Top 5 Changes Needed For NHL 18 Franchise Mode

[clarkerots]

Quote: Originally Posted by clarkerots

1) Trade deadline/Team Management definitely needs to be worked on. There should be buyers and sellers. They should also bring back the phones. The best features of the phones is that the trade deadline is broken into hours, not days. It was cool to make trades, or see trades, at 10 AM, sim forward, and then you’re at 11AM of the trade deadline. Teams should also manage their rosters better. If you have Carey Price as your goalie, you probably shouldn’t pick up Ben Bishop from free agency. 2) Assistant coaches would be great. I should be able to hire a coach that may affect my special teams, and a goalie coach as well. 3) Full customization of my league. If you play online you have to use online rosters, so why does it matter what I do to MY rosters in MY league. If I want to have a team full of 99 rated players, all named DeWayne Gretzky, let me. Let me change ratings, faces, names, etc. Its MY league. 4) Rarely if at all talked about, a search player feature. If I want to find a player to edit, or move, etc., I’d like to search that player and find them. This prevents me, especially in the minors, from searching team to team in order to edit a player after a roster update.

Another small change I'd like to see is to have a players team listed on their stat page. Instead of the listing NHL or AHL, I'd prefer it to say NHL-PITT or AHL-STJ. If a player gets traded mid season, have the first line of the career stat say NHL with the season total, and underneath split it into NHL-PITT NHL-VAN, for example. This way, you can see what teams a player has been with from their season stat page.

[lunch pale gang]

I completely agree with everyone's assessment on the trade and signing logic needing to be vastly improved. NHL 2K8 was the creme-de-la-creme when it came to trade negotiations and signing/re-signing players. The give and take that one would expect to see in a realistic negotiation was/is pretty darn realistic.

Also take a look at 2K8 on how to implement a realistic in-season evaluation of player's feelings. During the middle of the season as an owner/gm you would receive "calls" from your players expressing how happy or unhappy he was and how that would affect is willingness to negotiate with you at the end of the season.

A few gameplay items that aren't necessarily specific to "Franchise" mode, but if implemented would make it so much more realistic:

1. CPU needs to call timeouts at appropriate times/situations. I never understood why the ai never uses its timeout, but it's time that this be implemented.

2. Home team should have preference on shooting first or last in shootouts. This is a pretty basic NHL rule that should be in the game by now.

3. The ability to save a game - I play full twenty minute periods and would love it if I could at least save my game between periods. I don't need the ability to save at every stoppage in play, but at the very least between periods would certainly be a welcome addition.

Thanks for reading and I'm really enjoying NHL 17 and looking forward to 18!

[BJNT]

Custom draft classes and an expansion mode ala NBA 2k17

[Deucemonkey23]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ebpmd

Total rebranding as in NBA 2k Editable player names as to create classic seasons Roster sharing!!! 70's era goalie masks, equipment and ability for players to skate without helmets Ability to create your own goalie mask art work

AMEN to all that, What about classic World cup and Olympic rosters???

[Mrbad31]

Quote: Originally Posted by clarkerots

Another small change I'd like to see is to have a players team listed on their stat page. Instead of the listing NHL or AHL, I'd prefer it to say NHL-PITT or AHL-STJ. If a player gets traded mid season, have the first line of the career stat say NHL with the season total, and underneath split it into NHL-PITT NHL-VAN, for example. This way, you can see what teams a player has been with from their season stat page.

Agree 100%. If you want to see a game do this correctly. Look at the show. They tell you where the guys played, in whichever year. Also their menus are fast. This has to be fixed.

[Griffey30]

Dynamic trade value

Pending UFA is going to have a higher trade value if you try to dish him at the deadline instead of trying to trade him in september.

Player trade value may drop after coming off a down year and or injury

Player trade value may go up if drafted in the first round and or performs well throughout the season.

Players with terrible contracts should have terrible trade value IE harder to dump players and should be almost unmovable

Screen that tells you exactly how much salary you retained in a trade.

Better negotiating with free agents.

NMC,NTC and modified NTC

LTIR!!!

just to name a few

[WeirdViper]

If I had to think of 5 specific things to change/add to Franchise mode I think this would be the list:

1) Extend contracts anytime

If you want to try and extend a pending UFA mid season you can, and if he refuses it can make the decision to trade him by deadline easier

2) Actually hire a staff, Head Coach, Assistant Coach, Trainers etc.

This is a logical one, being able to hire top coaches/favourite coaches, maybe some players after they retire become potential coaches.

3) Draft Pick Trading

I know NBA 2k does this, so I don't see why NHL couldn't. But being able to trade picks with conditions on them... whether its a "top 5 protected" or if its "a x round pick this year or next" and you can choose.

4) GM Personalities

Now this has been kind of done in the past but it be cool if teams had actual GM's, your relationship could grow/fall with each, and GMs had personalities as far as types of deals they like to do, types of players they like, etc. And to keep from having multiple Franchise modes play out the same way, the other gms could be hired/fired, so its not always same teams with same personalities.

5) Scouting

I feel like the current system for scouting is an ok foundation but still needs work, how exactly it should be improved is hard to pinpoint since there are different directions you could go that are effective. But I think its a no brainer it needs to be built up more

[Moose24x]

To me it is definitely not as big of a deal that they add coaches or GM personalities as it is that they capture the drama and storylines of each season.

Yes, getting contract extensions and RFA rules right and including more drama and excitement around key dates like July 1 and TDL are things they should already be looking at. No brainers.

But for me, what the game seriously lacks is that feeling when you're top center scores his 50th goal with 1 or 2 games left in the season and everyone goes nuts. And the announcers have been talking about will he hit 50, etc. or when you pass the other player who has 50 with 2 goals in the final game of the season to win the scoring race. Same thing with wildcard races for the playoffs. Calder trophy potentials. There are no storylines. They need to keep (improve) the core hockey experience but slightly RPG it so that there are actual STORIES that go with each year of your franchise. If you start a franchise with the Oilers, the bulk of those 25 years are going to revolve around the legacy of Conor McDavid and the young Oilers. What will the story be? Will McDavid dominate and rip off 5-6 Hart Trophies in a row? Will the Oilers young team develop into a dynasty? Will McDavid be cursed with injury issues? Will someone like Eichel or Matthews develop to be the Ovechkin to McDavid's Crosby, where year after year they're neck and neck in the scoring race? If the top two scorers meet in the playoffs or the finals, will the announcers make a big deal about the matchup? That's what the game needs.