OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

[iva-chargers-fan]

I hope players that are rated in the 60-70 tating and they are WR and for some reason hes your #1 WR and he has a 1400 yard 13 TD season i hope they incrrase atlrast 20 rating points because one time i had a 74 rated WR and he had 1200 yards 9 TD in thr season and from a 74 he went to a 77 the next year when i think he would of gone to at leadt a 89!! Please fix player rating!!!

[N51_rob]

Jayson Young: Get rid of the potential rating!

Age, season stats and playing time should be the only factors in player progression. EA Tiburon's Donny "roster guru" Moore should not be the one who determines which players are going to be studs in Franchise mode and which players are never going to progress.

The CPU teams are completely ignorant of the potential rating, so it's easy to just stockpile "A" and "B" potential players and have a super team built by your second or third season. And in online franchises, everybody just snatches up all the "A" and "B" potential players in the first two rounds, while the dozens of draftees with "C" potential and below are basically worthless since they will never progress.

This.

To expand I would like to see the offensive knowledge added. Instead of going Head Coach with having to practice the play to learn it. Have playbook knowledge tied to the Awareness rating or make new rating for learning. Some players spend a few years in a system, before they hit the field (QB specifically) so they should progress a bit for learning a system while not always seeing the field. Look at Rex Grossman/Donovan McNabb situation this past season.

Coaches, schemes, time with a scheme should matter. That way even if you get fired or quit a job, you may grab a few backup players from your former team that know your scheme to help your transition. Rex Ryan/Jim Leonhard

[mjhyankees]

Re: OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

I hope players that are rated in the 60-70 tating and they are WR and for some reason hes your #1 WR and he has a 1400 yard 13 TD season i hope they incrrase atlrast 20 rating points because one time i had a 74 rated WR and he had 1200 yards 9 TD in thr season and from a 74 he went to a 77 the next year when i think he would of gone to at leadt a 89!! Please fix player rating!!!

I don't claim to know this but player ratings are based on abilities more than stats. Which aspect of his rating should go up exactly? His speed, agility etc will stay the same. Awareness tends to be related to IQ which isn't going to change although most improve at least somewhat in this area. Maybe his catching? But if gets thrown 100 balls and catches 80 should that make his "catching ability" better? What about if he caught 19 out of 20...shouldn't that matter more. I don't think they could or should do this IMO.
I have a back right now leading the league in Rushing. His name is L. Leslie. He has 98 speed, and 91 trucking and he's 230 lbs or so. Well he's a beast and his ovr is only 72 because awareness and some other stuff are low....and you know what I see the difference. I have another rookie back at 80 who gets through the holes much better consistently. But Leslie's the kind of guy you just keep giving him the ball and he'll break one or two every game. I don't think he should suddenly jump up 10 points if he leads the league in rushing. Again what should go up? He already has high speed and trucking. Should his awareness go up? Again is he suddenly having a higher IQ!? He is what he is....a total beast who couldn't find the whole if he fell in it....but he's good enough to make his own hole or outrun people outside.

[mjhyankees]

Re: OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

1. Open Head Coach '09
2. Copy *.*
3. Open Madden 12
4. Paste *.*

I can't find too many reasons to not duplicate Head Coach '09's effort in introducing gamers to a more realistic and thorough approach to running an NFL franchise. Sure, it has its weaknesses, but was fun.

Less ambitiously, Franchise Mode should focus on, well, THE FRANCHISE, not just cheesing coverage exploits all game long. Money, ticket prices, free agency, player holdouts, draft day war room, stadium maintenance... Stuff like that.

Agreed....or if you want to aim lower.....I'd be thrilled just to have madden 07 old gen's franchise features. They have most of the stuff you talked about. They had an PA announcer for the draft including cheers and boos. I'd really like a good halftime, pre and postgame show as well as a weekly wrap up with highlights. of other games.

[Hooe]

Re: OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

The biggest things it needs are depth and context. A bunch of people have hit upon the depth issue and potential additions to address that above.

On context, I'm talking about the way that games in franchise mode are presented. Having special on-field graphics, Super Bowl patches, and playoff game presentation wipes was a good start. Moving forward, the commentators should talk more in-depth about the goings-on in the league. Talk about how my division rivals are doing. If I'm in the wild-card hunt, talk about other potential wild-card teams and compare their roads to the playoffs. If my starting quarterback goes down in Week 5 for the rest of the season, talk about how this issue has affected my team in Week 12, particularly with regard to how the backup quarterback has performed.

Basically, take cues from the games that have led the pack in terms of sports video game commentary, and follow their lead.

[Cre8]

Re: OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

• Total History of Players and Coaches... As mentioned above, this is a necessity if there is to be any longevity for the mode. We shouldn't have to resort to typing up 'Franchise Reports' in order to keep track of the history of our franchise. I want total archives for past draft picks, stats, contracts, morale, injuries. Everything. (This is why we have 250 GB HardDrives... no?)
• College background (heisman trophies, all americans...etc)

Two quick ones I guess... I just wish they would due the NFL some justice.

[209vaughn]

EA needs to sit down and play NBA 2k11 & MLB The Show franchise modes to understand what a greatness is.

The ONLY reason Madden is so successful is b/c people love football in this country. FIFA, The Show and 2k11 are much better games.

[Daking0325]

Re: OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

Dynamic Player Progression: It makes the game so much fun and worthwhile when you can develop players

Sim Stats: Please get it right no 2000 yd seasons for rb's because they get alot of carries, no 20 sack seasons annualy

Full coaching Staff: To make the game deeper and more methodical so you can work on the strengths of your team

In-Depth Coaching Schemes: Make it deeper, and give us the ability to tailor every aspect of how our team plays, Im sick of basic pass vs run schemes, make sub categories like outside run vs inside run, or deep ball vs short pass, instead of the aggresiveness meter replace it with Team styles of play: some examples would be; run n gun offense, Grind it out offense, Conservative offense,

Do the same thing with defense also

[buckeye02]

Re: OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

If Madden's new feature for franchise mode is an owner mode i will be extremly disappointed. For 1 thing it isnt new. It would be new to next gen, but not new to veteran Madden players.

I think everyone has pretty much hit the nail on the head about what is needed. I thing i would like to see is not really tied to franchise mode, but i would like to see the game in general. How about a dynamic sideline. Real players with their real numbers on the sideline. When you run out of bounds i want to see players trying to grab you so you wont crash into the benches, run into the gatorade jug....etc. It was in NFL 2K5 by the way.

[wilson2k11]

1- Create a stadium that actually looks unique, not like the current create a stadium used in Madden, where they limit you to create some ugly stadium they make you design with there utterly limited options. 1.2- The ability to actually improve your current stadium, and I don't mean "add a food stand" or "add 5,000 seats" that don't actually show up in game. Like for instance the ability to add a 3rd deck to the 49ers current stadium, maybe make it more like the Penn State football stadium. Things like that would be very cool when playing a 10-20 year franchise mode, because then its realistic.

2- Better trade logic.

3- No more potential rating. If I draft someone who sucks, I still want to be able to turn him into a 99ovr MVP. If the guy sucks then fine, make it take me an extra few years to turn him into a 99ovr player. Just don't make some players totally worthless, it ruins franchise mode once you know a player has hit his rating peak.

4- New and different owners & coaches for the long offline franchise modes. Imagine in a off season, a NFL franchise gets sold, and the person who buys it is like the Dallas Mavs owner, will spend any amount of money to build the best possible team. Or new coaches that bring new play styles to the league, like imagine if the Ducks coach joins the NFL and brings his fast spread offense, Madden will have created playbooks so why not bring in new CPU generated coaches with random playbooks that fit the style they play. Instead of "this team" gets a new coach, and uses the same playbook the team always uses. Again this would be great for long played out offline franchise modes. Of course trade logic would play a role with this too, so the coach gets the type of players to fit his system.

5- Real pregame, half time, and post game show. Like NFL2k5 had, You have the rights to ESPN, so get the people from the ESPN NFL pregame show, make them all digital, add a ton of voice work, and have the most complete pre, half, and post game show ever. Shouldn't be that hard. Instead of the stupid crap you do now.

6- This adds to what I said for #5, add things like weekly highlight show, or the show ESPN does for NFL, like a highlight show for all the news, highlights and everything going on in the NFL for that week, like a news headlines type thing, but instead its all digital, again like NFL2k5 did. Add the same type of things for the offseason, like an award show, something for the draft, like maybe add a weekly "Path to the Draft" show from NFL Network, something besides, "hey lets just quickly as possible sim though the offseason and then skip through the meaningless preseason, 10 minutes later after the seasons done your next season starts. It shouldn't be like that. You have the NFL rights, NFL Network, ESPN, use it for something, for gods sake!!!

I could add more, but I don;t have all day. Truth is those should all be simple things to add, all the hard work would be is voice overs, how hard can that be? Is it that hard to mo-cap a ESPN/NFL studio show? Were not talking about fixing the gameplay here, shouldn't be to hard. And the stadium thing, really how hard could it be to give some options to creating a stadium? I mean hey it couldn't be that hard to make it so its possible to make a few 1000s of different stadiums, allow for sharing online, then people can upload what they make, you already have the online feature to create a team, why not use that along with creating a stadium, so people can add content to their stadium, like ads, logos, ect.. Anything is better then whats currently done.

Oh yeah and fix that bug that causes the stadium to be half full during cold games, I played the Super Bowl at NYC in Madden 11, the damn crowd was only half full. What a joke that was.

OHH last but not least!!! MINI GAMES, TRAINING CAMP, PROGRESS FOR EVERY GAME YOU PLAY!! Take a little tip here, go play Madden 06, thats how it should work for training camp, and progress. But just for the sake of it add more mini games to training camp, even the ps2 version of it could of been so much better. Just add the depth to franchise mode for those of us playing it offline. After 1 year it gets a little repetitive.

[Brassman]

There are a ton of great suggestions here to improve franchise mode, as there have been on Madden "wish lists" for years now. I agree that the first thing the Madden team should do is start adding features from Head Coach to Madden. This is especially true of the idea that coaches, players and teams have personalities and philosophies of their own. Teams, and the league, should change and evolve over time as new coaches, with their unique philosophies and players, with their unique skills come into the league. Teams with great running backs should adopt playing styles, and playbooks, vastly different than teams with great quarterbacks or receivers. A Michael Vick or Cam Newton should impact their team and effect it's playing style the same way an Earl Campbell or Barry Sanders did to theirs in the past. In the same way, great coaches should be able to get the most out of their players and bring their unique playing styles, like the 46 defense or the run & shoot offense, to the table. How great would it be if you really needed to scout your next opponent. To find each of their players strengths and weaknesses and understand their coaches personality and tendencies in order to game plan successfully, and know that the CPU team is doing the same to you. And, all this would change from team to team, week to week, year to year. Then franchise mode would come alive.

[big_larry]

Re: OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

Franchise Mode should be all about the offseason. The decisions you make when you're not playing the games. Draft, Free agency, training camp. It should even be called GM Mode.

I co-sign with this guy, the off-season should be longer and deeper than the season. Its so much too do in a NFL off-season, coaching decisions, scouting, the combine, rookie workouts, the draft, training camp, preason.

[mrprice33]

Re: OS Roundtable: What Does Franchise Mode Need?

Context, context, context.

Weekly wrap-up show that goes in depth into the goings-on around the league, and commentary that actually reflects the league as well, be it standings, stats, news-worthy items, etc. It's still too much like a collection of exhibition games.

[ven0m43]

Ability to leave your franchise, allowing you to switch to another one, and build up that franchise.

[Smoke6]

A more deeper engaging franchise mode (online) that lets us have more immersion than we already have.

1) I would love a live player draft of atleast the 1st rounders to come out and shake the commissioners hands and pose for the camera, This use to be done back in the day in regular franchise mode.

a) I would love a draft and trade board to pop up on the screen for teams that are up for a draft and for those teams involved in some kind of trade to move up or down the draft pole.

b) I would love my scout guy to talk to me via "earpiece" to kinda keep me informed on whats going on in the draft as I am watching from home from either the PS3 or on my PC.

c) I know most of us have the "eyetoy" so we can all participate in the draft live on cam with our team representing in the corner by our name and face.

2) Dynamic weather with the camera zooming in on the QB or whoever so you can actually see how the weather is affecting the game or could affect it and then the cam zooms back out to god cam and you proceed from there to call your play.

3) For the love of everything madden, please have a spectator mode for online franchise please, this would be great or at least a feature that lets you stream the game as you're playing.

4) Scouting reports of you online franchise opponents would be nice, like a break down of times thrown to and what not.

5) As things are happening in the league like trades or cuts, I would like a message to pop up at the bottom of my screen with a slight detail to what its about, or something like a ticker letting us know that "joe schmoe" from the lions was released or signed or badly injured. U get the drift, it would keep us very closely tied to everything going on in the game as it pertains to the online franchise.

6) The option to determine if a player can or will be a game time decision going into a game each and every week and the status of his condition day to day.