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heavydutyrammer's avatar
heavydutyrammer
3 years ago

Franchise Mode - Fix Scouting/Coaches since it was implemented poorly

Great breakdown of the crappy scouting implementation from jjbyrd 

“Scouting in NHL is inherently broken for many reasons.

1. Prospect generation eventually does not exist within certain regions. In this case "Rest of World" and "Allsvenskan." It renders having scouts in those areas useless.

2. Prospect scheme preferences are broken:

   2A) Forward prospects after the first or second draft never have "carry" "efficient" and "don't block" as scheme preferences. And the ones that do are always prospects who will never reach the NHL, i.e. "AHL Top 6" (or less) potential.  

   2B) Defensemen prospects after the first or second draft will never have "balanced" as part of their preferences. And if it's indicated in the scouting report they do have "balanced" as a preference in any capacity its not accurate and once they're drafted it will be revealed that it will either be "pinch/shoot" "pinch/cycle" or "hold line/shoot" or "hold line/cycle."

This renders most coaches totally useless as well given that the coach and chemistry system is totally broken as well. Offensive and defensive coach schemes will eventually be rendered obsolete by the 4th or 5th season. Especially if you prefer to have a team that has 100% computer generated players.

3. Scouting interviews do not reveal anything useful that isn't already available with direct scouting of a player, and is limited to only 3 or 4 items. Player style (SNP, OFD, PLY etc...), NHL readiness, biggest strength, and biggest weakness.

4. Character values do not actually do anything. They don't impact chemistry even though it should be a primary driving force. It's not actually connected to anything, and if it is, or is supposed to be, its not evident at all.

5. Player types are not in line with their attributes. It would be expected that players who are snipers would have high shooting abilities. I find that player attributes are rarely in line with their play type. And given that we can't edit players it makes scouting rather futile.

The actual reason they removed editing players was so that we couldn't edit player types to gain full chemistry values (PWF + PLY + SNP = +5 chemistry)...but given that they totally nixed that formula when they introduced X-Factors and didn't re-introduce player editing is a monumental failure/oversight.

6. Gems never pan out. All the "gems" feature does is add a green (or red) diamond to a randomly selected prospect that will never amount to anything. All they did was add a column to the prospect database to make you think the system is doing something. It's not.

7. Also, why is the age range for scouting 17-50?....does anyone actually have players older than 36 on their team? I personally don't scout players older than 30.”

great breakdown from jjbyrd

and there’s even more… been an issue forever… not a word from EA…

As it always has been… every time EA implements something, it’s half-baked and doesn’t work well… as it seems Franchise Mode is never play tested past the first season… if they even do… 

1 Reply

  • VeronicatheCD's avatar
    VeronicatheCD
    3 years ago

    1. It doesn't despite the fact that it should exist.  Even if most of the players aren't NHL potential, placing in even a handful of NHL potential prospects over the course of a 25 year mode who ALSO are ranked lower in the draft, perhaps below the last 7th round pick even, because no one scouts those areas would make this functional.  I can find the one kid from India who has a high top 6F potential and draft them in the 7th round or draft the one elite potentiall goalie in Japan.  Now, despite no one scouting these regions, if you put anyone good in ROW everyone knows they're good and they're going in the first round.

    But they also need to, then, actually make reasonable draft pools for these areas.  We already have players from France, Italy, Poland, etc with American names.  The France part is especially disheartening since they could literally get away with using the same name pool as the QMJHL.  It's Jean-Jacques Chauvin, not James Sexsmith, being drafted out of Paris.

    4. I'm pretty sure those are for the morale system, not the line chemistry system.  The guy who has to win all the time is going to be miserable if the team finishes 23rd in the league while the team player might play it cool and not demand a trade to a winning team.

    5. I have not noticed that.  However, being able to reassign their position is a must even if we cannot change the player type.  If my top RW is a 78 and my 4th highest center is an 87, then maybe the center needs to be able to be made a RW and the RW a center so that the assistant coach doesn't place the good guy on the 4th line and the crappy guy on the starting line.  You can get SNP and PWF franchise players, but both are left wings and so they never play on the same line.  Hell, I have had the Elite D I thought would move up to the first line stuck on the third because they insist on playing LD instead of RD.

    6. I definitely have no idea why they think someone is a gem or a bust.

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