House Rules for Offline Franchise

[QuestGAV]

Coming to the realization that I've more or less ruined my offline franchise for a couple reasons:

1. The AI has no idea how to value draft picks in the current year and most definitely doesn't value them appropriately in future years so I traded crap for future gold.

2. I picked up too many Paea/Wilkerson types cut because of the UDFA problem.

3. I don't think you can get anywhere enough scouting info with the tools they give you so I simmed ahead, checked the overalls, and took the best value at every spot.

4. The AI isn't nearly aggressive enough in picking up free agents. I landed not only the Paea/Wilkerson types in preseason, but also Stinchcomb, Tatupu, etc.

Obviously, this results in complete overkill. I can still certainly make the game challenging with sliders but the strategy of teambuilding is shot. I don't want to control all 32 teams, there's no way I'll keep up with that level of micromanagement.

I'm starting over and doing the following:

1. Setting a more reasonable value on veterans in trade. No more 35 year old 84OVRs for multiple 1sts. Only trading to teams for whom that person would start or be the likely starter next year (ie - starter has 1 year left on contract and no obvious heir). Anyone have guidelines they use?

2. Simming to week 4 of the preseason and noting the UDFAs with 65+ OVR and leaving them alone. Changing all the other UDFAs to punter. If a Paea/Wilkerson type does get released I'm signing them and trading them back to their original team in hopes they sign him long-term. If they let him walk in year 2, I can live with that and compete in an open marketplace for him.

3. Drafting in a fair way is vexing me. I very much dislike the system as it is. I'm thinking about limiting myself this way - I can only take the best player available at a position once. Likewise, I can only take the second best player available at a position once. I can take the third and 4th best players twice. If I pick up extra choices, I can take the 5th best player available at any position as many times as I'd like. Any other fair ways people have come up with of drafting?

4. For every in-season FA signing I make I have to sign 4 players of higher OVR to a contract and trade them to a team with a need.

I'm hoping these changes will force me to make some real choices about who I actually want and bring some depth back to my franchise. What other rules do you hold yourself to?

[Franchise408]

I have never been able to trade away an 84 ovr for multiple firsts. Or even 1 first at that. Unless that's new to this year...

As far as trades go, I only trade via the trading block, either by making an offer and picking from the offers I get back, or making an offer to a team that has made someone available. I dont just swap players around. Trading via trade block makes more realistic sense to me.

I dont make rules about what trades are acceptable or not. Real teams make bad trades all the time. If you dont believe me, look at the trade Arizona make for Kevin Kolb. Arizona got raped. And as a 49ers fan, I couldn't be happier watching them blow their load of a crap QB.

like I said, I only utilize the trade block. Only trade I've made in my franchise so far is moving josh Morgan. I did get the better end of that deal - a 2nd and 2 3rds, but Morgan is a solid rating, high potential guy, and 3rd founders won't net much in madden drafts anyways (not using imported classes). And I only traded Morgan because I had no use for him in my offensive scheme, a pretty realistic reason to trade someone.

The main thing I wanna see changed about trading is seeing the ai swap trades with each other. I had being the only team wheeling and dealing. Kills the immersion.

As far as free agents go, its realistic enough. Teams now aren't lining up for tiki barber or to. The problem is the salary cap. Every team is so far below. In real life, these undrafted guys ARE getting shots over the "80+ rated" to, barber, Westbrook, tj housh, and I think even Kelvin Hayden and tatupi are seamless, no? Or did I miss those signings?

Its realistic, the problem comes with the $20 mil salary cap space each team has, so while the ai is making moves realistic to the NFL (cheap guys for depth that aren't expensive) the player can go out and load up on Hayden, tatupi, barber, etc. But they are aggressive enough. By the time I was in the market for a receiver (braylon got hurt for 8 weeks) all the good ones were gone. I was left with Galloway who's solid, but nada special.

[rjsuperfly66]

The two things I do ...

1) Gameplan only, no hot routes. Keeps me from using plays that exploit the computer. The only time I avoid gameplan is at the end of the game when the computer tells you to run only when you should kneel, or pass when you should run.

2) Let computer do everything for my team. Its not as fun for the hardcore franchise players, but it prevents me from being overly aggressive in comparison to the computer teams.

My biggest beef with franchise is computer records.

Carolina was 9-0 before I beat them. I play Green Bay next and they are 4-6. New Orleans is also something like that. Rather unlikely.

[TMJOHNS18]

Play with cap off and limit yourself to the cap and let CPU spend more on FA. They don't load up on players but do keep better backups.

Change all but 5 or so UDFA on CPU teams to P and and if you get to a point where you can't swap positions then pick up some of their UDFA and swap a future 7 rnd pick.

Keep track of your cap penalties and you can also sign some players for the CPU and trade them and not suffer like you would in a cap'd franchise.

Limit your big FA pickups. Eagles went to town this year, but most teams don't sign too many big name games every year. Go after a few, if you get out bid then don't go after another.

Limit trades during the season and also used the uncapped to help the CPU trade if you see two CPU teams with players on the trade blocks that meat each other needs. If the players don't have roles, you could always move them to another position, pick them up and swap them on teams and move them back to the right positions.

[QuestGAV]

Quote: Originally Posted by Franchise408

As far as trades go, I only trade via the trading block, either by making an offer and picking from the offers I get back, or making an offer to a team that has made someone available. I dont just swap players around. Trading via trade block makes more realistic sense to me.

I can't really get any useful offers on the trading block this year, pretty sure they just plain broke it and didn't feel like fixing it. The CPU wont respond to draft pick offers on the block at all and the player-for-player offers are all significantly lopsided in their favor, IMO.

[Franchise408]

Quote: Originally Posted by QuestGAV

I can't really get any useful offers on the trading block this year, pretty sure they just plain broke it and didn't feel like fixing it. The CPU wont respond to draft pick offers on the block at all and the player-for-player offers are all significantly lopsided in their favor, IMO.

well maybe there's your balance? You can gyp the ai on 1st rounders, and they gyp you on players?

I dunno, for my purposes, the trading block has always worked for me. And if nobody I want is available? Well that's how the NFL works =) I gotta find another way to get that player I need.

If getting a player you wanted was so easy, Alex Smith wouldn't be the san Francisco QB.

[Shroom]

32 team 'chise. Its really not as hard as you think it is.

[QuestGAV]

Quote: Originally Posted by Franchise408

well maybe there's your balance? You can gyp the ai on 1st rounders, and they gyp you on players? I dunno, for my purposes, the trading block has always worked for me. And if nobody I want is available? Well that's how the NFL works =) I gotta find another way to get that player I need. If getting a player you wanted was so easy, Alex Smith wouldn't be the san Francisco QB.

I agree it worked well in previous versions, just don't think it's working right now.