Old Madden Franchise Features: Are They as Good as We Remember?

[ChaseB]

Madden’s franchise mode notes earlier this summer were a bit...light. This caused franchise mode players to,...

Written By: Chris Huber

Click here to view the article.

[milkmanbonzai]

As a SoCal kid growing up at the turn of the millennium, Tony Bruno was a sports radio staple down there so it was cool to hear him in the game doing a "show", although I would've loved to see a year with Jim Rome, another guy I listened to all the time in high school, even with his bad anti-soccer takes

[bigbob]

Re: Old Madden Franchise Features: Are They as Good as We Remember?

Short answer, yes.

Long answer, hell yes.

[Rondo is GOD]

Re: Old Madden Franchise Features: Are They as Good as We Remember?

I like to think if the old features weren't gutted from the game 10 years ago, they could have built on them little by little and would be a cornerstone of Maddens advertising strategy in today's game.

I wish

[cybergates]

Franchise mode was their money maker back then. It sold copies of the game because people wanted to be the GM of a franchise while also playing the game (in effect being the coach and players). 

Now the microtransactions of MUT are the money maker so they put their efforts into it and sadly leave their legacy franchise player fans behind.

[snc237]

Vision cone, hard yes! 

[Armor and Sword]

Re: Old Madden Franchise Features: Are They as Good as We Remember?

Things that I wish were better in franchise mode today (and were not necessarily better back then):

1) Injury system - Why do we not have a dynamic injury system in both our football (Madden) and Baseball (The Show) games like NBA 2K at least has. Lingering injuries, ratings for all the different body parts for injuries, probable or doubtful scenarios, off ball injuries were outstanding on 19 and then totally nerfed down for 20. In any case why is injuries not really enhanced and focused on when it is a massive part of football, and having depth and good roster constriction.

2) Newspapers, radio show - Yep.....I loved that. What we have today is a convoluted mess. Even Madden 25 had a far better news story section and branching storylines for fictional draft classes. I feel completely disconnected from the league with today’s offerings. I have to do everything in my head to have storylines, scenarios (the scenario engine was an absolute joke on Madden 20).

3) Coaches, staff and yes a robust relocation suite as mentioned in the article.


Those three pop off the page for me in terms of franchise mode. They have made some other strides....practice squads, excellent lineup menus, formation subs, schemes, ratings spreads etc.

But Franchise mode needs some more life. And the presentation? Blech. It has gone completely backwards. After playing NCAA 14 and Madden 25......my god. What has happened.

[Toastandtoaster]

The only thing on this I want to say, is the vision cone was amazing. If you don't like sim, then turn it off, there is no issue there. We all like different things. But it honestly did more to separate the great from the good and the bad QBs more than any "accuracy tunings" madden has ever done. We hear that every year, but in all honesty, play a game with Tavares Jackson with it on, and play a game with Tom Brady with it on. Now compare the difference to a game with Tom Brady now, and a game with Trubisky now. In my own opinion, it added more to differentiate players more than anything else. And if madden and it competitive scene now claiming best stick skills, lets bring it back to prove it.

[misterkrabz2]

Vision cone is what i miss the most...and its even close.

[Elite Virtual Hockey]

Vision cone was awesome. You could literally snap the cone to a receiver once they were open so idk why so many people hated it. Took some practice but was a really good way to differentiate QB's imo.

[SolidSquid]

Re: Old Madden Franchise Features: Are They as Good as We Remember?

As others have stated vision cons was the last time madden really innovated the qb position. Starting a rookie felt like it should, playing with Vick vs Manning was a real difference. It also made playing defense fun, sure you could play safety and read the cone but what it the qbs just baiting you?

Vision cone was by far the best gameplay related feature they had.

[ShogunNamedDerek]

As someone who's favorite thing is playing free safety and grabbing picks, the vision cone was awesome. Also loved pump faking to a receiver on his out cut, then when he cuts up, money.

[Broncos86]

Re: Old Madden Franchise Features: Are They as Good as We Remember?

Things I never cared for and felt didn't add to the game for me, from older games:

• Tony Bruno Show (Yay, general statements about my team!)
• Relocating / Rebranding
• Vision Cone (I hated this)
• Superstar Mode (This is for when I got utterly bored of the game)
• Pre-game shows (Yay, canned phrases I heard over and over!)
• Setting concession stand prices (Zero tangible outcome)
• Dealing with owner mode upgrades (stadium, etc) (Zero tangible outcome)

[Cory Levy]

Re: Old Madden Franchise Features: Are They as Good as We Remember?

I fully expected the article to be written as if the person was surrounded by EA suits and was being tortured into writing it but it came around in the end, somewhat.

The entire thesis is a wonky one. Franchise fans pine for old features because they were removed rather than improved. In a perfect world the old training camp scenario would have transformed into an in-depth offseason progression, the vision cone would have been refined, fine tuned and been an optional playing enhancement, coaching staffs would have evolved into deeper staffs with each one having an impact on your players and so on and so forth.

It's also outright silly to 'judge' features that were in a football game so long ago. That's just backwards, IMO. Of course 15 years later the create-a-team doesn't seem super detailed but that's forgetting where that feature was the year, two, five years before it while disregarding that it's a feature that has since been removed (for a lesser version, one I don't buy into just for the 'audio cues').

[Darth Aegis]

Re: Old Madden Franchise Features: Are They as Good as We Remember?

Nay, I don't really think so. I think it's more of nostalgia of time & place more than anything.