of the top 2 CP on the votes list, the CPU doesn't count it. So it was still trying to brute force either Shea Langeliers or Jace Pederson onto the team, both were terrible. I only could've made Jackson the lone A if I had him as the RP1 or one of the top 2 CP. Well the RP1 went to a Royals dude who was the only good player on his team and he was better than Jackson, and I had too many pitchers better than Jackson to get him into the top 2 CP.

So I browsed their roster, the only solid position player they had was Esteury Ruiz who was just slightly behind the OF on the team. I manually injured 2 OF ahead of him on the rankings and he made the team then but it STILL tried to force Langeliers in, which told me that if you are OF7 or something it won't count either.

And that's the story of how Esteury Ruiz was temporarily re-classed to a catcher, the game carried him on the bench as Christian Vazquez (elected starter) and Adley (the top backup who had a solid season) were on the team as the 2 real catchers. When playing the game I of course played Ruiz in the OF.

If it sounds like too much work, it probably is. But I genuinely geek out on trying to crack algorithms.

This sounds a lot like the trial and error I do every year to get the CPU teams to have the right guys in their lineups, rotations and bullpens to start franchise.

Probably simpler by comparsion though

[franch1se]

Re: Made up Promos or Traditions for Franchise Mode Players

I also have teams with Spanish inspired city connects (Diamondbacks "Serpientes", Dodgers "Los Dodgers", Miami's Havana Sugar Kings inspired look) wear them for all September home games for Hispanic Heritage month. I used to include the Reds "Los Rojos" and Royals "Los Reales" jerseys in this too before they were taken out of the game.

Just curious...what would you use/make for the......Padres

[SFNiners816]

Re: Made up Promos or Traditions for Franchise Mode Players

Playing a long Franchise mode can be fun but I sometimes like to come up with ideas to keep it fresh. Things that can also help me use more uniforms, play in off stadiums, etc. I'll share mine but I want to see what others have come up with.

1. Throwback Thursdays - Every Thursday game i play I have both teams wear a throwback uniform. It is a great way to ensure I get to see all the uniforms while creating something in my own head cannon. (MLB, I'm ok with you stealing this idea in real life. Would be better than City Connects.)

2. Alternate/Blue Sundays - I play as the Cubs so I call it Blue Sunday where I have them wear their blue alternates on Sundays. I even have in my head cannon there might be one pitcher that won't do. And with the 94 Blue Alternate this year I have an extra option for Blue Sunday.

3. Minor League Major League Showcase Series - When the home team is on the road for a spell I will see if either of my minor league teams are home and play series in the major league park. I will call it a showcase to let the minor leaguers get a feel for the big league park. Another fun way to break things up.

4. Flashback series/game - With stadium creator we have way more classic stadiums than ever before. I will look at who I'm playing and come up with a story that there has been a rebuilt replica of say Ebbets Field or Tiger Stadium and either play a series or a game in said rebuilt replica. (Series if I play the team a lot, game if I still want to see their stadium during the lone series I have with them.) In my head cannon there is a place with rebuilt replica stadiums for these types of series. Again, just fun to break things up.

Those are just some of the different ideas I do during a long Franchise season. What are some of yours?

I'm big on uniforms. When y2y saves was a thing I would always dedicate some time to mapping out on a piece of paper the looks for each team each year. I would assign a Home, Away and two Alt looks for each team. What's funny is I'm currently really wrapped up in 1990 Cubs franchise on MLB23 and I'm just about done with the "1990" and it was the first season I can remember on the show where I only used Home and Away looks for every game as I was trying as close as possible to recapture 1990 to a specific extent. For some teams, I used 80's looks.....For example with my cubbies I ended up donning their 1989 look as I didn't really like the choices to replicate their 1990 gray road set. Also, the Cardinals and Phillies kept there 80's looks as I did want some teams to have baby blue on the road.

For the "1991" season, I do plan on having a league wide Throwback program. The throwbacks will be based on 1950s, 60s and 70s looks for the teams. I feel like this would have been something that could have done in "1991". I also gonna allow kinda a mismatch where a home throwback can be different than a road throwback. So for my Cubs, the current plan is to us the 1958 Home Jersey with the 1979 Baby Blue Striped Jerseys on the road. I also think for my main look, I will be keeping the 1982 White Striped for for games as they are really close to the 1991 homes but I think I may try for a gray road look. I was thinking using the current grey tops with the 1958 gray striped pants. That's the plan as of now......I may just go with the current gray set if the pants kinda look goofy to me in game.

The uniform aspect of the game has always added a real nice dimension for me. I've alwasy been a uniform nut and it's fun trying get all of the looks match up. I know for 1991, teams started introducing some alternate uniforms into their set so that will also add a nice change of pace to the season in addition to the throwback program.

[nhbgvbnyv]

Re: Made up Promos or Traditions for Franchise Mode Players

Just curious...what would you use/make for the......Padres

I've actually been kicking this around in my head for a while but I can't think of anything that makes sense lol

The potential is there but I'm not sure what to do with it.