Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 01:59 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

M17 Player Progression:

I posted last year regarding the CPU progression of QBs and how the system was flawed when selecting between progression settings of weekly, monthly and end of season. See the link below:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ogression.html

You will be pleased to know, after a quick look at the player attributes over 10 years (mostly QBs) that the progression system works properly for all 3 settings. End of season progression no long buys all the really expensive stats and neglects things like AWR. Choose whichever you prefer

I am going with monthly as I believe you can only evaluate a change in real life attributes over a couple of games instead of 1 good game.

It should be worth noting that due to the relatively cheap cost of INJ in M17 then it appears CPU picks this up more often but will need to look into this more in depth (I like it being cheaper, a player gets injured and his INJ stat drops, so you need to rehab him with XP instead of focussing on playing attributes, just like real life).

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 02:10 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Un-retireing Players:

The method for un-retiring a player for M16 works pretty much exactly the same on M17 offline. But not online...

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-retiring.html

In online/cloud franchise, the restriction of 1 character per user means you can't really do the method the same way anymore, you have to give up your current character to control the player and then un-retire them in week 1 of the offseason. The good news is that when you re-take over a coach in Week 1 of the offseason you regain the ability to resign players whereas in M16 you lost that when starting a new coach in Week 1.

WARNING: Don't give up an owner in online or offline, it won't let you pick them again (unless the method still works where another user logs into your CFM online and picks that owner and then quits straight away).

This trick should also work for Coaches but you need to control the coach the week before they retire (as soon as wilcard weekend) but I haven't found a coach that retires consistently early in CFM (hello Pete Carroll).

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 02:13 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Owner Creation Tips:

Fun fact, created coaches and players get their digi-pictures in CFM this year, not the blank grey man pic. Sadly created owners do not get a picture and this sucks.

Existing owners have last years pictures but when you change the player archetype in the Coach Schemes menu, it will not stick when you exit. Only created owners can change the player archetypes in the Coach Scheme menu.

Edit: Some coach appearances can also result in an actual photo being available. I've seen John Fox clones and there is even a report you can get Josh McDaniels to appear with the right combination of name and appearance??

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 03:36 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Coaching Carousel:

So there is a legacy issue that has been in EVERY CFM AND IT REALLY ANNOYS ME!! I've reported it every year and ask in the Dev section if it is ever going to be fixed... but sadly, it has not been fixed in CFM for M17.

When a coach is fired or retires in CFM, the owner has to hire a new coach. If the coach is a real life existing coach, when hired, they bring their playbooks and schemes and change all the player archetypes to their types. However, when a CPU generated Coach is hired, they bring their schemes and copy various coaches playbooks. They also move players immediately to suit their scheme (i.e. if changing from a 3-4 to 4-3 move the pass rush LB's to DE and 3-4 DE's to DT).

What the new CPU coach doesn't do is change the player archetypes from the previous real coach! Therefore after moving the 3-4 LB to DE the archetype at DE is still a 3-4 Run-stuffer, therefore the Physical, Intangible and Size ratings are all wrong!

To counter this, I would advise turning Coach Firing to off. At Wildcard Weekend, if you believe a coach deserves to be fired (bad seasons etc) or retires anyway, create a new character of the coach you want firing and “Demand Release”. You can then either retire the coach un-hired or keep controlling the coach to choose your new destination. Another alternative is to create an owner, fire the coach and hire a new one for yourself, but as soon as you relinquish the owner, they will be locked out of use forever.

To avoid this, if a new team hires a CPU coach that changes defensive scheme (and it bugs you), you can create a character for the new coach (change the players back to their original position) and demand release again (has to be before advancing from the Superbowl) and hope the owner hires a 2nd coach with the correct defensive scheme. Even if the team hasn't hired the 2nd coach before Free agency starts, they will still try and sign players according to the previous real coaches archetypes.

2rd Alternative is 32-team control of the coaches, then you can set whatever player archetypes you want and then turn autopilot on.

If any of the Developers or Game Changers ever read this, can we please (one day at least) have this patched, it would be so awesome for CPU coaches to set full schemes as it breaks immersion otherwise.

UPDATE: This can be achieved at any point in CFM. If you don't like a new CPU coach or you want to fire a coach midseason for poor performance, create a new Coach for that team, instantly retire that created coach and the team will have fired the previous CPU coach and hired a new one out of the Available Coaches pool. If you don't like the new new CPU coach, create another Coach, rinse and repeat. Eventually the team will hire a new coach with a scheme you like/think fits or they will hire a Real Coach who was fired from another team.

UPDATE2: This has not been patched after testing it on online CFM which is a real shame because it is CFM breaking when the CPU moves their defensive players then cuts them etc, or the CPU coach uses a read-option playbook but sign a pocket passer QB based on scheme archetype. Picture below to show what I mean.

It's easy to fix, make it so whatever playbook the CPU coach uses matches the same scheme archetype, so if you use C.Paganos playbook, you have a 3-4 Pass Rush ROLB and Run Stuff LOLB. If you use R.Riveras offensive playbook then you have a mobile QB and power HB... grrrrr!

UPDATE3: Thanks to ajra21 for almost coming up with this idea in this post:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...3-4-4-3-a.html

A slight workaround for offline CFM, if a team hires one of the generic CPU coaches and you are pooped off that the player archetypes do not match the scheme, if you create that coach and change the playbooks and offensive scheme and defensive scheme, then retire the coach, the changes will stick. So you are forced to always use a 3-4 or 4-3, whichever the team starts Madden CFM with, but at least you can force coaches to use playbooks that match the original scheme and change the off/def scheme to vary the coach's/teams playstyle.

Hopefully this gets fixed for M18, but right now, there is a sort of workaround

Sorry to online users, there is no workaround...

Attached Files

Coach Carousel Bug.jpg (21.3 KB, 1023 views)

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 03:48 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Moving players, backup regression and season goals:

So full player edit is in, which is great, but a head scratcher is that the Level 1 and 2 season goals for backup players is no longer automatically 0'd. This means that at the end of every season, any backup that hasn't made a “Starting Players” amount of stats they will regress and possibly lose a Dyna-Dev level.

Another head scratcher is the message of “adjust roster – last chance to move players” in the CFM menu after the draft but before starting pre-season... why put that message in if full player edit is switched on??? Well, it's a carry over from M16, but once you advance from that screen, it creates the season goals for that player dependant on the position they were left in.

Therefore, if you have a Superstar backup you are sitting behind the current incumbent starter (Aaron Rodgers to Brett Favre) and are worried about the Backup Regression and drop in Dyna-Dev, you can move which ever player to FB or any position on the O-line, then advance to Pre-season. Once in Pre-season Week 1, move the player back to their original position and they will keep the FB or OL season goal. Why FB or OL you say? Well its because those positions have team dependant goals as oppose to personal stats goals, so all you need to do is hit the Level 2 goal for Rushing Yards or Pass Yards and the backup player will avoid regression.

Update: Example picture attached, here is my backup QB with FB season goals at the QB position in Preseason Week 1.

Update2: There is also a 2nd goal shift when advancing from the preseason to the real season, so you want to get your players into position for Week4 of the preseason. If you aren't a fan of cheesing too much, I suggest backup QBs to OL as there is a chance they'll still get Passing Yards as a goal.

Update3: Hahahahahah, its almost like the developers read this cheesing post...? New patch means season goals now only develop once a player registers as "in a game". So QB3 with FB goals doesn't work properly now, as who wants to get a 12OVR FB in the game?? So, QB3 wont show in team goals until he gets in the game as a QB. It doesn't work for OL either, the player appears as OL in goals, when you shift the player they go blank in Week 1 of team goals until they appear in a game...

However, if this is true, it means that backup players that don't get into a game all year likely wont be affected by regression from season goals, like injured players do (as they arn't listed in the goals section)

Attached Files

QB FB Season Goals.jpg (51.8 KB, 2330 views)

**malky** · 08-27-2016, 03:50 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Originally posted by Geodude

Coaching Carousel:

So there is a legacy issue that has been in EVERY CFM AND IT REALLY ANNOYS ME!! I've reported it every year and ask in the Dev section if it is ever going to be fixed... but sadly, it has not been fixed in CFM for M17.

When a coach is fired or retires in CFM, the owner has to hire a new coach. If the coach is a real life existing coach, when hired, they bring their playbooks and schemes and change all the player archetypes to their types. However, when a CPU generated Coach is hired, they bring their schemes and copy various coaches playbooks. They also move players immediately to suit their scheme (i.e. if changing from a 3-4 to 4-3 move the pass rush LB's to DE and 3-4 DE's to DT).

What the new CPU coach doesn't do is change the player archetypes from the previous real coach! Therefore after moving the 3-4 LB to DE the archetype at DE is still a 3-4 Run-stuffer, therefore the Physical, Intangible and Size ratings are all wrong!

To counter this, I would advise turning Coach Firing to off. At Wildcard Weekend, if you believe a coach deserves to be fired (bad seasons etc) or retires anyway, create a new character of the coach you want firing and “Demand Release”. You can then either retire the coach un-hired or keep controlling the coach to choose your new destination. Another alternative is to create an owner, fire the coach and hire a new one for yourself, but as soon as you relinquish the owner, they will be locked out of use forever.

To avoid this, if a new team hires a CPU coach that changes defensive scheme (and it bugs you), you can create a character for the new coach (change the players back to their original position) and demand release again (has to be before advancing from the Superbowl) and hope the owner hires a 2nd coach with the correct defensive scheme. Even if the team hasn't hired the 2nd coach before Free agency starts, they will still try and sign players according to the previous real coaches archetypes.

2rd Alternative is 32-team control of the coaches, then you can set whatever player archetypes you want and then turn autopilot on.

If any of the Developers or Game Changers ever read this, can we please (one day at least) have this patched, it would be so awesome for CPU coaches to set full schemes as it breaks immersion otherwise.

Good stuff! How do you turn auto pilot on?

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 04:01 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Player Archetypes:

So in previous Maddens, a player starts with an archetype (Speed DE, RZT WR, Power HB etc) but when you moved positions (even from LE to RE etc), the Archetype would reset to whatever had the highest OVR irrelevant of the style of player, so if you moved a 3-4 Versatile DE from RE to LE, if he had slightly better speed, his archetype could change to Speed Rusher, even though he was 300lbs. Annoying for some.

This year, the projected Archetype is shown in the first page of the Edit Player screen, so you know what they would change to before saving any edits, and if you didn't like it then just don't save the changes! Woo I hear you say?

It possibly gets better, it seems if a player had a previously assigned Archetype (i.e. had been set at that position in previous CFMs/Madden) they revert to that Archetype instead of the highest OVR one, e.g. When I moved Scott Crichton for the Vikings from DT to LE, the edit menu said he would become a “Speed Rusher” but when I exited, his player card said “4-3 Run-stuffer” instead, which was his archetype for M16. Amazing!!.... or it is an anomoly where the “edit player archetype” doesn't quite match the requirements of the “OVR archetype”.

There are some anomalies though, for instance, when changing a couple of Power HBs to FB I noticed the edit menu would state “Blocking FB” but the archetype would end up “Runner-receiver” even though that player had never been a FB before so didn't have the preassigned Archetype.

However, this year, thanks to full player editing, if the new Archetype goes funny and you don't like it, you can edit it!!!!! Move the player, save the change, go back to their player card and edit player again and change the archetype. You have to change it after the move as it will revert to highest OVR archetypes whilst editing for the move.

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 04:02 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Originally posted by malky

Good stuff! How do you turn auto pilot on?

Go to CFM options - User Teams - Click X (A) - Toggle Auto Pilot

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 04:16 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

QB THP Regression:

This one I mentioned in the “M17 Regression” thread but its worth mentioning here. So in M17, players start regressing at 29, which for the most part a lot of people agree with. The problem is that Madden has a blanket -2 age regression for every player at every position after 29. For most positions that is probably realistic and not much of a deal as they will be retiring within 3-5 seasons (age 33/34).

This is a problem for QBs though! A QB will start to lose THP (throw power) halfway through their career. If you skip ahead 10 years in CFM, Cam Newton was 38 with 66 SPD and 81 THP, Russell Wilson had 77THP!! If you look at Tom Brady now, or Carson Palmer or Drew Brees or Peyton Manning last year, yes they had lost some zip to their throw as they aged, but not as much as Madden makes the younger QBs eventually have due to the blanket regression.

My recommendation is (as the good QBs play until past 35) is that you make sure to edit the THP regression of most QBs back up to their previous THP until the age of around 33/34, therefore for the remaining 3-5 years of their career they will lose between -6 and 10 off their THP. That looks more realistic, Cam Newton having 66SPD at 38 but around 87THP instead of 81THP.

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 04:23 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Player Scheme OVRs:

A quick one this time, and another great little unnoticed addition to CFM in Madden 17. If you go to the Salaries menu in CFM, in previous Maddens (if you didn't already know this), the OVR shown of the player reflects their OVR in their own Coaches Scheme/Archetypes! If you look the same player on another team through the Roster Menu, it shows their OVR based on your own scheme/archetypes.

This isn't the good new thing though, this year, they added the Coach's Archetype in the top left hand corner of the Salaries menu, so now you can see another player is a 72OVR in another Scheme and it shows that as “Prototype” in the top left hand corner. Steals can be had with trades where a team doesn't recognise a players worth because they are the wrong size/player for their scheme (Su'a Cravens is a great example, he is a terrible MLB for the Redskins but makes a ~80OVR Safety or a decent Cover2 OLB.

A sad thing in M17 though is they removed the Physical, Intangible, Durability and Size rating from the Salaries menu

And they moved it to the back of the attributes list in the Roster Menu

So its a bit harder to get a quick“feel” for a player without studying their full attributes.

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 04:32 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Draft Class Archetypes:

So this year, they really opened the throttle on the Rookie Draft Class Generator! Some archetypes have been removed from the game, such as Big Mauler O-linemen... very few west coast and strong arm QBs and one cut and receiving HBs etc but you can edit the archetypes back in as you see fit... but I digress...

This year, the “banding” for the player archetypes has been opened up a lot. I haven't had very many 80+ STR CBs and there are 80+ STR 4-3 DEs. Safeties and LBs can now have Hit Power in the 90s and there are 6'3” WRs (and 6'6" one)!! Basically, the range of attributes and heights and weights have been widened a lot so there is a lot more variation in the draft classes now. There are some good safeties for once, so no longer do I need to draft a 220lb Cover 2 or Prototype LB and move him!

This is less of a theory and more of an observation, but despite the lack of certain archetypes in the draft, I do like how it has been tweaked. Plus the reversal of the scouting points required (from 15points last to 15points first) means you REALLY need to plan how you scout.

Update: A lack of certain player archetypes is actually explained by scouting alternation. One week you can scout the drafts top talent plus Group X players, the week after the same top talent is there but the players from later rounds are exchanged to Group Y and back again week after week.

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 04:40 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Practice Squad Contracts:

Love the addition of practice squads but there are some things you might not have worked out yet.

If you draft a player, they are given a standard 4 year contract based on where they were drafted. However, there isn't only the worry a drafted player on the practice squad will be stolen, if you place a player on the practice squad from your team, their contract will be reduced from 4 years to 2 years.

If you sign a player directly from Free Agency to Practice Squad, they will also be given a 2 year contract as oppose to the standard 1 year contract by signing them direct to your squad. But if you promote to the real squad the "hidden/undefined" 2 year contract becomes a one year contract and they need to be resigned in the offseason. If you steal a player from another persons Practice Squad, they will only be given a 1 year contract due to being promoted to the real squad and therefore need to be resigned in the offseason too.

This also ensures that you practice squad players are automatically available for the next season without renegotiating a contract.

**Mattanite** · 08-27-2016, 04:51 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Player XP and OVR over time:

So, if you advance your CFM for 10 years, you will notice a few of things. Firstly, there are barely any real players any more, secondly, there are way less 90+ OVR players and thirdly, there are a lot of 80-89OVR Players.

I had the XP slider set to default but generally speaking, there were 1-2 90+ OVR players per team, which equates to around 40-60 total in the league. I am happy with this number, it means that the ratings differential for elite players in Madden17 grows over time. If you are not happy with this number of players you need to up the XP slider.

Warning though; upping the XP slider for more 90+OVR players will also create even more 80-89OVR players, which it seemed the league was saturated in. Not one team had a QB starting with less than an 80OVR and it will only get worse with increased XP sliders.

Oppositely, decreasing the XP slider will make less 80-89OVR players for even better ratings differential, but the 90+OVR player will all but dissapear except for the lucky ones who win probowls, MVPs and Superbowls (talking maybe <10 players total in the league over time).

Your choice:
Default: Decent Elite players, lots of Good Players, decent ratings differential
High: Lots of Elite players, abundant Good Players, low ratings differential
Low: Very few Elite players, decent Good Players, more ratings differential

The XP sliders are edited per position as well, so I am going to play default for most except QB which I will play around with between 50-80%. More research needed there. Please note the QB regression above too.

Update: A lot of popular slider sets on here or for download are upping the other positions but keeping the QB position at around 90-100%. I am using 96% now.

**x_NBA_x** · 08-27-2016, 04:57 PM

Re: Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

Great stuff. Some advice, it might be easier for people if you were to edit the first post with links to each post as an index of sorts?

For example;

Practice Squad Contracts
Player XP and OVR over time

They click each individual one to go straight to the required piece information.

Geodude's M17 Franchise Tips

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