How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

[Cantgetright69]

I mean I don't know where to start. I've been hooked to franchise mode since madden 2002. I didnt even know what franchise meant. I clicked the mode not knowing what it was and reached the end of the first season. Thinking it was all over. But I got a great surprise when I noticed that i could continue on.

After it all sunk in I just felt this great amazing feeling of power and joy. I never felt so good in my life. I was hooked and as a 12 year old I didn't have any expectations. It was just the best thing ever. I just knew it was.

Then the ps2 and xbox and gamecubes came out and i enjoyed those times so much. Then came the 360 versions and it was the worst experience of my life.

I dont want to go into anymore painful detail but I just got a simple question man. Why can't us franchise guys get what we want?

[jeetaa6]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

it's all about online now. offline Franchise is quickly becoming an afterthought and that does bite, yes.
i NEVER play online. just don't enjoy it. oh well.

[henson]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

I can go either way with online and offline play. I hate how people usually start to play and then leave before even picking a team. <object classid="clsid: D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" width="16" height="16" id="movie" align=""><param name="movie" value="http://forumsmiles.com/content/6/mov.swf"><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed allowScriptAccess="always" src="http://forumsmiles.com/content/6/mov.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="16" height="16" name="movie" align="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"</embed></object>

[Valdarez]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

I love playing offline franchise, but I'm curious what others expect in offline franchise? I personally don't want Head Coach (tried it, hated it) features. I don't want to manage stadium parking / food sells and stuff along those lines. I would like the ability to better understand my CAP penalties as this bit me hard in M10, and I would like the ability to structure my contract offers differently (front loaded / back loaded) in order to manage the CAP.

[joejccva71]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

I really hope we get alot of the features we've been asking for 5 years. Maybe Ian and co. will be like "let's put this in..they asked for it but lets make it right", "lets go ahead and implement this now..we have the resources, and OS has been asking for years about it" , etc etc.

I'm not holding my breath because for whatever reason they keep implementing NEW features while leaving the aspects that make a great football game, broken.

Let us hope!

[Exonerated]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

When the vast majority of your consumer base is 'online-oriented', you better commit a vast majority of your resources to 'online'.

[Valdarez]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

When the vast majority of your consumer base is 'online-oriented', you better commit a vast majority of your resources to 'online'.

Vast majority isn't online oriented, the 76% in the article means they have an online connection, not that they play online.

[ryan36]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

I tried online, it was horrible for me. A guy just kept standing up his d-lineman moving him to the LB level, and sacking me. I had to play to a whole game throwing to the flats. Wasn't fun at all.

I think all online is missing is as Valdarez said, an ability to offer different contracs (as was in the other game), and to better see cap hits. Relocation would be cool, if they didn't make you change your team name and redesign your jerseys.

[Buckeyes_Doc]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

I love playing offline franchise, but I'm curious what others expect in offline franchise? I personally don't want Head Coach (tried it, hated it) features. I don't want to manage stadium parking / food sells and stuff along those lines. I would like the ability to better understand my CAP penalties as this bit me hard in M10, and I would like the ability to structure my contract offers differently (front loaded / back loaded) in order to manage the CAP.

Yeah I don't care about hot dog prices or parking lot prices.

I also want them to improve the players contacts. 2K5 did a good job of this where you could structure player contacts differently to help manage the CAP. In Madden we really can't do that and sometimes negotiating contacts can be a pain.

Really just add little things to franchise mode. For example in FA in the offseason when signing players we should have the option to see our roster right from that screen. With the way it is now I have to keep going back and forth between the player management screen and then back to the FA screen. This would make life a lot easier for me.

And adding when a player was drafted on the player card again would be nice.

Also just adding to the overall presentation of franchise to keep it more interesting. Adding more to NFL news, adding like a personality thing where players in your organization will have disputes with playing time and what not.

[Flamehead]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

it's all about online now. offline Franchise is quickly becoming an afterthought and that does bite, yes.
i NEVER play online. just don't enjoy it. oh well.

Sad but true. If the offseason component of HC, i.e., drafting, FA, etc. was implemented, it would be so much more entertaining and immersive. But at this point, we just have to read the tea leaves and admit that it's not a priority.

On the other hand, something as fundamental as season stats were apparently "challenging" to get right, so...I don't know, maybe it's just as well. After all, it would be even more disheartening to have something added only to not work right.

[leo2k2ndc]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

Its like people have said, Its more about online and graphics, Myself I only play Madden for Dynasty really besides head match-ups with friends ...

[salbowski]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

You can play Franchise offline. Can't use ads if the consumer isn't online. $£$£$£$£$ as always.

[lgxjames]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

Ill i kno is my purchase this year is based on franchise...

i know everyone is caught on gameplay and all, but regardless i can't see me playing a long time without a franchise mode to keep me hooked

[rootofalleli]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

I love playing offline franchise, but I'm curious what others expect in offline franchise? I personally don't want Head Coach (tried it, hated it) features. I don't want to manage stadium parking / food sells and stuff along those lines. I would like the ability to better understand my CAP penalties as this bit me hard in M10, and I would like the ability to structure my contract offers differently (front loaded / back loaded) in order to manage the CAP.

I agree that managing all the little stuff is not fun. It might feel sort of realistic for some people, but not all realism is good. I'm sure real football executives have to do a lot of mundane things that all of us experience and don't need in a game.

For me, a couple things about Madden stand out as easily fixed issues in franchise mode:

1) Retirements. The number of players coming in through the draft is fairly close to what we see in life. But the number of players exiting the league is not. Retirement happens very late. Players from many positions routinely keep their skills and stay in the league until they are in their mid to late 30s. This should be the exception, not the norm! This would be easy to fix if the formulas for retirement were tweaked. It would really change the franchise game too, since user teams wouldn't be able to stockpile awesome players like they do now.

2) Injuries. One major reason for retirement is injury. We know Madden 10 has the technology to temporarily reduce a player's stats due to injury. However, this never lasts past the end of the game. In reality, people take years to fully recover from some surgeries, if they can fully recover at all. Madden should give players temporary penalties that could last for months or years (or indefinitely!), depending on the injury, the player's age, and his conditioning. There could be a medical staff that gives players physicals to determine their status (what penalties, how long, etc). Perhaps we could even see players come out of college still recovering from an ACL repair from a year before. Some of this would require some new UI elements, but a lot of the code is obviously there already.

3) Contracts. The present system is pretty bad, frankly. It consumes time and doesn't really involve a decision. It would be nice if we could choose contract amounts based on the player's role (e.g. "Starter- $25 mil for 4 years" vs "Backup- $6 mil for 4 years") and see if the player has a better offer. The amount we'd have to offer for each option would depend on the player's age, position, and skill. Some good players really do take cheap deals every year, just because no one will offer better. They'd rather play than sit. And I'd rather the game just tell me what I need to offer than make me guess until I get sick of hitting the d-pad. Beyond that, the depth Valdarez mentioned would be nice- once we get the numbers right, we can shift the years and other details around. Back-loading a deal might require an extra 10% or 20% (since the player would expect to be cut early), for example. A new UI for contracts would make this part of the game a lot more interactive. Right now it's too much of a guessing game with too few meaningful choices.

4) Scouting. We can scout rookies, but I'd like to have some uncertainty about the rest of the league. In reality, teams don't often know exactly what they have, and teams rarely know exactly what everyone else has. I'd like to see a lot more information hidden from us, especially for younger players and backups. Everyone knows Dwight Freeney is good and will continue to be good, but we can't really be sure about Elvis Dumervil, for example. Maybe his success was a fluke! I can see how some people wouldn't want to deal with extra scouting (especially if the UI was clunky) but it would be a great optional feature for people who want more complexity in their decisions.

I'd really like to see some changes to franchise mode in Madden '11, even if they aren't the kind of changes that make the marketing department do back flips.

[jeetaa6]

Re: How come us franchise guys cant get what we want?

Quick question regarding Scouting...I can't find a way to Auto Scout. I just don't want to put the time into it so I looked for a place to choose for the CPU to do it. Help?