I consider franchise improvements to be two-pronged:
- the gameplay improvements
- the front-end franchise mode improvements
Clearly, both got a ton of love this year. I honestly would've been happy with just the gameplay improvements (the fixed bug on CPU play-calling in of itself is nearly worth the price of admission for me personally) but then they added a ton of depth to the franchise mode itself. While the custom draft classes do nothing for me, the scheme/archetype systems along with the improved regression should mean a ton of variance in how one's franchise will unfold. I can't wait to do some test sims to see how leagues look 10+ years in.
(One question: does anyone know
definitively if the XP sliders have been retained?)