Madden 24

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I say this and then I find out EA is going to release official modding tools for Madden 24. Now buying the PC version becomes tempting. I'm going to wait to see what happens, but if modders can make franchise mode better.....

After many years without Madden, I bought Madden 24 for PS5. I'm enjoying the gameplay, but after the layoff, I am a terrible passer. Using the "Classic" control option, I am a pick-throwing machine. The run game is fun. Possibly even a little overpowered. I ripped off 2 long TD runs early, but then leveled off with more modest gains. Visually, the game is beautiful. I'm only 3 play now games in, so opinions could change. But so far, I think it is decent.

[GrantDawg]

I'm still very interested in what the modders can do with game. Can they make a balanced "coach mode only" type game? I really doubt it. I also doubt they will be able to fix how bad the simulated games turn out. Then of course it is how well CPU handles the rosters in franchise mode.

I'm not a button masher and never will be. If they can get the game to feel real coach mode style, I'm in.

[RainMaker]

Not sure if this can be fixed on PC on your own but the draft classes are broken so it makes franchise mode unplayable for who knows how long.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Not sure if this can be fixed on PC on your own but the draft classes are broken so it makes franchise mode unplayable for who knows how long.

Years and years. Again, I wonder what modders might be able to do fix that.

[dubb93]

Finally downloaded the game and it runs like complete crap. I’m afraid to admit that I’ve played every version of the game on PC since it came to the platform and haven’t ever had any performance issues in the past. This version it’s so laggy, jumpy, and stuttering that it’s borderline not playable. I did a quick Google search and it seems to be a common complaint. I’m on a 3080ti so it isn’t a hardware issue.

[dubb93]

If anyone else is having the issue apparently frame rate = unlocked is a no go. You need to change that to a target frame rate, 120 is the highest lock it allows so I went with that and so far it’s smooth as can be.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I'm still very interested in what the modders can do with game. Can they make a balanced "coach mode only" type game? I really doubt it. I also doubt they will be able to fix how bad the simulated games turn out. Then of course it is how well CPU handles the rosters in franchise mode.

I'm not a button masher and never will be. If they can get the game to feel real coach mode style, I'm in.

And they haven't. There are modders working on "coach mode", but they haven't been able to fix that systematic problem that prevents the player QB from being more than a throwing statute. They take too many sacks, and never scramble. Meanwhile, they have made a pass at fixing franchise, general game-play, and cpu vs. cpu GM mode. Also, they have fixed the supersim stats as well. My favorite mod has to be "Start Now", that puts in the game the week of the current Super Bowl. All the coaching hires as well as coordinators are updated, and you begin in this off season with updated draft class. They are also downloadable draft classes for the next three seasons as well.

Is it very realistic? Eh. I find it funny that have ran the pre-season three times and every time the Browns cut Deshaun Watson (which would be half of their cap in dead space if it happened irl) as well as the Giants cut Daniel Jones. Russ Wilson is never cut, and the Bears keep Fields and take Caleb Williams. It still has the terrible trade logic. I was able to get a trade offer from the owners of the top three picks without giving up my current first rounder, and usually with only giving up one future first and a couple of seconds. It also looks the CPU hardly ever drafts a RB, so you can get top RB's as UDF every year.

[Kodos]

Sounds pretty realistic.

[QuikSand]

I've fiddled (on XBox) with Franchise mode, and some fairly tough house rules, and have made it into a fairly sustainable thing for my 11 y/o son and me. He can't get into a "spreadsheet" game but likes being able to see and play our players.

Basics of my house rules:
-carry a terrible $60m player each year (depressed cap effect)
-no extending duration of FA contracts
-limits on trading (complicated but avoid it becoming too easy)

With the reduced cap, it becomes really hard to build a quality team around a $50-60m star caliber QB... but it's also really hard to build a strong competitor without a star QB, despite having money for quality at other positions.

[weegeebored]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

And they haven't. There are modders working on "coach mode", but they haven't been able to fix that systematic problem that prevents the player QB from being more than a throwing statute. They take too many sacks, and never scramble. Meanwhile, they have made a pass at fixing franchise, general game-play, and cpu vs. cpu GM mode. Also, they have fixed the supersim stats as well. My favorite mod has to be "Start Now", that puts in the game the week of the current Super Bowl. All the coaching hires as well as coordinators are updated, and you begin in this off season with updated draft class. They are also downloadable draft classes for the next three seasons as well.

Is it very realistic? Eh. I find it funny that have ran the pre-season three times and every time the Browns cut Deshaun Watson (which would be half of their cap in dead space if it happened irl) as well as the Giants cut Daniel Jones. Russ Wilson is never cut, and the Bears keep Fields and take Caleb Williams. It still has the terrible trade logic. I was able to get a trade offer from the owners of the top three picks without giving up my current first rounder, and usually with only giving up one future first and a couple of seconds. It also looks the CPU hardly ever drafts a RB, so you can get top RB's as UDF every year.

The modders do the best that they can with what they can fix. The core code is awful because EA still wants to push MUT and doesn't bother to fix the franchise logic. You can always use the MyFranchise tool to make trades/fix rosters. I find it more difficult to take advantage of the CPU in trades using StartToday/franchise mod, and I see the CPU take RBs in the draft, admittedly in the later rounds. The draft class used will obviously influence what the CPU drafts as it uses simplistic logic to make choices.

As far as the QB situation I have to agree. But if you use Sabo's gameplay mod it helps a lot. You also have to adjust some sliders for ball security and pass blocking to keep the pass rush and fumbles in check. And having house rules about not ripping off the CPU is probably the right move. Maybe I enjoy M24 a lot because I'm not very good and it's always challenging for me to win a game. I can live with the flaws because I still have fun.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by weegeebored

The modders do the best that they can with what they can fix. The core code is awful because EA still wants to push MUT and doesn't bother to fix the franchise logic. You can always use the MyFranchise tool to make trades/fix rosters. I find it more difficult to take advantage of the CPU in trades using StartToday/franchise mod, and I see the CPU take RBs in the draft, admittedly in the later rounds. The draft class used will obviously influence what the CPU drafts as it uses simplistic logic to make choices.

As far as the QB situation I have to agree. But if you use Sabo's gameplay mod it helps a lot. You also have to adjust some sliders for ball security and pass blocking to keep the pass rush and fumbles in check. And having house rules about not ripping off the CPU is probably the right move. Maybe I enjoy M24 a lot because I'm not very good and it's always challenging for me to win a game. I can live with the flaws because I still have fun.

Thanks, but I gave up on it. It is just a poorly made game for anything but online players and MUT. Even with mods and work arounds, it just isn't good. Same problems year after year, and no one cares. I was using the Start Today/franchise mod btw. Was seeing top RB as UDF every time I started a new game so using their drafts.

[weegeebored]

I understand your frustration with the game. For draft classes I am using the latest from Eli2Manningham: careerdraft-2024DC and careerdraft-2026DC, and still using the StartToday built-in 2025 class. Here's a rundown of RBs taken in the 2024 draft of my Bears franchise:

• 2.1 Jonathon Brooks - Panthers
• 2.10 Trey Benson - Packers
• 3.3 Jaylen Wright - Patriots
• 3.27 Blake Corum - Cardinals
• 4.9 Will Shipley - Bears
• 4.11 Bucky Irving - Vikings
• 4.24 Audric Estime - 49ers
• 5.6 Braelon Allen - Giants
• 5.13 MarShawn Lloyd - Raiders
• 5.24 Kendall Milton - Chiefs
• 5.26 Cody Schrader - Eagles
• 6.12 Jase McClellan - Rams
• 6.15 Rasheen Ali - Colts
• 6.20 Kimani Vidal - Steelers
• 6.24 Isaiah Davis - Bills
• 7.2 Samson Evans - Commanders
• 7.5 Dillon Johnson - Chargers
• 7.13 Dylan Laube - Cowboys
• 7.17 Frank Gore Jr - Jaguars
• 7.29 Daijun Edwards - Lions

Brooks went first and by most accounts he's the best RB in the draft. He is obviously not a UDFA. I'm not sure what happened in your draft but this seems pretty good to me. No team shows up twice, and the order that RBs were taken seems reasonable.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Was seeing top RB as UDF every time I started a new game so using their drafts.

Are you saying that RBs with a 1st round grade aren't being drafted? I guess I don't understand fully what you are saying here because besides some bad WRs with high grades(I'm convinced the WRs is a bug as the game just gives so many high round grades), I never see any early round graded players falling too far.

I will say that the truth of Madden draft classes is that it literally doesn't matter what they are graded. You play a guy from the start, especially if he's 21, he's going to become an X-Factor and end up rated 95+ regardless if you take him 1.1 or if you pick him up as a UDFA. It's just the nature of the XP system and how it scales with age.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by dubb93

Are you saying that RBs with a 1st round grade aren't being drafted? I guess I don't understand fully what you are saying here because besides some bad WRs with high grades(I'm convinced the WRs is a bug as the game just gives so many high round grades), I never see any early round graded players falling too far.

I will say that the truth of Madden draft classes is that it literally doesn't matter what they are graded. You play a guy from the start, especially if he's 21, he's going to become an X-Factor and end up rated 95+ regardless if you take him 1.1 or if you pick him up as a UDFA. It's just the nature of the XP system and how it scales with age.

I'm saying I look a the free agents after the draft, and I see plenty of rookie RB in the 70's and even one time with an 80 ovr rank.
edit: To be more clear, this with the initial "Start Now" mod save after the first draft and in the first preseason. I restarted three times, and every time there were several OVR high-rated rookie running backs avaible. They are undervalued by the draft rankings consistently. Not the biggest deal considering the game with the mods had many, many more issues. Not the main reason I deleted it and just gave up on it.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I'm saying I look a the free agents after the draft, and I see plenty of rookie RB in the 70's and even one time with an 80 ovr rank.
edit: To be more clear, this with the initial "Start Now" mod save after the first draft and in the first preseason. I restarted three times, and every time there were several OVR high-rated rookie running backs avaible. They are undervalued by the draft rankings consistently. Not the biggest deal considering the game with the mods had many, many more issues. Not the main reason I deleted it and just gave up on it.

I'm not real familiar with that mod, but this is not something I have noticed playing vanilla. I will purposefully look next time I finish a season. There are some diamonds in the rough available as UDFA (guys with hidden dev traits) after the draft but I have never seen someone rated in the 80s. In fact the last draft I did the top rated player in the entire draft was 80 and he was the only guy above 78 in the entire draft class.

If I had a complaint on the draft process it would be that there isn't really a difference between the top prospects and the middle round guys unless you are just drafting blind. That guy you "hit" on at #10 might come out 75 rated with SS dev trait but he's basically the same guy as the day 3 guy you snag that comes in rated 73 with star dev trait. The difference between these guys are like 4 weeks of games/practices and getting the random event to trigger to up that dev trait(which it will if you are playing them.) I've simply never seen a guy come in day one and be a can't miss guy. They ALL seem to cluster between 65-75 overall with VERY FEW exceptions regardless of how they perform at the combine.

Speed is another measurable that is funky. You may see a WR run a 4.25 and then another run a 4.45 and they come in with speed of 92 and 91. For the record my kid makes me play this game with him constantly. We have running online franchise. I don't think I would play this game if he wasn't so into it.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Reading all of this Madden 24 talk reminds me of just how much I miss that old NFL Head Coach game. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but I had a ton of fun with it.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Reading all of this Madden 24 talk reminds me of just how much I miss that old NFL Head Coach game. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but I had a ton of fun with it.

I got it and played around a year or two ago. It is sad they didn't keep it up because it was actually pretty close to perfect with just updating and a few tweaks.

[weegeebored]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

I'm saying I look a the free agents after the draft, and I see plenty of rookie RB in the 70's and even one time with an 80 ovr rank.
edit: To be more clear, this with the initial "Start Now" mod save after the first draft and in the first preseason. I restarted three times, and every time there were several OVR high-rated rookie running backs avaible. They are undervalued by the draft rankings consistently. Not the biggest deal considering the game with the mods had many, many more issues. Not the main reason I deleted it and just gave up on it.

I am not trying to convince you or anyone else to buy/play M24. As I wrote earlier, the game is not perfect (what game is?) even with the mods. The latest MyFranchise program addresses the high-ish rated FAs with a tool called "Free Agency Lottery". It randomly assigns FAs to all teams based on OVR and Age. The defaults are 70 and 26 but they can be changed, and teams can be added to the default list for each FA. Using this tool prevents the user from signing all the best FAs after the Progression tool has been run. It's a clever workaround for the game's bad AI logic.

As there have been updates to the most popular mods I decided to start a new Bears franchise. I won't list all the RBs drafted as I did above, but in this new draft it still looks to me like the best ones were not going to be UDFAs.

• 2.6 Jonathon Brooks - Giants
• 2.10 Trey Benson - Packers
• 3.15 Jaylen Wright - Colts
• 3.23 Bucky Irving - Bears
• 3.31 Blake Corum - 49ers
• 4.29 Audric Estime - Vikings

After roster cutdowns to 53 there might be 70+ rated RBs returned to the FA pool. But it is unlikely that a player in the 70s is going to be a 1000 yard rusher anyway.