Franchise Mode Customization Ideas
I was going to post this in the reveal trailer post but that one is full of negativity, so I wanted to start with a fresh slate.
I've put far too much time into this at work yesterday and even last night. I came up with two ideas for league formats. I'll post them below.
Idea 1:
It would be NFL style with 2 conferences, and 4 divisions in each conference.
Western Conference:
Northwest
Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg
Pacific
Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle
Southeast
Arizona, Colorado, Vegas, Dallas
Central
Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Minnesota
Eastern Conference
Northeast
Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
Southeast
Nashville, Tampa Bay, Florida, Carolina
Atlantic
Columbus, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington
Metro
Buffalo, Islanders, Rangers, New Jersey
Idea 2:
36 Teams
2 Conferences
4 Divisions = 9 Teams Per Division
Note: 5 new teams Baltimore, Hartford, Quebec, Kansas City and Milwaukee. Arizona lost their team for being an utter disgrace to the NHL.
Western Conference:
Central - CHI, COL, DET, KC, MIL, MIN, NSH, STL, VGK
Pacific - ANA, CGY, DAL, EDM, LA, SEA, SJ, VAN, WPG
Eastern Conference:
Atlantic - BOS, BUF, HART, FLA, MTL, OTT, QUE, TB, TOR
Metro - BAL, CAR, CBJ, NYI, NYR, NJ, PIT, PHI, WAS
As you can see, I came up with a couple of different ideas. I personally like idea 1 the most because the way I plan to do the schedule is having all Conference games with a majority of them being divisional games so it will make the points even more critical in head to head games. The idea is 8 versus the 3 teams would be 24 games and 4 versus the other 12 teams in the Conference which is 48 games so combined which comes out to a 72 game schedule. And every game matters.
For idea 2 I think I'd have to limit divisional games to 6 versus your 8 divisional opponents Which would come out to 48 games, and then 4 games versus the other 9 teams in the Conference which would come out to 36 games. So combined that's 84 games total. And again they would all count for something.
Overall to wrap this up, I think you can tell that I'm not a huge fan of interconference games. I mean, if I had to I could figure out a way to add them. But I would rather have all the games matter.
I think most people will use this feature to have shorter seasons and all the power to you. In fact, in that case I would probably do a 30 game season and play all 15 Conference opponents twice using the real NHL structure.
Has anyone else come up with interesting ways to shake up the way they play?
