Free Agency Broken Already?

[Jkpress]

Changing the narrative to bash Ryan Moody won't improve Madden football. He's just one of many who voices his opinion, his is just on youtube. No one has to seek or buy into what he says just play the game and form your own opinion. To me, the game has its negatives and positives and will never be perfect, just like all games. There is nothing wrong with pointing that out.

[UFCMPunk]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sphinx

This happens every year. I'm really not worried about this. If it's something that you can't wait for a fix on, just go through and add additional years to players contracts. This salary cap stuff always seems to happen because the contract system is still very flawed.

I believe it has something to do with the salary cap. Outside of editing contracts, the game has no option for restructuring contracts, the AI won't cut players on big contracts who are under performing and not living up to said contract. So essentially the AI would just eat whatever the cap hits were of the players and would have no cap to sign free agents.

I would always edit the contracts in Madden 20 to keep players who from a realistic standpoint would not hit free agency. I don't mind doing this again in Madden 23 but it would be nice if restructuring contracts and the AI was able to cut players who are taking up a bunch of cap but are underperforming.

[SmashMan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jkpress

Changing the narrative to bash Ryan Moody won't improve Madden football. He's just one of many who voices his opinion, his is just on youtube. No one has to seek or buy into what he says just play the game and form your own opinion. To me, the game has its negatives and positives and will never be perfect, just like all games. There is nothing wrong with pointing that out.

"just play the game and form your own opinion" is good advice for everyone. It's too bad the guy whose video this thread is based on doesn't do either of those things. "Bashing" his style is fine - because of the over-the-top bias he has toward Madden, it's impossible to take his word on how severe any issue is, including this one. Threads shouldn't be created based on his videos alone.

We'll have to wait for more people to test things on their own.

[Falcon17000]

Quote: Originally Posted by Broncos86

Ryan Moody... yeah. "How can I get people to click on my video?"

Lord knows Madden isn't perfect. There's a million little things they could fix.


But Moody pulls this every year. He knows he can score a billion internet brownie points by ****ting on EA. And it works every year.

[Mattanite]

I thought this was a known issue and getting patched?

[CM Hooe]

Before people complain about "OMG [Player X] reached free agency there is a bug", a few things to consider:

1 - I noticed this in the beta (and logged an issue on the feedback forum), but it's still happening now: the CPU is never using the Franchise Tag. This is a bug! The CPU absolutely should use the franchise tag, as they successfully used the tag Madden 22 and earlier. This would allow the CPU to hold on to a few more good players.

2 - the CPU cannot use the fifth-year rookie option on first-round draft picks. It's tied to the Scenario Engine, which the CPU can't use. This will result in a few more players reaching free agency than what would happen in real life.

3 - this is what I think people are not noticing, mostly: the CPU is correctly going to struggle to re-sign players who have low interest in their team, regardless of their OVR. For example, the top Player Motivation of Chargers QB Justin Herbert is "Scheme Fit", and he (a Strong Arm QB) doesn't match what is required by Brandon Staley's scheme (Multiple Power Run; Field General QB). Here, the game is working exactly as expected; Herbert has low interest in the Chargers because the team doesn't match his top interest, so he doesn't really want to stay with the Chargers, rejects their contract offers, and heads to free agency. The Chargers should use both the fifth-year option and the Franchise Tag to keep him at this point (or at the very least, recognize they have a player with the Franchise QB tag and be much more willing to over-pay), but they don't do any of these things (either by bug or by design), so he hits free agency.

When you enter a player's Player Card in Franchise, you can scroll to his Motivations tab and it displays how well his motivations match his current team, not your team. So it's pretty easy to see which players don't match their current teams and predict upcoming free agents.

[ForUntoOblivionSoar∞]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Before people complain about "OMG [Player X] reached free agency there is a bug", a few things to consider: 1 - I noticed this in the beta (and logged an issue on the feedback forum), but it's still happening now: the CPU is never using the Franchise Tag. This is a bug! The CPU absolutely should use the franchise tag, as they successfully used the tag Madden 22 and earlier. This would allow the CPU to hold on to a few more good players. 2 - the CPU cannot use the fifth-year rookie option on first-round draft picks. It's tied to the Scenario Engine, which the CPU can't use. This will result in a few more players reaching free agency than what would happen in real life. 3 - this is what I think people are not noticing, mostly: the CPU is correctly going to struggle to re-sign players who have low interest in their team, regardless of their OVR. For example, the top Player Motivation of Chargers QB Justin Herbert is "Scheme Fit", and he (a Strong Arm QB) doesn't match what is required by Brandon Staley's scheme (Multiple Power Run; Field General QB). Here, the game is working exactly as expected; Herbert has low interest in the Chargers because the team doesn't match his top interest, so he doesn't really want to stay with the Chargers, rejects their contract offers, and heads to free agency. The Chargers should use both the fifth-year option and the Franchise Tag to keep him at this point (or at the very least, recognize they have a player with the Franchise QB tag and be much more willing to over-pay), but they don't do any of these things (either by bug or by design), so he hits free agency. When you enter a player's Player Card in Franchise, you can scroll to his Motivations tab and it displays how well his motivations match his current team, not your team. So it's pretty easy to see which players don't match their current teams and predict upcoming free agents.

Sounds like the easiest fix to this problem is to adjust Player Motivations for existing players. Yeah, it would take a few hours, but anyone working there could do it, as opposed to having someone who specializes in coding.


As far as user workarounds, all you have to do is edit the contracts yourself prior to the final regular season week. Should only need to do it to about five or six players, and then things will seem fairly normal.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by ForUntoOblivionSoar∞

Sounds like the easiest fix to this problem is to adjust Player Motivations for existing players. Yeah, it would take a few hours, but anyone working there could do it, as opposed to having someone who specializes in coding.

Tiburon in fact mentioned in the beta feedback Gridiron Notes that they would be adjusting player motivations to nudge superstars to re-signing with their current teams, so I would expect to see changes here soon.

I also think that roster updates adding all the recent contract extensions will help. I don't see Terry McLaurin's recent contract extension reflected in the game right now, for example.

Quote:

As far as user workarounds, all you have to do is edit the contracts yourself prior to the final regular season week. Should only need to do it to about five or six players, and then things will seem fairly normal.

Also this. Been in the habit of editing contracts on my own for a few years of Madden now. As long as there's no CPU fifth-year option (or I guess also CPU franchise tag), I will keep doing this.