Is Gameplay or Franchise more important to you?

[MajorSupreme]

I fall into a small subset of Madden players who don't even really play the actual game anymore. Around Madden 11, I got way more into the coaching/front office side than that actual gameplay. By Madden 12, I was only doing CPUvCPU/simulating the games because I wanted my ability to build a cohesive squad, coaching staff, and profitable franchise to be decided by what's happening "off-the-field" rather than if my stick skills were up to par. I wanted to know I drafted the right QB because he grew by himself rather than me making all his decisions on the field. And for the most part, Madden 12 got me where I needed to be to run multiple 10 season+ franchises, and I haven't really had that since because the mode has really been lacking for me.

So for me personally, franchise mode over gameplay. Truthfully I need an OOTP level football game on PC but that dream recently swirled the toilet bowl so I holdout on Madden to get me that fix. And I'm a minority of the minority of simulation, franchise-first Madden players.

[saintrules]

Gameplay.

Football is an incredibly complex and cerebral sport, yet Madden plays at like a third grade reading level. They could scrap franchise tomorrow (as a franchise first player saying that) to just focus on totally changing the way the AI plays and that would bring me more joy than any in-depth franchise mode ever could.

Most of the time I get bored in franchise it's less about the world I've created and more due to the fact that I find myself just coasting through the enjoyment of games to build stats.

I should be able to boot up the game, jump into a "Play Now", and have a blast, but that's far from reality for the current state of Madden...

[canes21]

Quote: Originally Posted by saintrules

Gameplay. Football is an incredibly complex and cerebral sport, yet Madden plays at like a third grade reading level. They could scrap franchise tomorrow (as a franchise first player saying that) to just focus on totally changing the way the AI plays and that would bring me more joy than any in-depth franchise mode ever could. Most of the time I get bored in franchise it's less about the world I've created and more due to the fact that I find myself just coasting through the enjoyment of games to build stats. I should be able to boot up the game, jump into a "Play Now", and have a blast, but that's far from reality for the current state of Madden...

I agree that Madden has become too simplified. That isn't to say that there aren't complex aspects in the game, but it plays a very casual game of football overall. The brain dead AI plays a big part of that, too. I know we have plenty of opinions on this forum. Some people love Madden, others don't love it but do enjoy it, plenty of people here are sick of Madden, and so on. OS has a great variety of opinions on the quality of Madden. I would imagine the vast majority of people on this site would all agree the AI on and off the field is one of the weakest parts of the game, if not the weakest.



The new generation is coming and I'd love nothing more than for them to rebuild the AI from scratch. I'd have loved to see the entire game built from the ground up for the new gen. We don't seem to be getting that, though. With the new power of the consoles, specifically the processing power being such an upgrade, EA has no excuse to not work towards delivering the best AI in all of sports gaming. I highly doubt the AI takes a huge leap, though. I've come to terms with the fact that EA will never make a football game that truly is what I want. I'm a person that leans more 2k and will admit it. 2k8 plays the best game of football on the field and no other game can come close to it still. That said, I don't hate Madden, I dislike plenty about it, I can find ways to enjoy it some years, but until the AI gets a rehaul and franchise sees attention, real attention, I'll never think it is more than an okay game at it's absolute best. It's a pretty game that does some things well, but it is definitely heavily catered towards H2H play and the AI is embarrassingly bad for a AAA sports game and for a AAA game in general.

[DeuceDouglas]

This question is pretty much like asking if MUT content or gameplay is more important. Gameplay is something that regardless of what franchise ever does is going to get attention and change year over year. Gameplay isn't a mode or content, it's the base of the game and each mode has to figure out ways to build on that. MUT does it with constant content and mechanics that affect how you build your team. Meanwhile franchise puts 95% of the workload on gameplay and does very little off the field to enhance or affect gameplay.

There's no injury or wear and tear system to emulate players getting banged up or playing through injuries (Big Decisions doesn't count) and the weekly training boosts are insignificant. The main allure of franchise is the team building aspects but they're also extremely weak so you basically have the entirety of franchise mode trying to piggy back off of play now gameplay which wouldn't be as bad if the mode itself put it's own stamp on it and had a fun off the field experience but it doesn't really do either of those things.

[goillini03]

Quote: Originally Posted by DeuceDouglas

This question is pretty much like asking if MUT content or gameplay is more important. Gameplay is something that regardless of what franchise ever does is going to get attention and change year over year. Gameplay isn't a mode or content, it's the base of the game and each mode has to figure out ways to build on that. MUT does it with constant content and mechanics that affect how you build your team. Meanwhile franchise puts 95% of the workload on gameplay and does very little off the field to enhance or affect gameplay. There's no injury or wear and tear system to emulate players getting banged up or playing through injuries (Big Decisions doesn't count) and the weekly training boosts are insignificant. The main allure of franchise is the team building aspects but they're also extremely weak so you basically have the entirety of franchise mode trying to piggy back off of play now gameplay which wouldn't be as bad if the mode itself put it's own stamp on it and had a fun off the field experience but it doesn't really do either of those things.

Agree here with Duece. Gameplay is important because it is the foundation. The foundation should have nothing to with Franchise Mode, because it is there for all modes to benefit from within the mode.

You hit the nail on the head with the 95% portion above. The gameplay should always be there, or you should not be able to make the game at all. The basis of Franchise offers little to no substance, and should have nothing to do with gameplay. The focus can, and should, be on both every year.

Content is king with MUT, and it should be with Franchise as well on a yearly basis.

[dsk1317]

Quote: Originally Posted by Capric0rn

I ask this because Madden is designed for on the field play and that has been the major gripe ever since EA was granted the exclusive license. I'm an offline player so the franchise mode was important but it seems like some are willing to ignore the gameplay shortcomings if the franchise mode is improved. Do you buy Madden and not play it but instead use it like Head Coach or a text sim? IMO, the franchise mode or any other mode improvements for that matter, are irrelevant if the game isn't fun to play. The "franchise is a joke" appears to be nothing more than a trendy thing to jump on and be apart of it. Why not do this 5 years ago. I believe youtube and twitter have been around since 2006?

Without fundamentally sound, true to real world schematics, and players being bound by the laws of physics gameplay, franchise mode means nothing. The gameplay MUST be the top priority, because without it, you just have a frustrating experience.

[burter]

For me this is hard, because on one hand I want gameplay like 2k8. That gameplay is the best in any football ever to me. However without franchise mode in that game it was hard to kept playing it. On the other hand you have games that have really good franchise modes (2k5, early madden's), but gameplay lacks (last 2 gen's of madden). I am a person that plays every game (other than like 2nd half of pre-season games) and I can't play a game for a lot of seasons if the gameplay is bad. I can only get to maybe 2 seasons before starting over or quitting altogether.

To me I think you need both. I don't think you can have one or the other unless you are a H2H, MUT or whatever online thing there is. Then for that you want gameplay. I feel if you are a franchise player, gameplay and franchise goes hand and hand. You can't have one without the other one.

[GisherJohn24]

Gameplay is broken, it has for years, I'd rather then remove everything until the gameplay is fixed. NBA 2k14 was crazy bare boned in terms of features and modes in the next gen launch for ps4. But it blew me away, and I'm glad they took that route. There's no point of having a bunch of modes if they're all broken due to shoddy gameplay.