Thinking of picking up M18, user control question...

[tinpanalley]

I remember M17 having this annoying thing -- well, annoying for people like me who like a no-mess, no-CPU-interference season -- where no matter what you did, the CPU was ALWAYS going to take the teams and cut players left right and center without any way to stop it. Thereby ending up with unrealistic rosters by the start of the season. Can you control this in M18 so the rosters stay put exactly as you left them before the season began?
I'm happily playing older football games where this isn't an issue but I thought I'd be willing to try this year's game if that could be controlled. Otherwise, no graphics in the world can make me play a game that turns into a fantasy league with fake transactions.

[CM Hooe]

In Madden 18 franchise, CPU-controlled teams will still make roster moves to improve the OVR of its roster in Madden NFL 18. This includes making some "unrealistic" roster cuts. The game still loves to cut lower-rated rookie draft picks in favor of keeping veterans with higher OVR ratings, which doesn't necessarily align with how teams manage their rosters in real life.

You have a couple options to curtail this behavior:

1 - assume control of all 32 teams in an offline franchise by creating 32 user-controlled characters, as you probably did in Madden 17 to override CPU roster management logic

2 - new to Madden 18 is the concept of franchise start points. You can choose to start your franchise at any point in the 2017-18 season, and Madden will initialize the game save to what the rosters / stats / game results / etc. were at that point in real life. The CPU will still make roster moves on its own going forward according to its own roster management logic (unless you supplement this with all-32 team control), but if having the real life roster for at least Regular Season Week 1 is important to you then this is a viable option.

[tinpanalley]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

1 - assume control of all 32 teams in an offline franchise by creating 32 user-controlled characters, as you probably did in Madden 17 to override CPU roster management logic

Actually, assuming 18 is the same as 17 in this regard, controlling all teams wasn't enough. If you really wanted all the teams to stay as you left them you had to cut EVERY roster down individually to 53 players. If you didn't do that, the CPU, despite you controlling all the teams, would liberally make their own choices about who to cut after preseason. It was infuriating. Ultimately I just quit and went back to my older, updated games.
But this starting on any week thing looks promising. Maybe that's the future of regular franchise/season play for the rest of us that don't like card collecting fantasy leagues.

[JoshC1977]

When taking control of a character in 18, there is a series of options now of what you can control and what you don’t want to control. You can literally set everything to manual for each team and turn off roster ‘auto fill’ for each team and you’re good to go.


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[tinpanalley]

Quote: Originally Posted by JoshC1977

When taking control of a character in 18, there is a series of options now of what you can control and what you don’t want to control. You can literally set everything to manual for each team and turn off roster ‘auto fill’ for each team and you’re good to go. Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

Wow, well, that's fantastic.

[tinpanalley]

Ok, I've played with this a bit now. I do have to admit, the amount of control now given back to you is rather impressive for Madden which in my eyes had become an uncustomisable disaster for years. Well, to me.

But I'm still not understanding something. I set up an offline franchise but it only lets me pick one team. So I select my team, turn all the settings I want to full control and then go to Season without preseason but there are transactions that have happened. But I dont see where I'm supposed to add other users and teams before that to make sure nothing happens. I'm not understanding this.
Is it that the settings I set get registered for the league as a WHOLE? For EVERY team?

[sccavs64]

Quote: Originally Posted by tinpanalley

Ok, I've played with this a bit now. I do have to admit, the amount of control now given back to you is rather impressive for Madden which in my eyes had become an uncustomisable disaster for years. Well, to me. But I'm still not understanding something. I set up an offline franchise but it only lets me pick one team. So I select my team, turn all the settings I want to full control and then go to Season without preseason but there are transactions that have happened. But I dont see where I'm supposed to add other users and teams before that to make sure nothing happens. I'm not understanding this. Is it that the settings I set get registered for the league as a WHOLE? For EVERY team?

It's weird - You have to click the right analog stick in while in the main menu of your franchise (where you advance the week/play the game, scout players, progress players, etc), and you'll see an option to create a new character, and then it allows you to choose which team you'd like your new character to control.

Once you've controlled multiple teams, you click the right analog stick again to switch between characters while at the main menu of your 'chise. And when you change settings like FA Additions, player progression etc to either manual/auto, it only goes into effect for that team you're currently controlling when you make those edits.

[tinpanalley]

Quote: Originally Posted by sccavs64

And when you change settings like FA Additions, player progression etc to either manual/auto, it only goes into effect for that team you're currently controlling when you make those edits.

Ok, I get the mechanics of it, but let me see if I can explain what I'm not understanding though...

You choose only ONE team at first. But there is nowhere for you to determine how the OTHER teams will be run until you start the franchise, so whether that's in Spring Training, or my preference straight to season, when everything is set up the other teams that have still not been given a character have already made roster changes. They've released guys, picked guys up, added practice squad players, players have retired, etc etc. And I don't understand how you're supposed to stop that stuff from happening if there's no place to choose more characters before the season actually gets going. That selection point should happen BEFORE "start franchise". Shouldn't it? What am I doing wrong? Do the rosters have to be set a certain way?