How's Your Franchise Progressing?

@davehoehn970 

Thank you very much for the constructive feedback on these issues. It's appreciated.

I commend you for this post, I really do. Unfortunately, I do not think its going to help get a fix for this problem. There have been enough examples over the last few months that they are fully aware of what the issue is. After seeing the latest patch, I am now completely convinced that the sole reason this bug hasn't been fixed is that all of their focus is on NHL 22 and they no longer care about this game. Whether they couldn't figure it out or weren't even given the appropriate time to do so is now irrelevant to me at this point. I feel there isn't a large enough number of their player base that this is affecting to make them do anything about it, which is unfortunate. In my opinion this is really bad business to leave part of your community high and dry like this, but I would be very surprised to see this bug fixed before the release of NHL 22.

@Beauts90 @arrowheader22 @EA_Aljo 

This is why I made the detailed post, though.  I agree, (offline) NHL 21 is left for dead, but I also have no confidence that EA has determined a root cause, yet, to be able to fix NHL 22.  I'm putting all this information out there to potentially help that effort.  Maybe they never will care, I don't know... but if nobody is going to say anything, nothing will ever get done.  As I said in my bullet point reasons for posting all of that, if my information will help figure it out, awesome.  I hope others don't also sit silent, to show EA that we do care and play, and there's enough of us that they should give us the time of day.  And the gravy on top would be if they'd come out and say "this is how it's supposed to work", and we can see how my data lines up with that.

I'm as un-confident as anyone else that anything will come of this... but I want to try, because there's not another hockey game out there, and I want to play video game hockey.  As I said in some other thread, I would literally take a second job with EA to try to help fix this if they had any interest in fixing it, rather than the entire staff existing to produce profit margins.  I couldn't care less about playing in the toxic online world or spending money on microtransaction modes, but within what we have for Franchise Mode, there's a whole lot of a product that I want to exist, and I know I'm not alone in that sentiment, even if so few of us are on here (or other social media, which I completely avoid) talking about it.

As bad as Franchise Mode is, I'm still playing it and somewhat enjoying it, working through and around the bugs and AI idiocy, therefore I'd like to help improve those things to whatever extent I can.  Maybe it'll amount to nothing.  But saying nothing isn't going to help at all.

I am not overly concerned with this bug making its way to NHL 22. Over the last few years there always seems to be a bug that lasts the whole year, but this is the first one that has caused me to stop playing the game. Maybe its a combination of the terrible AI GM logic, useless additions and absurd chemistry system that has helped with that too. Just looking at the patch notes from this year and all the bugs that we have had to deal with, it is pretty clear that they were/are all hands on deck for 22 and spent just enough time on 21 to meet their yearly release obligation. 

In my opinion, that is the biggest issue with this series and the reason I don't think we will ever get a really great game. Making a new game every year while continually providing "support" for the current game just does not allow them to properly implement new features, improve the ones they have and also keep the game running smooth. So we are left with a game with great potential that has rushed/poor execution of features and bugs that go unfixed. In the case of franchise it almost seems as if there is no long term plan or direction each year as the time spent on the mode this year added nothing to what they had started to build the last few years. 

@Beauts90 

What if they went to a (cheap) subscription model for Franchise, since we know more often than not, it's not much more than a roster update each year? Do you think at a couple bucks a month, starting with a functioning game, there's a possibility that they could actually put time into FM bug fixes, logic improvements, etc., if they know they don't have to change much about the base game anyway?

I mean, honestly, aside from when moving to a new platform (i.e. PS4 -> PS5), they're basically doing this anyway, but charging us the full $80 every year. Would I pony up at $3/month? Maybe. I mean, I guess the thought is just more along the lines of whether something like this would allow EA to put a more dedicated offline team onto our issues?

I don't know... wild thought, I guess. After taking all the notes that led to my post, this bug, while super disappointing for the first season, if it continues to not be an issue as I go, I'm actually more concerned with the bad AI GM logic than this, and probably true for the terrible Chemistry/Coaching/Drafting systems not working together, too. I'd rather it all get fixed, of course... just, what will it take for us to ever see that...

@davehoehn970 

I'm all for the future of gaming to be some sort of monthly subscription or something along those lines like pay smaller amounts for upgrades. I think it would be great not just for the offline modes, but the entire game. If they weren't obligated to release a new game every year, I think the product would be greatly improved because they could implement the quicker add-ons at any time and take more time with the major features and not have a set date that they would need to be done (rushed) by. This would put less pressure on the team getting these features implemented and allow them to actually make the new features well constructed. 

I would gladly pay more money each month if it meant they made a better franchise mode and got a better roster agreement. Mind you, it would have to be significantly better than what they do now so they would really have to up their game which I just don't see happening. 

I've tried a few times over the last couple of months to start up a franchise using Pittsburgh as they don't really have any prospects that are blue chip, but I just can't seem to get into it at all because of how everything functions knowing the bug is still there as well.

@Beauts90 

I think they are in a prime spot to release a rebranded "EA's National Hockey League", but that type of live-service is mainly focused on online; you'd almost need to split the game up into an offline and online only version and have dedicated teams working on each for everything to run smoothly, lest we just get more of the same.

@davehoehn970That'd definitely be the most efficient way to improve the game, by far; I remember someone mentioning this to me like 10 years ago when I first started playing the game. They might be afraid of selling people on it monthly at least 6.66 CAD per month to make their moneys worth if each person paid for it at that rate every single month of that year, which is less likely when the season isn't in play or for gamers who only play it occasionally and casually. Honestly though I think they target whoever they can get to buy their 80$ CAD game, the people who love and buy it every year, those who just want a new hockey game, some may buy it just for it to collect dust on a shelf, some play casually and may only play it once in a while. Almost all the games I buy I'll go months without playing and I'll go through surges on each rather than consistently playing all of them. NHL used to be the only game that I played every single month, probably every single week until the rosters were out of date & not updatable. If this years game was a monthly subscription, jeez they would have lost a lot of people quickly without income. I also bet they wouldn't have released the game/subscription in close to the state that it was in.