What Do You Like / Dislike About Franchise Mode?

[marktg30]

I was just thinking earlier about O-Line and such.

The first thought was for Holding penalties, etc. Why not have a rating based on "Discipline and Aggressivness" - this could determine which players (Rookies and such) might have more false starts or holding penalties.

The second was a chemistry/performance based progression. The Pancake block is the dumbest stat I have ever seen. It is ridiculous that in order to have a progressing O-Line you actually have to do that.

[mikeveli20]

Things I Like:

- The ability to play more than one season, with rosters changing from year to year by trading, FA, and draft picks.

- The ability to control who's on my team, where they play, when they play, who's coaching them.

- Stat simulation much improved from Madden 08.

- Ability to edit players and change their position to whatever I want.

Things I Dislike (or what needs to be added):

- Not able to change owners in the offseason. After a few years with the same team and building them into a powerhouse, it's nice to have the option to take over a bottom of the barrel team and try and build them up. Maybe bring a few players you've drafted already to the new team (Parcells like).

- Progression. The 2nd patch fixed it a little bit, but there still seems to be no rhyme or reason for certain people progressing or not progressing. Sometimes a player will have a great year, but will only go up 1 point, if that. Regression also needs to be dealt with, it's basically non-existent for top-tier players. I'd also like it if stats weren't the be all and end all for determining progression (but still play a large role of course). For example, say a CB gets 0 tackles and 0 INTs but not 1 completed pass is thrown to a WR he's covering all year (extreme I know), then that should be reflected in his progression because obviously he's doing his job right.

- FA/Draft AI. CPU needs to manage the cap better so we don't see players like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning popping up in FA after 1 or 2 seasons. The CPU also needs to sign/draft more for what they need, and not just who's the highest rated player available. They should also approach FA/Draft with the tendencies of their current coach and what type of team they are trying to build.

- The inability to trade future draft picks.

- Roster requirements before the season. Rosters should be expanded before the season so cuts need to be made along the way.

- No position battles during pre-season.

- No training camp before the season.

- No incentives or bonuses in contracts. No way to structure contracts so they're back loaded or front loaded.

- No holdouts. Or if there are, I've never seen any.

- Scouting system. The current implementation has absolutely no bearing on anything as you can just see who's good and who's not even if you don't scout someone.

- Injuries. It shouldn't be known right away what the severity of the injury is. The wear and tear system from head coach should also be implemented into Madden. If someone keeps getting concussions, that should make them more prone to another concussion and possibly a career ending injury.

- AI playcalling and clock management. Tendencies should reflect those of real life coaches.

- Uniform editing only when relocating team.

- Not able to keep current team logos/colors when relocating.

- No weekly national/local newspaper.

- Every game feels the same.

- During a game, no ticker at the bottom of the screen showing scores from other games.

- The ratings for the top of the draft class (especially imported NCAA) are way too high. Nobody should be coming in as a 96 their first year or it should be very rare like if a guy in NCAA had 99 ratings across the board then there would be an exception.

- No half sacks or assisted tackle stat categories.

- No home field advantage.

[Herky]

Dislike

1. Draft
2. Free Agency
3. IR taking up a roster sport.

These aren't anything new and you'd think EA would have fixed it even several years ago. Here it is 2008 and we are still bitching about the same thing. You could have gone back to 2005 and seen me ask for these things to be fixed then.

[feeq14]

I heard the team that handles head coach will be revamping Maddens franchise mode which is a god send.

I really am not as picky as others. I love franchise since the patch has made progression actually occur, but the way head coach does it is perfect.

-Make your coaching staff/present team players have an effect on player progression.

-Make a point system for progression. Ex, if a player has a good statistical game/year they should be able to gain a certain number of points that they can put toward ANY!!! attribute (so tired of having a great rb with 75 awr) This could be controlled by their potential rating. so a rb with high potential taht goes for 120 and 2 tds will get 15 points to play with, whereas a player with low potential would get 3 points with the same production. Let the player decide what they want to develop in a player, and keep parameters on certain ratings, alot like head coach.

-Make weekly planning mean something.

-Make team chemestry allot more significant.

-Get rid of player weapons and bring back player roles.

-make the weekly training easier on certain positions and make it so you can affect all attributes.

essentailly pull all of the great things from head coach and just allow us to play the games.

[jvaccaro]

Two franchise requests:

1. Make it so the attribute ratings really matter, and have progression truley be based off of performance and stats. The best thing about last gen madden was having a fantasy draft franchise with 3 friends taking teams in the same division. This way you'd play all your friends twice a year, at least. That motivation to improve your stud young players was soooo strong. It genuinely felt like if I had a better season with my HB than my buddy did, then my guy would progress more. Now it seems much more random, and frustratingly out of my control. Back in the day, having that 99 OVR TE or CB was a huge difference maker on the field. Please EA, take all this franchise goodness from last gen and put it online in full for 2010.

2. Instead of just selecting injuries on/off, there should be a slider for injury frequency and another for injury severity and duration. This way you could roughly control how many guys get hurt, and for how long. Losing a key guy for a game or two is perfectly acceptable in a multiplayer franchise. Sure it's not 100% realistic to avoid long term injuries, but at least those friends sharing a franchise can prevent that one guy from feeling "cheated" (and losing interest in the franchise) when his stud QB, HB, and WR all randomly go out for the season by week two.

[x1Blumpkin1x]

As others have stated please bring over the team philosophy concept, improved draft logic and progression, play knowledge, as well as game planning from Head Coach.

I would like to see training really blown out to to be much more detailed. Let me decide training schedules and who does what. I would like to see the team broken out into units (full team, offense, defense, unit (OL, DL, DB, etc.), individual). I can decide how to allocate my practice time. Do I want full team practices which help play knowledge and chemistry, among other general progression (but have the downside of increased injury changes and fatigue)? Or do I want to have my DBs focus on drills which really help their specific attributes. Or let me focus on specific individual attributes. Like say I want to work on my HBs footwork, let me put him into that and get a huge boost from training. Sure the full team practice I have scheduled concurrently will be using the backup so the primary won't get the play knowledge boost, but that is my choice.

Also, please, bring back a head coach/GM mode. I personally am not a fan of the owner mode, and I am thinking I am not alone. I don't want to worry about concessions and ticket prices, etc. I want to worry about GM/Head Coach tasks (scouting, game planning, etc.). I also like the fact that as a GM/Head Coach I can move on or be fired. It can help add a sense of urgency and also make things fresh after a few years where you move on to another team.

I would like to see both an owner mode and a GM/Head Coach mode but that might be asking a lot for a one year turnaround. If you are going to only provide us with an owner mode I would like to see many more options. Especially in the area of facility improvements as well as let me build a new stadium and keep the team name and uniforms.

Not sure if anyone has ever played EA Sports' FIFA Manager 09, which is a Head Coach style game but for soccer. They handle training and owner related tasks quite well. Take a look at what Bright Future is doing with their development in those areas.

[ray665]

Quote: Originally Posted by jvaccaro

Two franchise requests: 1. Make it so the attribute ratings really matter, and have progression truley be based off of performance and stats. The best thing about last gen madden was having a fantasy draft franchise with 3 friends taking teams in the same division. This way you'd play all your friends twice a year, at least. That motivation to improve your stud young players was soooo strong. It genuinely felt like if I had a better season with my HB than my buddy did, then my guy would progress more. Now it seems much more random, and frustratingly out of my control. Back in the day, having that 99 OVR TE or CB was a huge difference maker on the field. Please EA, take all this franchise goodness from last gen and put it online in full for 2010. 2. Instead of just selecting injuries on/off, there should be a slider for injury frequency and another for injury severity and duration. This way you could roughly control how many guys get hurt, and for how long. Losing a key guy for a game or two is perfectly acceptable in a multiplayer franchise. Sure it's not 100% realistic to avoid long term injuries, but at least those friends sharing a franchise can prevent that one guy from feeling "cheated" (and losing interest in the franchise) when his stud QB, HB, and WR all randomly go out for the season by week two.

Great post

I also run a 4 man franchise, only way to play!!! everybody get some friends and a datel transfer kit and upload the files. Not one player injuried for any of us in 2 years WDF!!. Doing a franchise is about building a team i wanna be rewarded for having depth!!! I also hate everybody has 99 spd in 3-4 yrs in. I would even go back to the days when the speed drafted is basically there career speed, that was cool not +5 spd in one offseason. 99 spd used to mean something. Every league wit my boy he has bradon jacobs 99spd, come on. 15 year vet here and really pissed former madden's got it in certain aspects then regress. More sliders please never take them out and in game saves AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[Vikes1]

One of the things I really do like about this years franchise mode is, the stat engine.

Other than pancake blocks and penalty's...the stats I'm producing fit nicely within the cpu generated stats.