Madden should have different difficulty levels for Franchise
 

If your like me, I like a challenge at franchise. In years past, franchise has been way too easy to be successful at. The price cap is usually too easy to work with, unrealistic trades are too easy, and you can pretty much sign anyone you want, players will play on any team.

I hope starting next year EA developers make a easy, medium, and hardcore franchise mode. hardcore would have a lower price cap, more cap penalties, more realistic and difficulty signing players, much more realistic and restrictive trading, and maybe some sort of momentum implementation, so if you play poorly it drags down the confidence of your players and coaches. These are just some of the ideas to make the franchise actually worth playing and a challange.

After all, what is the fun of a franchise if a 5 year old can jump in and make 30 trades, stack his team, and win Superbowl after Superbowl without trying.

For those players who love the easy franchise, which there are some, there would be the easy and medium franchise levels. Please EA make the franchise a challenge. Many of us want to play franchise to see if we can use our intelligence and gaming skills to build up a team win a Superbowl.

One last note, in addition to the difficulty levels, EA could have sliders so we could adjust the difficulty of aspects of the franchise. I'd like to see a adjustable price cap.

Anyone have more ideas on how to make the franchise more realistic, difficult, and user adjustable?

Re: Madden should have different difficulty levels for Franchise
 

I agree. Part of my problem with Madden is that I can turn the Rams into SuperBowl contenders in one off-season.

I just get so bored with Madden after the second season of any franchise because there's nothing left to do except reload every year and repeat superbowl victories.

Yawn.

I want it to take 3 to 5 seasons of serious re-building to get my Rams into the playoffs. I want to have to work at it.

It seems insane when I go into the offseason and I have like 30 millions dollars of cap space to work with. Maybe the Rams really do have that much, I'm not sure, but I doubt it.

I never have any problems resigning the players I want, picking and choosing free agents, and signing 10+ draft picks (gotta love poor trade AI).

I remember playing NFL 2k5 and I'd hit the off season and have maybe 5 million in cap space to work with, it was INSANE how hard that franchise mode was.

Re: Madden should have different difficulty levels for Franchise
 

Why not impose some house rules on yourself? Don't sign all of those draft free agents. Don't make bogus trades. Billharris had some great house rules for NFL2K5 franchises that could probably be altered to work with Madden.

Re: Madden should have different difficulty levels for Franchise
 

Because it's the developers job to make a realistic franchise, not mine. I shouldn't have to make house rules to make franchise realistic. I shouldn't have to sit there and decide what i can and cannot do, if so, what's the point of calling the mode franchise.

Re: Madden should have different difficulty levels for Franchise
 

I agree with the OP, I have been asking for this same thing for NCAA Dynasty mode of several years now. Some people may think that this is an unfair statement, but if sliders and difficultly levels aren't enough to allow the User to making the game sufficiently challenging and House Rules become necessary, then I feel that is a major failure by the development team.

In certain situations, a rise to mediocrity should be an outstanding achievement, requiring a lot of "hard work" and some luck too. An inevitable ascension to dominance hasn't been fun for me since I was 12. One of these development teams needs to step up give us a Franchise/Dynasty challenge that doesn't come with an Easy button.

Re: Madden should have different difficulty levels for Franchise
 

It is a tough balance that might get met with sliders such as ability to sign FA etc..

Others want to stack their teams I set my own rules and only go after players I need. I actually struggle some in seasons 2-3 of my dynasty.

Re: Madden should have different difficulty levels for Franchise
 

I try and match what the real life team's doing. For example, as the Browns.....let's say next year they release Edwards, Anderson, and Lewis, then draft or pick up FA's.....I'll try to do the same. Providing, of course, the same free agents are available in game....lol.

Re: Madden should have different difficulty levels for Franchise
 

While I agree with the OP, I don't think you need to make the salary cap smaller in order to make franchise more challenging. You could just make the players negotiations more difficult and their salary demands tougher. Free agents may be tougher to come by. The cpu doesn't accept dumb trades and the cpu do a better job of drafting and signing free agents. The idea of having a separation between beginner and hardcore is a good one. You just need to change the salary cap to accomplish that.