What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

[mavfan21]

I, like many purely off line franchise players love the Madden Generated Draft Players. They make franchise mode much deeper and enjoyable. Who hasn't smiled when you draft that late round gem like

Spoiler

Leron James or Jamaal Frazier

or happily grimaced and reluctantly admitted realism is cool when you got stuck with

Spoiler

Ryan Luck

.

What I was wondering is, since we all know the top players now, they surely won't use these same classes. What do you think the solution will/should be?

Here's some ideas:

• Reuse all the players but mix up the drafts. For example, Bellows won't be in the English draft he might show up in the Rocker draft.

• Use the same players but give them new names/faces. It might be cool to find out Flash Gordon is now a slow possession WR and Michael Bolt is a pocket QB...while Chad Gunn is a speedy scrambler.

• All new classes. This is the most likely scenario.

• All new classes with the old classes available as a download if you want them.

• All new classes with top players from the old classes mixed in. Maybe with new ratings?

I am not sure what would be best. I think all new classes with the option to download the classes as you would be a good option. I assume they just put out all new classes and that's all however.

Anyone know what they're hinting at doing? Any other ideas to what you HOPE they do?

[oneamongthefence]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

Fix the ncaa draft classes?

[sniperhare]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

Fix the ncaa draft classes?

This.

They need to work together to have accurate NFL draft imports. Certain positions should be good in the 4th round like centers and te's and I should never see FB's projected in the top 3 rounds.

They also need to fix the physical attribute importation. A Qb's arm strength or a RB/WR speed shouldn't drop when they are imported into the NFL.

[Maelstrom-XIII]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

I personally loved the Madden generated draft classes...you had busts, you had gems, you had role players, and you had your franchise players in the 1st rounds...it was as close to a real draft experience as I've seen in Madden...

With that said, it was a mistake to not randomize some aspects of the generated players with every franchise. What EA should do this time is make new draft classes (perhaps keeping some of the old favorites) and randomize AT LEAST the name and college, if not all of their physical attributes (height, weight, age). This keeps all the players mysterious for EVERY franchise someone might start....

[stlstudios189]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

Have a huge player pool and just make it random when and where players appear.

[PantherBeast_OS]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

Well I'm sure they will make new names up and all to make it more interesting. But I'm sure they will do everythhign they can to make it fun for us this coming year.

[kcarr]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

A lot of the names have remained the same with the same basic skill sets through 3 games so far, HC, HC09, and madden 10. Hopefully they won't use as many of the same as they did in madden 10 and hopefully some of it is random and they continue to build on what can be done with these classes adding draft presentation and commentary leading up to, during, and maybe even in games after the draft. Also, hopefully they do a better job of balancing, hiding, and randomizing talent throughout the classes. If they can do that and do it well I think pre-made classes could be great but that is a lot of work to put into commentary each year.

That said, if you for instance had seperate potentials for each rating and maybe randomize initialize initial ratings within a 10 points range, just set them initially for each player and then have it randomly choose a number between -5 and 5 and adjust each one, and then set the potential for each rating randomly within a set range then you could really add some variety to these classes. For instance then you could take a guy like james and sometimes he may come in with 99 speed, acceleration, and agility with the ability to hit those levels on his elusiveness and moves and the ability to become a great back but sometimes he may end up coming in with only 90ish speed, acceleration, and agility with much less in the skill areas and end up just being a decent scat back and 3rd down back.

Also, since everything is preset you could have different preset ranges for each player. For instance a guy like boar jackson or devin mayo from HC09 who has great skills but a really low injury ratings could sometimes come in really low with like 30 injury but sometimes come in with like 70 or 80 and sometimes come in low with the ability to improve. This could really lead to the ability to insert the need for scouting and could add a lot of replayability to the game. Imagine coming up on the draft with rob lane and whoever is the peyton clone from that draft and thinking to yourself "no reason to scout these 2, one is being compared to peyton and one is a big armed QB from washington who resembles ryan leaf, I will go with the peyton clone" and then that time the randomness goes against you and a division rival picks up lane who torches you for the next 15 seasons. Or imagine actually scouting some guy who is thought to be a bust and finding out you can get solid value from him this time. It would add some much needed unpredictability while still being able to leave the names there and easlity incorporate the draft commentary from the HC series.

[rootofalleli]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

There are a lot of good ideas here. My one warning is that EA can't let too much randomness back in. Replay value is important, but it's also really important that we never see 95 SPD 80 ACC again.

I also like that players have names that suit their positions- some of the QBs have "golden boy" names, while the O-linemen have tough sounding names. Randomness shouldn't kill that, if possible, though I'd still chose replay value over poetry. Speaking of names and such, I'd like to see some non-white, non-black portraits for the draft classes. Some of the players have Samoan or Hispanic names, but they don't look the part at all.

[kcarr]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

There are a lot of good ideas here. My one warning is that EA can't let too much randomness back in. Replay value is important, but it's also really important that we never see 95 SPD 80 ACC again.

I also like that players have names that suit their positions- some of the QBs have "golden boy" names, while the O-linemen have tough sounding names. Randomness shouldn't kill that, if possible, though I'd still chose replay value over poetry. Speaking of names and such, I'd like to see some non-white, non-black portraits for the draft classes. Some of the players have Samoan or Hispanic names, but they don't look the part at all.

I agree that there is a lot of value to keeping names constant. This allows a lot of name recognition to be brought in which is why I like my idea of having the randomness being on the ratings and potentials for those ratings. Also, they do need to work on bringing in some faces other than just black and white to match the names.

That said, why shouldn't a player have 95 speed and 80 acceleration? Both are independent abilities and just because a player can hit a high top speed that does not mean he should be able to instantly hit that speed and just because a player is slow does not mean he can't have the explosiveness to fire off the line and hit his top speed very quickly. That said since things like speed and acceleration should only be able to usually be improved a few points over the course of a career there does need to be some selectiveness on the user's part in finding guys with acceptable ability in both areas but that doesn't mean a player should not be able to have that particular skill set.

That also brings me to another point. The CPU needs to have minimum ratings in some areas that they will not start at a position if they have the choice. A team that likes to play man coverage should probably never be looking to start a corner with less then around 85 speed, agility, and acceleration. If they have a corner that fits those abilities they should give him some leeway on the depth chart compared to those without those abilities. Also there should probably be different limits for different positions even within a team. Some teams have different requirements for their nickle corner as compared to a starter or for the 2nd back as compared to their first. Also, regardless of overall the cpu should look to avoid signing or resigning or drafting players who don't fit those requirements. Along with physical abilities you could add minimums for regular skills as well and for height and weight.

With those minimum abilities in place you could implement a system for the CPU to be able to switch player positions so 3-4 teams would then be forced to move pass rushers to the OLB spots or non rushing LBs inside etc or teams that want their corners to play man may try moving a more physical zone coverage guy back to safety or a recieving back into the slot reciever spot or a fast QB to WR or whatever.

[GlennN]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

I am strictly an offline franchise guy, and I do not like the idea of canned drafts at all. I don't buy Madden every year, so replay value is important to me. Having a finite number of drafts just kills replay for me. I would rather that they fine tune the player generator, so we get draft pools (random) with early round busts and late round gems.

[kwpit79]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

I am strictly an offline franchise guy, and I do not like the idea of canned drafts at all. I don't buy Madden every year, so replay value is important to me. Having a finite number of drafts just kills replay for me. I would rather that they fine tune the player generator, so we get draft pools (random) with early round busts and late round gems.

I'm with you Glenn, but I think you and I aren't the target market. I posted about this the day the blog came out last year, saying how it will kill replay value. Of course it did kill replay value. I stopped playing madden after I knew all of the players (didn't take too long, either). All the devs would have to do is randomize the names/schools or randomize the potential.

[Mr. Franchise]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

I want mock drafts, player backround stories (Head Coach 09), hype leading into the draft, a constantly changing big board. And an option for me to rank players as I see fit.

[fahrenheit]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

I want mock drafts, player backround stories (Head Coach 09), hype leading into the draft, a constantly changing big board. And an option for me to rank players as I see fit.

This plus random names, scouting activities (combine, pro day), and keeping lower round players overall down (with gems having high potential though, its unrealistic to have 7th round players with 82 ovr).

Oh and remove the ability to scout/rank players by potential. Completely ruins the fun when you know the top 10 players by their potential.

[Mr. Franchise]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

This plus random names, scouting activities (combine, pro day), and keeping lower round players overall down (with gems having high potential though, its unrealistic to have 7th round players with 82 ovr).

Oh and remove the ability to scout/rank players by potential. Completely ruins the fun when you know the top 10 players by their potential.

Especially when they're not even ranked by how early their going to be taken.

Sucks to scout the best player all year just to find out he's a 5th round pick.

[mavfan21]

Re: What will/should be done with the Madden Drafts?

I want mock drafts, player backround stories (Head Coach 09), hype leading into the draft, a constantly changing big board. And an option for me to rank players as I see fit.

I would be happy with just a background for the projected 1st rounders. It would be soooo great. Who won the Heisman? Who is the projected as a risk? Human interest stories like Talon Tolliver and the Onken brothers (all in that HC Prima Guide). It adds so much more realism.

A cool, and I assume easy to implement feature, would be seeing some of the top picks take the stage and hold the jersey after the pick. It was in those old NBA games, why not Madden?