Seven Franchise Mode UI Changes Needed For Madden NFL 18

[RaychelSnr]

When playing a franchise mode in any sports game, players often spend much more time navigating menus than on the field playing the actual game. Whether it’s adjusting depth charts, reviewing box scores, catching up on league news, or scouting next year’s crop of draft prospects, the quality of user-interface elements in franchise mode can go a long way in determining how fun -- or frustrating -- it can be.

Let’s take a look at seven areas where EA can make positive steps towards building a better experience outside of the lines in franchise mode.

Read More - Seven UI Changes Needed For Madden NFL 18

[JayD]

Re: Seven Franchise Mode UI Changes Needed For Madden NFL 18

Trade finder would be a great addition. Also, put the story lines back on the main CFM screen like in Madden 15; No need for the massive week listing or the season time linegraphic.

[DeuceDouglas]

Re: Seven Franchise Mode UI Changes Needed For Madden NFL 18

Agree with everything here. CFM has some of the worst UI of any game I've played. Slow, clunky, unnecessarily big. And it's gotten consistently worse every year IMO. I'll never understand why they took the old news feed off the front page. 32-team control takes ages with their current layout. Just so many issues that make something annoying when it should be simple.

[ripcandlestickpark]

Re: Seven Franchise Mode UI Changes Needed For Madden NFL 18

One relatively small addition that I believe could go a very long way in creating a better sense of immersion would be re-doing the menu ticker to show only information from your league (scores and individual stats from last week, league leaders, transactions, injuries, next week's matchups, etc.). OS user DeuceDouglas had a pretty cool mockup for what this might look like.

If possible (legally speaking) it would be pretty cool to have the NFL Network's ticker design.

Last week's scores and individual stats

Spoiler

League leaders

Spoiler

Transactions

Spoiler

Next week's matchups

Spoiler

Spoiler

Piggy-backing off of that last point, more NFL Network and NFL.com integration in menus (perhaps in stats screens for the latter?) would be welcome too.

[schnaidt1]

nfl network integration is cool...but they have espn license....might as well use it since the 3 games they did use it (college bball, college fball, and nba live) are no more

[ripcandlestickpark]

Re: Seven Franchise Mode UI Changes Needed For Madden NFL 18

nfl network integration is cool...but they have espn license....might as well use it since the 3 games they did use it (college bball, college fball, and nba live) are no more

Good point. I forgot that they still have the license. Thanks for reminding me. If given the choice, though, between NFL Network and ESPN integration, I'd go with NFLN if only for aesthetic reasons.

[Lexicon]

Re: Seven Franchise Mode UI Changes Needed For Madden NFL 18

Good article. Very important stuff here. Madden's UI is so obnoxious and counter-intuitive, even compared to its other EA Sports titles. NHL and FIFA both have a similar "box-style" UI, but their's seem more organized, and FIFA puts the headlines right on the first tab. Even though I'm not a big fan of those UI's, either, they at least are a bit easier to deal with.

Other than it looking dated, I really don't understand why we can't have an enhanced version of the UI in the PS2/XBOX era games. Menus that are quick to load, the ability to quickly move from user-controlled teams to other user teams, and all that good stuff. I control a 32 team offline franchise, and I'd love to just be able to go into Free Agency or the Depth chart and switch between my teams with R2 or L2 instead of having to click down R3, scroll to the team, then be kicked back out to the front menu, have to go back into the FA screen... it's just so much unnecessary work. I know this isn't a big deal for those who only use one team, but there are many of us who enjoy playing with different teams or don't trust the CPU AI to put teams together. A complete UI overhaul is definitely high on my Madden 18 wishlist.

[Vermin]

Lots of great suggestions made here. I think I would trade them all just to have the Low Contracts Warning screen in MUT not appear every time I transitioned forward or backward one UI screen. I appreciate the warning, but when I dismiss it once, I shouldn't have it force-fed to me four more times before I start a game.

[Toupal]

You hit a homerun with these points!

Madden has the worst franchise/ career mode out of any sports game made. I think it is better than it was last year, but compared to 2k and MLB the Show, it doesn't compare.

All of these with the addition of custom draft classes would be more than welcome!

[jfsolo]

Re: Seven Franchise Mode UI Changes Needed For Madden NFL 18

Agree with everyone here, there are a lot of good suggestions in this piece.

[Mike Lowe]

I made a video on YouTube covering some of this a while back, and I definitely agree! The news section looks like a dating website app for football players.

This is why I sold Madden months ago--it's just not there yet. In my opinion, it was the worst of the Big 4 (FIFA 5?) sports titles, especially when you're looking at a franchise mode. They don't even have OL injuries still.

Come on, EA!

[N51_rob]

Well done Ryan.

[Dazraz]

Excellent article. Madden has made good strides on the field but the Menus remain cluttered & woefully slow to navigate. NBA 2K & MLB The Show have slick menus that make everything instantly accessible. EA menu screens seem to work off some archaic structure whereby every page has to be loaded.

[335TDC]

Madden UI is HORRIBLE.

Makes me miss the solid basics of NCAA 02 on ps2 -- snappy menus, great theme song, player menu didn't go all the way back to the beginning when you closed a profile.

Sometimes the ability to do more just leads to MORE, not better...

[Zggy]

Lots of great suggestions made here. I think I would trade them all just to have the Low Contracts Warning screen in MUT not appear every time I transitioned forward or backward one UI screen. I appreciate the warning, but when I dismiss it once, I shouldn't have it force-fed to me four more times before I start a game.

No offence but this article is about CFM, your MUT has already had more than it's fair share of upkeep and TLC. It's time this company finally looks after the one game mode it has completely forgotten. Don't try and use this year as an example; they did nothing but tease us with gimmicks on the lead up to the release. I know it'll sound like I'm coming off as a prick, but as a die hard CFM player who has no time, or patience, for MUT. I have grown a great disdain for the whole game mode and the people who play it. Have a great week.