Instead of making HC09 I wish they spent 2 years making it Madden's franchise mode

[xanmank]

I love HC09 and I think it's the deepest franchise mode I have ever played. The off season is a blast. But I keep thinking to myself I almost wish I never played it because I got an amazing football franchise mode dangled in front of me making me think "if only you could control the players in the game this would be 100x more fun than Madden." I would never know what I was missing.

It set my expectations too high and set me up for a disappointment. What's sad is instead of being pumped about the awesome new presentation, pro tak and improved gameplay- I feel let down as a franchise player. I understand the "foundation has to be solid first before you add an addition to the house" (I actually understand this very clear since I am an architect) but I can't help but look at HC and see what they did with that.

With that said, what was the purpose of making Head Coach? To sell the Madden 09 CE? To try to milk some more money with another stand alone game? HC sold very poorly and was on sale for $20 new only 3 months after release.

I wish EA used what was supposed to be HC and worked on it for a whole other dev cycle to make it a really polished franchise mode, because it was pretty obvious they couldn't get all of that into Madden in 10 months.

HC has the great off season with FA bidding and the new trading/negotiation screens, not to mention the draft us the most fun Ive ever had in a sports game with really in-depth scouting, awesome presentation and menu navigation, FUTURE DRAFT PICKS, etc. Then there's the preseason with full rosters and cut days; position coaches; more specific ratings on players including: size, intangibles, learning ability, etc; team road maps which make CPU teams finally act intelligently with draft choices and FA moves; position philosophies that make certain players rated higher if they fit your system; injuries that affect your entire career with the body parts % system, and the list goes on. But all we get are premade rookies and a potential rating.


Even though all of that stuff in HC is great, it has its flaws, and for many the gameplay during the actual games is a little bit boring. Some specific problems are the running game being non-existent, robo-QB like past Maddens, the atrocious "defining moment" system, and some other little problems with the top TEs being realesed every year; the inability to trade player for player (has to be player for draft picks usually); contract negotiations should have a little more user imput instead of all the choices being the same length of years, and other little issues such as crappy backups asking for too much money (but I think thats a glitch). So, EA could have spent last year and this year making an excellent franchise mode for Madden 10, instead of a game with great potential, but isn't quite there, followed by a Madden with the foundation FINALLY being fixed, but not much else added to it depth-wise besides a highlight show minus the highlights.

But if they did that, what would they have added to Madden 09 CE to make it "special"? And maybe they thought they could get a bunch of sales from the stand alone game, because the casual crowd loves an in depth coaching sim ...

[Deegeezy]

Man I am glad I never played HC because it definitely sounds like it would spoil Madden for me. I am huge on realism and there is a ton of stuff that I'll just have to look past in order to enjoy Madden. I just know too much about how the NFL works to ignore some things but I'll have to try my bet.

Hopefully Madden 11 has more to offer from H.C. I'm sure they'll be some small nuggets that we haven't heard about that have made it into franchise mode this year though.

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Madden with Head Coach in the back end is basically my dream football game, lol. I think it'd be incredible!

[PantherBeast_OS]

HC 09 was a decent football game but time consuming. But now that Josh looman is working on the franchise mode part of it for year to come. I expect franchise mode to come to life big time. But I am happy for this year. Because the have fixed the progression system and they have fixed the trade logic and all that. They had to rebuild from ground up this year. But I am sure we will see alot more stuff from HC 09 be put into madden 11. IT will be a exciting time for madden over the coming months and over the coming years. I can't wait until madden 10 comes out in about 6 weeks from now. It's getting closer and I am getting more insane by the day just wait for it.

[xanmank]

Quote: Originally Posted by TJdaSportsGuy

Madden with Head Coach in the back end is basically my dream football game, lol. I think it'd be incredible!

I'd pretty much take HC09 as is, with the ability to control the players like Madden

[thudias]

Quote: Originally Posted by xanmank

I'd pretty much take HC09 as is, with the ability to control the players like Madden

HeadCoach had an issue with stability and kept crashing so as is i would say no.

[BillNyeTheScienceGuy]

HC09 with controlling the players would defeat the purpose of the game. theres no point in having a realistic franchise mode if your stick skills can make scrubs play like 99 rated players. actually making your players learn plays so they play better is more fun, for me(lol) than just playing the game and letting any scrub dominate if your good enough

and to the OP, the sliders posted in the hc09 slider threads(i use adembroski's) really fix all the gameplay issues, from running game to robo-QB. the only bad gameplay issue thats still there imo is that its really hard to generate a 4man pass rush

[Jimixiii]

i've said it once & i'll say it again, with HC out the picture Franchise will become much better. instead of EA putting what could of easily just been all in one game they decided to get greedy and make a whole other NFL game with all the depth that should've rightfully been in Madden's franchise. thank the gaming gods for the death of Head Coach.