Madden's future of CFM is alarming

[howboutdat]

Quote: Originally Posted by bucky60

They had the resources to devote to it. They chose not to assign those resources to it.

this is just the very sad and simple fact of the matter. It is why the mode will never improve more than it does.That wont change, heck even when they claimed it did last year, we all saw that "extra" effort and resource was well spent......the dream is over and we have woken up to reality.A few still dream , but their alarm clock will be sounding soon.

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor and Sword

It is not an excuse.....it is called priority. If EA felt said we have ex amount of resources and you need to choose: CPU AI More features on CFM For Madden 19......to me the overwhelming answer on Operation Sports should be CPU AI. If the gameplay is not where it should be....who gives a rats *** about a pretty franchise mode.

W/O a deep and immersive franchise mode, gameplay means absolutely nothing to me. The real answer is both, not one or the other.

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by bucky60

W/O a deep and immersive franchise mode, gameplay means absolutely nothing to me. The real answer is both, not one or the other.

Yeah both. But do you really think we will get both in one dev cycle?

We know better.


Sent from Palm Trees and Paradise using Operation Sports

[NEOPARADIGM]

it's starting to creep into my mind that this notion of "ea doesn't care about offline gamers" is correct. i can kind of understand it - there's a very real sense in which we're kinda like if battlefield had a contingent of guys who wanted to play offline against bots and had a giant list of complex demands. that's us. hope i'm wrong.

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by NEOPARADIGM

it's starting to creep into my mind that this notion of "ea doesn't care about offline gamers" is correct. i can kind of understand it - there's a very real sense in which we're kinda like if battlefield had a contingent of guys who wanted to play offline against bots and had a giant list of complex demands. that's us. hope i'm wrong.

You are correct.

We are the Jurassic Park of Madden players. A bunch of 40 something's who played sports games in their infancy and grew up on the franchise mode model and it peaked for us on Madden in 2005.

Since the move to PS3 it has been a long way down but IMO Madden 25 started a somewhat ascent for us who love franchise mode. Because on PS3 it downright stunk to high heaven along with the gameplay that took 3 steps backwards.

It peaked with the Connected Franchise model last season and all we got this year was a lot of "off-season tuning" which I do notice. So a small golf clap for Tiburon in that regard.

But yes we got the shaft this cycle. It was all about Longshot, and MUT for Madden 18.

Again what is the confidence level about Madden 19 getting the TLC for franchise mode it needs? What is the confidence level CPU AI both on and off the field will get the TLC that is long over due?

My confidence level is very low.

Madden 18 may be it for me for a long time. And that may be by design from EA as their model is clearly not aligned with the simulation sports game community that plays offline.

They are going after our kids folks......not us.


Sent from Palm Trees and Paradise using Operation Sports

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor and Sword

Yeah both. But do you really think we will get both in one dev cycle? We know better.

2K does it. I stopped being an enabler quite a while ago.

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor and Sword

Y Again what is the confidence level about Madden 19 getting the TLC for franchise mode it needs? What is the confidence level CPU AI both on and off the field will get the TLC that is long over due? My confidence level is very low.

Me too. Been very low since CCM was first introduced.

[Lexicon]

Quote: Originally Posted by msdm27

If that is the case then I'm willing to bet dollars on the focus for CFM in M19 being a re-done UI main hub like Fifa has done this year showing video-packages of league news and canned cut-scenes of signings/awards. In my opinion, what CFM is lacking is NOT narrative, is simply DEPTH. Everything is a) Shallow -Which is their interpretation of user friendly- b) Incomplete c) Poorly implemented d) Missing e) All of the above **The correct answer is e) btw** Just inject some life/things to do in Franchise mode! I can't stress enough how disappointing it would be if the focus for CFM in M19 is making it more story-like to "increase" immersion because I'm pretty sure that would soak up their resources taking away from actually adding deep features.

Narrative is exactly what we need. You can put in all the lists of deep features you want, but the issue with Franchise Mode will still remain: It's boring, dull, and lifeless.

We follow the NFL, not only because it's home to the best football players in the world, but also because of all the storylines. That's why we have endless sports talk shows. That's how they fill up their time on the air.

Each week, every game has a story (or stories) to follow. Whether be a big rivalry, a star player injured, a rookie getting an opportunity, a player going against his former team, the playoff race, draft positioning, a new regime, and the list goes on and on.

Madden does a terrible job of pointing out these stories, and when it does, it doesn't present them in an appealing way. The system needs to recognize relationships and events, tie them into each week, and even tie them into future years. Right now, Year 1 feels no different than Year 10, because you're staring at the same lifeless front menu in both years.

I agree that we need all those deep features as well, but we're going to continue to have the same boring mode if narrative is not addressed. And I don't mean narrative as in it forces pre-made stories onto us, but organic narrative: stories that trigger and evolve based on what we do.


Also, as a side, I can't believe I'm still hearing people say that Franchise Mode "just works." There's plenty of evidence to show that there are several things in it that don't work, from scheduling, to formation subs, to XP costs not displaying correctly, to stats not displaying at all, and on and on.