Offline Franchise v Cloud Franchise

[powercord55]

I’ve always played franchise mode only (offline), and at Christmas I finally got an Xbox One and joined the new world of Madden after having a 360 for years.

When I started my new franchise I decided to just go with the cloud based online franchise mode because it seemed to be the way to do things with an Xbox One. I battled and battled with the game freezing after each and every game. I learnt to live with it as it saved my progress at least.

Anyway, just last week I got a message half way through a game saying that I’d been disconnected from the servers. This was a new thing to me as I’ve never played online before, but I kept playing and found that when I got back to the main menu – my game didn’t count. I had to replay the exact same game despite the fact I’m effectively playing an offline franchise.

So now I have to ask the question – why on Earth do people do cloud/online franchises unless they are in a proper online league? I’ve just realized I have to pay Xbox Live monthly fee for the privilege of playing my single-player franchise, plus if the server ever drops out you lose everything.

Am I missing something? Or should I just forget about the incident and start up a new offline franchise to save myself a ridiculous monthly fee and the risk of the game not saving at any given moment?

[Mattanite]

You already identified the biggest plus for online franchises, which is online league. There are few benefits to playing single player franchise online as the autosave feature means everything you do is permanent instantly and there is no "re-do" when it comes to free agency, sim-injuries, drafting etc. However the 3 benefits that come to mind are:

• Superior simulation times - Advancing a week is unbelievably fast, when I was testing for the QB progression and un-retirement threads using online made it a lot faster.
• XP sliders - only introduced in a recent patch, they are an online only feature and if you don't like the slow progression this year online is the only way.
• Realistic sim-football - The autosave feature can be a benefit too, only drafting once and having a single opportunity to sign/resign players really puts the pressure on running a franchise as you have to have a great draft board ready, trade up when scared, offer above average contracts with high amounts of guaranteed money just to have a player stay with you.

There may be other benefits that I haven't realised too. I prefer offline though as the CPU makes some boneheaded decisions every offseason and reloading a draft when the Buccaneers draft a QB is a must for me.

[powercord55]

Thanks for the reply.

Do people seriously reload a save if they're not happy with something that happened in a game or to cheat in the draft? Seems very petulant to me.

I had heard about the slower load times, that's the only issue I guess. But it's not worth paying $10 a month for Xbox live so I can play a single player franchise - which is just a rort

[Toupal]

For me, I'm an offline guy, always have and always will be.

But, I tried doing the online thing this year, and I really didn't notice much of a difference besides having to depend on my wifi connection.

I still don't understand why they decided to switch from franchise mode to CFM, because to me, unless you're playing against other real people, it's just an inconvenience.

I just wish madden would finally separate online and offline, and just build to each other's strengths.

[Mattanite]

Quote: Originally Posted by powercord55

Do people seriously reload a save if they're not happy with something that happened in a game or to cheat in the draft? Seems very petulant to me.

With the progression system being heavily weighted on stats, a big injury to a QB can derail a franchise, added to this the a lot of superstar QBs come in each draft then I reload if a major injury happens too often whilst simming a week. I don't want to get to year 3+ in my CFM and have few recognisable names as the draft players take over.


There are lots of injuries I will keep as it tells a story, big name player goes down, back-up makes the probowl etc. I like to see that on other teams.


As for the CPU logic during the draft and free agency, it can be awful... so reloading at the beginning of free agency or the start of the draft and rerunning it so the CPU signs different players is okay... otherwise I'd have to go into certain teams and control coaches which takes a lot longer. CPU will draft 4-3 players in the 3-4, 1st round QBs despite having spent a 1st round the previous year etc

[powercord55]

Thanks to everyone for the replies. From what I can gather, there is no point in keeping my Xbox Live account just to play franchise, so I'll ditch that and my cloud franchise and just go back to offline.

Quote: Originally Posted by Geodude

With the progression system being heavily weighted on stats, a big injury to a QB can derail a franchise, added to this the a lot of superstar QBs come in each draft then I reload if a major injury happens too often whilst simming a week. I don't want to get to year 3+ in my CFM and have few recognisable names as the draft players take over. There are lots of injuries I will keep as it tells a story, big name player goes down, back-up makes the probowl etc. I like to see that on other teams. As for the CPU logic during the draft and free agency, it can be awful... so reloading at the beginning of free agency or the start of the draft and rerunning it so the CPU signs different players is okay... otherwise I'd have to go into certain teams and control coaches which takes a lot longer. CPU will draft 4-3 players in the 3-4, 1st round QBs despite having spent a 1st round the previous year etc

I get all that, but still figure that's what makes it fun - you could draft a guy who ends up being completely injury prone or a bust - just like real life, you may have to really work to re-build your franchise. Maybe I'm the odd one out, but that's the challenge I love. I get bored when I win back-to-back-to-back superbowls (which inevitably happens eventually irrespective of the difficulty).

[NYJin2011tm]

Offline only for me. I have never been an online guy but said this year I'm going to give it a chance but if even one single little mess up from online I'm going back to offline. I get the game when it first came out and go cloud and after setting up everything and ready to play first game... I can't because their server went down. So I said forget this and went back to offline.

As far as getting a major injury or something and starting over... I would never do that, I love it when I get injuries...realism.

[NDAlum]

I run an online CFM and it's a blast but yes the DC's are a pain as well as lag here and there.

My solo CFM is offline and I never have to worry about DC's. I can utilize 30-team control to cover up the ridiculously bad CPU AI with regards to draft/re-sign's/roster management in general. I would never take a solo CFM online.