M16: How to stop players from retiring.

[Mattanite]

Hello everyone,

There have been a few posts asking how to stop players retiring in Madden 16 , and instead of responding to them all I decided to create a new thread as the following method will likely need some discussion. This all worked in Madden 15 and I am testing it for Madden 16 before I start my proper franchise once the final roster update comes out.

So, this is how to stop a player from retiring early!

It differs for online and offline franchises due to the fact online franchises autosave on the cloud.

Offline:

• Create a "backup1" save file in week 17 before advancing to the play offs. All non-playoff teams decide their retirements when advancing from week 17.
• Create a second bacup ("backup2") before advancing from the Superbowl, all playoff teams decide their retirements after advancing from the week they were knock out of the playoffs. (Note, if you are in the Superbowl, you can play it and save the backup after that and before advancing the week)
• Advance to the post draft week of the post season (before advancing to post season), most (if not all) retirements have been recorded in transactions for this offseason by now.
• Make a note of the retirements, if there any players you believe to be retiring too early, make a note of them.
• Reload your Superbowl "backup" save, create a new player in Franchise for the player you don't want to retire. You can have one player per team except for any team you are the coach or owner of (more on that later).
• Advance to the off-season and then retire the controlled player at a point you choose, there are 3 or 4 points which are good.
  

1. The first week of off-season (when you can resign players), the non-retiring player will then enter the free agent pool to be bid on as normal. If you relinquish control of a coach to keep a player at this time then you will lose the ability to resign players when you go back to being the coach in the same week. Make sure your house is in order before doing this method!!
2. The week before advancing to the draft where you can scout college players but FA is now closed. This means the player becomes a FA but does not go through the bidding process (I have no idea if Madden logic is smart enough that a team will draft with an eye on remaining free agents or not). The advantage here is that there isn't a bidding war, say for Tom Brady and you can change to the coach of the Pats in Pre-season week1 and sign him to 1 year deal.
3. The week post-draft, i.e. when you're reviewing players.
4. Preseason week 1

So whenever you decide to "retire" the player, afterwards, go to control the coach of the team you want to sign the player and then bid for them or sign them to a one year deal. Voila... almost...

• If two players from the same team retire in the same year (e.g. Romo and Witten) and you want to try and stop them both, reload the Week 17 backup save file and advance to off-season, save a backup to the backup (so “backup3” now) in week 1 of the post season (or if they are a playoff team, save backup3 whenever they get knocked out the playoffs).
• Advance to off-season and note if the same two players retire, if only one retires, great, load backup3 and use the above method on the remaining retiring player. If they both still retire, reload the Week 17 backup and try again.
• Note that some players do not flip flop about retiring (e.g. P.Manning, T.Newman), they have to be controlled to not retire.
• Like I said above, if you are trying to save a player on your own team then you will have to give up control of the coach and lose the ability to resign your players in week 1 of the off-season and then bid on your own player again. DON'T give up an owner to save a player as you will lose the ability to be that owner FOREVER! e.g. I like playing the Vikings as an owner, but when AP goes I can't save him.

There is a workaround to the owner issue though!!

• Whenever your team is knocked out of the playoffs, release your retiring player from your team as an owner and sign them to a play off team using a different coach, then change the coach to that particular player you want to save on a different team.
• Then in the off-season, release/retire the player whenever you want (do you want to bid on them or just have a 1 year deal?) and resign them as the owner.

Online:

Warning!!! I haven't fully tested the Online methods yet but everything I outline in the offline method works and I am assuming still works in the online method (I will test it when I get time).

• Guess... seriously... guess.
• As the game autosaves, you need to anticipate who might be retiring in the off-season and pre-emptively control that player before advancing from the Superbowl.
• Use the same method above (control-retire-resign) and un-retire them in the week that suits you (to bid or not to bid).
• The workaround for an owner should still work online too (release-sign elsewhere-control-retire-resign).

Final note: Just because you have saved a person from retiring doesn't mean it is always worth it... They regress to the off-season, so do you really want that Roddy White with 80 Speed after all??
Plus, the team you sign them back with might just cut them in the pre-season anyway (unless you control the 53 man roster to week 1 of the regular season, generally, aged veterans on the final 53 man roster in week 1 don't get cut as easy as they do in preseason. Darn it Madden logic, just give Peanut Tillman a chance for once!).

Please let me know what you think and any improvements to method are very welcome.

P.S. I am not responsible for anything that might go wrong in your Franchise using these methods, or for you getting booted out of an online league for doing this, you should always ask if it is fine with the commish first :P

[msdm27]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

Hello everyone,

There have been a few posts asking how to stop players retiring in Madden 16 , and instead of responding to them all I decided to create a new thread as the following method will likely need some discussion. This all worked in Madden 15 and I am testing it for Madden 16 before I start my proper franchise once the final roster update comes out.

So, this is how to stop a player from retiring early!

It differs for online and offline franchises due to the fact online franchises autosave on the cloud.

Offline:

• Create a "backup1" save file in week 17 before advancing to the play offs. All non-playoff teams decide their retirements when advancing from week 17.
• Create a second bacup ("backup2") before advancing from the Superbowl, all playoff teams decide their retirements after advancing from the week they were knock out of the playoffs. (Note, if you are in the Superbowl, you can play it and save the backup after that and before advancing the week)
• Advance to the post draft week of the post season (before advancing to post season), most (if not all) retirements have been recorded in transactions for this offseason by now.
• Make a note of the retirements, if there any players you believe to be retiring too early, make a note of them.
• Reload your Superbowl "backup" save, create a new player in Franchise for the player you don't want to retire. You can have one player per team except for any team you are the coach or owner of (more on that later).
• Advance to the off-season and then retire the controlled player at a point you choose, there are 3 or 4 points which are good.
  

1. The first week of off-season (when you can resign players), the non-retiring player will then enter the free agent pool to be bid on as normal. If you relinquish control of a coach to keep a player at this time then you will lose the ability to resign players when you go back to being the coach in the same week. Make sure your house is in order before doing this method!!
2. The week before advancing to the draft where you can scout college players but FA is now closed. This means the player becomes a FA but does not go through the bidding process (I have no idea if Madden logic is smart enough that a team will draft with an eye on remaining free agents or not). The advantage here is that there isn't a bidding war, say for Tom Brady and you can change to the coach of the Pats in Pre-season week1 and sign him to 1 year deal.
3. The week post-draft, i.e. when you're reviewing players.
4. Preseason week 1

So whenever you decide to "retire" the player, afterwards, go to control the coach of the team you want to sign the player and then bid for them or sign them to a one year deal. Voila... almost...

• If two players from the same team retire in the same year (e.g. Romo and Witten) and you want to try and stop them both, reload the Week 17 backup save file and advance to off-season, save a backup to the backup (so “backup3” now) in week 1 of the post season (or if they are a playoff team, save backup3 whenever they get knocked out the playoffs).
• Advance to off-season and note if the same two players retire, if only one retires, great, load backup3 and use the above method on the remaining retiring player. If they both still retire, reload the Week 17 backup and try again.
• Note that some players do not flip flop about retiring (e.g. P.Manning, T.Newman), they have to be controlled to not retire.
• Like I said above, if you are trying to save a player on your own team then you will have to give up control of the coach and lose the ability to resign your players in week 1 of the off-season and then bid on your own player again. DON'T give up an owner to save a player as you will lose the ability to be that owner FOREVER! e.g. I like playing the Vikings as an owner, but when AP goes I can't save him.

There is a workaround to the owner issue though!!

• Whenever your team is knocked out of the playoffs, release your retiring player from your team as an owner and sign them to a play off team using a different coach, then change the coach to that particular player you want to save on a different team.
• Then in the off-season, release/retire the player whenever you want (do you want to bid on them or just have a 1 year deal?) and resign them as the owner.

Online:

Warning!!! I haven't fully tested the Online methods yet but everything I outline in the offline method works and I am assuming still works in the online method (I will test it when I get time).

• Guess... seriously... guess.
• As the game autosaves, you need to anticipate who might be retiring in the off-season and pre-emptively control that player before advancing from the Superbowl.
• Use the same method above (control-retire-resign) and un-retire them in the week that suits you (to bid or not to bid).
• The workaround for an owner should still work online too (release-sign elsewhere-control-retire-resign).

Final note: Just because you have saved a person from retiring doesn't mean it is always worth it... They regress to the off-season, so do you really want that Roddy White with 80 Speed after all??
Plus, the team you sign them back with might just cut them in the pre-season anyway (unless you control the 53 man roster to week 1 of the regular season, generally, aged veterans on the final 53 man roster in week 1 don't get cut as easy as they do in preseason. Darn it Madden logic, just give Peanut Tillman a chance for once!).

Please let me know what you think and any improvements to method are very welcome.

P.S. I am not responsible for anything that might go wrong in your Franchise using these methods, or for you getting booted out of an online league for doing this, you should always ask if it is fine with the commish first :P

Maaaan why did you take so long with this workaround?

Awesome work! I ended up starting my offline franchise over again after creating fake players for the players I saw retiring too early after simming 4 seasons.

I created them as scrubs (with correct bio information) so that they'd carry minimum salary; assigned them to their current teams, saved the roster, edit them to their "real level" and then release them to the free agent pool.

That way, when Brady and Palmer decide to retire after one year... voila! The Pats and Cardinals can just sign them in the next offseason Of course, this only works with 32 team control, while you're controlling all player movement.

I haven't come so far as the first offseason yet as it takes some time to set everything up from scratch again, especially because now I know I can't use "pre-existing" injuries ON, so I have to take a real careful looks at each team's final 53 in the first offseason :/

I'll get back with results once I've tested everything runs smoothly.

Here's a list of the players I created:
Tom Brady aka "The Best in the Business" -- Always retires after season 1
Carson Palmer -- Always retires after season 1
Eli Manning -- Seems to always retire after season 1, what's that about?
Adrian Peterson - Retired after season one
Tony Romo -- Retired after season 2 of my test sim
Alex Smith -- Retired after season 3 of my test sim
Jay Cutler -- Retired after season 3 of my test sim

Of course, there are plenty of other dudes that one could argue are retiring "too early" but one can't win them all

Now I think one of the first posters in my other thread made a valid point about how it's a bit silly to think these dudes retire too early when it's really not out of the realm of possibility. In Brady's case he has said he'll play until his 40's thus we think it's ridiculous that he retires after one year, but he'd be 39 in the game and I guess the system needs to weed out players in order to handle the new ones.

What I don't understand is how the logic really works, in that same test cfm Steven Jackson only retired after year 3! and listen to this... Michael Bush (former RB for the Bears who is currently out of the league) retired after season 4 along with Curtis Painter.

[Mattanite]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

Hi, thanks for the response, good to have a list of players who will retire to give the online players a heads up as to when they might go.

Another alternative is to control a coach in Week 17 and purchase the retirement trait for whichever player. I took the HB retirement perk with Zimmer and then AP plays to about 33/34 for me.

Sorry it took so long, I thought it was a given as I've been doing this since Madden 15... but then I remember there are so many things that Madden doesn't let you know in the tutorial, such as how to do position subs per formation or how that player OVR in Salaries shows the player OVR according to the other teams scheme whereas Roster shows other players according to your scheme...

[msdm27]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

Hi, thanks for the response, good to have a list of players who will retire to give the online players a heads up as to when they might go.

Another alternative is to control a coach in Week 17 and purchase the retirement trait for whichever player. I took the HB retirement perk with Zimmer and then AP plays to about 33/34 for me.

Sorry it took so long, I thought it was a given as I've been doing this since Madden 15... but then I remember there are so many things that Madden doesn't let you know in the tutorial, such as how to do position subs per formation or how that player OVR in Salaries shows the player OVR according to the other teams scheme whereas Roster shows other players according to your scheme...

I bought the retirement package in my first test CFM for Brady and Palmer, they both had phenomena, statistical seasons and they always retired no matter what. But I'll try to see how it works with other positions too

[Blazer81]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

Not to be dense but...can you direct me to the position sub per formation instructions? I have been all over looking for them. Or can you just fill me in on "how to" if it isn't too involved?

[Blazer81]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

Hi, thanks for the response, good to have a list of players who will retire to give the online players a heads up as to when they might go.

Another alternative is to control a coach in Week 17 and purchase the retirement trait for whichever player. I took the HB retirement perk with Zimmer and then AP plays to about 33/34 for me.

Sorry it took so long, I thought it was a given as I've been doing this since Madden 15... but then I remember there are so many things that Madden doesn't let you know in the tutorial, such as how to do position subs per formation or how that player OVR in Salaries shows the player OVR according to the other teams scheme whereas Roster shows other players according to your scheme...

Where is that info on position subs per formation? Hate to be stupid but I haven't been able to find that info.

[Mattanite]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

Not to be dense but...can you direct me to the position sub per formation instructions? I have been all over looking for them. Or can you just fill me in on "how to" if it isn't too involved?

When in the playbook whilst in a game, press the R1 (right bumper) when hovering over the formation/play you want. It allows you to cycle left or right through players and press X (A) to access the sub menu, go up and down and press X (A) again on the player you want. The changes will stay for the rest of the match unless you put the original player back in place (i.e. that player will play that spot in all plays in that formation).


I do this for the double A-gap pressure in the nickel formation as I want Barr playing the MLB spot with Kendricks in the ROLB slot. You can swap TE for extra linemen etc etc.


Also there are packages in the playbook too, like flip WR or DE at DT.

[crenk]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

How long can you keep a player around for if you do this with brady for example season after season?

[Mattanite]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

How long can you keep a player around for if you do this with brady for example season after season?

Good question! Answer: No idea. Will have to try.


The "be a player screen" says it will force retire after 15 years but as the method still works with Brady and Manning that is obviously not happening. Remember though, they will still regress due to the age regression arc. So you could get Brady to play until 45 but he might be rated in the 70's by then??

[crenk]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

I simmer a season last night to see if I could keep Brady into the third year by doing what you said and at 40 he had only regressed to a 96 so with him he could conceivably still be a top 10 abba 43 or 44 years old

[msdm27]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

I simmer a season last night to see if I could keep Brady into the third year by doing what you said and at 40 he had only regressed to a 96 so with him he could conceivably still be a top 10 abba 43 or 44 years old

Problem with the suggested method is you have miss the whole offseason so it doesn't quite work for 32 team control CFM

[crenk]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

cant you retire them in the first week of the offseason and not miss anything?

edit: Just tried it again and players can be retired in the first week of the offseason so you can switch back to coach and do the offseason

[Mattanite]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

cant you retire them in the first week of the offseason and not miss anything?

edit: Just tried it again and players can be retired in the first week of the offseason so you can switch back to coach and do the offseason

As you said, yes you can, the method outlines when you can retire them. The only negative of retiring them in the resigning week is you have to resign them in free agency where other teams might bid and if you are an owner it might take guaranteed money which comes out of the budget...

[msdm27]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

As you said, yes you can, the method outlines when you can retire them. The only negative of retiring them in the resigning week is you have to resign them in free agency where other teams might bid and if you are an owner it might take guaranteed money which comes out of the budget...

Oh ok, then I misread.... so you basically have to take control of the player in week 17 (or the last week the player's team is alive), go to offseason week 1, and then take back control of the coach, and then the player will be available in the FA pool?

[60bedrock]

Re: M16: How to stop players from retiring.

This is genius. This means you can postpone up to 32 retirements with a 32 team control CFM. Outstanding and thanks!