If youre not emulating best practices from the people and organizations in your industry when they do things well, youre not putting your best foot forward. Thats a mantra game developers should hold fast to when conceiving and creating their next titles.
In this instance, Im referring to the top developers of sports video games. I recently watched Sony San Diego Studios stream that broke down the franchise mode changes and March to October in the upcoming MLB The Show 21.
A few things stood out; The sleeker menus are clean and visibly more attractive than in the past. It feels a lot like a PC sports game, which is excellent, especially for a baseball title.
Theres also the incorporation of the Stadium Creator feature (only on next-gen), which is not exclusive to franchise but will get some heavy run in that mode because you can use it to relocate every team in the major leagues.
As much as Ive pounded the drum for SSDS to add the Stadium Creator feature, that wasnt the aspect of the stream that left me most impressed.
In the next version of the game, SSDS introduces a new player evolution logic that allows you to project how good players will be in the future. The depth charts even show a projected ratings upgrade with subtractions of players who would no longer be under contract or on your team in future years.
The video also introduced a new trade logic system that considers a players current contract, their attributes, and their performance during your season to gauge their value. Im not sure any other sports game has a system that considers the production accumulated during your franchise mode.
This same concept affects free agency, which should create more realistic contracts and control the call-up and send-down system.
Anyone who has played through an entire Madden franchise season over the past ten years can tell you how far behind the curve the series is in most areas related to the mode. Properly valuing players is just one of the issues EA has said they are committed to tackling heading into Madden 22.
While NBA 2K21 has an incredibly layered franchise mode in MyNBA, there are many issues under the hood. Properly valuing players is one of them, and Ive seen many problems with star players getting unrealistic contracts and more.
It would appear The Show is approaching things the right way by establishing a central but dynamic value figure for each player, which essentially works as a guide for everything related to player movement and transactions in franchise mode.
NBA 2K and Maddens iteration of the concept would function a little differently, but conceptually, this appears to be the move.
Then again, all of these best-laid plans could fall flat in MLB The Show 21, and almost nothing functions as it was explained. Lets hope this is the beginning of a significant breakthrough in franchise modes and not just the latest example of something that turned out to be too good to be true.
