What's Going On With Playsheets and Custom Playbooks In Franchise Mode?

[Tonka3013]

First, the play sheets. My coaches had a 4-2-5 play sheet and a nickel mug play sheet. Are these just the regular plays that show up those formations/sets? So I create a custom playbook, and now I have an additional formation/sets that I didn’t include because I didn’t want it?

And making it worse, the in game play calling recommendations just pick plays from that play sheet??? So all the time I spent setting that up in my playbook so that it would display the coverages/formations I like against trips or whatever was a waste of time and it just gets overridden? The whole gameplanning feature of the game is now pointless and taken over by ai?

And, the recommendations make no sense. It picks a play and next to it says “58% analytics” what the heck does that mean? What is that based on? The other teams tendencies? What are the tendencies? Who knows, ai just says run this play. Am I supposed to think or just be a stupid monkey that does what the ai tells me to do?

and it tells me the same 2 plays every time. It told me to run z spot and then y stick on loop.

On defense the first play of the game and it tells me I have to run hard flats because they’ve been hitting me in the flats. First play of the game!

And then the coaches garbage. If I wanted to “boosts” and “loadouts” I’d play Mario brothers or fortnite. This is supposed to be a sim football experience. It feels more like what I imagine MUT is like.

[Therebelyell626]

This is….. certainly and opinion

[toodles2you90]

So go into the weekly gameplan and unequip everything and play like that? This was literally designed with input from NFL coaches.

[Tonka3013]

The NFL coaches told EA to have a gameplan feature in custom playbooks that isn’t used? Or that the game should tell the the player what play to run based on the opposing teams tendencies but not tell the player what those tendencies are so that the player can decide how to attack?

[toodles2you90]

The NFL coaches told EA to have a gameplan feature in custom playbooks that isn’t used? Or that the game should tell the the player what play to run based on the opposing teams tendencies but not tell the player what those tendencies are so that the player can decide how to attack?

They tell you the tendencies in the weekly gameplanning.

[Tonka3013]

Thank you. I will have to look closer at that screen.

[jukeum445]

I have issues with the abilities again, they are very OP and completely bogus... and worst of all Traits are non existent for some positions in the game.. either not having the correct ones available & available for the position or not having any assigned to non- rookie players.. They always crew something up.. i don't get it at all anymore

[ggsimmonds]

What if I told you that you didn't have to follow the suggested playcalls?

[Tonka3013]

What if I told you that there was a good feature within custom playbooks that lets you set what plays are suggested in certain situations? What if I told you that this feature--while still appearing in the custom playbook creation menu--is blocked by the AI playsheet during actual gameplay?

[bkrich83]

I don’t get the complaint here.

[ggsimmonds]

I don’t get the complaint here.

Its a valid criticism but OP's delivery is all kinds of wrong. I haven't booted the game up yet but what I believe OP is upset about is that the create-a-playbook area of the game is unchanged.

If you never created a custom playbook, you are able to assign plays "star ratings" for a number of different scenarios. This use to influence the coaching suggestions or "ask Madden" option.

They made a change to the way the AI calls plays, but they didn't bother to update other areas of the game. So OP saw the star ratings remained and went through the trouble of setting up a deep custom playbook only to later realize that AI playcalls are now driven by play sheets

[Tonka3013]

Yes. A big part of it is that I went through the trouble of setting it up only to find out its a pointless feature now.

But also, that's a good feature that's gone. Everyone's got their own ways they like to play. Some like to watch movies and verify if the players are wearing the right color socks. I like to learn about different offensive systems and try to call plays strategically. I always used that game planning feature to help with that. Now its replaced by a computer telling me what play to run to beat the computer.

[Jummyjumjin]

Regardless of tone, the criticism is spot on. I haven’t got the game yet so perhaps mistaken but as I understand it you could have a play sheet (I.e 3-4 on defense) for which you have no desire to run and have omitted from your custom playbook. Why then are you forced to use that formation? If this is true, it’s embarrassing really that they keep the custom
playbooks for franchise

[Tonka3013]

Yes, I think its just--here's a formation that you have access to now. There's no thought or strategy involved. The AI says--here's a play sheet.

What would be better would be if the AI said -- this team runs inside zone out of shotgun trips on 3rd & 1 70% of the time--and then leave it to me to figure out how to counter it.

[bkrich83]

Its a valid criticism but OP's delivery is all kinds of wrong. I haven't booted the game up yet but what I believe OP is upset about is that the create-a-playbook area of the game is unchanged.

If you never created a custom playbook, you are able to assign plays "star ratings" for a number of different scenarios. This use to influence the coaching suggestions or "ask Madden" option.

They made a change to the way the AI calls plays, but they didn't bother to update other areas of the game. So OP saw the star ratings remained and went through the trouble of setting up a deep custom playbook only to later realize that AI playcalls are now driven by play sheets

I don't think AI plays are strictly driven by playsheets though. I played last night and the AI recommended a ton of plays there were not on playsheets I had loaded or even unlocked.

Why then are you forced to use that formation? If this is true, it’s embarrassing really that they keep the custom
playbooks for franchise

You aren't.

[Tonka3013]

In the past, the weekly game plan section had a breakdown of how often your opponent ran this play or that play in various situations. The problem was that none of it was true. It was just made up numbers. So you'd say, wow, they blitz a lot, I should play more blitz beaters than usual. But then they didn't actually blitz a lot because it was just made up numbers.

Now the AI says -- run this play because they like to blitz in this situation. But is it even true that they like to blitz in that situation? When the first play of the game they tell me to run hard flats because they've been killing me in the flats, I suspect the data is still made up. I hope that I'm wrong. I played 1 game after spending hours getting my playbook right lol.

[bkrich83]

In the past, the weekly game plan section had a breakdown of how often your opponent ran this play or that play in various situations. The problem was that none of it was true. It was just made up numbers. So you'd say, wow, they blitz a lot, I should play more blitz beaters than usual. But then they didn't actually blitz a lot because it was just made up numbers.

Now the AI says -- run this play because they like to blitz in this situation. But is it even true that they like to blitz in that situation? When the first play of the game they tell me to run hard flats because they've been killing me in the flats, I suspect the data is still made up. I hope that I'm wrong. I played 1 game after spending hours getting my playbook right lol.

Valid question. When I played last night I assumed it wasn't true because it's never been true in the past.

[toodles2you90]

Regardless of tone, the criticism is spot on. I haven’t got the game yet so perhaps mistaken but as I understand it you could have a play sheet (I.e 3-4 on defense) for which you have no desire to run and have omitted from your custom playbook. Why then are you forced to use that formation? If this is true, it’s embarrassing really that they keep the custom
playbooks for franchise

You can go in and uncheck any playsheet. You don't have to have any selected if you do not want them or you can control what you select. Nothing is forced.

[SmashMan]

Regardless of tone, the criticism is spot on. I haven’t got the game yet so perhaps mistaken

If you’re unsure of how it works how can you say the criticism is spot on?