Hey guys. Put together a pretty in depth list of things I would like to see in franchise mode. Some of this is simple reworks of current features, some are bringing old features back, and others are brand new. Obviously we probably won't get anything close to this and certainly not all at once. Let me know what you think.

Presentation, Graphics, & Visual Immersion

Visual Asset Standardization

• CFB-Style Live Action Headshots: The game should replace the traditional flat cartoon graphics for generated players. Every single player—licensed or auto-generated—should feature a high-quality, 3D video-game-rendered headshot. This would ensure a uniform, seamless aesthetic across the entire league.
• AI-Driven Player Likeness Generation: The developers should expand the pool of generated player faces using advanced AI generation. Generated rookies should feature realistic facial structures, skin tones, hair textures, and physical likenesses that accurately mirror real-world younger players, ending the era of repetitive, outdated clones.
• Authentic Equipment Physics & Fitting: The game should implement precise player-model physics. Helmets should sit accurately on player heads with natural tilts, and shoulder pads should be scaled realistically according to the player's actual position and build (eliminating oversized, floating, or clipped pads).

User Interface & Atmosphere

• Dark-Mode Menu Aesthetic: The franchise hub should be redesigned with a sleek, darker background, sharper contrast, and bold, highly readable typography. The UI should prioritize scannability and eliminate cluttered, sluggish nested menus.
• Dynamic In-Game Ticker: The ticker should display meaningful, real-time league-wide data. This includes live score updates, playoff race implications, division standings, stat leader changes, award projections, and emerging draft/prospect storylines.
• Studio Updates & Broadcast Pop-ups: During natural breaks in gameplay, the broadcast should feature dynamic picture-in-picture pop-ups. These segments should highlight live scores from concurrent games, updated postseason pictures, and head-to-head statistical comparisons between your players and league rivals.
• Late-Season Postseason Context: As the regular season concludes, the broadcast team and presentation packages should lean heavily into the playoff race. Commentators should deliver context-specific lines (e.g., "This is a win-and-in scenario for Dallas today," or "A loss here officially eliminates the visiting team").
• Multi-Network Broadcast Packages: The game should introduce two distinct, fully branded networks for Sunday afternoon regional games (mimicking CBS and FOX), alongside dedicated, premium presentation packages for Thursday Night, Sunday Night, and Monday Night football.

On-Field Logic, Sim Engine, & Balancing

Simulation Accuracy & Rating Integrity

• Ratings-Driven Simulation Engine: The developers should re-engineer the simulation engine so that player ratings (specifically critical attributes like Awareness, Route Running, and Quarterback Accuracy) dictate team success, completely eliminating playbook-specific bias or "slot receiver" simulation exploits.
• Expanded Team Ratings Disparity: The overall (OVR) rating scale should be revamped. The difference between a championship-caliber roster and a rebuilding roster should be a wide, realistic chasm of 10+ OVR points, rather than the current compressed window where the worst and best teams are separated by a mere 3 OVR points.

Schedule Generation Rework

• Realistic NFL Scheduling Algorithm: The schedule generator should be fixed post-Year 1 to follow strict NFL scheduling rules:
  • Week 18 should exclusively feature crucial divisional matchups.
  • Teams should never play a divisional opponent twice within the first five weeks of the season.
  • No team should ever be subjected to a grueling four-game road stretch.
  • Primetime games (TNF, SNF, MNF) should prioritize marquee matchups, intense rivalries, and major-market draws, rather than randomized, low-profile games.

Offseason, Free Agency, & Team Building

Free Agency Recruiting System

• Recruiting-Style Pitch System: Free agency should transition to a daily, active system inspired by College Football recruiting. Each day of free agency should require strategic resource management.
• Negotiation & Influence Economy: Users should utilize a pool of "Influence Points" to court targets. Players should have specific, unyielding motivations. If a player values a "Championship Contender" or "Warm Weather," they should flatly reject your offers unless you pay an astronomical financial premium.
• Dynamic CPU Competitor Tracking: The game should maintain realistic "fog of war" in negotiations. You should be able to view which rival teams are actively communicating with a player and their level of interest (similar to MLB The Show), but the exact contract figures offered by the CPU should remain hidden.
• Agent Back-and-Forth: The basic "fill-the-bar" bidding system should be replaced with active contract negotiations. You should submit an offer, and the player’s agent should counter with specific structural demands (e.g., more guaranteed money, frontloaded/backloaded structures, or specific play-time incentives).

Trade Block & League Economy

• Dynamic Trade Deadline Mini-Game: The trade deadline should be turned into a high-stakes, active event.
• Team Status Allocations: Every CPU front office should be assigned a clear organizational philosophy that dictates their trade behavior:
  • Buyers / All-In: These teams should actively trade away high-round draft picks to acquire immediate veteran upgrades.
  • Sellers / Tanking: These teams should actively shop aging, expensive, high-OVR veterans to contenders in exchange for draft capital and young assets.
• Active Trade Countering: The trade market should be fluid; target players on the trade block should actively get traded to CPU rivals while you are in the middle of drafting or negotiating your own package.
• Proactive Contract Extensions: The system should allow teams to extend eligible 3rd-year players early to lock up franchise cornerstones before the market resets. To balance this, players should be able to demand raises, hold out, or request trades if they out-perform their current contracts, suffering morale and attribute penalties if their demands are ignored.
• Compensatory Draft Picks: The game should implement the complete NFL compensatory pick formula. The system should track net losses of qualifying free agents and award compensatory draft picks (ranging from the end of Round 3 to Round 7). Clear UI tags should indicate if signing a specific free agent will void your projected compensatory picks.

The NFL Draft & Scouting Ecosystem

Year-Round Scouting Hub

• Dynamic Big Board & Prospect Tracking: The game should feature a dedicated, season-long Draft Hub. College players should have shifting draft stocks based on their weekly collegiate performance (e.g., a top QB prospect having a poor college season should actively slide down mock drafts and big boards).
• Positional Value Draft Logic: CPU drafting priorities should be adjusted to reflect real-world positional premium. Premium positions (QB, OT, EDGE, CB) should dominate the top of the draft, preventing unrealistic scenarios like five Defensive Tackles going in the top ten selections.
• Weekly Scouting Point Budget: The game should allocate weekly, non-stackable "Scouting Action Points." Users should be able to manually spend these points to perform deep-dive scouting actions (e.g., watching game film, attending pro days, or researching a player's character and traits) to narrow down attribute ranges, or choose to automate the process.
• Coaching Staff Integration: Coaching staff specialties and front-office upgrades should grant passive boosts to your scouting efficiency, increasing your weekly point budget or unlocking more precise player evaluations.

The Draft Night Experience

• Unpredictable Insiders & Mock Drafts: The game should feature mock drafts from multiple virtual "insiders" with differing biases and source reliability. The final mock draft should never be a 100% accurate spoiler; draft night should feature shocking reaches and unexpected player slides.
• Real-Time Draft-Day Trade Offers: When your team is on the clock, the draft should pause or run on a timer as dynamic, incoming trade-down or trade-up offers pop up on your screen, making the draft room feel frantic and alive.
• Interactive Analyst Feedback: When a pick is made, draft analysts should provide immediate, contextual commentary explaining the pick (e.g., analyzing if it was a reach, a value steal, a need-based pick, or highlighting a team's aggressive trade-up to get "their guy").
• Post-Draft Report Cards: Users should receive comprehensive post-draft grades evaluated against consensus big boards, the actual talent grade of the selected players, and the draft capital value used to acquire them.

Progression, Coaching, & Staff Management

Statistical Progression & Regression

• Performance-Driven Development: On-field statistical production should be the primary driver of player development. If a low-rated player has a breakout season (e.g., finishing Top 5 in a major statistical category), they should receive an automatic development trait upgrade and a significant skill point boost.
• Performance-Based Regression: If an elite player suffers a massive drop in production or sustains a major injury, they should face development downgrades or temporary physical attribute regression until they prove they can bounce back.
• Rookie Playtime Priority: The developers should implement front-office logic where a team's high-drafted rookie (especially 1st-round selections) is automatically slated to start over an older, veteran player, even if the veteran has a marginally higher (+1 to +3) OVR rating.
• Target Statistics Tracking: The UI should feature a dedicated "Targets" column on the league-wide and team-specific receiving statistics screens to properly track passing volume.
• All-Pro & League Awards Presentation: The game should turn the end-of-season awards and All-Pro team selections into a major, immersive event with dedicated news screens, trophies, and significant legacy score boosts.
• NFL Top 100: The yearly player-voted "NFL Top 100" list should return as a post-season recap feature to showcase the league's top performers.
• Offseason Progression/Regression Recap: The game should provide a detailed, easy-to-read ledger during the offseason summarizing every player who progressed or regressed across the entire league.

Staff and Roster Management

• Return of GM and Owner Modes: Dedicated General Manager and Owner modes should return, separating the financial, stadium, and brand-management responsibilities from pure head coaching duties.
• Immersive Coaching Carousel: The hiring and firing system should be completely revamped. You should interview coordinators for vacant head coaching roles, while rival teams should actively interview and attempt to steal your own high-performing coordinators. The game should introduce mechanisms to convince your staff to stay (e.g., offering raises or contract extensions).
• Expanded Positional Coaching Staffs: The coaching tree should be expanded to include positional coaches (QB, WR, OL, DL, DB). These coaches should provide targeted training and attribute boosts based on their individual experience levels and specialties.
• Player-Coach Mentorship: Veteran players near retirement should be eligible for "Mentor" traits, allowing them to provide passive training boosts to younger players at their same position.
• Dynamic Training Camp Storylines: The game should introduce true position battles during the offseason and preseason where players actively compete for starting spots. Storylines should feature fringe players fighting to survive roster cuts and make the final 53-man roster.

Dynamic Game Day Atmospheres

• Dynamic Stadium Intimidation Factors: Stadium atmospheres should directly impact gameplay based on real-world venue reputations:
  • Playing at Seattle should temporarily disable pre-play art on critical third downs due to crowd noise.
  • Kicking field goals in Arrowhead Stadium should feature highly volatile, unpredictable wind shears and shaking kicking meters.
• Evolving Stadium Hostility: A stadium’s intimidation factor should scale dynamically over the course of a franchise. A quiet stadium in Year 1 should be able to become an absolute house of horrors by Year 4 if the team builds a winning culture and the fanbase becomes highly energized.
• Storyline-Driven Broadcast Narratives: The commentary team should acknowledge major, narrative-driven matchups on game day, such as former No. 1 overall draft picks going head-to-head, or a star player making their highly anticipated return to play against their former franchise.