What bugs still exist in franchise?

[mva5580]

After playing some games with the patch, I'd say I'm pretty happy with the gameplay and ready to start a franchise, although I may still hold out a bit longer to see if one more updated roster is released for the PC before I do. Anyway, my only question now is what are the bugs that exist with franchise? 2 that I seem to have remembered reading was in regards to stamina not having an effect on a player if you play 2 days in a row (or something like that,) and injuries being messed up. Are these the main issues? If so, I'll turn injuries off and live with it, as I'm not a huge fan of injuries being on in sports games anyway because they always seem to be messed up in some way. If there's anything else, please let me know. Thanks.

[MrArlingtonBeach]

Re: What bugs still exist in franchise?

I picked this up from user ccurry13 over at the 2K boards and I too have experienced a lot of the problems listed:

"Here is a list of the issues that really bring down this years franchise mode:

1. Off days are pointless!!! Your players don't recover any stamina during off days.
2. Injuries are flawed. I have posted about this a ton and PM'd Ron a few times and got no response. Players get stuck at 1 day injured and you have to send them to the minors for them to heal.
3. Lack of depth chart. If you want to sim games then your regular players hardly ever get subbed out.
4. CPU handling of CPU teams pitchers. The Angels started Weaver with 46% stamina. Relivers will pitch until totally fatigued unless you hammer them. Percival pitched 5 innings against me the other day. That would never happen!
5. Top 100 Prospects is all screwed up. I am 30+ games into a franchise and the list showed up exactly once! That one time it showed up the 33 yr old Juan Encarnion was the #1 prospect?!?!?! The list also included a bunch of FA that shouldn't be considered prospects.
6. As far as stats go in simmed games they are pretty good except for Closer stats. Closers seem to blow too many saves and the league leader usually has a low amount of saves. Also other relievers tend to be put into too many save situations.
7. Franchise mode will freeze up! Sometimes you can't even load your franchise without it freezing.
8. Why can't I resign a player with 1 year left on his contract?
9. Auto organizing your roster is totally screwed up. After the season if choose to do this your roster will be left with 22 players (12 hitters, 10 pitchers) except my A team has 15 hitters and 10 pitchers. This also happens for CPU teams. All MLB teams carry 25 players!
10. Free agency is also a mess. Too many players resign with their current teams and settle for very low salaries!
11. Attendance is also flawed. I don't know what is wrong with it but I think it also counts your road games as your home attendance?!?!?! I have seen avg stadium capacity at 150% how the hell is that possible. 60,000+ at Fenway I don't think so!! This wouldn't be a problem except it has an effect on your budget!
12. The All Star Game doesn't play out like an All Star Game should. Starting Pitchers throw 7, 8 and 9 innings. That never happens!!!
13. The player progression seems to be out of whack also. Hitter contact ratings skyrocket and Pitchers pitches ratings never change but velocity on fastballs will skyrocket also. Most pitchers don't gain velocity they usually lose some. Also younger pitchers tend to develop their stuff and increase break on curveballs for example."

When Ron over at the 2K forums listed the things fixed in the new patch, he said that anything fixed in Franchise mode was "minor" - his words, not mine. So they all seem to still exist post patch #2.

[tril]

Re: What bugs still exist in franchise?

12-6 curve ball. the cpu can not hit this pitch. theyll swing every time and miss,
they should patch this ASAP.

[JBH3]

Re: What bugs still exist in franchise?

- I've had that issue w/ the top 100 prospects list too. I'm into May and the only time it was viewable was at the beginning of the season, before playing a game. It's been empty ever since.

- The All-Star game pitchers issue (above) has always been this way since the dawn of Next-Gen (at the least). It does suck.

- I won't complain about FA's resigning w/ their teams. Previous MLB 2Ks had TOO MANY premium FA's hitting the open market. I'll take a majority of them resigning w/ their team, rather than sitting out there on the FA pool for an extended period of time.

- Auto-organizing sucks, but if you only control 4 teams like me then it isn't that tedious to keep things up. I do like that NEW management screen which shows how many players you have at each level.

- Depth Chart - Put a bench player in the lineup and give them a start, not the desired action, but a "somewhat" fix.

- Attendance, it doesn't matter in this version anyways. It sucks that it is off, but it has no effect on your team's operation since you can't manage revenue.

- CPU Pitcher management seems worse post-patch, only played one game, but I never saw the CPU (pre-patch) pull a starter for a PH in a 1-1 game after only 36 pitches, 3 innings pitched, and 3 K's too. That was horrible, and the PH got on, but WAS didn't score so they wasted a good outing thus far by Bergman AND ended up using 5 pitchers to win.

...All of that and I am still having A LOT of fun w/ the game...

[bwiggy33]

Re: What bugs still exist in franchise?

First thing I noticed with franchise in the 2nd patch is the fact you can't trade MLB and Minor league players in the same deal. So for instance you can't trade Prospects for a star calibur player because you can't switch to the minor leagues in the trade screen. The help ticker says push the LS in to switch to the minor leagues. Well when I did that it didn't work. So obviously the screwed something up with the controls.

This is absolutely ridiculous because this was taken out during the 2nd patch. This was possible with the first patch so they made franchise worse by this. I can't believe they can f up and take something so simple that happens in the MLB all of the time, out.

[Smitty730]

Re: What bugs still exist in franchise?

The biggest issues are CPU Pitcher management and a flawed sim engine.

1) CPU Pitchers are programmed to COME OUT of the game AFTER surrendering THREE EARNED RUNS or MORE, no matter the inning or pitch count/stamina.

Now, I have noticed that aces such as Santana will stay around. I just lit up Santana with the Phillies for 5 runs in the first two innings, all were earned. He stuck around to pitch five full innings.

However, bang around guys like Wandy Rodriguez or Adam Eaton and they'll be pinch hit for the first time up.

2) I'm sorry, but the stats engine that the development team raved about pre-release is broken. I'm tired of seeing relief pitchers come in games and throw four, five, six innings.

AND...

There are never in-field substitutions or pinch hitters while simming. So guys like Jonathan Broxton will pitch three innings and get two at-bats. At the end of the season, role players such as Omar Infante or Jeremy Reed have played 20-22 games.

I was viewing a box score between the Mets and Braves that went 17 innings. John Maine went 8 1/3 innings and K-Rod went 8 2/3 and got the loss.

Not good.

[dragon4ever]

Re: What bugs still exist in franchise?

First thing I noticed with franchise in the 2nd patch is the fact you can't trade MLB and Minor league players in the same deal. So for instance you can't trade Prospects for a star calibur player because you can't switch to the minor leagues in the trade screen. The help ticker says push the LS in to switch to the minor leagues. Well when I did that it didn't work. So obviously the screwed something up with the controls.

This is absolutely ridiculous because this was taken out during the 2nd patch. This was possible with the first patch so they made franchise worse by this. I can't believe they can f up and take something so simple that happens in the MLB all of the time, out.

I don't know what you're talking about. All you have to do is push down on the left analog stick to switch between major and minor leagues. I just tried this and it worked. Maybe your controller is messed up?

[bwiggy33]

Re: What bugs still exist in franchise?

Never mind my post above it is now working for some reason. Yesterday I pushed in the LS and it didn't switch to my AAA team. I just tried today and now its working. I have no idea why it wasn't yesterday.