2012 request: amp up the coaches please!

[Gordy748]

Dear Mr E. Arts,

Love your Madden games. Some things kinda bite, but I'm willing enough to believe you're going in the right direction to give you $60 out of my pocket money every year.


I hear you're putting some lipstick and rouge on the offline franchise for 2012, and I think this is a good thing. The in-game experience is on the way up but between games and seasons, I feel like I’m in the Seahawks’ secretarial pool rather than the coach’s head office. So I thought I’d send through some thoughts about that, and hopefully you’ll find this worth listening to.


1) Put a face to the name. Last year they had faces, now they look like the Ghost of Christmas Past. Please give them their faces back, and if you can’t, then give them a cartoon head.


2) Make coaches matter. They have philosophies and quirks that make them unique. Take Pat Carroll for example. His offense playbook is boss, but his defense sucks the big one. But so what, if I want his offense I should have to put up with his defense. But at the moment I can change to whatever playbook I like, I can float like a Patriot, and sting like a Jet. But it’s not very real. All you need to do is add on a little tickbox at the start of a franchise (where we have sim injuries and cap use) that makes the playbooks contingent on the head coach, which gives us the option of having to live with our head coaches or being able to pick whatever one we choose.


3) Make coordinators matter. Sure Bratkowsi gives my receivers +2 RTE, but what of the man? Does he call short passes? Deep? Slants? Screens? I’m not that interested in his favorite karaoke song, but having his philosophy impact what goes into the game plan would make hiring him all the more important. Heck, I’d stop scrolling through the Off. Coordinator list looking for nothing more than the poor guy’s bonuses. Of course, let us tweak our gameplans a little, but let it be scripted originally from the coaching team.


4) Keep improving GameFlow. Great idea. But please, keep evolving it. If we’re up by more than a score, let’s clock manage. If we’re down, let’s air it out. I don’t want to constantly audible into something else just because my coordinators don’t seem to be aware of the time and score. Actually, now I think of it, isn’t that Madden’s playcalling from last year added onto GameFlow this year?


5) Hire Clippy from Microsoft to help. Remember him, the paper clip? It would be great if he came on screen sometime and said, “It looks like you’re ahead by more than a score. Do you want me to: a) stick to your gameplan, b) manage the clock, c) hail mary them, or d) something else. Okay, maybe Clippy should be left in Uncle Bill’s bottom drawer, but letting us manage the conversation between coach and coordinator and revise our strategy would be a lot more involving.


Remember, when we play your game, we’re not just the players. We’re the coaches and coordinators too. Getting them in the game would surely be more entertaining.

[guaps]

I agree that coaches should matter, but I'm not buying into your head coach dominated strategy.

Make coordinators dominate the playbook.
I would personally love it, if EA got rid of team specific playbook and introduced offensive and defensive coordinator-based playbooks. So your playbook would be determined by your coordinators style, say, West Coast offensive coordinator or 4-3 defensive coordinator. If you look at the NFL there aren't too many different styles and approaches to coordinating, which is why this would be realistic.

On top of that coaches/coordinators should be allowed some distinctive trademark plays and formations added to playbook. Say, you hire a West Coast offensive coordinator for your team, then the coordinators distinct plays and formations are added to the basic West Coast playbook.

[Old School SD Fan]

I agree that playbooks should be either tied to the head coach or the coordinators, makes who you select a more strategic decision than what attribute boosts you can get.

Also agree as to faces, if you've got head scanned players going to the coaching pool, why remove their head scans and give them generics? Makes no sense.

[guaps]

Since I would like to see a teams coordinators determine the playbook, as mention above, I've been thinking about the role of the Head Coach in Franchise mode. One way you could use them is to make the head coach a deciding factor when trying to sign a coordinator. That way you could open up for new, better coordinators, thus better playbooks, if you were able to get a head coach with a better reputation signed to your team, or if your current head coach progresses after a few seasons.

[Exonerated]

this was all in head coach 09.

[jethrobag]

Here's another idea....why don't they let us create the coach and or edit the coaches appearance. This drives me nuts it was in 05, but they took it out.

What really irks me is when I hire Russ Grimm for my HC for example, and they cut to the sidelines during the game and he looks like a frail 70 year old man. Why cant we get some realism or have the ability to create it ourselves.

If we could create a coach, and then choose the type of playbook and tendancies he ran, that would be perfect. Hopefully we can get this for M12.