Madden 12 Retail Impression (Franchise and Superstar Mode - NO QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION)

[illwill10]

Dont like the Camera Angle view for Defensive Players in SS. Especially for CBs. Standard and Wide are too far away and lead to miss opportunities. Zoomed cuts off crucial part of the field. Looks like Im not playing CB.It was one of my fav positions in NCAA.
I might use NFL Rookies. What I will do is edit low rookies use them. Most of my imports are rated TOO HIGH. My only RTG that came in under 85 was my SS. So, I will use NFL rookies.

[LSX]

Not surprisingly, franchise mode is a huge letdown. MikeOne and several others basically summed up how I feel, but I'd like to add a few of my thoughts.

Yes, rookie scouting is completely ridiculous. The NFL Draft is obviously a crap shoot in real life, but Madden 12 takes it to a whole new level. Even after scouting several guys, you know NOTHING about 98% of the players except their name, position, and projected round. Why can't I see their 40 times, reps, etc? Come on EA.

I badly needed a receiver, so three of my five individual workouts were on the top three receivers in the class (all projected to go in the 1st round). Burning the workouts on these guys revealed that all three receivers had catch ratings in the low 60's. WTF? So three of my five workouts were wasted, and after drafting a fully scouted defensive end with my 1st, I was working with very limited known attributes from that point on. After the first couple rounds, you're basically just blindly drafting random players because you know absolutely nothing about them. The players you did scout give you one or two worthless attributes that don't really tell you much of anything. Basically, the new rookie scouting system is about as unrealistic and uninteresting as it gets.

The free agent bidding system is totally unrealistic as well. If you have a lot of needs to fill you won't have any time to look at certain attributes or statistics, you basically just recognize a guy you like, or you look at their age and overall and hope for the best. I can only imagine what it will be like 5-10 years into franchise when most players are generated and you don't recognize anyone. How did this guy perform last year? What is this fullback's runblock rating? Don't bother taking the time to look into things much because by the time you do, most of the good players at other positions will be signed. But the worst part about free agency BY FAR is the inability to structure the contracts. Old guys are always 2-year deals, and anyone under 30 is automatically a 5-year deal. Seriously?

CPU AI is pretty messed up as well. The trade logic is questionable at best, and their roster management is a total head scratcher. When I got to my second season, I noticed a lot of teams had low-rated rookies as their backups for some unknown reason. For example, the Pats had a 45 OVR LB backing up Mayo, and a 51 OVR LB behind Spikes. They were almost $20 mil under the cap and there were several free agent linebackers in the 60's and 70's that were cheap, young, and much better than the scrubs on their roster. Nearly every team had several position groups structured like this. Why?

Another thing that has ALWAYS bothered me about free agency is the rating cutoff, which seems even worse this year. In the beginning of my 2nd season there were only a dozen or so QBs in free agency, because any quarterback below the 68 OVR that wasn't on a team had been removed from the franchise mode. There was no Scott Tolzien, no Graham Harrell, no Tyrod Taylor, etc. Instead of signing some unproven young QB as my third-stringer, I got to choose between the likes of Chris Redman, Matt Leinart, and Charlie Batch. Yay.

Coaches still mean absolutely nothing, they are just a name with no information about them and random +3 or -3 attributes attached. I agree that the menus are difficult and annoying to navigate through. Between all this and the other issues brought up in this thread, I am definitely disappointed.

I like EA's ideas for improving the franchise mode, but the execution this year was terrible IMO. What's their motto, "everything you see on Sundays"??? It's in the game? Well then why are they going out of their way to add new features that only make things more unrealistic? I appreciate the effort, but the end result is sub-par. I just wish EA would go back to the basics and build off of their modes they had on the last gen system. The only thing keeping me interested in Madden 12's franchise mode long-term is the "new feature" (that was introduced 10 years ago before it was removed) that allows us to finally switch teams in the offseason.

[cutter73]

My franchise impressions: Please note these are based on coaching games,not activly controlling the players.

Pros:

I like the gameplay. Things seem to play out pretty good on the field from what I've seen so far. I throw some INT's, but I'm starting John Beck for the Redskins,so what can you expect given his ratings? even at that, the hot streak/ cold streak thing seems to work pretty well in spots. For all Beck's problems, if I manage to string together a few good passes, he can get on a small roll and do some good things.

There is quite a bit of info available for each player. Player roles are back, and they seem alright to me. I also like how on each players card there will be a list on info about that players tendancies... whether he's likle to run as a QB, what his consistancy level is, how clutch he is and that sort of thing.

Defense is actually pretty effective compared to recent games. I can actually get a pass rush for one thing. So far, the corners seem to do a pretty realistic job as well.I got beat deep a couple times by DeSean Jackson for example,but who doesn't? What I did like about getting beat was that every deep completion isn;t a TD. Jackson only completely blew by my corner once, and that was mostly my faultdue to a bad play call. otherwise, I may get beat deep on occasion,but mostly my corners are at least closeenough to the recievers to look realistic.

So far, my running game works like I figure it should. I'm not popping big runs left and right, but neither am I consistantly getting stuffed in the backfield due to weird AI issues.

So,fo the gameplay itself,I am very satisfied at this point. There is a pretty good foundation there I think.

Cons:

Presentation overall is not very good. No halftime shows, no draft commentary on any of the players, honestly,there is a whole lot of nothing here. There is no commentary at all outside of the announcers calling the game and the PA announcer. Crowd levels are insanely bad. The crowd will go dead silent on me quite a bit during the games. One thing I do like is when I occasionally hear the crowd break out into Hail to the Redskins when I score, but for the most part, it's just eerily quiet.

Speaking of calling the game, it's just plain bad. A lot of the lines don;t fit what's going on on the field at all. Sometimes it gets it right, but a lot of the time, it doesn't. There is also an issue with too many players just being called "the WR" instead of by their names.

Offseason... well, it's there. But honestly, it's not much. Pro Days and so on are just the basic "check box for X amount of players to scout" like scouting has always been in Madden. Sure, they broke it up into sections and moves some of it to these offseason periods,but overall, it's just a dressed up version of wwhat scouting already was.

I don;t like FA bidding at all. Some may like it, but it's basically that bidding system used for undrafted FA's in Head Coach 09. That worked well when you just had a few players, but when dealing with full free agency,I find myself not even able to bid on certain players because of the short timers. Once someone bids on a FA, a timer starts ticking.At the end of that timer, he signs with the last team that bid on him. It's just a money spam is all it is. Players don't care about going to a winning team or what have you, last bid before 0 signs player.

The whole offseason is just bland and lifeless. It's just got no personality at all. I was hoping for somescouting commentary and draft commentary but nothing. pre game and halftime is absent, with only a coupleplayers running out of the tunnel in pregame,and only silent replays of a fewplays during halftime. Post game is also just a couple silent replays/ jogging off the field scenes. Nothing like the old Extra Point is in the game at all.

I also have not seen anything regarding building statdiums or moving teams. I never cared much about that kind of thing, but if they took it out, that just seems odd to me.And if it's just hidden somewhere in the menues where I haven;t seen it, that's not much better.

On a personal note,the soundtrack is just godawful. Seriously, everything sucks to the point where I just mute the TV at times.

Conclusion:

I like the gameplay. I like the roles and that kind of stuff. But Franchise is just seriously lacking, as is presentation of any kind in or out of actual games. If you like the new speed bidding in free agency, you may like it better,but I didn;t care for it at all.

[rckabillyRaider]

Reading all these bad impressions on what should have been great new features is really depressing and makes me feel like just stopping my franchise immediately. It really sucks too because the overall gameplay during the actual games is pretty solid.

I still can't understand how a game like madden 05 on a last gen inferior machine had an excellent franchise mode with training camp, good scouting system, good draft, trading draft picks, baseball infield on stadiums that should have them in the beginning of a season, and overall better immersion. Yet, we still can't get it right about 5 yrs into this current gen. Cant they just play that game for a few weeks, take extensive notes, and apply it to the next madden?

[LSX]

Quote: Originally Posted by rckabillyRaider

I still can't understand how a game like madden 05 on a last gen inferior machine had an excellent franchise mode with training camp, good scouting system, good draft, trading draft picks, baseball infield on stadiums that should have them in the beginning of a season, and overall better immersion. Yet, we still can't get it right about 5 yrs into this current gen. Cant they just play that game for a few weeks, take extensive notes, and apply it to the next madden?

I'm with you. A couple months ago I threw Madden 06 (or maybe it was 05, idk) into my system, and I couldn't believe how nice the experience was. The menus were simple and clean, and really easy to navigate through. The whole franchise mode was just put together so well; everything made sense, and was realistic and thoroughly enjoyable. Everything was so simple, yet deep.

Nowadays, it just seems like they add so much glitz and gimmicky stuff instead of making things realistic. There are several points where I get frustrated and all I can do is ask how they could possibly think "this" and "that" was a good idea.

[The_Wraith420]

I've only played play now thus far but I like the way it plays the CPU has been givin me a fight which I like the run game I'm having trouble picking up as well...the presentation needs serious work for sure but for now I'm fine with it

[jethrobag]

After playing offline franchise for a night, I have mixed feelings. I started a franchise with the Bills, and scouted OL and QB heavily. I started with about 8 QBs and 6 LTs. After going through the reg season scouting, I narrowed down the QBs and LTs based on what was unlocked and their height/weight. I found a QB projected in the first round, 6'4 220, and after the pro days he had a TP of 96. I used an individual workout on him and he was 82 ovr A pot. I knew that before I picked him number 1 overall. Pretty rewarding to get to that point. I felt like I had Andrew Luck sitting in my lap. In that way, it made scouting feel rewarding, and that I knew he was my guy.
However, the coach selection is horrible. There are hardly any real coordinators in the game. Perfect example, I can hire Mike Pettine ( NYJ DC) as my HC, but Brian Schottenheimer (NYJ OC) is not in the game. I don't understand the logic in how some real life coordinators are in the game, but others are not.
Also, the free agency is a meh for me. Although a little intimidating at first, once you get the hang of it, you can sign anyone you want.
With the scouting upgrades, I do feel this is a huge improvement overall.

[StormJH1]

Quote: Originally Posted by LSX

I'm with you. A couple months ago I threw Madden 06 (or maybe it was 05, idk) into my system, and I couldn't believe how nice the experience was. The menus were simple and clean, and really easy to navigate through. The whole franchise mode was just put together so well; everything made sense, and was realistic and thoroughly enjoyable. Everything was so simple, yet deep. Nowadays, it just seems like they add so much glitz and gimmicky stuff instead of making things realistic. There are several points where I get frustrated and all I can do is ask how they could possibly think "this" and "that" was a good idea.

I agree that Madden 05/06 really should have been the model for what they need to get back to. A colorful eBay bidding system for FA's sure looks better in screenshots, but when you actually get to playing it, it's disappointing that it takes virtually nothing into account that would explain why a player would want to sign with the Eagles instead of the Bengals, or what have you. The fact that you can't even dictate the length of contracts is almost criminal, IMO.

Madden 2006's franchise mode worked. Love or hate Tony Bruno, you had a relevant radio show playing in the background while you navigated menus. Scouting in the draft actually meant something, and it was pretty easy to get basic information about a lot of different prospects. Fans cheered if you had a gem, or booed if you reached on a pick. The mini-game drills were a lot of fun and offered an entertaining way to boost certain player rankings without being absurdly unrealistic. Sure, the game lacked the slick presentation of NFL 2k5, and there were other problems (the IR/53-man roster issue not fixed until THIS YEAR, etc.), but it was a full-featured game.

I agree that it feels like so much work goes into making the Madden 12 franchise mode look cool, when they could have just started with the basic engine of Madden 05/06, added a few common sense fixes (like the IR thing and expanded rosters), and we'd actually be better off than we are now.