I started writing the background of my question and realized I hadn't gotten to the point and was on my fourth paragraph, so here it is...
TL;DR - How will Madden 25's Draft/Scouting work for imported rosters? I know that there were fictionalized draft classes that were made specifically for Madden '13, which then fed all of the Scouting and Draft-Day features. How will this be adapted to Madden 25?
Where I'm coming from...
I haven't bought a Madden title since 2009 when it came with Head Coach, and I was completely let down by the actual Madden end of that deal. I was pretty pissed off they were two different games to begin with (WhyTF wasn't HC part of Madden already? Why not add all of the HC features into the game you've already built?), but HC turned out to be one of my favorite sports games of all time. I've played HC for years, even as recently as a month ago, and it's still fun. There's no effing way I could pick up Madden/NCAA/NHL '09 and say the same. In the end, those games just don't have the depth or replayability (new word) that HC had. No Madden Franchise mode could ever match HC... until '13 when it looked like they were finally going to bring the two together...
Gearing up for Madden '13 I was hearing about...
- Free Agency redone to be a bidding system (sounded familiar)
- Revamped Draft Interface (sweet...)
- New Scouting System (could it be???)
Hearing these additions made me think 2013 was finally going to take all that worked about the old HC game, and updated and add it to what's already the most popular and widely played football video game. I was really excited to get it...
Then they announced you wouldn't be able to import rosters from NCAA '13.
Noooooooooooooo... WHY?
Game over. Deal breaker. I'm a much bigger college fan than pro fan. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge pro fan and I love my Redskins, but I'm a Hokie cultist. If the Skins lose a game... well, they do that a lot, not a huge deal and in the NFL, one game does not a season make. When the Hokies lose their first game, it's effing Armageddon. Season = done. No chance for an NC, we might be able to win the Conference but, even if we do, so what? We get to go a BCS bowl and play a very expensive exhibition game. Huzzah. Don't get me wrong (again), it's all fun and I'll watch every game (even when we have a flaming turd of season like we did last year), but every college football fan dies a little with that first loss, as winning the NC, as impossible as that dream is considering you're competing against 130+ teams (in theory), is what it is all about.
Right... back on subject. I just couldn't get a Madden title without being able to import my draft-ready Hokies from NCAA. So, I didn't look at the game again after hearing that. This year it's back, so I've begun watching some Madden '13 LP's (which is somewhat amazing that those even exist) to see what the latest version of the game looks like, and I was amazed by the updates to Franchise Mode, especially the Draft Interface. It looks so much like the old HC, but so much more improved. I was somewhat pissed off I didn't at least try Madden '13. But, the more I've watched, the more I've realized, it might be impossible to replicate a lot of the cool parts of the revamped Scouting/Draft into a Madden where you can import rosters. How is Skip Bayliss (who is a colossal chode) going to mean-tweet your last draft pick if there isn't a specific script written for that when you draft a certain pre-fab player? How are the talking heads going to talk about a prospect/player/draftee that wasn't baked-in like it was last year? How is all of this going to work? It's my biggest concern, but the source of my greatest excitement about Madden 25.
TL;DR #2 - I was a huge Head Coach fan from '09, getting back into Madden, concerned about how the revamped Franchise Mode (with the new Scouting/Drafting pieces) will work with an imported roster and not the pre-fabbed ones from Madden '13
Anyone have any insights as to how these features will come together?