How's Your Franchise Progressing?
If you've been following the Bug Reports forum, one of the hot topics is the Franchise Mode Progression Bug. This post aims to do the following: Provide data points to help investigate the issue a...
Forum Discussion
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.
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...
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.
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.
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- EA_Aljo23 days ago
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