Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

[JayD]

*Formation Subs
*Working Auto Subs

[jhigginsluckow]

The #1 thing I wish they would add is an on/off option for showing ratings! It helps so many problems and can't possibly be difficult to add, because ratings can still run in the background.

Things this fixes/helps:

1 - Progression/regression issues are masked because if you dominate with a 75 speed Anquan Boldin, you don't really notice. If you win MVP with Colin Kaepernick, you don't feel ripped off by seeing his OVR go up only two measly points. All you know is you killed it with them. It doesn't solve the progression/regression issue, but it's a very easy way to mask it.

2 - Practice and Pre-season games matter! Who should be my number 2 running back? Which receivers should I have in the game on fourth and 4 when you need to catch a pass in traffic? Now you can't just see that player X is better than player Y and should be in the game. You have to actually PLAY with them to figure it out.

3 - Drafting is much more immersive. You don't know immediately after drafting someone if they are the next star of the league, or if your first rounder sucks. You have to use them and find out, just like in real life.


Maybe someone with more experience with programming could tell me why I'm wrong, but I can't see how this takes any substantial time to add into the game. You aren't changing how the game runs, simply changing something that shows up - ratings.

[BSemps90]

How about the ability to change teams during a game for those who enjoy playing one side of the ball? Used to be able to do that.

[AARON67]

All i have to say is this year madden is straight boring. as bad as i want to start a season in madden CFM, OR COACH MODE. i can't. this game is so out of touch with reality it not even funny. what coach do you know that has to call plays and run them. what owner do you know also have to run plays on the field. CPU VS CPU. in a offline mode is what we need ,so that as a coach i can call plays and watch my players play it out. or as a owner make decision, and let computer take over and let me see my results. 2k has it right, that why my madden is collecting dust. and football is my first sport. sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ueauvan]

another i dont think i mentioned

in roster you change teams if you want to look at WRs, in the old versions you could look up Free Agents or Entire NFL (as if they were a team), ie im looking for a WR where CAT is sorted high to low, i want to scan through all players/teams inc FAs to find say a sub 23 yr old who is 80+ cat i can then manually look for CIT/RTE etc

and 100% on the back up one level not right back to the beginning

[sanderson13]

Some great ideas in the comments,but I kept my list to five and to features that either only apply to CFM or impact CFM much more than other modes, or would be used much more frequently in CFM. Usability, natural-feeling gameplay and realistic stats are my top goals!

Top Five
1. Fix auto-subs for CPU: make my opponent feel more like their real-world version
2. Enable customizing CPU playbooks: same
3. Formation- or Play-specific substitutions (ie., make it easy for me to roll with 4 Safeties when I choose Nickel): make it easy for me to use my roster and its strengths the way I want or mirror their real-life usage, and let me save this setting
4. Gameday or week-to-week individual player assignments, ie., CB1 covers WR1 or Left Side, Dbl Team TE.
If Sherman is covering one side, I want him to do that in my CFM. same if he starts covering the slot!
5. Eliminate Confidence and Drive Goals:

Other Good Ideas
League scoreboard in bottom ticker
Lock trajectories for some player stats that should degrade over time or stay flat if the guy is a stud (eg., STR,SPD), and tweak the XP system to go both up and down depending on performance and training time dedicated to that player.

[Tgar05]

While I agree that madden isn't perfect I do believe it's gets a high percentage of things right. I have really enjoyed the last 2 editions EA has put out particularly cfm. I think they have been great. I did start playing franchise mode on madden 04 so I understand that a lot of people think of the ps2/xbox editions as the golden madden age for cfm/franchise mode and would classify myself as one of those fans but I think a lot of criticism EA gets is bit over blown as I have found my gm mode on 2k to be unplayable with all the micro managing that's needed. Adjusting practice difficultly and keeping the head coaches feelings from getting hurt make me quit before I ever really get started. So the new features madden adds while sometimes ineffective haven't become a game killing issue for me yet.

That being said my 5 additions to madden 17 would be:
1. Position battles in Preseason
2. More coach changing selections while playing as an owner ie. Be able to hire steelers def coordinator or jets off coordinator as head coach/ being able to choose coordinators while playing as head coach.
3. Restricted free agency
4. A better scale of degressing attribute ie. wrs in their 30s speed shouldnt drop as drastically
5. Realistic contract demands by players as they seem to agree to much less than what they are worth

[Matthew25x]

Great thread with a lot of fantastic input. I will most likely only be echoing others at this point but i will throw my notes into the discussion...

Expanded coaching staff and impact.
- HC, OC, DC, ST, GM.
- Better coaches make their units play better.
- coaches have styles/personalities. Good coaches will attack defensive weaknesses. Cocky or bad coaches may just play however they want. Good coordinators have better playcalling abilities.
- Positional coaches may be a stretch.
- Background history on real and fictional coaches. Also having their own strengths and weaknesses.
- Good coaching staff make crappy teams play a little better. Bad coaching staffs make stacked teams play a little worse
- GM responsible for building team that fits HC system. Thus they will make personnel moves accordingly.
- Good GM has better chance at trading for, drafting, or signing players that fit their system.
- Role system/personalities for coaches?

Expanded news and immersion.
- National/big news, such as nfl.com
- beat writer blogs for each team. Real writers or fictional writers.
- Major news outlet would break news on trades, injuries, big division wins, etc... Nfl.com type stuff. Individual blogs would focus more on the team. Like how good or bad they are playing. Will a player sign an extension at the end of the season. News about how a 3rd rounder just got his first sack/TD/INT/etc...
- Press conferences?
- Put the major news and/or team news back on first page of franchise. It should be in your face.
- Off-season updates, camps, injuries, etc... Everything!

Expanded player roles that create gameplanning.
- QBs human and AI should respect and fear testing guys like Sherman/Revis.
- Human and AI should focus on playing away from star defenders or doubling star recievers, etc. Expanding coaching/gameplanning connects to this.
- Actual gameplanning. What type of offense. What type of defense. Figure out the weaknesses and mismatches. Who are the stars and sleepers to keep an eye on?
- Team distractions. Allow coach to choose disciplinary action. Star player late for meetings. Bench him for a quarter? Half? Entire game? Be careful the balance of team chemistry and losing team discipline by letting troublemakers off too easy. Teams can lose morale and become undisciplined on the field, prone to mistakes. They also play better when the team is winning and trash talk opponents. But they play less inspired when losing and throw their own team under the bus.

Team chemistry.
- New coaches and players and systems take time to gel. No more building an instant champion by signing a boatload of high profile free agents and mega trades.
- Building chemistry builds discipline and morale. Teams player tighter and better. Coaches impact discipline. As do distractions, injuries, losing etc..

Rebuild playing modes.
- Player, coach, owner all feel exactly the same. Theres really no immersion here, yet all 3 should have their own feel. Something that draws the player in to that mode that cant be found in the others.

New commentators.
- Its just time to go in a new direction.

Team builder.
- allow created teams in franchise mode.
- make a new team creator. Even the one like ncaa football would be an improvement, but have it offline rather than online only. And it would be nice to finally have new logos rather than the same generic ones that havent changed for years.

Practice squads.